{"text": "For a car, what scams can be plotted with 0% financing vs rebate? The car deal makes money 3 ways. If you pay in one lump payment. If the payment is greater than what they paid for the car, plus their expenses, they make a profit. They loan you the money. You make payments over months or years, if the total amount you pay is greater than what they paid for the car, plus their expenses, plus their finance expenses they make money. Of course the money takes years to come in, or they sell your loan to another business to get the money faster but in a smaller amount. You trade in a car and they sell it at a profit. Of course that new transaction could be a lump sum or a loan on the used car... They or course make money if you bring the car back for maintenance, or you buy lots of expensive dealer options. Some dealers wave two deals in front of you: get a 0% interest loan. These tend to be shorter 12 months vs 36,48,60 or even 72 months. The shorter length makes it harder for many to afford. If you can't swing the 12 large payments they offer you at x% loan for y years that keeps the payments in your budget. pay cash and get a rebate. If you take the rebate you can't get the 0% loan. If you take the 0% loan you can't get the rebate. The price you negotiate minus the rebate is enough to make a profit. The key is not letting them know which offer you are interested in. Don't even mention a trade in until the price of the new car has been finalized. Otherwise they will adjust the price, rebate, interest rate, length of loan,  and trade-in value to maximize their profit. The suggestion of running the numbers through a spreadsheet is a good one. If you get a loan for 2% from your bank/credit union for 3 years and the rebate from the dealer, it will cost less in total than the 0% loan from the dealer. The key is to get the loan approved by the bank/credit union before meeting with the dealer. The money from the bank looks like cash to the dealer."}
{"text": "Why does it matter if a Central Bank has a negative rather than 0% interest rate? That is kind of the point, one of the hopes is that it incentivizes banks to stop storing money and start injecting it into the economy themselves. Compared to the European Central Bank investing directly into the economy the way the US central bank has been doing. (The Federal Reserve buying mortgage backed securities) On a country level, individual European countries have tried this before in recent times with no noticeable effect."}
{"text": "Where should I be investing my money? Pay off your debt.  As you witnessed, no \"investment\" % is guaranteed.  But your debt payments are... so if you have cash, the best way to \"invest\" it is to pay off your debt.  Since your car is depreciating while your house may be appreciating (don't know but it's possible) you should pay off your car loan first.  You're losing money in more than one way on that investment."}
{"text": "Specifically when do options expire? Equity options, at least those traded in the American exchanges, actually expire the Saturday after the 3rd Friday of the month.  However, the choice to trade or exercise the options must be specified by the 3rd Friday. This is outlined by the CBOE, who oversees the exchange of equity options.  Their FAQ regarding option expiration can be found at http://www.cboe.com/LearnCenter/Concepts/Beyond/expiration.aspx."}
{"text": "Negative Balance from Automatic Options Exercise. What to do? Automatic exercisions can be extremely risky, and the closer to the money the options are, the riskier their exercisions are. It is unlikely that the entire account has negative equity since a responsible broker would forcibly close all positions and pursue the holder for the balance of the debt to reduce solvency risk.  Since the broker has automatically exercised a near the money option, it's solvency policy is already risky. Regardless of whether there is negative equity or simply a liability, the least risky course of action is to sell enough of the underlying to satisfy the loan by closing all other positions if necessary as soon as possible. If there is a negative equity after trying to satisfy the loan, the account will need to be funded for the balance of the loan to pay for purchases of the underlying to fully satisfy the loan. Since the underlying can move in such a way to cause this loan to increase, the account should also be funded as soon as possible if necessary. Accounts after exercise For deep in the money exercised options, a call turns into a long underlying on margin while a put turns into a short underlying. The next decision should be based upon risk and position selection.  First, if the position is no longer attractive, it should be closed.  Since it's deep in the money, simply closing out the exposure to the underlying should extinguish the liability as cash is not marginable, so the cash received from the closing out of the position will repay any margin debt. If the position in the underlying is still attractive then the liability should be managed according to one's liability policy and of course to margin limits. In a margin account, closing the underlying positions on the same day as the exercise will only be considered a day trade.  If the positions are closed on any business day after the exercision, there will be no penalty or restriction. Cash option accounts While this is possible, many brokers force an upgrade to a margin account, and the ShareBuilder Options Account Agreement seems ambiguous, but their options trading page implies the upgrade. In a cash account, equities are not marginable, so any margin will trigger a margin call.  If the margin debt did not trigger a margin call then it is unlikely that it is a cash account as margin for any security in a cash account except for certain options trades is 100%. Equities are convertible to cash presumably at the bid, so during a call exercise, the exercisor or exercisor's broker pays cash for the underlying at the exercise price, and any deficit is financed with debt, thus underlying can be sold to satisfy that debt or be sold for cash as one normally would. To preempt a forced exercise as a call holder, one could short the underlying, but this will be more expensive, and since probably no broker allows shorting against the box because of its intended use to circumvent capital gains taxes by fraud.  The least expensive way to trade out of options positions is to close them themselves rather than take delivery."}
{"text": "Approximation of equity value for company in default Generally \"default\" means that the company cannot pay off their debts, and since debt holders get paid before equity holders, their equity would be effectively worthless. That said, companies can emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy (reorganization) and retain equity value, but it is rare. Most times, stocks are de-listed or frozen on stock exchanges, and company's reorganization plan will cancel all existing equity shares, instead focusing all of their attention on paying back as much debt as possible. If the company issues new equity after reorganizing, it might provide a way for holders of the original equity to exchange their shares for the new equity, but it is rare, and the value is usually significantly less that the value of the original equity."}
{"text": "Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? The game is not zero sum. When a friend and I chop down a tree, and build a house from it, the house has value, far greater than the value of a standing tree. Our labor has turned into something of value.  In theory, a company starts from an idea, and offers either a good or service to create value. There are scams that make it seem like a Vegas casino. There are times a stock will trade for well above what it should. When I buy the S&P index at a fair price for 1000 (through an etf or fund) and years later it's 1400, the gain isn't out of someone else's pocket, else the amount of wealth in the world would be fixed and that's not the case. Over time, investors lag the market return for multiple reasons, trading costs, bad timing, etc. Statements such as \"90% lose money\" are hyperbole meant to separate you from your money. A self fulfilling prophesy.   The question of lagging the market is another story - I have no data to support my observation, but I'd imagine that well over 90% lag the broad market. A detailed explanation is too long for this forum, but simply put, there are trading costs. If I invest in an S&P ETF that costs .1% per year, I'll see a return of say 9.9% over decades if the market return is 10%. Over 40 years, this is 4364% compounded, vs the index 4526% compounded, a difference of less than 4% in final wealth. There are load funds that charge more than this just to buy in (5% anyone?).  Lagging by a small fraction is a far cry from 'losing money.'  There is an annual report by a company named Dalbar that tracks investor performance. For the 20 year period ending 12/31/10 the S&P returned 9.14% and Dalbar calculates the average investor had an average return of 3.83%. Pretty bad, but not zero. Since you don't cite a particular article or source, there may be more to the story. Day traders are likely to lose. As are a series of other types of traders in other markets, Forex for one.  While your question may be interesting, its premise of \"many experts say....\" without naming even one leaves room for doubt.  Note - I've updated the link for the 2015 report. And 4 years later, I see that when searching on that 90% statistic, the articles are about day traders. That actually makes sense to me."}
{"text": "Can a company charge you for services never requested or received? In general, you can only be charged for services if there is some kind of contract. The contract doesn't have to be written, but you have to have agreed to it somehow. However, it is possible that you entered into a contract due to some clause in the home purchase contract or the contract with the home owners' association. There are also sometimes services you are legally required to get, such as regular inspection of heating furnaces (though I don't think this translates to automatic contracts). But in any case you would not be liable for services rendered before you entered into the contract, which sounds like it's the case here."}
{"text": "Working out if I should be registered as self-employed in the UK Being self employed just means you fill out some more forms in your annual self assessment for your \"profit\" from being self employed.  Profit = all the money you receive, minus any tax deductible cost that you spent for making that money (and all the cost must be documented, which means you have a folder with all the receipts and keep it safe). You pay normal income tax on all the profit, which means it is just added to your taxable income. What you do with the profit is up to you; you don't pay yourself a salary, just take the money (make sure you leave enough to pay your taxes)."}
{"text": "About eToro investments For eToro, just like any other brokerage firm, you can lose your entire capital. I suggest that you invest in one or more exchange-traded funds that track major indexes.  If not, just put your money in fixed deposit accounts; gain a bit of interest and establish an emergency fund first before investing money that you feel you are able to lose."}
{"text": "Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period? Not sure if it is the same in the States as it is here in the UK (or possibly even depends on the lender) but if you have any amount outstanding on the loan then you wouldn't own the vehicle, the loan company would. This often offers extra protection if something goes wrong with the vehicle - a loan company talking to the manufacturer to get it resolved carries more weight than an individual. The laon company will have an army of lawyers (should it get that far) and a lot more resources to deal with anything, they may also throw in a courtesy car etc."}
{"text": "Including the region where you live in your investment portfolio? Diversification is a risk-mitigation strategy. When you invest in equities, you generally get a higher rate of return than a fixed income investment. But you have risks... a single company's market value can decline for all sorts of reasons, including factors outside of the control of management. Diversification lets you spread risk and concentrate on sectors that you feel offer the best value. Investing outside of your currency zone allows you to diversify more, but also introduces currency risks, which require a whole other level of understanding. Today, investing in emerging markets is very popular for US investors because these economies are booming and US monetary policy has been weakening the dollar for some time. A major bank failure in China or a flip to a strong dollar policy could literally implode those investments overnight. At the end of the day, invest in what you understand. Know the factors that can lower your investment value."}
{"text": "Are there any rules against penalizing consumers for requesting accurate credit reporting? The Fair Credit Reporting Act specifies in some detail on pages 50-54 (as labeled in the footer, 55-59 as pages in pdf) the process that occurs when a consumer initiates a dispute.  The safe outcome for the reporting agency is to remove the information in dispute  from reports within 30 days if the reporting party does not certify the information is complete and accurate (with other statutory timelines for communication to the customer and the reporter).   If you initiate a dispute, then the agency is following the law by deleting the reported information, outside new input from the furnisher.  If this is unsatisfactory, you have the following statutory right within \u00a7\u00a0611. Procedure in case of disputed accuracy [15 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a01681i (d) Notification of deletion of disputed information. Following any deletion of   information which is found to be inaccurate or whose accuracy can no longer   be verified or any notation as to disputed information, the consumer   reporting agency shall, at the request of the consumer, furnish notification   that the item has been deleted or the statement, codification or summary   pursuant to subsection (b) or (c) of this section to any person specifically   designated by the consumer who has within two years prior thereto received   a consumer report for employment purposes, or within six months   prior thereto received a consumer report for any other purpose, which   contained the deleted or disputed information.  The section that binds furnishers of information (\u00a7\u00a0623. Responsibilities of furnishers of information to consumer reporting agencies [15 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a01681s-2], starting on page 78 in the footer) places on them the following specific duties: (B) Reporting information after notice and confirmation of errors.   A person shall not furnish information relating to a consumer to   any consumer reporting agency if   (i) the person has been notified by the consumer, at the address   specified by the person for such notices, that specific   information is inaccurate; and   (ii) the information is, in fact, inaccurate. ... (2) Duty to correct and update information. A person who   (A) regularly and in the ordinary course of business furnishes information   to one or more consumer reporting agencies about the   person\u2019s transactions or experiences with any consumer; and   (B) has furnished to a consumer reporting agency information   that the person determines is not complete or accurate, shall   promptly notify the consumer reporting agency of that determination   and provide to the agency any corrections to that information,   or any additional information, that is necessary to make   the information provided by the person to the agency complete   and accurate, and shall not thereafter furnish to the agency any   of the information that remains not complete or accurate. So there you have it: they have to stop reporting inaccurate information, and \"promptly\" notify the credit agency once they've determined what is incomplete or inaccurate. I note no specific statutory timeline for this investigation."}
{"text": "What are the reasons to get more than one credit card? Another good reason: if you have to replace a card due to damage, loss, or identity theft it's nice to have a backup you can use until the new card for your primary account arrives. I know folks who use a secondary card for online purchases specifically so they can kill it if necessary without impacting their other uses, online arguably being at more risk. If there's no yearly fee, and if you're already paying the bill in full every month, a second card/account is mostly harmless. If you have trouble restraining yourself with one card, a second could be dangerous."}
{"text": "Why is economic growth so important? One of the best answers to this question that I've ever read is in a paper published by Robert Lucas in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. That journal is meant to a be a place for experts to write about their area of expertise (in economics) for a general but still technically-minded audience. They recently opened up the journal as free to the public, which is a fantastic resource -- you no longer need a subscription to JSTOR (or whatever) to read it.  You can read the abstract to the paper, and find a link to it, here. One of the things that I like a lot about this paper is that it strips out absolutely everything even slightly unnecessary to thinking about a macroeconomy, and just discusses what one can arrive at with a very very simple model. Of course, with great simplicity come sacrifice about details. However, it does a great job of answering your question, \"why do people care about growth?\" A quick note: the key to understanding the answer to your question is to think about things in terms of \"the long term\"  -- not even looking forward to the future, because we'll be dead by then, but looking back to the past. The key to the importance of growth is that, for the last ~200 years, the US has, on average, had maybe 2-3% \"real growth\" per year (I'm pulling these numbers out of my head; I think much better numbers are in that paper somewhere). On average, over that period of time, this growth has meant that the quality of life that one has, if one lives in a country experiencing this growth, is enormous compared to countries that do not experience this average growth over that period.  Statistically speaking, growth is also somewhat auto-correlated. Roughly speaking, if it was low the last few periods, you can expect it to be low the next period. Same thing if it's high.   Then, the reason we care about growth right now: if you have too many periods of low growth, pretty soon the average \"over the long term\" growth will be pulled down -- and then quality of life can't be higher in the future (which quickly becomes someone's \"present\"). The paper above makes this point with a very simple model. Of course, none of this touches on distributional issues, which are another issue entirely. With respect to, \"The economy needs to grow to just keep up with its debt repayments,\" I think the answer is along the lines of, \"sometimes countries get into debt expecting that growth will increase their resources in the future, and thus they can pay back their debt.\" That strategy is, of course, the strategy that anyone borrowing (\"taking out a loan\") should be employing -- you should expect that your future income will be enough to pay back your interest+principle on a loan you took. Otherwise you're irresponsible. At the aggregate level, production is the nation's \"income\" -- it is what you have, all that you have (as a nation) to pay back any debt you've incurred at the national level."}
{"text": "Investment strategy for retired couple You need to have them consult with a financial adviser that has a focus on issues for seniors. This is because they are beyond the saving for retirement phase and are now in the making-their-money-last phase. They also have issues related to health insurance, IRA RMDs, long term care insurance. The adviser will need to review what they have and determine how to make sure it is what they need. It is great idea for you to go along with them so you can understand what needs to be done. You will want an adviser that charges you a fee for making the plan, not one that makes a commission based on what products you buy or invest in."}
{"text": "What is the US Fair Tax? You asked about the challenges. The transition itself is the biggest one. For people to get used to the tax at the register vs at their paycheck. For a great number of people to find new work. I don't know the numbers, but anyone involved with personal income taxes would be out of work. Sales tax is already part of the process in most states, bumping it to a federal tax wont add too much in overhead.  I make no moral judgment, but consider, most prostitutes and drug dealers are avoiding income tax, but they still are buying the same goods in stores you and I are. This proposed tax reduces the collection noncompliance, and brings more people into \"the system\".  Another factor some may not like is the ability to affect behavior by picking and choosing what to promote, via deductions, such as home buying or charity."}
{"text": "Does bull/bear market actually make a difference? If you know what you are doing, bear markets offer fantastic trading opportunities. I'm a futures and futures options trader, and am equally comfortable trading long or short, although I have a slight preference for the short side, in that moves are typically much quicker to the down side."}
{"text": "Does Tennessee have anything like a principal residence exemption? There's no homestead property tax exemption in TN. According to the TN comptroller site: Exemptions Exemptions are available for religious, charitable, scientific, and   nonprofit educational uses, governmental property, and cemeteries.   Most nongovernmental exemptions require a one-time application and   approval by the State Board of Equalization (615/401-7883) and there   is a May 20 application deadline. There is no \"homestead\" exemption,   but low income elderly and disabled persons and disabled veterans may   qualify for a rebate of taxes on a specified portion of the value of   property used as their residence. Business inventories held for sale   or exchange by merchants subject to the business gross receipts tax,   are not assessable. Farm and residential tangible personal property   are not assessable."}
{"text": "How can it be possible that only ~10% of options expire worthless, and only ~10% are exercised? Consider the futures market. Traders buy and sell gold futures, but very few contracts, relatively speaking, result in delivery. The contracts are sold, and \"Open interest\" dwindles to near zero most months as the final date approaches. The seller buys back his short position, the buyer sells off his longs.  When I own a call, and am 'winning,' say the option that cost me $1 is now worth $2, I'd rather sell that option for even $1.95 than to buy 100 shares of a $148 stock. The punchline is that very few option buyers actually hope to own the stock in the end. Just like the futures, open interest falls as expiration approaches."}
{"text": "Will capital gains affect my tax bracket? I'm not sure where you are, but in the United States capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than other types of income. On the 1040, captial gains income is separated from earned income, and income tax is calculated just on earned income. Then capital gains tax is calculated on capital gains income, and then added to income tax afterward."}
{"text": "Can I sell a stock immediately? You can*, if the market is open, in a normal trading phase (no auction phase), works, and there is an existing bid or offer on the product you want to trade, at the time the market learns of your order. Keep in mind there are 2 prices: bid and offer. If the current bid and current offer were the same, it would immediately result in a trade, and thus the bid and offer are no longer the same. Market Makers are paid / given lower fees in order to maintain buy and sell prices (called quotes) at most times. These conditions are usually all true, but commonly fail for these reasons: Most markets have an order type of market order that says buy/sell at any price. There are still sanity checks put in place on the price, with the exact rules for valid prices depending on the stock, so unless it's a penny stock you won't suddenly pay ten times a stock's value. *The amount you can buy sell is limited by the quantity that exists on the bid and offer. If there is a bid or offer, the quantity is always at least 1."}
{"text": "What can a CPA do that an EA cannot, and vice versa? Enrolled Agents typically specialize only in tax matters.  Their status allows them to represent clients before the IRS (which a CPA can also do) See the IRS site regarding Enrolled Agents Their focus is much narrower than a CPA and you would only hire them for advice or representation with tax related matters.  (e.g. you'd not hire an enrolled agent to do an external audit)  A CPA is a much broader certification, covering accounting in general, of which taxes are only a portion. A CPA may or may not specialize in tax matters, so if you have a tax related issue, especially an audit, review or appeal, you may want to query a prospective CPA as to their experience with tax matters and representing clients, appeals, etc. You would likely be better off with an EA than a CPA who eschews tax work and specializes in other things such as financial auditsOn the other hand if you have need of advice that is more generalized to accounting, audits, etc then you'd want to talk with a CPA as opposed to an EA"}
{"text": "Is my stock gone forever from a reverse split / bought by another company? GT BIOPHARMA, INC. ANNOUNCES REVERSE STOCK SPILT AS PART OF OXIS-GEORGETOWN PLANNED MERGER LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2017 / GT Biopharma Inc.   (formerly known as Oxis International, Inc.) announced today a   1-for-300 reverse stock split. Shareholders of GT Biopharma Inc.   (OTCQB: OXIS and Euronext Paris: OXI.PA) will be issued 1 share of   common stock for every 300 shares common stock that they owned. If you owned fewer than 300 shares, they cashed you out."}
{"text": "Why does quantitative easing negatively affect stocks? Can you isolate the market impact to just the Fed's quantitative easing?  Can you rule out the future economic predictions of low growth and that there are reasons why the Fed has kept rates low and is trying its best to stimulate the economy?  Just something to consider here. The key is to understand what is the greater picture here as well as the question of which stock market index are you looking at that has done so badly.  Some stocks may be down and others may be up so it isn't necessarily bad for all equally."}
{"text": "How to calculate how much a large stock position is really worth? Something like cost = a \u00d7 avg_spreadb + c \u00d7 volatilityd \u00d7 (order_size/avg_volume)e. Different brokers have different formulas, and different trading patterns will have different coefficients."}
{"text": "$700 guaranteed to not be touched for 15 years+, should I put it anywhere other than a savings account? Well, I understand this forum is about money but I think you would be far better off if you invest the money in your daughters education or something similar that can bring much more significant future gains. I am a big fan of compound interest and investing in stocks but $700 sitting until she's 21 wont grow into a significant amount. When she's 21, what would you \"hope\" she'd spend the money on? something valuable like education right? so why don't you take the first step now so she will get a much bigger return than the monitory value. If I were you I'd invest in a home library or something similar."}
{"text": "What are the implications of a corporate stock repurchase or share buyback program? A board authorizes the repurchase of shares because they feel the stock in undervalued. The hope is that the stocks will rise either directly by their repurchase, or in the near term due to the realization that the company is in better shape then the market thought. Eventually those shares will be resold back into the market thus bring in more cash at a later date.  They will set limits on them maximum they will pay, they will also spread the repurchases out over a time period so they don't overwhelm the market."}
{"text": "How much time should be spent on Penny Stocks Trading a day? How long is a piece of string?  This will depend on many variables. How many trades will you make in a day? What income would you be expecting to make? What expectancy do you need to achieve? Which markets you will choose to trade?  Your first step should be to develop a Trading Plan, then develop your trading rules and your risk management. Then you should back test your strategy and then use a virtual account to practice losing on. Because one thing you will get is many losses. You have to learn to take a loss when the market moves against you. And you need to let your profits run and keep your losses small. A good book to start with is Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van Tharp. It will teach you about Expectancy, Money Management, Risk Management and the Phycology of Trading. Two thing I can recommend are: 1) to look into position and trend trading and other types of short term trading instead of day trading. You would usually place your trades after market close together with your stops and avoid being in front of the screen all day trying to chase the market. You need to take your emotion out of your trading if you want to succeed; 2) don't trade penny stocks, trade commodities, FX or standard stocks, but keep away from penny stocks. Just because you can buy them for a penny does not mean they are cheap."}
{"text": "Is short selling a good hedging strategy during overzealous market conditions? Short selling can be a good strategy to hedge, but you have almost unlimited downside.  If a stock price skyrockets, you may be forced to cover your short by the brokerage before you want to or put up more capital. A smarter strategy to hedge, that limits your potential downside is to buy puts if you think the market is going down.  Your downside is limited to the total amount that you purchased the put for and no more. Another way to hedge is to SELL calls that are covered because you own the shares the calls refer to.  You might do this if you thought your stock was going to go down but you didn't want to sell your shares right now.  That way the only downside if the price goes up is you give up your shares at a predetermined price and you miss out on the upside, but your downside is now diminished by the premium you were paid for the option. (You'd still lose money if the shares went down since you still own them, but you got paid the option premium so that helps offset that)."}
{"text": "How to decide on split between large/mid/small cap on 401(k) and how often rebalance It's a trade-off. The answer depends on your risk tolerance. Seeking higher rewards demands higher risk. If you want advice, I would recommend hiring an expert to design a plan which meets your needs. As a sample point, NOT necessarily right for anyone else...I'm considered an aggressive investor, and my own spread is still more conservative than many folks. I'm entirely in low-cost index funds, distributed as ... with the money tied up in a \"quiesced\" defined-contribution pension fund being treated as a low-yield bond. Some of these have beaten the indexes they're tracking, some haven't. My average yield since I started investing has been a bit over 10%/year (not including the company match on part of the 401k), which I consider Good Enough -- certainly good enough for something that requires near-zero attention from me. Past results are not a guarantee of future performance. This may be completely wrong for someone at a different point in their career and/or life and/or finances. I'm posting it only as an example, NOT a recommendation.  Regarding when to rebalance: Set some threshhold at which things have drifted too far from your preferred distribution (value of a fund being 5% off its target percentage in the mix is one rule I've sometimes used), and/or pick some reasonable (usually fairly low) frequency at which you'll actively rebalance (once a year, 4x/year, whenever you change your car's oil, something like that), and/or rebalance by selecting which funds you deposit additional money into whenever you're adding to the investments. Note that that last option avoids having to take capital gains, which is generally a good thing; you want as much of your profit to be long-term as possible, and to avoid triggering the \"wash sales\" rule. Generally, you do not have to rebalance very frequently unless you are doing something that I'd consider unreasonably risky, or unless you're managing such huge sums that a tiny fraction of a percent still adds up to real money."}
{"text": "Buying from an aggressive salesperson I often spend weeks or months (and sometimes even years) deciding whether to buy something. Certainly the dealer should recognize you by now if you take a third opportunity to look at the same instrument. You could politely remind him that you've twice declined his excellent prices. From there you can assert that you will purchase only when you are ready."}
{"text": "What are some signs that the stock market might crash? There are some economic signs as there are in all economic and business cycles, such as interest rates rising. However, a more effective way is to actually look at price action itself. The definition of an uptrend is higher highs followed by higher lows. The definition of a downtrend is lower lows followed by lower highs. So if you are looking to invest for the long term you can look at the weekly or even the monthly chart of the market say over the past 10, 15 or 20 years. Using these definitions on say the S&P500 if the price continues to make higher highs and higher lows then stay in the market. If the price makes a lower high than the previous high, then this is a warning sign that the trend may be about to end. The trend has not broken yet but it is a warning sign that it could be ending soon. If the price makes a higher low next followed by a higher high, then the trend continues and you just need to keep an eye on things. If, however, the price makes a lower low after the lower high this is a signal that the uptrend is over and you should get out of the market. If the price makes a lower low directly after a higher high, then be cautious and wait for confirmation that the uptrend is over. If you then get a lower high this is confirmation that the uptrend is over, you would then sell if prices drop below the previous low. If you invest in individual shares then you should keep an eye on the charts for the index and individual shares as well. The index chart will give you an indication if the uptrend is over for the whole market, then you can be more cautious in regards to the individual shares. You can then plan exit points on each individual share if their trends are broken too. If you have stop losses employed and the trend reverses on the index, this would be a good time to tighten your stop losses on individual shares. You can then buy back into the market when you determine that the downtrend is broken and prices start to show higher highs and higher lows again. Will there be occasions when the uptrend reverses and then after a short period starts trending up again, yes there might be, but the worse that will happen is that you pay a bit of extra brokerage to get out and then back into the market, and you might have to pay some capital gains tax on any profits made. But remember no one ever went broke making a profit. The most important thing to remember when investing is to conserve and protect your capital. I would rather pay some extra brokerage and some capital gains tax than see my portfolio drop by 50% or more, then take 5 years or more to recover. And remember, paying tax is a good thing, it means you made money. If you don't want to pay any tax it means you will never make any profits, because if you make profits you will have to pay tax one day."}
{"text": "Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car? Buy a car. Unless you definitely know you are living in the area for a good long time, avoid buying a house and get a car instead."}
{"text": "401k with paltry match or SPY ETF? I think you understood much of what I say, in general. Unfortunately, I didn't follow Patches math.  What I gleen from your summary is a 1% match to the 10% invested, but a .8% expense. The ETF VOO has a .05% annual fee, a bit better than SPY.  A quick few calculations show that the 10% bonus does offset a long run of the .75% excess expense compared to external investing. After decades, the 401(k) appears to still be a bit ahead. Not the dramatic delta suggested in the prior answer, but enough to stay with the 401(k) in this situation. The tiny match still makes the difference. Edit - the question you linked to. The 401(k) had no match, and an awful 1.2% annual expense. This combination is deadly for the younger investor. Always an exception to offer - a 25% marginal rate earner close to retiring at 15%. The 401(k) deposit saves him 25, but can soon be withdrawn at 15, it's worth a a few years of that fee to make this happen. For the young person who is planning a quick exit from the company, same deal."}
{"text": "What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? hledger is a free software, cross-platform double-entry accounting tool I've been working on for a while. It has command-line and web-based interfaces to your local data, and some other interesting features. There's also ledger (http://wiki.github.com/jwiegley/ledger/) which is command-line only. These are.. different, but worth a look for some folks."}
{"text": "Why don't banks print their own paper money / bank notes? Any person at any time may produce their own currency, one can even do so on the back of a paper napkin, ripped beer coaster or whatever.  This is NOT a banking privilege, it is within the lawful ability of anyone capable of engaging in commerce. It is called a 'negotiable instrument' ... it gives the holder rights to a sum of money.  Notice that I say 'holder' ... this is what distinguishes it from a non-negotiable instrument, the fact that you don't need to redeem it from source, you can pass it to another who then becomes the 'holder in due course' and thus obtains the rights conferred. The conferable rights over a sum of money (or, indeed, other asset) are themselves 'value' Do banks do this ?  Yes, all the time! ... one of the simplest examples are cheques drawn against the bank, which are considered 'as good as cash'.  Usually they will be drawn out to the order of the person you wish to pay ... but can equally be drawn out to bearer.  The only reasons they resist making out to bearer is : But you can write your own at 'any time' on 'any thing' ... See the apocryphal, yet deliciously entertaining, tale of the 'negotiable cow'"}
{"text": "Pros & cons in Hungary of investing retirement savings exclusively in silver? What better alternatives, given my concerns? This sound like a very bad idea. If you invest exclusively in silver, your investment is not diversified in any way. This is what I would call risky. Have a look at index funds and ETFs and build a diversified portfolio. It does not take much time, and you don't need to let it do by someone else. They are risky too, but I see \"silver only\" as much riskier. You reduce the risk by holding on to the funds for a long time."}
{"text": "Is there any circumstance in which it is necessary to mark extra payments on a loan as going to \u201cprincipal and not interest\u201d? It could be a couple of things besides extra principal: I seem to remember hearing that some (shady?) lenders would just pocket extra payments if you didn't specify where they were headed, but I've also been told that this just isn't true."}
{"text": "Automatic investments for cheap For your purposes, I would recommend using direct investment in a no-load mutual fund.  I mostly use Vanguard and would recommend them.  They just about invented index funds, usually have the lowest (internal) expenses for index and many other funds, if you take electronic instead of paper statements there is no maintenance fee, have no transaction commission, can do periodic automatic investment from a bank account etc.  A typical index fund there would require an initial $3000 investment and would have a minimum of $100 for each additional investment.  If you can't come up with an initial sum of that size, you might be able to find a broker with a lower minimum and suitable free ETFs trades as others have suggested."}
{"text": "Do other countries have the equivalent of Australia's Negative Gearing? In India, where I live, you can: In addition, housing loans are given priority status as well - bank capital requirements on housing loans is lower than for, say, a corporate loan or a loan against other kinds of collateral. That makes housing loans cheaper as well - you get a home loan at around 10% in India versus 15% against most other assets, and since you can deduct it against tax, the effective interest rate is even lower.  Housing in India is unaffordable too, if you're wondering. In a suburb 40 Km away from Delhi, a 2000 sq. foot apartment, about 1500 sq. ft. of carpet area, with no appliances costs about USD 250,000."}
{"text": "Is it possible to influence a company's actions by buying stock? Another form of 'shareholder' activism. You might be able to buy a single share, which it seems would cost around $35, attend the AGM, and ask questions and/or shout or sing and delay proceedings. There would certainly be security guards or police ready to remove protesters at an AGM."}
{"text": "Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly? Like all other loan-vs-savings questions, it depends on the terms of the loan. If you have a choice, the usual answer is to pay off the loan with the worst terms (which usually means the highest interest rate) first, and only start with savings when you've paid off all the high-interest loans entirely. If your student loan is on US terms, then pay it off as soon as you can, unless you have commercial debt (credit-card or unsecured personal loan), which you should pay off first, or unless you have or are realistically likely to get eligibility for a forgiveness program. But it does depends on the terms of the debt, which in turn depend on the country you studied in; on UK terms it's a very bad idea to pay off a student loan any faster than you have to.  Interest is restricted to the rate of inflation, so good investments probably beat the interest rate of the student loan; the required repayments vary with your income, so savings are more useful than debt repayment if you encounter income difficulties (e.g unemployment) in the future, and finally the debt is automatically forgiven after 30 years, so you may never have to pay it all back anyway - so why pay it off voluntarily if it would get forgiven eventually anyway?"}
{"text": "Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \u201cBuy Low, Sell High\u201d? Though it seems unintuitive, you should rationally ignore the past performance of this stock (including the fact that it's at its 52-week high) and focus exclusively on factors that you believe should affect it moving forward.  If you think it's going to go up even further,  more than the return on your other options for where to put the money, keep the stock.  If you think it's peaked and will be going down, now's a good time to sell. To put it another way: if you didn't already have this stock, would you buy it today? Your choice is just about the same: you can choose between a sum of cash equal to the present market value of the shares, OR the shares.   Which do you think is worth more? You also mentioned that you only have 10 stocks in the portfolio.  Some are probably a larger percentage than others, and this distribution may be different than what you want in your portfolio.  It may be time to do some rebalancing, which could involve selling some shares where your position is too large (as a % of your portfolio) and using the proceeds toward one or more categories you're not as invested in as you would like to be.  This might be a good opportunity to increase the diversity in your portfolio. If part of your reward and motivation for trading is emotional, not purely financial, you could sell now, mark it as a \"win,\" and move on to another opportunity.  Trading based on emotions is not likely to optimize your future balance, but not everybody is into trading or money for money's sake.  What's going to help you sleep better at night and help boost your quality of life?  If holding the stock will make you stress and regret a missed opportunity if it goes down, and selling it will make you feel happy and confident even if it still goes up more (e.g. you interpret that as further confirming that you made a good pick in the first place), you might decide that the risk of suboptimal financial returns (from emotion-based trading) is acceptable.  As CQM points out, you could also set a trailing sell order to activate only when the stock is a certain percentage or dollar amount below whatever it peaks at between the time you set the order and the time it fires/expires; the activation price will rise with the stock and hold as it falls."}
{"text": "Why would this kind of penny stock increase so much in value? Disregarding the particular example and focusing on the actual questions: YES, definitely, the whole concept of \"pump and dump scheme\" refers to the many cases when this was intentionally done; Everything has a limit, but the limit can be quite high, especially if starting from a low value (a penny stock) and if the stock is low volume, then inflating ten or hundred times over a real value may be possible; and any value might be infinitely times overvalued for a company that turns out to have a value of zero. Yes, unless it's done very blatantly, you should expect that the \"inflator\" has much more experience in hiding the signs of inflation than the skill of average investor to notice them."}
{"text": "Price graphs: why not percent change? The actual price is represented on charts and not the change in price as a percentage, because it is the actual price which is used in all other parts of analysis (both technical and fundamental), and it is the actual figure the security is bought and sold at. A change in price has to be relative to a previous price at a previous time, and we can easily work out the change in price over any given time period. I think what you are concerned about is how to compare a certain actual price change in low priced securities to the same actual price change in a higher priced securities.  For example: $1.00 rise in a $2.00 stock representing a 50% increase in price; $1.00 rise in a $10.00 stock representing a 10% increase in price. On a standard chart both of these look the same, as they both show a $1.00 increase in price. So what can we do to show the true representation of the percentage increase in price? It is actually quite simple. You view the chart using a log scale instead of a standard scale (most charting packages should have this option). What may look like a bubble on a standard scale chart, looks like a healthy uptrend on a log scale chart and represents a true picture of the percentage change in price. Example of Standard Price Scale VS LOG Price Scale on a Chart Standard Price Scale  On the standard scale the price seems to have very little movement from Mar09 to Jan12 and then the price seems to zoom up after Jan12 to Mar13. This is because a 4% increase (for example) of $0.50 is only $0.02, whilst a 4% increase of $7.00 $0.28, so the increases seem much bigger at the end of the chart. LOG Price Scale  On the LOG chart however, these price changes seem to be more evenly displayed no matter at what price level the price change has occurred at. This thus give a better representation of how fast or slow the price is rising or falling, or the size of the change in price."}
{"text": "How much money should I put on a house? Before doing anything else: you want a lawyer involved right from the beginning, to make sure that something reasonable happens with the house if one of you dies or leaves. Seriously, you'll both be safer and happier if it's all explicit. How much you should put on the house is not the right question. Houses don't sell instantly, and while you can access some of their stored value by borrowing against them that too can take some time to arrange. You need to have enough operating capital for normal finances, plus an emergency reserve to cover unexpectedly being out of work or sudden medical expenses. There are suggestions for how much that should be in answers to other questions. After that, the question is whether you should really be buying a house at all. It isn't always a better option than renting and (again as discussed in answers to other questions) there are ongoing costs in time and upkeep and taxes and insurance. If you're just thinking about the financials, it may be better to continue to rent and to invest the savings in the market. The time to buy a house is when you have the money and a reliable income, plan not to move for at least five years, really want the advantages of more elbow room and the freedom to alter the place to suit your needs (which will absorb more money)...  As far as how much to put down vs. finance: you really want a down payment of at least 20%. Anything less than that, and the bank will insist you pay for mortgage insurance, which is a significant expense. Whether you want to pay more than that out of your savings depends on how low an interest rate you can get (this is a good time in that regard) versus how much return you are getting on your investments, combined with how long you want the mortgage to run and how large a mortgage payment you're comfortable committing to. If you've got a good investment plan in progress and can get a mortgage which charges a lower interest rate than your investments can reasonably be expected to pay you, putting less down and taking a larger mortgage is one of the safer forms of leveraged investing... IF you're comfortable with that. If the larger mortgage hanging over you is going to make you uncomfortable,  this might not be a good answer for you. It's a judgement call. I waited until i'd been in out of school about 25 years before I was ready to buy a house. Since i'd been careful with my money over that time,  I had enough in investments that I could have bought the house for cash. Or I could have gone the other way and financed 80% of it for maximum leverage. I decided that what I was comfortable with was financing 50%. You'll have to work thru the numbers and decide what you are comfortable with. But I say again, if buying shared property you need a lawyer involved. It may be absolutely the right thing to do ... but you want to make sure everything is fully spelled out... and you'll also want appropriate terms written into your wills. (Being married would carry some automatic assumptions about joint ownership and survivor rights... but even then it's safer to make it all explicit.) Edit: Yes, making a larger down payment may let you negotiate a lower interest rate on the loan. You'll have to find out what each bank is willing to offer you, or work with a mortgage broker who can explore those options for you."}
{"text": "Historical share price at exact day and time An alternative to paying thousands of dollars for historical prices by the minute:  Subscribe to real time data for as low as USD$1.5/month from your broker, then browse the chart."}
{"text": "High credit utilization, some high interest - but credit score not overly bad. How to attack debt in this situation? You need to pay off the entire balance of 7450 as soon as possible. This should be your primary financial goal at this point above anything else. A basic structure that you can follow is this: Is the \u00a31500 balance with the 39.9% interest rate the obvious starting point here? Yes, that is fine. But all the cards and overdraft debts need to be treated with the same urgency! What are the prospects for improving my credit score in say the next 6-12 months enough to get a 0% balance transfer or loan for consolidation? This should not be a primary concern of yours if you want to move on with your financial life. Debt consolidation will not help you achieve the goals you have described (home ownership, financial stability). If you follow the advice here, by the time you get to the point of being eligible, you may not see enough savings in interest to make it worth the hassle. Focus on the hard stuff and pay off the balances. Is that realistic, or am I looking at a longer term struggle? You are looking at a significant struggle. If it was easy you would not be asking this question! The length of time will be determined by your choices: how aggressively you will cut your lifestyle, take on extra jobs, and place additional payments on your debt.  By being that extreme, you will actually start to see progress, which will be encouraging. If you go in half-committed, your progress will show as much and it will be demotivating. Much of your success will hinge on your mental and emotional toughness to push through the hard work of delaying pleasure and paying off these balances. That is just my personal experience, so you can take it or leave it. :) The credit score will take care of itself if you follow this method, so don't worry about it. Good Luck!"}
{"text": "Why do credit cards require a minimum annual household income? Here's one reason that's being overlooked in answers so far. (@ChrisInEdmonton, this is for your comment on @Chad's answer.) How do credit card companies make money? Sure, there's interest charges, but those are offset significantly by the cost of borrowing money, and by people defaulting on their debt / entering bankruptcy. The other way they make money is by processing transactions. They get a cut of whatever you buy. If you're a high-income person, and you're going to process a lot of expenditures with this credit card, your business is worth more. They will be willing to bribe you with things like cash-back, frequent flier miles, and insurance on your auto rentals, so that they can be your #1 go-to card.  (This works in concert with the way that some credit card vendors with richer clientele overall - American Express - get to charge higher merchant fees for access to these customers' wallets. But that was mentioned in other answers.) If you're not a high-income person, your business is worth less. If you go somewhere asking for credit, they're going to try and give you a card which will earn them the most money - which probably isn't the one where they give you back 50% of their transaction fee in rewards. It's a calculated risk, since they still have to compete against cash, debit cards, and all the other credit card companies, so they don't have you totally over a barrel, but you shouldn't expect as many freebies, either."}
{"text": "selling apple stock limit order Your order may or may not be executed.  The price of stock can open anywhere.  Often yesterday's close is a good indication of today's open, but with a big event overnight, the open may be somewhere quite different.  You'll have to wait and see like the rest of us.  Also, even if it doesn't execute at the open, the price could vary during the day and it might execute later."}
{"text": "How do I get rid of worthless penny stocks if there is no volume (so market/limit orders don't work) and my broker won't buy them from me? Merrill charges $500 flat fee to (I assume purchase) my untraded or worthless security. In my case, it's an OTC stock whose management used for a microcap scam, which resulted in a class action lawsuit, etc. but the company is still listed on OTC and I'm stuck with 1000s of shares. (No idea about the court decision)"}
{"text": "Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? In day trading, you're trying to predict the immediate fluctuations of an essentially random system.  In long-term investing, you're trying to assess the strength of a company over a period of time. You also have frequent opportunities to assess your position and either add to it or get out."}
{"text": "Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? The refund may offset your liability for the next year, especially if you are a Schedule \"C\" filer.  By having your refund applied to the coming year's taxes you are building a 'protection' against a potentially high liability if you were planning to sell a building that was a commercial building and would have Capital Gains. Or you sold stock at a profit that would also put you in the Capital Gain area.  You won a large sum in a lottery, the refund could cushion a bit of the tax. In short, if you think you will have a tax liability in the current year then on the tax return you are filing for the year that just past, it may be to your benefit to apply the refund.  If you owe money  from a prior year, the refund will not be sent to you so you will not be able to roll it forward.    One specific example is you did qualify in the prior year for the ACA.  If in the year you are currently in- before you file your taxes-- you realize that you will have to pay at the end of the current year, then assigning your refund will pay part or all of the liability. Keep in mind that the 'tax' imposed due to ACA is only collected from your refunds.  If you keep having a liability to pay  or have no refunds due to you, the liability is not collected from you."}
{"text": "Can individuals day-trade stocks using High-Frequency Trading (HFT)? I just finished a high frequency trading project. Individuals can do it, but you need a lot of capital. You can get a managed server in Times Square for $1500/month, giving you access to 90% of the US exchanges that matter, their data farms are within 3 milliseconds of distance (latency). You can also get more servers in the same building as the exchanges, if you know where to look ;) thats all I can divulge good luck"}
{"text": "Does the profit of a company directly affect its stock or indirectly by causing people to buy or sell? people implicity agree to sell stocks when a company does bad But, remember, when you sell the stock of a company that, in your estimation, 'did bad', someone else had to buy; otherwise, there is no sale. The someone else who bought your shares evidently disagrees with your assessment. Did you sell because the company didn't earn a profit at all? Did it not earn a profit because it's in a dead-end business that is slowly but inevitably declining to zero? Something like Sears Holdings? Or did it not make a profit because it is in an emerging market that will possibly someday become hugely profitable? Something like Tesla, Inc.? Did you sell because the company made a profit, but it was lower than expected? Did they make a lower-than-expected profit because of lower sales? Why were the sales lower? Is the industry declining? Was the snow too heavy to send the construction crews out? Did the company make a big investment to build a new plant that will, in a few years, yield even higher sales and profits? What are the profits year-over-year? Increasing? Declining? Usually, investors are willing to pay a premium, that is more than expected, for a stock in a company with robust growth.  As you can see, the mere fact that a company reported a profit is only one of many factors that determine the price of the shares in the market."}
{"text": "Does a stock holder profit from a reverse-stock split? If I held stock in these companies yesterday, would I have profited by these gains? No.  For DZSI, your 5 shares at $1.10 would now be 1 share at $5.50, so you would have the same total amount.  For SGY, they closed at $6.95, and opened at $32.80, so your five shares at $6.95 would now be one share at $32.80, so you would have actually lost money (not purely because of the split, but because the \"new\" shares are trading lower then the expected 1:5 split price).  A split in general does not affect market cap (how much your total shares are worth) but there may be residual effects that cause the market value to fluctuate after a split that affect the price."}
{"text": "How would bonds fare if interest rates rose? 1. Interest rates What you should know is that the longer the \"term\" of a bond fund, the more it will be affected by interest rates. So a short-term bond fund will not be subject to large gains or losses due to rate changes, an intermediate-term bond fund will be subject to moderate gains or losses, and a long-term bond fund will be subject to the largest gains or losses. When a book or financial planner says to buy \"bonds\" with no other qualification, they almost always mean investment-grade intermediate-term bond funds (or for individual bonds, the equivalent would be a bond ladder averaging an intermediate term). If you want technical details, look at the \"average duration\" or \"average maturity\" of the bond fund; as a rough guide, if the duration is 10, then a 1% change in interest rates would be a 10% gain or loss on the fund. Another thing you can do is look at long-term (10 years or ideally longer) performance history on some short, intermediate, and long term bond index funds, and you can see how the long term funds bounced around more. Non-investment-grade bonds (aka junk bonds or high yield bonds) are more affected by factors other than interest rates, including some of the same factors (economic booms or recessions) that affect stocks. As a result, they aren't as good for diversifying a portfolio that otherwise consists of stocks. (Having stocks, investment grade bonds, and also a little bit in high-yield bonds can add diversification, though. Just don't replace your bond allocation with high-yield bonds.) A variety of \"complicated\" bonds exist (convertible bonds are an example) and these are tough to analyze. There are also \"floating rate\" bonds (bank loan funds), these have minimal interest rate sensitivity because the rate goes up to offset rate rises. These funds still have credit risks, in the credit crisis some of them lost a lot of money. 2. Diversification The purpose of diversification is risk control. Your non-bond funds will outperform in many years, but in other years (say the -37% S&P 500 drop in 2008) they may not. You will not know in advance which year you'll get. You get risk control in at least a few ways. There's also an academic Modern Portfolio Theory explanation for why you should diversify among risky assets (aka stocks), something like: for a given desired risk/return ratio, it's better to leverage up a diverse portfolio than to use a non-diverse portfolio, because risk that can be eliminated through diversification is not compensated by increased returns. The theory also goes that you should choose your diversification between risk assets and the risk-free asset according to your risk tolerance (i.e. select the highest return with tolerable risk). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_portfolio_theory for excruciating detail. The translation of the MPT stuff to practical steps is typically, put as much in stock index funds as you can tolerate over your time horizon, and put the rest in (intermediate-term investment-grade) bond index funds. That's probably what your planner is asking you to do. My personal view, which is not the standard view, is that you should take as much risk as you need to take, not as much as you think you can tolerate: http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund/ But almost everyone else will say to do the 80/20 if you have decades to retirement and feel you can tolerate the risk, so my view that 60/40 is the max desirable allocation to stocks is not mainstream. Your planner's 80/20 advice is the standard advice. Before doing 100% stocks I'd give you at least a couple cautions: See also:"}
{"text": "What implications does having the highest household debt to disposable income ratio have on Australia? It is basically the same situation what US was when the crash happened. People took on debt without the means to pay, even with awful credit records. But the problem isn't the debt people take on themselves, but with the limited disposable income they have how efficiently can their debts be serviced. And how do banks who lend out money can recover their money. When banks lend money to all and sundry, they have to take care of defaults and that is when financial wizardry comes into play. In US people have the option to default on their debt and refinance it, so banks assumed default and tried to hedge their risks. If this is an option in Australia, be ready for a crash else not to worry about much. If banks continue lending expect higher inflation rates, higher interest rates and maybe a downgrade of bonds issued by the Australian government. Higher import costs and a boom in exports because of devalued Australian dollar."}
{"text": "why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments? Given that the 6 answers all advocate similar information, let me offer you the alternate scenario - You earn $60K and have an employer offering a 50% match on all deposits. All deposits. (Note, I recently read a Q&A here describing such an offer. If I see it again, I'll link).  Let the thought of the above settle in. You think about the fact that $42K isn't a bad salary, and decide to deposit 30%, to gain the full match on your $18K deposit. Now, you budget to live your life, pay your bills, etc, but it's tight. When you accumulate $2000, and a strong want comes up (a toy, a trip, anything, no judgement) you have a tough decision. You think to yourself, \"after the match, I am literally saving 45% of my income. I'm on a pace to have the ability to retire in 20 years. Why do I need to save even more?\"  Your budget has enough discretionary spending that if you have a $2000 'emergency', you charge it and pay it off over the next 6-8 months. Much larger, and you know that your super-funded 401(k) has the ability to tap a loan. Your choice to turn away from the common wisdom has the recommended $20K (about 6 months of your spending) sitting in your 401(k), pretax deposited as $26K, and matched to nearly $40K, growing long term.  Note: This is a devil's advocate answer. Had I been the first to answer, it would reflect the above.  In my own experience, when I got married, we built up the proper emergency fund. As interest rates fell, we looked at our mortgage balance, and agreed that paying down the loan would enable us to refinance and save enough in mortgage interest that the net effect was as if we were getting 8% on the money. At the same time as we got that new mortgage, the bank offered a HELOC, which I never needed to use. Did we somehow create high risk? Perhaps. Given that my wife and I were both still working, and had similar incomes, it seemed reasonable."}
{"text": "Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? I pretty much only use my checking. What's the downside? Checking accounts don't pay as much interest as savings account. Oh, but wait, interest rates have been zero for nearly 10 years. So there is very little benefit to keeping money in my savings account. In fact, I had two savings accounts, and Well Fargo closed one of them because I hadn't used it in years. Downsides of savings accounts: You are limited to 5 transfers per month into or out of them. No such limit with checking. Upsides of savings accounts: Well, maybe you will be less likely to spend the money. Why don't you just have your pay go into your checking and then just transfer \"extra money\" out of it, rather than the reverse? If you want to put money \"away\" so that you save it, assuming you're in the U.S.A., open a traditional IRA. Max deposit of $5500/year, and it reduces your taxable income. It's not a bad idea to have a separate account that you don't touch except for in an emergency. But, for me, the direction of flow is from work, to checking, to savings."}
{"text": "Why does it seem unnecessary to fully save for irregular periodic expenses? It totally depends on when your expenses hit and whether you might have a larger stock than necessary. If you run your projections against the monthly save and the intervals of when you'll need the money, you might be able to extract some stock from the account.  I recommend making this a bit simpler. I operate this with an \"annuals\" account which is a complete aggregate of expenses that I know I have several times per year (or once every two years), but are not monthly or part of a weekly non-fixed expense budget cap. Instead of tracking each expense individually and saving for it, create a spreadsheet that lists out all of these expenses, sum them, and then divide by 12. When I first opened this account, I added a one-time deposit to \"catchup\" to make sure I would never need to pull money from another source for these expenses. As new expenses come into existence that I should plan for annually, I simply add them to this list and adjust the monthly auto-deposit to the account. This also adjusts my single number weekly budget.  To make it easy, whenever I see an expense on my annuals list on my amex or debit, I simply initiate a withdrawal from the annuals savings and it will balance out my weekly or monthly budget expenses.  The goal of my annuals account is to simply avoid anti-windfalls that are known quantities (insurance, annual eye exam, sprinkler flush, amazon prime, etc) that would throw a wrench in weekly/monthly budget and expense planning. The more variables you can remove from your weekly/monthly, the more regular it becomes and the more likely you will be able to stick to a budget."}
{"text": "Why do some stocks have a higher margin requirement? It is a question of how volatile the stock is perceived to be, its beta correlation to the S&P500 or other index. Margin requirements are derived from the Federal Reserve, Self Regulatory Organizations, the exchange itself, the broker you use, and which margining system you are using. So that makes this a loaded question. There are at least three margin systems, before you have your own risk officer in a glass room that doesn't care how leveraged up you get. Brokers primarily don't want to lose money."}
{"text": "Do I have to pay taxes on income from my website or profits? Being a tax professional, my understanding is that the threshold limit is a single limit for all your source(s) of income. Now many people who already draw salary which is liable to tax, develop application for mobile and generate some income. Such income is liable to tax, if along with other income they exceed the threshold limit.  Income will have surely related expenses. And the expenses which are related to earning of the income are allowed to be deducted."}
{"text": "Is it better to buy US stocks on US stock exchanges as a European? Liquidity on dual listed equities is rarely the same on both exchanges. More liquidity means you would typically get a better price assuming you execute the trades using the same order types. It's recommended to trade where the liquidity is greater unless your trading method benefits somehow from it being lower. It's important to remember that some ADRs (some European companies listed in US) have ADR fees which vary. USD/EUR transaction fees are low when using a decent broker but you're obviously participating in the currency risk."}
{"text": "Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it? \u201cWhy do governments borrow money instead of printing it? (When printing money, one doesn't need to pay interest).\u201d  Good question.  Numerous leading economists, including a couple of economics Nobel Laureates have asked the same question and concluded that borrowing can be dispensed with. First, Milton Freidman set out a monetary system in a paper in the American Economic Review which involved no government borrowing, and govt just printed money (in a responsible fashion of course) as and when needed.  See: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1810624 A second Nobel Laureate with similar views was William Vickrey. A third economist with similar views (of Keynes\u2019 era) was Abba Lerner. Keynes said of Lerner, \u201cLerner's argument is impeccable, but heaven help anyone who tries to put it across to the plain man at this stage of the evolution of our ideas\u201d."}
{"text": "how derivatives transfer risk from one entity to another The important thing to realize is, what would you do, if you didn't have the call? If you didn't have call options, but you wanted to have a position in that particular stock, you would have to actually purchase it. But, having purchased the shares, you are at risk to lose up to the entire value of them-- if the company folded or something like that.  A call option reduces the potential loss, since you are at worst only out the cost of the call, and you also lose a little on the upside, since you had to pay for the call, which will certainly have some premium over buying the underlying share directly. Risk can be defined as reducing the variability of outcomes, so since calls/shorts etc. reduce potential losses and also slightly reduce potential gains, they pretty much by definition reduce risk. It's also worth noting, that when you buy a call, the seller could also be seen as hedging the risk of price decreases while also guaranteeing that they have a buyer at a certain price. So, they may be more concerned about having cash flow at the right time, while at the same time reducing the cost of the share losing in value than they are losing the potential upside if you do exercise the option. Shorts work in the same way but opposite direction to calls, and forwards and futures contracts are more about cash flow management: making sure you have the right amount of money in the right currency at the right time regardless of changes in the costs of raw materials or currencies. While either party may lose on the transaction due to price fluctuations, both parties stand to gain by being able to know exactly what they will get, and exactly what they will have to pay for it, so that certainty is worth something, and certainly better for some firms than leaving positions exposed. Of course you can use them for speculative purposes, and a good number of firms/people do but that's not really why they were invented."}
{"text": "Adding a 180 day expiration to checks Your bank has discretion to honor checks after 6 months, so you should talk to your bank about their specific policy. In general, banks won't accept \"large\" stale checks. The meaning of \"large\" varies -- $25,000 in NYC, as little as $2k in other places. Banks that service high-volume check issuers (like rebate companies) reject checks at 180 days. For business purposes, I think some banks will create accounts for specific mailings or other purposes as well. (i.e. 2011 refund account) The accounts close after a year."}
{"text": "Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly? Congratulations for achieving an important step in the road to financial freedom. Some view extending loan payment of loans that allow the deduction of interest as a good thing. Some view the hit on the credit score by prematurely paying off an installment loan as a bad thing.  Determining the order of paying off multiple loans in conjunction with the reality of income, required monthly living expense, and the need to save for emergencies is highly individualized.  Keeping an artificial debt seems to make little sense, it is an expensive insurance policy to chase a diminishing tax benefit and boost to a credit score. Keep in mind it is a deduction, not a credit, so how much you save depends on your tax bracket.  It might make sense for somebody to extend the loan out for an extra year or two, but you can't just assume that that advice applies in your situation. Personally I paid off my student loan early, as soon as it made sense based on my income, and my situation. I am glad I did, but for others the opposite made more sense."}
{"text": "Can a company block a specific person from buying its stock? A more serious problem: how do you know who's really buying your stock? \"Shell companies\" are an increasingly obvious problem in corporate and tax accountability. There are jurisdictions where companies can be created with secret lists of directors and shareholders. If stock is bought by one of these companies, it is very hard to trace it to a particular individual."}
{"text": "What are the pros and cons of buying an item on installments with zero percent interest? I personally take the zero percent financing plans any day.  I have done this with my car and the iphone 6s.  The vendors are trying to make it more attractive for you to \"afford\" the product.  It could show up on your credit report and impact the amount of money you can borrow in the future (e.g getting a home loan).  The other thing I do is make sure the monthly payments are automatically paid from my bank account so I don't miss any payments"}
{"text": "why do energy stocks trade at lower prices compared to other sectors? I don't know why stocks in some industries tend to have lower prices per share than others. It doesn't really matter much. Whether a company has 1,000,0000 shares selling for $100 each, or 10,000,000 shares selling for $10 each, either way the total value is the same. Companies generally like to keep the share price relatively low so that if someone wants to buy a small amount, they can. Like if the price was $10,000 per share, than an investor with less than $10,000 to put in that one stock would be priced out of the market. If it's $10, then if someone wants $10 they can buy one share, and if someone wants $10,000 they can buy 1000 shares. As to why energy stocks are volatile, I can think of several reasons. One, in our current world, energy is highly susceptible to politics. A lot of the world's energy comes from the Middle East, which is a notoriously unstable region. Any time there's conflict there, energy supplies from the region become uncertain. Oil-producing countries may embargo countries that they don't like. A war will, at the very least, interfere with transportation and shipping, and may result in oil wells being destroyed. Etc. Two, energy is consumed when you use it, and most consumers have very limited ability to stockpile. So you're constantly buying the energy you need as you need it. So if demand goes down, it is reflected immediately. Compare this to, say, clothing. Most people expect to keep the same clothes for years, wearing them repeatedly. (Hopefully washing them now and then!) So if for some reason you decided today that you only need three red shirts instead of four, this might not have any immediate impact on your buying. It could be months before you would have bought a new red shirt anyway. There is a tendency for the market to react rather slowly to changes in demand for shirts. But with energy, if you decide you only need to burn 3 gallons of gas per week instead of 4, your consumption goes down immediately, within days. Three, really adding to number two, energy is highly perishable, especially some forms of energy. If a solar power station is capable of producing 10 megawatts but today there is only demand for 9 megawatts, you can't save the unused megawatt for some future time when demand is higher. It's gone. (You can charge a battery with it, but that's pretty limited.) You can pile up coal or store natural gas in a tank until you need it, but you can't save the output of a power plant. Note numbers two and three also apply to food, which is why food production is also very volatile."}
{"text": "First Job, should I save or invest? Congrats on your first real job! Save as much as your can while keeping yourself (relatively) comfortable.  As to where to put your hard earned money, first establish why you want to save the money in the first place. Money is a mean to acquire the things we want or need in your life or the lives of others. Once your goals are set, then follow this order:"}
{"text": "Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time? One reason for this is that many people don't simply allow their houses to rot and decay. If you're talking about a house built in 1980 and left vacant and unmaintained for 35 years, it probably will be in pretty poor shape.  But a homeowner generally wants to preserve their house and maintain it in good condition, so they invest in things like new roofs, siding, gutters, windows, paint, exterminators, new furnaces, hot water heaters, air conditioners, etc... All this stuff costs money (and for tax purposes, can often be factored into the cost basis of the house when it is sold), but it maintains the value of the property. A small hole in the roof may be fairly cheap to fix, but if left unrepaired, it could eventually cause much of the building to rot, making the structure near worthless. If a car slams into your living room, you don't generally leave it there; most people repair the damage.  It's not uncommon in some areas to have 100 year old houses (or 300+ year old houses in some countries) that were built well in the first place and have been well maintained in the interim.  People also renovate their homes, ripping out outdated construction and appliances and sometimes building new additions, decks, porches, etc... This also serves to make the property more attractive and increases its value."}
{"text": "Why are index funds called index funds? Because they track an index. Edited: The definition of the word in this case meaning \"something used or serving to point out; a sign, token, or indication\" from Meaning  #3 I presume therefore you are asking what an index is? There are many variations of what makes up an Index but in short it is a representation of some part of a market. An extremely simplistic calculation would be to take a basket of stocks, and sum their prices.  If one stock moves up a dollar, and one moves down a dollar, the index has effectively not changed, as it is presumed that the loss in one is offset by the gain in the other."}
{"text": "What does PMI mean? Private Mortgage Insurance. It's money that you pay to an insurance company to make the lender whole in the event that you go into default. It's a real waste of money for you. If you are trying to finance more than 80% of the value of a home, a standard mortage is likely to require that you get PMI. Nowadays there are other options which involve paying substantially more interest."}
{"text": "How to distinguish gift from payment for the service? Generally, a one time thing is considered a gift. For the donor this is obviously not a deductible expense, except for some specific cases (for example promotional gifts under $25 to vendors can be deducted, if you're a business, or charitable contributions to a recognized charity). However, if this is a regular practice - that would not be considered as a gift, but rather as a tax fraud, a criminal offense. Being attentive I would like to make a little gift or give some little   (<100$) amount of money (cash/wire/online) for that Why? Generally, gift is exempt from income if no services were provided and the gift was made in good faith. In the situation you describe this doesn't hold. When the gift is exempt from income to the receiver - the donor pays the tax (in this case, below exemption the tax is zero). If the gift is not exempt from income to the receiver - it is no longer a gift and the receiver is paying income taxes, not the donor. The situation you describe is a classic tax evasion scheme. If someone does it consistently and regularly (as a receiver, donor, or both) - he would likely end up in jail."}
{"text": "Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car? Given the state of the economy, and the potential of a rough near future for us recent grads (i.e. on/off work), I would recommend holding off on large purchases while your life is in flux.  This includes both a NEW car and purchasing a house. My short answer is: you need a reliable vehicle, so purchase a used car, from a major dealer (yes this will add a fairly high premium, but easier financing), that is 4-5 years old, or more.  Barring the major dealer purchase, be sure to get a mechanic to check out a vehicle, many will offer this service for a reasonable payment.  As people point out, cars these days will run for another 100k miles.  You will NOT have to pay anywhere near $27,000 for this vehicle.  You may need to leverage your 10k for a loan if you choose to finance, but it should not be a problem, especially as you seem to imply an established credit history. In addition to this, start saving your money for the house you would like to eventually get.  We have no idea where you live, but, picking rough numbers, assuming a 2 year buy period, 20% down, and a $250,000 home, the down payment alone will require you to save ~$2,000/month starting now. Barring either of these options, max out your money to tax sheltered accounts (your Roth IRA, work 401k, or a regular IRA) asap.  Obviously, do not deplete your emergency fund, if anything, increase it.  10k can be burned through in a heartbeat. Long Answer:  I purchased a brand new car, right out of school, at a reasonable interest rate.  Like you, I can afford this vehicle, however, if someone were to come to me today (3.5 years later) and offer me the opportunity to take it back and purchase a 4-5 year used vehicle, at a 4-5 year used car price, albeit at a much higher interest rate (since I financed), it would be about a 0.02 second decision. I like my car, but, I'd like the differential cash savings between it and a reliable used car more.  $27,000 is also fairly expensive for a new vehicle, there are many, very nice vehicles, for 21-23k.  I still would not consider these priced appropriate to spend your money on them, but they exist.  However, you do very much need a reliable vehicle, and I think you should get one. On the home front, your $400 all inclusive rent is insanely cheap.  Many people spend more than that on property tax and PMI each year, so anyone who throws the \"You're throwing money away!\" line at you is blowing smoke to justify their own home purchase.  Take the money you would have spent on a mortgage, and squirrel it away.  Do your own due diligence and research the home market in your area and decide for yourself if you think home prices have bottomed and will stay there, have further to go, or are going to begin to rise.  That is a decision only you can make for yourself. I'd add a section about getting expenses under control, but you said you could save 50% of your takehome pay.  This is an order of magnitude above the average.  Good job.  Try doing 50% for 4 months, then calculate your actual amount.  Then try to beat it."}
{"text": "Comparing keeping old car vs. a new car lease Look at the basic cost of the lease.  Option 1: keep the car for three years. Pay for repairs during that time then sell it for $7,000. Option 2: Sell the current car for $10,000. Lease a new car for three years. Assume no need for repairs during those three years. At the end of the three years return the car in return for $0. Cost of option 1 is $3000 plus repairs.  Cost of Option 2 is 36 months x monthly lease cost. The first $83 of the monthly lease cost is to cover the $3000 fixed cost of option 1. The rest of the monthly lease cost is to cover the cost of repairs. Also remember that some leases have a initial down payment due at signing, and penalties for condition, and excess mileage. The lease company may also require a higher level of insurance for the lease to cover their investment if you have an accident.  Plus If you fall in love with a different car two year from now, or your needs change you are locked in until the end of the lease period."}
{"text": "How does giving to charity work? For many people, giving to charity will have minimal effect on their taxes. Non-profits love to attract donations by saying the money is tax deductible, but for most people, it doesn't work out that way. You will only itemize deductions if they exceed your standard deduction. The IRS allows you to either \"itemize\" your deductions (where you list each deduction you can take) or take the \"standard deduction\". Consider a married couple filing jointly in 2011. Their standard deduction is $11,400. They are in the 28% tax bracket. They donate $100 of old clothes to the Goodwill, and are looking forward to deducting that on your taxes, and getting $28 of that back. If that's their only deduction, though, they'd have to give up the standard deduction to take the itemized deduction. Not worth it. Suppose instead they have $11,500 of deductions in 2011. Now we're talking, right? No. The tax impact of itemizing is only $28, since they only exceeded the standard deduction by $100. The cost of having a tax accountant fill out the itemization form probably offsets that small gain. There's also all the time that went in to tracking those deductions over the year. Not worth it.  Tax deductions only become worthwhile when they significantly exceed the standard deduction. You need some big ticket items to get past the itemized deduction threshold. For most people, this only happens when they have a mortgage, as the interest on a residence is deductible.  Folks love to suggest that having a mortgage is a good deal, because the interest is deductible. However, since you have to exceed the standard deduction before it makes sense to itemize, it's not likely to be a big win. For most people: TL;DR: Give to charity because you want that charity to have your money. Tax implications are minimal; let your accountant sort it out. Disclaimer: I am not an accountant."}
{"text": "Why is routing number called ABA/ABN number? With number of Banks increasing every country at some point in time adopted an Identification code. In US these are called ABA number because they are allocated by American Bankers Association, in UK Sort Codes ... like wise for other countries. See list here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_code In some countries the numbers are given by Central Bank.   To enable internationl payments, the SWIFT body apart from message formats, allocated a  SWIFT BIC [Bank identification Code] so that Banks can be globally identified. Currently  IBAN being adopted in Europe & Australia to identify an Account [at a Bank] Uniquely across globe. In essence these number help uniquely identify a Location/Bank/Branch. The clearing house route the payments or collection instruments to the correct Bank on the basis of this number."}
{"text": "How did I end up with a fraction of a share? Theoretically, yes, you can only buy or sell whole shares (which is why you still have .16 shares in your account; you can't sell that fraction on the open market). This is especially true for voting stock; stock which gives you voting rights in company decisions makes each stock one vote, so effectively whomever controls the majority of one stock gets that vote. However, various stock management policies on the part of the shareholder, brokerage firm or the issuing company can result in you owning fractional shares. Perhaps the most common is a retirement account or other forward-planning account. In such situations, it's the dollar amount that counts; when you deposit money you expect the money to be invested in your chosen mix of mutual funds and other instruments. If the whole-shares rule were absolute, and you wanted to own, for instance, Berkshire Hathaway stock, and you were contributing a few hundred a month, it could take you your entire career of your contributions sitting in a money-market account (essentially earning nothing) before you could buy even one share. You are virtually guaranteed in such situations to end up owning fractions of shares in an investment account. In these situations, it's usually the fund manager's firm that actually holds title to the full share (part of a pool they maintain for exactly this situation), and your fractional ownership percentage is handled purely with accounting; they give you your percentage of the dividends when they're paid out, and marginal additional investments increase your actual holdings of the share until you own the whole thing. If you divest, the firm sells the share of which you owned a fraction (or just holds onto it for the next guy fractionally investing in the stock; no need to pay unnecessary broker fees) and pays you that fraction of the sale price.  Another is dividend reinvestment; the company may indicate that instead of paying a cash dividend, they will pay a stock dividend, or you yourself may indicate to the broker that you want your dividends given to you as shares of stock, which the broker will acquire from the market and place in your account. Other common situations include stock splits that aren't X-for-1. Companies often aren't looking to halve their stock price by offering a two-for-one split; they may think a smaller figure like 50% or even smaller is preferable, to fine tune their stock price (and thus P/E ratio and EPS figures) similar to industry competitors or to companies with similar market capitalization. In such situations they can offer a split that's X-for-Y with X>Y, like a 3-for-2, 5-for-3 or similar. These are relatively uncommon, but they do happen; Home Depot's first stock split, in 1987, was a 3-for-2. Other ratios are rare, and MSFT has only ever been split 2-for-1. So, it's most likely that you ended up with the extra sixth of a share through dividend reinvestment or a broker policy allowing fractional-share investment."}
{"text": "Why do financial institutions charge so much to convert currency? Is there not some central service that tracks current currency rates that banks can use to get currency data? Sure.  But this doesn't matter.  All the central service can tell you is how much the rate was historically.  But the banks/PayPal don't care about the historical value.  They want to know the price that they'll pay when they get around to switching, not the last price before the switch.  Beyond that, there is a transaction cost to switching.  They have to pay the clearinghouse for managing the transaction.   The banks can choose to act as a clearinghouse, but that increases their risk.  If the bank has a large balance of US dollars but dollars are falling, then they end up eating that cost.  They'll only take that risk if they think that they'll make more money that way.  And in the end, they may have to go on the currency market anyway.  If a European bank runs out of US dollars, they have to buy them on the open market.  Or a US bank might run out of Euros.  Or Yen.  Etc.   Another problem is that many of the currency transactions are small, but the overhead is fixed.  If the bank has to pay $5 for every currency transaction, they won't even break even charging 3% on a $100 transaction.  So they delay the actual transaction so that they can make more than one at a time.  But then they have the risk that the currency value might change in the meantime.  If they credit you with $97 in your account ($100 minus the 3% fee) but the price actually drops from $100 to $99, they're out the $1.   They could do it the other way as well.  You ask for a $100 transaction.  They perform a $1000 transaction, of which they give you $97.  Now they have $898 ($1000 minus the $5 they paid for the transaction plus the $3 they charged you for the transaction).  If there's a 1% drop, they're out $10.98 ($8.98 in currency loss plus a net $2 in fees).   This is why banks have money market accounts.  So they have someone to manage these problems working twenty-four hours a day.  But then they have to pay interest on those accounts, further eating into their profits.  Along with paying a staff to monitor the currency markets and things that may affect them."}
{"text": "Is it a good investment for a foreigner to purchase a flat/apartment in China? I think a greater problem would be the protection of your property right.  China hasn't shown much respect for the property rights of its own citizens - moving people off subsistence farms in order to build high-rise apartments - so I'm not certain that a foreigner could expect much protection.  A first consideration in any asset purchase should always be consideration of the strength of local property law.  By all accounts, China fails."}
{"text": "What is needed to be a \u201cbroker\u201d? You must understand that: So, if you -- the prospective buyer -- are in Waukegan, do you take the train all the way to New York City just to buy 100 shares of stock?  No.  That would be absurdly expensive.  So, you hire an agent in NYC who will broker a deal for you in the exchange. Fast forward 100 years, to the time when instant communications is available.  Why do we now still need brokerages, when the Exchanges could set up web sites and let you do the trading? The answer is that the Exchanges don't want to have to develop the accounting systems to manage the transactions of hundreds of thousands of small traders, when existing brokerage firms already have those computerized processes in place and are opening their own web sites. Thus, in 2017 we have brokerage firms because of history."}
{"text": "How to calculate ownership for property with a partner To add to ChrisInEdmonton's answer: Your conveyancing solicitor should be able to advise on the details, but a typical arrangement involves: As an alternative to the numbers in Chris' answer, it could be argued that you should first be reimbursed for the fees you paid (accounting for inflation), but that any remaining profits from the property itself should be divided in proportion to your individual investments (so 51.6% to you, and 48.4% to your partner, assuming you contribute to the loans equally)."}
{"text": "Digital envelope system: a modern take If psychologically there is no difference to you between cash and debit (you should test this over a couple of months on yourself and spouse to make sure), then I suggest two debit cards (one for you and spouse) on your main or separate checking account. If you use Mint you can set budgets for each category (envelope) and when a purchase is made Mint will automatically categorize that transaction and deduct that amount from the correct budget.  For example: If you have a \"Fast Food\" budget set at $100 per month and you use the debit at McDonalds, Mint should automatically categorize it as \"Fast Food\" and deduct the amount from the \"Fast Food\" budget that you set.  If it can't determine a category or gets it wrong, you can just select the proper category. Mint has an iPhone (also Android and Windows phone) app that I find very easy to use. Many people state that they don't have this psychologically difference between spending cash and debit/credit, but I would say that most actually do, especially with small purchases.  It doesn't have anything to do with intellect or knowing that you are actually spending money.  It has more to do with tangibility, and the physical act of handing over cash.  You may not add that soda and candy bar to your purchase if you have visible cash in your wallet that will disappear more quickly.  I lived in Germany for 2 years before debit cards were around or common.  I'm a sharp guy and even though I knew that I paid $100 for the 152 DM, it still kind of felt like spending Monopoly money, especially considering that in the US we are used to coins normally being 25 cents or less and in Germany coins are up to 10 DM (almost $10) and are used more frequently than paper."}
{"text": "Long term investing alternative to mutual funds You are not limited in these 3 choices. You can also invest in ETFs, which are similar to mutual funds, but traded like stocks. Usually (at least in Canada), MERs for ETFs are smaller than for mutual funds."}
{"text": "Why do interest rates increase or decrease? My answer is specific to the US because you mentioned the Federal Reserve, but a similar system is in place in most countries. Do interest rates increase based on what the market is doing, or do they solely increase based on what the Federal Reserve sets them at? There are actually two rates in question here; the Wikipedia article on the federal funds rate has a nice description that I'll summarize here. The interest rate that's usually referred to is the federal funds rate, and it's the rate at which banks can lend money to each other through the Federal Reserve. The nominal federal funds rate - this is a target set by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve at each meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). When you hear in the media that the Fed is changing interest rates, this is almost always what they're referring to. The actual federal funds rate - through the trading desk of the New York Federal Reserve, the FOMC conducts open market operations to enforce the federal funds rate, thus leading to the actual rate, which is the rate determined by market forces as a result of the Fed's operations. Open market operations involve buying and selling short-term securities in order to influence the rate. As an example, the current nominal federal funds rate is 0% (in economic parlance, this is known as the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB)), while the actual rate is approximately 25 basis points, or 0.25%. Why is it assumed that interest rates are going to increase when the Federal Reserve ends QE3? I don't understand why interest rates are going to increase. In the United States, quantitative easing is actually a little different from the usual open market operations the Fed conducts. Open market operations usually involve the buying and selling of short-term Treasury securities; in QE, however (especially the latest and ongoing round, QE3), the Fed has been purchasing longer-term Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). By purchasing MBS, the Fed is trying to reduce the overall risk of the commercial housing debt market. Furthermore, the demand created by these purchases drives up prices on the debt, which drives down interest rates in the commercial housing market. To clarify: the debt market I'm referring to is the market for mortgage-backed securities and other debt derivatives (CDO's, for instance). I'll use MBS as an example. The actual mortgages are sold to companies that securitize them by pooling them and issuing securities based on the value of the pool. This process may happen numerous times, since derivatives can be created based on the value of the MBS themselves, which in turn are based on housing debt. In other words, MBS aren't exactly the same thing as housing debt, but they're based on housing debt. It's these packaged securities the Fed is purchasing, not the mortgages themselves.  Once the Fed draws down QE3, however, this demand will probably decrease. As the Fed unloads its balance sheet over several years, and demand decreases throughout the market, prices will fall and interest rates in the commercial housing market will fall. Ideally, the Fed will wait until the economy is healthy enough to absorb the unloading of these securities.  Just to be clear, the interest rates that QE3 are targeting are different from the interest rates you usually hear about. It's possible for the Fed to unwind QE3, while still keeping the \"interest rate\", i.e. the federal funds rate, near zero. although this is considered unlikely. Also, the Fed can target long-term vs. short-term interest rates as well, which is once again slightly different from what I talked about above. This was the goal of the Operation Twist program in 2011 (and in the 1960's). Kirill Fuchs gave a great description of the program in this answer, but basically, the Fed purchased long-term securities and sold short-term securities, with the goal of twisting the yield curve to lower long-term interest rates relative to short-term rates. The goal is to encourage people and businesses to take on long-term debt, e.g. mortgages, capital investments, etc. My main question that I'm trying to understand is why interest rates are what they are. Is it more of an arbitrary number set by central banks or is it due to market activity? Hopefully I addressed much of this above, but I'll give a quick summary. There are many \"interest rates\" in numerous different financial markets. The rate most commonly talked about is the nominal federal funds rate that I mentioned above; although it's a target set by the Board of Governors, it's not arbitrary. There's a reason the Federal Reserve hires hundreds of research economists. No central bank arbitrarily sets the interest rate; it's determined as part of an effort to reach certain economic benchmarks for the foreseeable future, whatever those may be.  In the US, current Fed policy maintains that the federal funds rate should be approximately zero until the economy surpasses the unemployment and inflation benchmarks set forth by the Evans Rule (named after Charles Evans, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who pushed for the rule). The effective federal funds rate, as well as other rates the Fed has targeted like interest rates on commercial housing debt, long-term rates on Treasury securities, etc. are market driven. The Fed may enter the market, but the same forces of supply and demand are still at work. Although the Fed's actions are controversial, the effects of their actions are still bound by market forces, so the policies and their effects are anything but arbitrary."}
{"text": "Value of put if underlying stays below strike? The value at expiration does not depend on the price path for a plain vanilla European or American option. At expiration, the value would simply be: max[K - S_T, 0], where: K is the strike price, and S_T is the underlying price at expiration."}
{"text": "For the first time in my life, I'm going to be making real money\u2026what should I do with it? On the one hand, it's a great idea to open a Roth IRA now, once you've got the cash to contribute. It's a tax designation sounds like it would fit your meager earnings this year. The main reason to open one now rather than later is that some types of withdrawls require the account be aged 5 years. But you can also withdraw the amount you've contributed tax free any time. Student loans right now are pricey, so if you're carrying a balance at say 6.8 percent fixed you should pay that down ASAP. Beyond that, I'd keep the rest liquid for now. Having that kind of liquid cash is extremely reassuring, and many of the biggest returns on investment are going to be in your personal life. More fuel efficient vehicles, energy efficient appliances, computer backups, chest freezers and bulk meat purchases, etc.  One example I see every six months is car insurance: I can pay for six months in full or I can pay a smaller monthly bill plus a small fee. That fee is well above current market rates. You see this everywhere; people searching for lower minimum payments rather than lower total costs. Save your money up and be the smart buyer. It's too damn expensive to be broke."}
{"text": "Why don't market indexes use aggregate market capitalization? They do but you're missing some calculations needed to gain an understanding. Intro To Stock Index Weighting Methods notes in part: Market cap is the most common weighting method used by an index.   Market cap or market capitalization is the standard way to measure the   size of the company. You might have heard of large, mid, or small cap   stocks? Large cap stocks carry a higher weighting in this index. And   most of the major indices, like the S&P 500, use the market cap   weighting method. Stocks are weighted by the proportion of their market cap to the total   market cap of all the stocks in the index. As a stock\u2019s price and   market cap rises, it gains a bigger weighting in the index. In turn   the opposite, lower stock price and market cap, pushes its weighting   down in the index.  Pros Proponents argue that large companies have a bigger effect on the   economy and are more widely owned. So they should have a bigger   representation when measuring the performance of the market. Which is   true. Cons It doesn\u2019t make sense as an investment strategy. According to a market   cap weighted index, investors would buy more of a stock as its price   rises and sell the stock as the price falls. This is the exact   opposite of the buy low, sell high mentality investors should use. Eventually, you would have more money in overpriced stocks and less in   underpriced stocks. Yet most index funds follow this weighting method. Thus, there was likely a point in time where the S & P 500's initial sum was equated to a specific value though this is the part you may be missing here. Also, how do you handle when constituents change over time? For example, suppose in the S & P 500 that a $100,000,000 company is taken out and replaced with a $10,000,000,000 company that shouldn't suddenly make the index jump by a bunch of points because the underlying security was swapped or would you be cool with there being jumps when companies change or shares outstanding are rebalanced? Consider carefully how you answer that question. In terms of histories, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S & P 500 Index would be covered on Wikipedia where from the latter link: The \"Composite Index\",[13] as the S&P 500 was first called when it   introduced its first stock index in 1923, began tracking a small   number of stocks. Three years later in 1926, the Composite Index   expanded to 90 stocks and then in 1957 it expanded to its current   500.[13] Standard & Poor's, a company that doles out financial information and analysis, was founded in 1860 by Henry Varnum Poor. In   1941 Poor's Publishing (Henry Varnum Poor's original company) merged   with Standard Statistics (founded in 1906 as the Standard Statistics   Bureau) and therein assumed the name Standard and Poor's Corporation.   The S&P 500 index in its present form began on March 4, 1957.   Technology has allowed the index to be calculated and disseminated in   real time. The S&P 500 is widely used as a measure of the general   level of stock prices, as it includes both growth stocks and value   stocks. In September 1962, Ultronic Systems Corp. entered into an agreement   with Standard and Poor's. Under the terms of this agreement, Ultronics   computed the S&P 500 Stock Composite Index, the 425 Stock Industrial   Index, the 50 Stock Utility Index, and the 25 Stock Rail Index.   Throughout the market day these statistics were furnished to Standard   & Poor's. In addition, Ultronics also computed and reported the 94 S&P   sub-indexes.[14] There are also articles like Business Insider that have this graphic that may be interesting: S & P changes over the years The makeup of the S&P 500 is constantly changing notes in part: \"In most years 25 to 30 stocks in the S&P 500 are replaced,\" said   David Blitzer, S&P's Chairman of the Index Committee. And while there   are strict guidelines for what companies are added, the final decision   and timing of that decision depends on what's going through the heads   of a handful of people employed by Dow Jones."}
{"text": "I file 83(b) election, but did't include a copy of it in that year\u2019s tax return I've consulted with 5-6 accountants and people who've had the issue before. The advice I received boils down to: \"If you do not attach your 83b with your personal tax return it is not effective. However you can still correct the requirement to file it along with your tax return, because you are within the 3 year window of when the return was originally due.\" So you can amend your return/file it late within a certain window and things should be OK. The accountants that have confirmed this are Vanessa Kruze, Wray Rives and Augie Rakow - all of them corporate and credible accountants. You also need to keep onto the confirmation the IRS sent you in case of an audit. There is nothing on IRS.gov about attaching your 83b on a filed late or amended return but those accountants are people who say they've seen it happen frequently, have consulted with the IRS for solutions and that's the one they'd advise one to do in such situation. disclaimer: I am not a CPA"}
{"text": "What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? I wish I had started contributing to the pension fund offered by my employer sooner than it became compulsory. That is, I started working when I was 23 but did not contribute to the pension fund until I was 30 (the age at which it is compulsory to do so). I lost a lot of productive years in mid to late 90s, when the stocks were doing well. :-("}
{"text": "What is a Discount Called in the Context of a Negative Interest Rate? Negative Yields on Bonds is opposite of Getting profit on your investment. This is some kind of new practice from world wide financial institute.  the interest rate is -0.05% for ten years. So a $100,000 bond under   those terms would be \"discounted\" to $100,501, give or take. No, actually what you are going to get out from this investment is after 10 years when this investment is mature for liquidation, you will get return not even your principle $100,000 , but ( (Principle $100,000) minus (Negative Yields @ -0.05) Times ( 10 Years ) ) assume the rates are on simple annual rate.  Now anyone may wander why should someone going to buy this kind of investment where I am actually giving away not only possible profit also losing some of principle amount!  This might looks real odd, but there is other valid reason for issuing / investing on such kind of bond.  From investor prospective: Every asset has its own 'expense' for keeping ownership of it. This is also true for money/currency depending on its size. And other investment possibility and risk factor. The same way people maintain checking account with virtually no visible income vs. Savings account where bank issue some positive rate of interest with various time factor like annually/half-yearly/monthly. People with lower level of income but steady on flow choose savings where business personals go for checking one. Think of Millions of Ideal money with no secure investment opportunity have to option in real. Option one to keeping this large amount of money in hand, arranging all kind of security which involve extra expense, risk and headache where Option two is invest on bond issued by Government of country. Owner of that amount will go for second one even with negative yields on bonds where he is paying in return of security and risk free grantee of getting it back on time.  On Issuing Government prospective: Here government actually want people not to keep money idle investing bonds, but find any possible sector to invest which might profitable for both Investor + Grater Community ultimately country.  This is a basic understanding on issue/buy/selling of Negative interest bearing bond on market.   Hope I could explain it here. Not to mention, English is not my 1st language at all. So ignore my typo, grammatical error and welcome to fix it.  Cheers!"}
{"text": "Where should I invest to hedge against the stock market going down? There are multiple ETFs which inversely track the common indices, though many of these are leveraged.  For example, SDS tracks approximately -200% of the S&P 500.  (Note: due to how these are structured, they are only suitable for very short term investments) You can also consider using Put options for the various indices as well.  For example, you could buy a Put for the SPY out a year or so to give you some fairly cheap insurance (assuming it's a small part of your portfolio). One other option is to invest against the market volatility.  As the market makes sudden swings, the volatility goes up; this tends to be true more when it falls than when it rises.  One way of invesing in market volatility is to trade options against the VIX."}
{"text": "What happens to the insider trade profits? You seem to have a little confusion over terminology that should be cleared up: You are calling this \"day-trading\" Day-trading is the term for performing multiple trading actions in a single day. While it appears that the COO has performed a buy and a sell on the same day, most people would consider this a 'single trade'. In reality, it seems that the COO had 'stock options' [a contract providing the option for the holder to buy stock at a specific price, at some point in the future], provided as part of his compensation package. He decided or was required to 'exercise' those options today. This means he bought the shares using his special 'option price'. It is extremely common for employees who exercise stock options, to sell all of the resulting stock immediately. This is very different from usual day-trading, which implies that he would have bought stock in the morning at a low price, and then sold it later at a high price. You are calling this 'insider trading'. That term specifically often implies some level of unethical behavior. In general, stock options offered to executive employees are strictly limited in how they can be exercised. For example, most stock option plans require employees to wait x number of years before they can exercise them. This gives the employee incentive to stay longer, and for a high-level executive with the ability to strongly impact company performance, it gives incentive to do well. Technically you are correct, this is likely considered an 'insider trade', but given that it seems to have been a stock option exercise, it does not necessarily imply that there was any special reasoning for why he did the trade today. It could simply be that today was the first day the stock option rules allowed him to exercise. As to your final question - no, these profits are the COO's, to do with as he likes."}
{"text": "Is CLM a stock or an ETF? Cornerstone Strategic Value Fund, Inc. is a diversified, closed-end management investment company. It was incorporated in Maryland on May 1, 1987 and commenced investment operations on June 30, 1987. The Fund\u2019s shares of Common Stock are traded on the NYSE MKT under the ticker symbol \u201cCLM.\u201d[1] That essentially means that CLM is a company all of whose assets are held as tradable financial instruments OR EQUIVALENTLY CLM is an ETF that was created as a company in its own right. That it was founded in the 80s, before the modern definition of ETFs really existed, it is probably more helpful to think of it by the first definition as the website mentions that it is traded as common stock so its stock holds more in common with stock than ETFs. [1] http://www.cornerstonestrategicvaluefund.com/"}
{"text": "Ways to establish credit history for international student I think you should try to talk with the credit union at your campus first, they may have offer you a credit card even you don't have any credit history."}
{"text": "Do I have to pay a capital gains tax if I rebuy the same stock within 30 days? Yes. Wash rules are only for losses."}
{"text": "Can a credit card company raise my rates for making a large payment? No. Credit card companies will typically not care about your individual credit card account. Instead they look either at a \"package\" of card accounts opened at roughly the same time, or of \"slices\" of cardholder accounts by credit rating. If an entire package's or slice's balance drops significantly, they'll take a look, and will adjust rates accordingly (often they may actually decrease rates as an incentive to increase you use of the card). Because credit card debt is unstructured debt, the bank cannot impose an \"early payment penalty\" of any kind (there's no schedule for paying it off, so there's no way to prove that they're missing out on $X in interest because you paid early). Generally, banks don't like CC debt anyway; it's very risky debt, and they often end up writing large balances off for pennies on the dollar. So, when you pay down your balance by a significant amount, the banks breathe a sigh of relief. The real money, the stable money, is in the usage fees; every time you swipe your card, the business who accepted it owes the credit card company 3% of your purchase, and sometimes more."}
{"text": "Should we prepay our private student loans, given our particular profile? Based on your numbers, it sounds like you've got 12 years left in the private student loan, which just seems to be an annoyance to me.  You have the cash to pay it off, but that may not be the optimal solution. You've got $85k in cash!  That's way too much. So your options are:  -Invest 40k -Pay 2.25% loan off -Prepay mortgage 40k Play around with this link: mortgage calculator Paying the student loan, and applying the $315 to the monthly mortgage reduces your mortgage by 8 years. It also reduces the nag factor of the student loan. Prepaying the mortgage (one time) reduces it by 6 years. (But, that reduces the total cost of the mortgage over it's lifetime the most) Prepaying the mortgage and re-amortizing it over thirty years (at the same rate) reduces your mortgage payment by $210, which you could apply to the student loan, but you'd need to come up with an extra $105 a month."}
{"text": "Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses? I would suggest that you use Emergency Funds for things that have a Low likelihood of happening but if they do happen can be devastating. I used to work as a financial advisor and the sugfestion we gave people is to have about 3 months worth of expenses in cash. This was primarily to cover things luke loss of work or some unforseen even that would prevent you from missing work for an extended period of time. Once you have your emergency fund saved do not touch it! Leave it where it is. Then tou can start working on a savings account for those items that are more likely to happen but dont have as much of a negative impact."}
{"text": "When's the best time to sell the stock of a company that is being acquired/sold? This is but one opinion.  Seek others before your act. \"When someone puts a million dollars in your hand, close your hand.\" A 50% gain in two weeks is huge."}
{"text": "Home loan transferred to Freddie Mac \u2014 What does this mean? Lenders may sell your mortgage to other lenders for a fee.  For example,  your lender might sell your mortgage to the highest bidder who may want to purchase your mortgage by making a one time payment.  For your lender that's a quick profit, for the new owner of your mortgage, that's long term returns for a one time fee.  For your lender, that is forgoing long term returns for short term gains (and transfer of risk in case you default).   (Very similar to how bonds work in a stock exchange!) What does this mean to you? Nothing.  You will still keep making payments to your original lender.   What does 'transfer of ownership has not been publicly recorded mean'? It means, when you are asked about ownership details regarding your mortgage, and this could be in tax forms or refinancing etc., you would enter your original lender's information and not Freddit Mac's! Pro-tip There are lots of scams based on this.  You might receive an official looking letter in mail claiming your loan has been sold and you should start making payments to the new owner. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS! Call your original lender (use the phone number from your loan papers, not mail you received) and verify this information.   And if this were to happen, your original lender would always inform you first.   And hey, congrats on your new home! :)"}
{"text": "Why do I get a much better price for options with a limit order than the ask price? There are people whose strategy revolves around putting orders at the bid and ask and making money off people who cross the spread.  If you put an order in between the current bid/ask, people running that type of strategy will usually pick it off, viewing it as a discount to the orders that they already have on the bid/ask.  Often these people are trading by computer, so your limit order may get hit so quickly that it appears instantaneous to you.  In reality, you were probably hit by a limit order placed specifically to fill against yours."}
{"text": "How to execute a large stock purchase, relative to the order book? I normally just do a buy limit at the price I want to buy it at. Then it executes when it's that price or lower, but there's still a chance you might purchase some shares at a larger price. But since we're small fry and using brokerages, there's not much we can do about it."}
{"text": "Where should my money go next: savings, investments, retirement, or my mortgage? As the others said, you're doing everything right. So, at this it's not a matter of what you should do, it's a matter of what do you want to do? What would make you the happiest?  So, what would you like to do most with that extra money? The point is, since you're already doing everything right with the rest of your money, there's really nothing you can do that's wrong with this money. Except using it on something that increases your monthly expenses, like a down payment on a car.  In fact, there's no reason you have to do anything \"sensible\" with this money at all. You could blow it at nightclubs if you wanted to, and that would be perfectly ok. In fact, since you've got everything else covered, why not \"invest\" it in making some memories? How about vacations to exotic and rugged places, while you're still young enough to enjoy them?"}
{"text": "What are the benefits of opening an IRA in an unstable/uncertain economy? Even Gold lost 1/2 of it's value between 1980 and 2000.   You would not have fared well if you retired during that period heavily invested in Gold. http://www.usagold.com/reference/prices/history.html You said yourself that one can not foresee what the future will bring. At least IRA's force you to into dollar cost averaging, whereas if your money was outside of a retirement account, you might be tempted to speculate. -Ralph Winters"}
{"text": "How to determine duration of a common stock whose dividends grow in perpetuity? The Dividend Discount Model is based on the concept that the present value of a stock is the sum of all future dividends, discounted back to the present. Since you said: dividends are expected to grow at a constant rate in perpetuity ... the Gordon Growth Model is a simple variant of the DDM, tailored for a firm in \"steady state\" mode, with dividends growing at a rate that can be sustained forever. Consider McCormick (MKC), who's last dividend was 31 cents, or $1.24 annualized. The dividend has been growing just a little over 7% annually. Let's use a discount, or hurdle rate of 10%. MKC closed today at $50.32, for what it's worth. The model is extremely sensitive to inputs. As g approaches r, the stock price rises to infinity. If g > r, stock goes negative. Be conservative with 'g' -- it must be sustainable forever.  The next step up in complexity is the two-stage DDM, where the company is expected to grow at a higher, unsustainable rate in the early years (stage 1), and then settling down to the terminal rate for stage 2. Stage 1 is the present value of dividends during the high growth period. Stage 2 is the Gordon Model, starting at the end of stage 1, and discounting back to the present. Consider Abbott Labs (ABT). The current annual dividend is $1.92, the current dividend growth rate is 12%, and let's say that continues for ten years (n), after which point the growth rate is 5% in perpetuity. Again, the discount rate is 10%. Stage 1 is calculated as follows: Stage 2 is GGM, using not today's dividend, but the 11th year's dividend, since stage 1 covered the first ten years. 'gn' is the terminal growth, 5% in our case. then... The value of the stock today is 21.22 + 51.50 = 72.72 ABT closed today at $56.72, for what it's worth."}
{"text": "Rate of change of beta This is a useful metric in that it gives you a trust factor on how reliable the beta is for future expectations   It is akin to velocity and acceleration  First  and second order derivatives of distance / time.  Erratic acceleration implies the velocity is less trustworthy  Same idea for beta"}
{"text": "Am I \u201ccheating the system\u201d by opening up a tiny account with a credit union and then immediately applying for a huge loan? Credit Unions turn a profit by lending money at a higher interest rate than their savings do, just like banks do. It is an amoral feat, completely parallel to any moral weights you have assigned to \"the system\". If the most favorable circumstance is you receiving access to capital, then you can easily achieve that with zero reservations about the system that granted it to you."}
{"text": "Pay online: credit card or debit card? Nowadays, some banks in some countries offer things like temporary virtual cards for online payments. They are issued either free of charge or at a negligible charge, immediately, via bank's web interface (access to which might either be free or not, this varies). You get a separate account for the newly-issued \"card\" (the \"card\" being just a set of numbers), you transfer some money there (same web-interface), you use it to make payment(s), you leave $0 on that \"card\" and within a day or a month, it expires. Somewhat convenient and your possible loss is limited tightly. Check if your local banks offer this kind of service."}
{"text": "What should I do with the stock from my Employee Stock Purchase Plan? While my margin is not nearly as good as yours, I sell out early.  I generally think it's a bad idea to hold any single stock, as they can vary wildly in value.  However, as you mention, it's advantageous to hold for one year.  Read more about Capital Gains Taxes here and here."}
{"text": "Who could afford a higher annual deductible who couldn't afford a higher monthly payment? It's simple. Most people don't spend $6000 a year in medical care. As for myself, there's probably only $400 or less, mostly in annual checkups and the like.  If you are the type to require more medical care, then you will pay more per month. I know a person with asthma, kidney stones, and inflammatory issues. This person spends probably $1000 in co-pays per year, with considerable more if you were to include the hospital visits in the likes. But if you don't think you are one of these people, then don't get the higher cost plan."}
{"text": "UK student loans, early repayment/avoiding further debt I think you're right that from a pure \"expected future value\" perspective, it makes sense to pay this loan off as quickly as possible (including not taking the next year's loan). The new student loans with the higher interest rates have changed the balance enough that it's no longer automatically better to keep it going as long as possible. The crucial point in your case, which isn't true for many people, is that you will likely have to pay it off eventually anyway and so in terms of net costs over your lifetime you will do best by paying it off quickly. A few points to set against that, that you might want to consider: Not paying it off is a good hedge against your career not going as well as you expect, e.g. if the economy does badly, you have health problems, you take a career break for any reason. If that happens, you would end up not being forced to pay it off, so will end up gaining from not having done so voluntarily. The money you save in that case could be more valuable to you that the money you would lose if your career does go well. Not paying it off will increase your net cash earlier in life when you are more likely to need it, e.g. for a house deposit. Having more free cash could increase your options, making it possible to buy a house earlier in life. Or it could mean you have a higher deposit when you do buy, reducing the interest rate on the entire mortgage balance. The savings from that could end up being more than the 6% interest on the loan even though when you look at the loan in isolation it seems like a very bad rate."}
{"text": "Should I purchase a whole life insurance policy? (I am close to retirement) Disclaimer: I work in life insurance, but I am not an agent.   First things first, there is not enough information here to give you an answer.  When discussing life insurance, the very first things we need to fully consider are the illustration of policy values, and the contract itself.  Without these, there is no way to tell if this is a good idea or not. So what are the things to look for? A. Risk appetite.  People love to discuss projections of the market, like for example, \"7-8% a year compounded annually\".  Go look at the historical returns of the stock market.  It is never close to that projection.  Life insurance, however, can give you a GUARANTEED return (this would be show in the 'Guaranteed' section of the life insurance illustration).  As long as you pay your premiums, this money is guaranteed to accrue.  Now most life insurance companies also show 'Non-Guaranteed' elements in their illustrations - these are non-guaranteed projections based on a scale at this point in time.  These columns will show how your cash value may grow when dividends are credited to your policy (and used to buy paid-up additional insurance, which generates more dividends - this can be compared to the compounding nature of interest).   B. Tax treatment.  I am definitely not an expert in this area, but life insurance does have preferential tax treatment, particularly to your beneficiaries. C. Beneficiaries.  Any death benefit (again, listed as guaranteed and maybe non-guaranteed values) is generally completely tax free for the beneficiary. D. Strategy.  Tying all of this together, what exactly is the point of this?  To transfer wealth, to accrue wealth, or some combination thereof?  This is important and unstated in your question. So again, without knowing more, there is no way to answer your question.  But I am surprised that in this forum, so many people are quick to jump in and say in general that whole life insurance is a scam.  And even more surprising is the fact the accepted answer has already been accepted. My personal take is that if you are just trying to accrue wealth, you should probably stick to the market and maybe buy term if you want a death benefit component.  This is mostly due to your age (higher risk of death = higher premiums = lower buildup) and how long of a time period you have to build up money in the policy.  But if a 25 year old asked this same question, depending on his purposes, I may suggest that a WL policy is in fact a good idea."}
{"text": "Why are wire transfers and other financial services in Canada so much more expensive than in Europe? I don't believe there is any particular structural or financial reason that outgoing wire transfers cost so much in Canada, their costs are no higher than other countries (and lower than many).  Wires seem to be an area where the Canadian banks have decided people don't comparison shop, so it's not a competitive advantage to offer a better price. The rates you quoted are on the low side: $80 for a largish international wire is not unusual, and HSBC charges up to $150! There are several alternative ways to transfer money domestically in Canada. If the recipient banks at the same bank, it's possible to go into a branch and transfer money directly from your own account to their account (I've never been charged for this).  The transfer is immediate.  But it couldn't be done online, last time I checked. For transfers where you don't know the recipients bank account, you can pay online with Interac E-Transfers, offered by most Canadian banks.  It's basically e-mailing money.  It usually costs $1 to $1.50 per transfer, and has limits on how much you can send per day/week. Each of the banks also have a bill-pay service, but unlike similar services in the US (where they mail a paper check if the recipient isn't on their system), each Canadian bank has a limited number of possible payees (mostly utilities, governments, major stores)."}
{"text": "Stochastic Oscillator for Financial Analysis While trading in stochastic I've understood, one needs reference (SMA/EMA/Bolinger Band and even RSI) to verify trade prior entering it. Stochastic is nothing to do with price or volume it is about speed. Adjusting K% has ability to turn you from Day trader to -> swing trader to -> long term investor. So you adjust your k% according to chart time-frame. Stochastic setup for 1 min, 5 min ,15, 30, 60 min, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, half yearly and yearly are all different. If you try hopping from one time-frame to another just because it is below oversold or above overbought region with same K%, you may get confused. Worst you may not square-off your loss making trade. And rather not use excel; charts gives better visual for oscillators."}
{"text": "How to motivate young people to save money I recommend pulling up a retirement calculator and having an honest conversation about how long term savings works, and the power of compound interest. Just by playing around with the sliders on an online calculator, you can demonstrate how the early years are the most important. Depending on how much they make now and are considering saving, delaying 5-10 years can easily leave 6-7 figures on the table. If it's specifically a child or close family member, I recommend pulling up your retirement account. Talk with them about how you managed it, and how much you were putting in. Perhaps show them how much is the principal and how much is interest. If you did well, tell them how. If you didn't do as well as you liked, tell them what you would have done differently. Finally, discuss a bit of psychology. Even if they don't have a professional job and are making minimum wage, getting into the habit of saving makes it easier when they eventually make more. A couple of dollars a month isn't much, but getting into the habit makes it easier to save a couple hundred dollars a month later on."}
{"text": "How quickly will the funds be available when depositing credit card checks? For those who don't know, credit card checks are blank checks that your credit card company sends you.  When you fill them out and spend them, you are taking a cash advance on your credit card account.  You should be aware that taking a cash advance on your credit card normally has extra fees and finance charges above what you have with regular credit card transactions. That having been said, when you take one of these to your bank and try to deposit them, it is entirely up to bank policy how long they will make you wait to use these funds.  They want to be sure that it is a legitimate check and that it will be honored.  If your teller doesn't know the answer to that question, you'll need to find someone at the bank who does.  If you don't like the answer they give you, you'll need to find another bank. I would think that if the credit card is from Chase, and you are trying to deposit a credit card check into a Chase checking account, they should be able to do that instantly.  However, bank policy doesn't always make sense."}
{"text": "Self assessment expenses - billing date or payment date? Unless you're running a self-employed business with a significant turnover (more than \u00a3150k), you are entitled to use cash basis accounting for your tax return, which means you would put the date of transactions as the payment date rather than the billing date or the date a debt is incurred. For payments which have a lag, e.g. a cheque that needs to be paid in or a bank transfer that takes a few days, you might also need to choose between multiple payment dates, e.g. when you initiated the payment or when it took effect. You can pick one as long as you're consistent: You can choose how you record when money is received or    paid (eg the date the money enters your account or the date a cheque   is written) but you must use the same method each tax year."}
{"text": "How much of my capital should I spend on subscribing to a stock research company? To complement farnsy's answer, I want to warn people against market prediction scams. If they give uniformly distributed buy/sell predictions to 256 people, one of them will get eight correct predictions in a row. They are trading a few cents of Amazon server time for 3% of your capital."}
{"text": "Do \u201cInstant Approved\u201d credit card inquires appear on credit report? It is not delayed and if it didn't show yet - will not show on that agency's credit report. However, you may find it on another agency's report. There are three major agencies, and creditors don't always check all of them (each inquiry costs them money)."}
{"text": "How much lump sum investment in stocks would be needed to yield a target stable monthly income? If your requirements are hard (must have $1000/month, must have the same or bigger in capital at the end), stocks are a poor choice of investment. However, in many cases, people are willing to tolerate some level of risk to achieve the expected returns. You also do not mention inflation, which can take quite a lot out of your portfolio over the course of ten years. If we make some simplifying assumptions, you want to generate $12,000 a year. You can realistically expect the (whole) stock market, long term (i.e. over time periods substantially longer than 10 years), to return approximately 4 - 5% after factoring in inflation. That means an investment of $240,000 - $300,000 (the math is simplified somewhat here). If you don't care about inflation, you can up the percentage rather somewhat. According to this article, the S&P 500 returned an average of 11.31% from 1928 through 2010 (not factoring in inflation), which would require an investment of approximately $106,100. But! This opens you up to substantial risk. The stock market may go down 30% this year! According to the above article, the S&P returned only 3.54% from 2001 to 2010. Long-term, it goes up, but your investment case is really unsuited to investing in an index to the entire stock market given your requirements. You may be better suited investing primarily in stable bonds, or perhaps a mix of bonds and stocks. Alternatively, you may want to consider even more stable investments such as treasury notes. Treasury notes are all but guaranteed, but with a lousy rate of return. Heck, you could consider a GIC (that may be Canada-only) or even a savings account. There's also the possibility of purchasing an annuity, though almost everyone will advise against such. Personally, I'd go for a mutual fund which invested approximately 70% bonds and the rest in stocks over such a time period. Something like ING Direct's Streetwise Balanced Income Portfolio, if you were in Canada. It substantially lowers your expected return but also lowers your risk. I can't honestly say what the expected return there is; at this point, it's returned 4% per year (before inflation), but has been around only since the beginning of 2008. And to be clear, this is absolutely not free of risk."}
{"text": "Starting off as an investor You've asked eleven different questions here.  Therefore, The first thing I'd recommend is this: Don't panic. Seek answers to your questions systematically, one at a time.  Search this site (and others) to see if there are answers to some of them.  You're in good shape if for no other reason than you're asking these when you're young. Investing and saving are great things to do, but you also have time going for you.  I recommend that you use your \"other eight hours per day\" to build up other income streams.  That potentially will get you far more than a 2% deposit. Any investment can be risky or safe.  It depends on both your personal context and that of the larger economy.  The best answers will come from your own research and from your advisors (since they will be able to see where you are financially, and in life)."}
{"text": "As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments? At twenty-two, you can have anywhere between 100%-70% of your securities portfolio in equities. It is reasonable to start at 100% and reduce over time.  The one thing that I would mention with that is that your target at retirement should be 70% stocks/30% bonds.  You should NEVER have more than 30% bonds.  Why?  Because a 70/30 mix is both safer than 100% bonds and will give a higher return.  Absent some market timing strategy (which as an amateur investor, you should absolutely avoid) or some complicated balancing scheme, there is never a reason to be at more than 30% bonds.   A 50/50 mix of stocks and bonds or a 100% bonds ratio not only returns less than the 70/30 mix, it is actually riskier.  Why?  Because sometimes bonds fall.  And when they do, stocks generally gain.  And vice versa.  Because of this behavior, the 70/30 mix is less likely to fall than 50% or 100% bonds.   Does that mean that your stock percentage should never drop below 70%?  No.  If your portfolio contains things other than stocks and bonds, it is reasonable for stocks to fall below 70%.  The problem is that when you drop stocks below 70%, you should drop bonds below 30% as well.  So you keep the stock to bond ratio at 7:3.   If you want to get a lower risk than a 70/30 mix, then you should move into cash equivalents.  Cash equivalents are actually safer than stocks and bonds either individually or in combination.  But at twenty-two, you don't really need more safety.   At twenty-two, the first thing to do is to build your emergency fund.  This should be able to handle six months of expenses without income.  I recommend making it equal to six months of your income.  The reason being that it is easy to calculate your income and difficult to be sure of expenses.  Also, you can save six months of income at twenty-two.   Are you going to stay where you are for the next five years?  At twenty-two, the answer is almost certainly no.  But the standard is the five year time frame.  If you want a bigger place or one that is closer to work, then no.  If you stay somewhere at least five years, then it is likely that the advantages to owning rather than renting will outweigh the costs of switching houses.  Less than five years, the reverse is true.  So you should probably rent now.   You can max out your 401k and IRA now.  Doing so even with a conservative strategy will produce big returns by sixty-seven.  And perhaps more importantly, it helps keep your spending down.  The less you do spend, the less you will feel that you need to spend.   Once you fill your emergency fund, start building savings for a house.  I would consider putting them in a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).  A REIT will tend to track real estate.  Since you want to buy real estate with the results, this is its own kind of safety.  It fell in value?  Houses are probably cheap.  Houses increasing in price rapidly?  A REIT is probably growing by leaps and bounds.  You do this outside your retirement accounts, as you want to be able to access it without penalty."}
{"text": "How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car? In a very similar situation as yours, I bought a used motorcycle for $3000. It was still reasonably new, very reliable, and with California weather, you can use it year-round. It reduced my time in traffic, and it had very low fuel and maintenance costs. The biggest expense was tires. The biggest pitfall in buying a motorcycle is auto-insurance. Do your research and ask for quotes from your broker before even considering a particular model of bike. When I decided that my finances justified a new motorcycle, I was surprised that full collision coverage cost about $3000/year on a lower powered bike that had a bad accident record because it appealed to new riders. I got a much more powerful bike that appealed to more experienced riders and the premium was only $500/year. Is this answer not what you were looking for? Spend as little as you can on a 4-6 year old car. Drive it until you can save enough cash to buy the one you really want. I'm currently driving a 2007 Corolla, and I'm waiting until I can get a new civic turbo with a manual transmission to replace it. (They currently only offer them with a CVT, but next fall they'll have them with the MT, so I'm probably 2 1/2 years out from buying one used.)"}
{"text": "Books, Videos, Tutorials to learn about different investment options in the financial domain Those are some very broad questions and I don't think I can answer them completely, but I will add what I can. Barron's Finance and Investment Handbook is the best reference book I have found. It provides a basic description/definition for every type of investment available. It covers stocks, preferred stocks, various forms of bonds as well as mortgage pools and other exotic instruments. It has a comprehensive dictionary of finance terms as well. I would definitely recommend getting it.  The question about how people invest today is a huge one. There are people who simply put a monthly amount into a mutual fund and simply do that until retirement on one side and professional day traders who move in and out of stocks or commodities on a daily basis on the other."}
{"text": "What tax advantage should I keep an eye for if I am going to relocate? Depends. If you can choose where to relocate to, then I second the \"no income tax\" states. But even of these chose wisely, some have no income taxes at all, others have taxes on some kinds of income. Some don't have neither individual nor corporate taxes, some tax businesses in some ways. Some compensate with higher property taxes, others compensate with higher sales taxes. On the other hand, you might prefer states with income taxes but no sales taxes. It can happen if your current income is going to be low, but you'll be spending your savings. If you don't have a choice (for example, your employer wants you to move closer to their office), then you're more limited. Still, you can use the tax break on moving expenses (read the fine print, there are certain employment requirements), and play with the state taxes (if you're moving to a state with less/no taxes - move earlier, if its the other way - move later). Check out for cities that have income taxes. In some states it cannot happen by law (for example, in California only the state is allowed to collect income taxes), in others it is very common (Ohio comes to mind). Many things to consider in New York. New York City has its own income tax (as well as Yonkers, as far as I remember these are the only ones in the State of New York). So if you want to save on taxes in NYS but live close to the city, consider White Plains etc. If you work in NYC its moot, you're going to pay city taxes anyway. That is also true if you live in NJ but work in the city, so tax-wise it may be more efficient not to live across state lines from your place of work."}
{"text": "Why are there so many stock exchanges in the world? Stock exchanges have been undergoing a period of consolidation for the past hundred years for the exact reasons you mentioned. The existence of digital trading, harmonized laws and regulations, and fewer relevant currencies have made it more practical for mergers and acquisitions between exchanges. Stock exchanges are most often times private companies that compete with other exchanges, so that also promotes the existence of many exchanges."}
{"text": "Why are daily rebalanced inverse/leveraged ETFs bad for long term investing? Fund rebalancing typically refers to changing the investment mix to stay within the guidelines of the mutual fund objective.  For example, lets say a fund is supposed to have at least 20% in bonds.  Because of a dramatic increase in stock price and decrease in bond values it finds itself with only 19.9% in bonds at the end of the trading day.  The fund manager would sell sufficient equities to reduce its equity holdings and buy more bonds.   Rebalancing is not always preferential because it could cause capital gain distribution, typically once per year, without selling the fund.  And really any trading within the fun could do the same. In the case you cite the verbiage is confusing.  Often times I wonder if the author knows less then the reader.  It might also be a bit of a rush to get the article out, and the author did not write correctly. I agree that the ETFs cited are suitable for short term traders.  However, that is because, traditionaly, the market has increased in value over the long term.  If you bet it will go down over the long term, you are almost certain to lose money. Like you, I cannot figure out how rebalancing makes this suitable only for short term traders.  If the ETFs distribute capital gains events much more frequently then once per year, that is worth mentioning, but does not provide a case for short versus long term traders.   Secondly, I don't think these funds are doing true rebalancing.  They might change investments daily for the most likely profitable outcome, but that really isn't rebalancing.   It seems the author is confused."}
{"text": "Should you keep your stocks if you are too late to sell? The stock price is not only based on the general market trend and the stock's current profitability and prospects, but is also based on prediction of how the stock's prospects might change in the future. In almost every case, there are professional investors analysing the stock's future prospects and considering whether it's over or under values for its current price. However even professionals can be totally wrong.  If you feel like you have a good grasp on whether the stock will have improving or declining prospects over time, then you might be (if you're right) equipped to make a sensible decision on whether to hold the stock or not. If you don't think you have a good understanding about the stock, then an understanding of the general market direction might at least make stock in general worth holding. Otherwise, you are simply taking a punt. If you know of another stock that has better prospects, then ask yourself why you would hold onto the stock that you think will perform worse.  But also bear in mind that (in my understanding) research has shown that, on average, people who try to pick stocks rarely do better than a random selection, and more stock trades means more brokerage (which thanks to brokerage losses would mean you will end up doing worse than average unless you really do know better than the market)."}
{"text": "Is This A Scam? Woman added me on LinkedIn first, then e-mailed offering me millions of dollars [duplicate] Yes.  If you reply back, they'll confirm that Uncle Alex did indeed leave you $7 million, and you just need to send them a few thousand dollars for taxes and estate fees and then they'll wire you the money.  And then there'll be customs fees.  And then more taxes.  And of course, there will be separate import fees.  And so on until you run out of money."}
{"text": "Tax rules for United States citizens living in the US but being paid from outside the US You can and are supposed to report self-employment income on Schedule C (or C-EZ if eligible, which a programmer likely is) even when the payer isn't required to give you 1099-MISC (or 1099-K for a payment network now). From there, after deducting permitted expenses, it flows to 1040 (for income tax) and Schedule SE (for self-employment tax). See https://www.irs.gov/individuals/self-employed for some basics and lots of useful links. If this income is large enough your tax on it will be more than $1000, you may need to make quarterly estimated payments (OR if you also have a 'day job' have that employer increase your withholding) to avoid an underpayment penalty. But if this is the first year you have significant self-employment income (or other taxable but unwithheld income like realized capital gains) and your economic/tax situation is otherwise unchanged -- i.e. you have the same (or more) payroll income with the same (or more) withholding -- then there is a 'safe harbor': if your withholding plus estimated payments this year is too low to pay this year's tax but it is enough to pay last year's tax you escape the penalty. (You still need to pay the tax due, of course, so keep the funds available for that.) At the end of the first year when you prepare your return you will see how the numbers work out and can more easily do a good estimate for the following year(s). A single-member LLC or 'S' corp is usually disregarded for tax purposes, although you can elect otherwise, while a (traditional) 'C' corp is more complicated and AIUI out-of-scope for this Stack; see https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-structures for more."}
{"text": "What are my investment options in real estate? I compared investing in real estate a few years ago to investing in stocks that paid double digit dividends (hard to find, however, managing and maintaining real estate is just as hard).  After discussing with many in the real estate world, I counted the average and learned that most averaged about 6 - 8% on real estate after taxes.  This does not include anything else like Dilip mentions (maintenance, insurance, etc).  For those who want to avoid that route, you can buy some companies that invest in real estate or REIT funds like Dilip mentions.  However, they are also susceptible to the problems mentioned above this. In terms of other investment opportunities like stocks or funds, think about businesses that will always be around and will always be needed.  We won't outgrow our need for real estate, but we won't outgrow our need for food or tangible goods either.  You can diversify into these companies along with real estate or buy a general mutual fund. Finally, one of your best investments is your career field - software.  Do some extra work on the side and see if you can get an adviser position at a start-up (it's actually not that hard and it will help you build your skill set) or create a site which generates passive revenue (again, not that hard).  One software engineer told me a few years ago that the stock market is a relic of the past and the new passive income would be generated by businesses that had tools which did all the work through automation (think of a smart phone application that you build once, yet continues to generate revenue).  This was right before the crash, and after it, everyone talked about another \"lost decade.\"  While it does require extra work initially, like all things software related, you'll be discovering tools in programming that you can use again and again in other applications - meaning your first one may be the most difficult. All it takes in this case is one really good idea ..."}
{"text": "Does the Black-Scholes Model apply to American Style options? A minor tangent. One can claim the S&P has a mean return of say 10%, and standard deviation of say 14% or so, but when you run with that, you find that the actual returns aren't such a great fit to the standard bell curve. Market anomalies producing the \"100-year flood\" far more often than predicted over even a 20 year period. This just means that the model doesn't reflect reality at the tails, even if the +/- 2 standard deviations look pretty. This goes for the Black-Sholes (I almost abbreviated it to initials, then thought better, I actually like the model) as well. The distinction between American and European is small enough that the precision of the model is wider than the difference of these two option styles. I believe if you look at the model and actual pricing, you can determine the volatility of a given stock by using prices around the strike price, but when you then model the well out of money options, you often find the market creating its own valuation."}
{"text": "Is there anything I can do to prepare myself for the tax consequences of selling investments to buy a house? If you need less than $125k for the downpayment, I recommend you convert your mutual fund shares to their ETF counterparts tax-free: Can I convert conventional Vanguard mutual fund shares to Vanguard   ETFs? Shareholders of Vanguard stock index funds that offer Vanguard ETFs   may convert their conventional shares to Vanguard ETFs of the same   fund. This conversion is generally tax-free, although some brokerage   firms may be unable to convert fractional shares, which could result   in a modest taxable gain. (Four of our bond ETFs\u2014Total Bond Market,   Short-Term Bond, Intermediate-Term Bond, and Long-Term Bond\u2014do not   allow the conversion of bond index fund shares to bond ETF shares of   the same fund; the other eight Vanguard bond ETFs allow conversions.) There is no fee for Vanguard Brokerage clients to convert conventional   shares to Vanguard ETFs of the same fund. Other brokerage providers   may charge a fee for this service. For more information, contact your   brokerage firm, or call 866-499-8473. Once you convert from conventional shares to Vanguard ETFs, you cannot   convert back to conventional shares. Also, conventional shares held   through a 401(k) account cannot be converted to Vanguard ETFs. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/content/Funds/FundsVIPERWhatAreVIPERSharesJSP.jsp Withdraw the money you need as a margin loan, buy the house, get a second mortgage of $125k, take the proceeds from the second mortgage and pay back the margin loan. Even if you have short term credit funds, it'd still be wiser to lever up the house completely as long as you're not overpaying or in a bubble area, considering your ample personal investments and the combined rate of return of the house and the funds exceeding the mortgage interest rate.  Also, mortgage interest is tax deductible while margin interest isn't, pushing the net return even higher. $125k Generally, I recommend this figure to you because the biggest S&P collapse since the recession took off about 50% from the top.  If you borrow $125k on margin, and the total value of the funds drop 50%, you shouldn't suffer margin calls. I assumed that you were more or less invested in the S&P on average (as most modern \"asset allocations\" basically recommend a back-door S&P as a mix of credit assets, managed futures, and small caps average the S&P). Second mortgage Yes, you will have two loans that you're paying interest on. You've traded having less invested in securities & a capital gains tax bill for more liabilities, interest payments, interest deductions, more invested in securities, a higher combined rate of return. If you have $500k set aside in securities and want $500k in real estate, this is more than safe for you as you will most likely have a combined rate of return of ~5% on $500k with interest on $500k at ~3.5%.  If you're in small cap value, you'll probably be grossing ~15% on $500k. You definitely need to secure your labor income with supplementary insurance.  Start a new question if you need a model for that. Secure real estate with securities A local bank would be more likely to do this than a major one, but if you secure the house with the investment account with special provisions like giving them copies of your monthly statements, etc, you might even get a lower rate on your mortgage considering how over-secured the loan would be. You might even be able to wrap it up without a down payment in one loan if it's still legal.  Mortgage regulations have changed a lot since the housing crash."}
{"text": "Question about being a resident This sort of involves personal finance, and sort of not. But it's an interesting question, so let's call it on topic? Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends who's asking. If you're trying to qualify for in-state tuition, for example, you need to have been in state for a certain amount of time. For tax purposes, the first year you move to a new state you need to file part-time resident returns in your previous and current state of residency"}
{"text": "Weekly budgets based on (a variable) monthly budget If you know, approximately, the minimum he would get in a month, his budget should be planned based on this amount. In months where he gets more than this, the excess should be put aside. In really bad months where the income drops below the expected minimum, he can use the money put aside. After a year of putting money aside, he can plan to use and budget this for any other expenses."}
{"text": "How do annual risks translate into long-term risks? The short answer is the annualised volatility over twenty years should be pretty much the same as the annualised volatility over five years. For independent, identically distributed returns the volatility scales proportionally. So for any number of monthly returns T, setting the annualization factor m = 12 annualises the volatility.  It should be the same for all time scales.  However, note the discussion here: https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/7496/7178 Scaling volatility [like this] only is mathematically correct when the   underlying price model is driven by Geometric Brownian motion which   implies that prices are log normally distributed and returns are   normally distributed. Particularly the comment: \"its a well known fact that volatility is overestimated when scaled over long periods of time without a change of model to estimate such \"long-term\" volatility.\" Now, a demonstration.  I have modelled 12,000 monthly returns with mean = 3% and standard deviation = 2, so the annualised volatility should be Sqrt(12) * 2 = 6.9282.   Calculating annualised volatility for return sequences of various lengths (3, 6, 12, 60 months etc.) reveals an inaccuracy for shorter sequences.  The five-year sequence average got closest to the theoretically expected figure (6.9282), and, as the commenter noted \"volatility is [slightly] overestimated when scaled over long periods of time\". Annualised volatility for varying return sequence lengths  Edit re. comment Reinvesting returns does not affect the volatility much.  For instance, comparing some data I have handy, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Capital Returns (CR) versus Net Returns (NR).  The return differences are somewhat smoothed, 0.1% each month, 0.25% every third month.  More erratic dividend reinvestment would increase the volatility."}
{"text": "Fractional Reserve Banking and Insolvency It certainly is possible for a run on the bank to drive it into insolvency.  And yes, if the bank makes some bad loans, it can magnify the problem. Generally, this does not happen, though.  Remember that banks usually have lots of customers, and people are depositing money and making mortgage payments every day, so there is usually enough on-hand to cover average banking withdrawl activity, regardless of any bad loans they have outstanding. Banks have lots of historical data to know what the average withdrawl demands are for a given day.  They also have risk models to predict the likelihood of their loans going into default.  A bank will generally use this information to strike a healthy balance between profit-making activity (e.g. issuing loans), and satisfying its account holders. In the event of a major withdrawl demand, there are some protections in place to guard against insolvency. There are regulations that specify a Reserve Requirement.  The bank must keep a certain amount of money on hand, so they can't take huge risks by loaning out too much money all at once.  Regulators can tweak this requirement over time to reflect the current economic situation. If a bank does run into trouble, it can take out a short-term loan.  Either from another bank, or from the central bank (e.g. the US Federal Reserve).  Banks don't want to pay interest on loans any more than you do, so if they are regularly borrowing money, they will adjust thier cash reserves accordingly. If all else fails and the bank can't meet its obligations (e.g. the Fed loan fell through), the bank has an insurance policy to make sure the account holders get paid.  In the US, this is what the FDIC is for.  Worst case, the bank goes under, but your money is safe. These protections have worked pretty well for many decades.  However, during the recent financial crisis, all three of these protections were under heavy strain.  So, one of the things banking regulators did was to put the major banks through stress tests to make sure they could handle several bad financial events without collapsing.  These tests showed that some banks didn't have enough money in reserve.  (Not long after, banks started to increase fees and credit card rates to raise this additional capital.) Keep in mind that if banks were unable to use the deposited money (loan it out, invest it, etc), the current financial landscape would change considerably."}
{"text": "What part of buying a house would make my net worth go down? You can look at buying a house as being a long term investment in not paying rent.   In the short time there are costs to buying (legal, taxes, etc).   This depends on only buying house of the size/location you need e.g. no better then what you would have rented. House buying tent to work out best when there is high inflation, as the rent you would otherwise be paying goes up with  inflation \u2013 provided you can live with the short term pain of high interest rates."}
{"text": "How to make money from a downward European market? If you want to make money while European equities markets are crashing and the Euro itself is devaluing: None of these strategies are to be taken lightly. All involve risk. There are probably numerous ways that you can lose even though it seems like you should win. Transaction fees could eat your profits, especially if you have only a small amount of capital to invest with. The worst part is that they all involve timing. If you think the crash is coming next week, you could, say, buy a bunch of puts. But if the crash doesn't come for another 6 months, all of your puts are going to expire worthless and you've lost all of your capital. Even worse, if you sell short an index ETF this week in advance of next week's impending crash, and some rescue package arrives over the weekend, equity prices could spike at the beginning of the week and you'd be screwed."}
{"text": "Is it inadvisable to leave a Roth IRA to charity upon death? You need to keep in mind that there's an exemption amount of more than $5M (five million) dollars for estate tax. Unless you used all of it for gifts during your life time, it will more than cover all of your $70K estate, so there's no need in any additional planning. As to Roth vs Traditional IRA - if you want to leave something to your siblings, leave them the Roth. Why would you give the taxable income to your siblings when you can give them the nontaxable one? Charities are tax exempt anyway."}
{"text": "How to register LLC in the US from India? [duplicate] Wyoming is a good state for this. It is inexpensive and annual compliance is minimal. Although Delaware has the best advertising campaign, so people know about it, the reality is  that there are over 50 states/jurisdictions in the United States with their own competitive incorporation laws to attract investment (as well as their own legislative bodies that change those laws), so you just have to read the laws to find a state that is favorable for you. What I mean is that whatever Delaware does to get in the news about its easy business laws, has been mimicked and done even better by other states by this point in time. And regarding Delaware's Chancery Court, all other states in the union can also lean on Delaware case law, so this perk is not unique to Delaware. Wyoming is cheaper than Delaware for nominal presence in the United States, requires less information then Delaware, and is also tax free. A \"registered agent\" can get you set up and you can find one to help you with the address dilemma. This should only cost $99 - $200 over the state fees. An LLC does not need to have an address in the United States, but many registered agents will let you use their address, just ask. Many kinds of businesses still require a bank account for domestic and global trade. Many don't require any financial intermediary any more to receive payments. But if you do need this, then opening a bank account in the United States will be more difficult. Again, the registered agent or lawyer can get a Tax Identification Number for you from the IRS, and this will be necessary to open a US bank account.  But it is more likely that you will need an employee or nominee director in the United States to go in person to a bank and open an account. This person needs to be mentioned in the Operating Agreement or other official form on the incorporation documents. They will simply walk into a bank with your articles of incorporation and operating agreement showing that they are authorized to act on behalf of the entity and open a bank account. They then resign, and this is a private document between the LLC and the employee. But you will be able to receive and accept payments and access the global financial system now. A lot of multinational entities set up subsidiaries in a number of countries this way."}
{"text": "Do I have to repay the First-Time Homebuyers tax credit if I refinance? No. As long as you live in the house for 3 years, it's yours to keep. Financing has nothing to do with that."}
{"text": "Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price Let me get this straight. I would stand my ground. Your son negotiated in good faith. Either they messed up, or they are dishonest. Either way your son wasn't the one supposed to know all the internal rules. I don't think it matters if they cashed the check or not. I would tell them if they have cashed it, that is even more evidence the deal was finalized. But even if they they didn't cash it, it only proves they are very disorganized. If for some reason your son feels forced to redo the deal, have him start the negotiations way below the price that was agreed to.  If the deal for some strange reason gets voided don't let him agree to some sort of restocking fee."}
{"text": "Do people tend to spend less when using cash than credit cards? Psychology Today had an interesting article from July 11, 2016, in which they go through the psychological aspects of using cash vs. a credit card. This article cites a 2008 paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied that found: \u201cthe more transparent the payment outflow, the greater the aversion to spending or higher the \u2018pain of paying\u2019 \u2026leading to less transparent payment modes such as credit cards and gift cards (vs. cash) being more easily spent or treated as play or \u2018monopoly money.\u2019\u201d The article cites a number of other studies that are of interest on this topic as well."}
{"text": "Any difference between buying a few shares of expensive stock or a bunch of cheap stock I was thinking that the value of the stock is the value of the stock...the actual number of shares really doesn't matter, but I'm not sure. You're correct.  Share price is meaningless.   Google is $700 per share, Apple is $100 per share, that doesn't say anything about either company and/or whether or not one is a better investment over the other. You should not evaluate an investment decision on price of a share.  Look at the books decide if the company is worth owning, then decide if it's worth owning at it's current price."}
{"text": "What exactly is a \u201cderivative\u201d? A derivative is a financial instrument of a special kind, the kind \u201cwhose price depends on, or is derived from, another asset\u201d.  This definition is from John Hull, Options, Futures and Other Derivatives \u2013 a book definitely worth to own if you are curious about this, you can easily find old copies for a few dollars. The first point is that a derivative is a financial instrument, like credits, or insurances, the second point is that its price depends closely from the price of something else, the mentioned asset. In most cases derivatives can be understood as financial insurances against some risk bound to the asset. In the sequel I give a small list of derivatives and highlight the assets and the risk they can be bound to.  And first, let me point out that the definition is (marginally) wrong because some derivatives depend on things which are not assets, nor do they have a price, like temperature, sunlight, or even your own life in the case of mortgages.  But before going in this list, let me go through the remaining points of your question. What is the basic idea and concept behind a derivative? As already noted, in most cases, a derivative can be understood as a financial insurance compensating from a risk of some sort.  In a classical insurance contract, one party of the contract is an insurance company, but in the broader case of a derivative, that counterparty can be pretty anything: an insurance, a bank, a government, a large company, and most probably market makers. How is it really used, and how does this deviate from the first point? Briefly, how does is it affecting people, and how is it causing problems? An important point with derivatives is that it can be arbitrarily complicated to compute their prices.  Actually what is hidden in the attempt of giving a definition for derivatives, is that they are products whose price Y is a measurable function of one or several random variables X_1, X_2, \u2026 X_n on which we can use the theory of arbitrage pricing to get hints on the actual price Y of the asset \u2013 this is what the depends on means in technical terms.  In the most favorable case, we obtain an easy formula linking Y to the X_is which tells us what is the price of our financial instrument. But in practice, it can be very difficult, if at all possible, to determine a price for derivatives. This has two implications: Persons possessing sophisticated techniques to compute the price of derivatives have a strategic advantage on derivatives market, in comparison to less advanced actors on the market. Organisation owning assets they cannot price cannot compute their bilan anymore, so that they cannot know for sure their financial situation. They are somehow playing roulette. But wait, if derivatives are insurances they should help to mitigate some financial risk, which precisely means that they should help their owners to more accurately see their financial situation! How is this not a contradiction? Some persons with sophisticated techniques to compute the price of derivatives are actually selling complicated derivatives to less knowledgeable persons.  For instance, many communes in France and Germany have contracted credits whose reimbursements have a fixed interest part, like in a classical credit, and a variable interest part whose rate is computed against a complicated formula involving the value of the Swiss frank at each quarter starting from the inception of the credit.  (So, for a 25 years running credit of theis type, the price Y of the credit at its inception depends on 100 Xs, which are the uncertain prices for the Swiss frank each quarter of the 25 next years.)  Some of these communes can be quite small, with 5.000 inhabitants, and needless to say, do not have the required expertise to analyse the risks bound to such instruments, which in that special case led the court call the credit a swindling and to cancel the credit.  But what chain of events leads a 5.000 inhabitants city in France to own a credit whose reimbursements depends on the Swiss frank?  After the credit crunch in 2007 and the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008, it has begun to be very hard to organise funding, which basically means to conclude credits running long in time on large amounts of money.  So, the municipality needs a 25 years credit of 10.000.000 EUROS and goes to its communal bank.  The communal bank has hundreds or thousands of municipalities looking for credits and needs itself a financing.  So the communal bank goes to one of the five largest financial institutions in the world, which insists on selling a huge credit whose reimbursements have a variable part depending on hundred of values the Swiss frank will have in the 25 next years. Since the the big bank has better computation techniques than the small bank it makes a big profit.  Since the small bank has no idea, how to compute the correct price of the credit it bought, it cuts this in pieces and sell it in the same form to the various communes it works with.  If we were to attribute this kind of intentions to the largest five banks, we could ask about the possibility that they designed the credit to take advantage of the primitive evaluation methods of the small bank. We could also ask if they organised a cartel to force communal banks to buy their bermudean snowballs. And we could also ask, if they are so influent that they eventually can manipulate the Swiss frank to secure an even higher profit.  But I will not go into this.  To the best of my understanding, the subprime crisis is a play along the same plot, with different actors, but I know this latter subject only by what I could read in French newspapers. So much for the \u201cHow is it causing problems?\u201d part. What is some of the terminology in relation to derivatives (and   there meanings of course)? Answering this question is basically the purpose of the 7 first chapters of the book by Hull, along with deriving some important mathematical principles.  And I will not copy these seven chapters here! How would someone get started dealing in derivatives (I'm playing a     realistic stock market simulation, so it doesn't matter if your     answer to this costs me money)? If you ask the question, I understand that you are not a professional, so that your are actually trying to become the one that has money and zero knowledge in the play I outlined above. I would recommand not doing this.  That said, if you have a good mathematical background and can program well, once you are confindent with the books of Hull and Joshi, you can have fun implementing various market models and implementing trading strategies. Once you are confident with this, you can also read the articles on quantitative finance on arXiv.org. And once you are done with this, you can decide for yourself if you want to play the same market as the guys writing these articles. (And yes, even for the simplest options, they have better models than you have and will systematically outperform you in the long run, even if some random successes will give you the feeling that you do well and could do better.) (indeed, I've made it a personal goal to somehow lose every last cent of my money) You know your weapons! :) Two parties agree today on a price for one to deliver a commodity to the other at some future instant.  This is a classical future contract, it can be modified in every imaginable way, usually by embedding options.  For instance one party could have the option to choose between different delivery points or delivery days. Two parties write today a contract allowing the one party to buy at some future time a commodity to the the second party.  The price is written today, as part of the contract.  (There is the corresponding option entitling the owner to sell something.)  Unlike the future contract, only one party can be obliged to do something, the other jas a right but no obligation. If you buy and option, your are buying some sort of insurance against a change of price on some asset. This is the most familiar to anybody.  Credits can come in many different flavours, especially the formula to compute interests, or also embed options.  Common options are early settlement options or restructuration options. While this is not completely inutitive, the credit works like an insurance.  This is most easily understood from the side of the organisation lending the money, that speculates that the ratio of creanciers going bankrupt will be low enough for her to make profit, just like a fire insurance company speculates that the ratio of fire accidents will be low enough for her to make a profit. This is like a mortgage on a financial institution.  Two parties agree that one will recive an upfront today and give a compensation to the second one if some third party defaults. Here this is an explicit insurance against the unfortuante event, where a creancier goes bankrupt. One finds here more or less standard options on electricity. But electricity have delicious particularities as it can practically not be stored, and fallout is also (usually) avoided. As for classical options, these are insurances against price moves. A swap is like two complementary credits on the same amount of money, so that it ends up in the two parties not actually exchanging the credit nominal and only paying interest one to the other \u2014 which makes only sense if these interests are computed with different formulas. Typical example are fixed rate vs. EURIBOR on some given maturity, which we interpret as an insurance against fluctuations of the EURIBOR, or a fixed rate vs. the exchange ratio between two currencies, which we interpret as an insurance against the two currencies decorrelating. Swaps are the richest and the most generic category of financial derivatives.  The off-the-counter market features very imaginative, very customised insurance products. The most basic form is the insurance against drought, but you can image different dangers, and once you have it you can put it in options, in a swap, etc.  For instance, a restaurant with a terrasse could enter in a weather insurance, paying each year a fixed amount of money and becoming in return an amount of money based on the amount of rainy day in a year. Actually, this list is virtually without limits!"}
{"text": "What happens to the original funds when a certified bank check is not cashed? The answer probably varies with local law, and you haven't said where you're located. In most or all US states, it appears that after some statutory length of time, the bank would transfer the money to the state government, where it would be held indefinitely as \"unclaimed property\" in the name of the recipient (technically, the payee, the person to whom the check is made payable).  This process is called escheatment.  Most states publish a list of all unclaimed property, so at some later date the payee could find their name on this list, and realize they were entitled to the funds.  There would then be a process by which the payee could claim the funds from the state.   Usually the state keeps any interest earned on the money. As far as I know, there typically wouldn't be any way for you, the person who originated the payment, to collect the money after escheatment.  (Before escheatment, if you have the uncashed check in your possession, you can usually return it to the bank and have it refunded to you.) I had trouble finding an authoritative source explaining this, but a number of informal sources (found by Googling \"cashier check escheatment\") seem to agree that this is generally how it works.  Here is the web site for a law firm, saying that in California an uncashed cashier's check escheats to the state after 3 years. Until escheatment occurs, the recipient can cash the check at any time.  I don't think that cashier's checks become \"stale\" like personal checks do, and there isn't any situation in which the funds would automatically revert to you."}
{"text": "Shares; are they really only for the rich/investors? Small purchases will have a disproportionate expense for commissions. Even a $5 trade fee is 5% on a $100 purchase. So on one hand, it's common to advise individuals just starting out to use mutual funds, specifically index funds with low fees. On the flip side, holding stocks has no annual fee, and if you are buying for the long term, you may still be better off with an eye toward cost, and learn over time.  In theory, an individual stands a better chance to beat the experts for a number of reasons, no shareholders to answer to, and the ability to purchase without any disclosure, among them. In reality, most investor lag the average by such a wide margin, they'd be best off indexing and staying in for the long term."}
{"text": "How long does it take for money to transfer into a mastercard? In a nutshell, as long as they (Sparkasse) choose to. I work with banks where it happens the moment I submit the transaction (so the next screen already shows the new totals), and I work with banks that make it take 3 days. In the past, Sparkasse and Raifeissenkassen were especially famous to take a looong time ('Wir nehmen mehr als Geld und Zinsen...' - they supposedly work with the money inbetween, as it is gone from the source account but not arrived in the target account yet); that might have changed (or not). Probably Sparkasse has a statement in their fineprint on how long they make it take. I would expect one business day in today's environment, but I didn't look it up."}
{"text": "Does borrowing from my 401(k) make sense in my specific circumstance? I completely agree with Pete that a 401(k) loan is not the answer, but I have an alternate proposal: Reduce your 401(k) contribution down to the 4% that you get a match on.  If you are cash poor now and have debts to be cleaned up, those need to be addressed before retirement savings.  You'll have plenty of time to make up the lost savings after you get the debts paid off.   If your company matches 50% (meaning you have to contribute 8% to get the 4% match), then consider temporarily stopping your 401(k) altogether. A 100% match is very hard to give up, but a 50% match is less difficult.  You have plenty of years left ahead of you to make up the lost match.  Plus, the pain of knowing you're leaving money on the table will incentivize you to get the loans paid as quickly as possible.  It seems to me that I would be reducing middle to high interest debt while also saving myself $150 per month.  No, you'd be deferring $150 per month for an additional two years, and not reducing debt at all, just moving it to a different lender. Interest rate is not your problem.  Right now you're paying less than $30 per month in interest on these 3 loans and about $270 in principal, and at the current rate should have them paid off in about 2 years.  You're wanting to extend these loans to 4 years by borrowing from your retirement savings.   I would buckle down, reduce expenses wherever possible (cable? cell phone? coffee? movies? restaurants?) until you get these debts paid off.  You make $70,000 per year, or almost $6,000 per month.  I bet if you try hard enough you can come up with $1,100 fairly quickly. Then the next $1,200 should come twice as fast. Then attack the next $4,000. (You can argue whether the $1,200 should come first because of the interest rate, but in the end it doesn't matter - either one should be paid off very quickly, so the interest saved is negligible) Maybe you can get one of them paid off, get yourself some breathing room, then loosen up a little bit, but extending the pain for an additional two years is not wise. Some more drastic measures:"}
{"text": "Does FIFO cost basis applies across multiple accounts? To sum up: My question came from misunderstanding what cost basis applies to. Now I get it that it applies to stocks as physical entities. Consider a chain of buys of 40 stock A with prices $1-$4-$10-$15 (qty 10 each time) then IRS wants to know exactly which stock I am selling. And when I transfer stocks to different account, that cost basis transfers with them. Cost basis is included in transfers, so that removes ambiguity which stock is being sold on the original account. In the example above, cost basis of 20 stocks moved to a new account would probably be $1 x 10 and $4 x 10, i.e. FIFO also applies to transfers."}
{"text": "Student loan payments and opportunity costs I'll use similar logic to Dave Ramsey to answer this question because this is a popular question when we're talking about paying off any debt early.  Also, consider this tweet and what it means for student loans - to you, they're debt, to the government, they're assets. If you had no debt at all and enough financial assets to cover the cost, would you borrow money at [interest rate] to obtain a degree?  Put it in the housing way, if you paid off your home, would you pull out an equity loan/line for a purchase when you have enough money in savings?  I can't answer the question for you or anyone else, as you can probably find many people who will see benefits to either. I can tell you two observations I've made about this question (it comes a lot with housing) over time.  First, it tends to come up a lot when stocks are in a bubble to the point where people begin to consider borrowing from 0% interest rate credit cards to buy stocks (or float bills for a while).  How quickly people forget what it feels (and looks like) when you see your financial assets drop 50-60%!  It's not Wall Street that's greedy, it's most average investors.  Second, people asking this question generally overlook the behavior behind the action; as Carnegie said, \"Concentration is the key to wealth\" and concentrating your financial energy on something, instead of throwing it all over the place, can simplify your life.  This is one reason why lottery winners don't keep their winnings: their financial behavior was rotten before winning, and simply getting a lot of money seldom changes behavior.  Even if you get paid a lot or little, that's irrelevant to success because success requires behavior and when you master the behavior everything else (like money, happiness, peace of mind, etc) follows."}
{"text": "what is the best way of investment which gives returns forever? What is the best way that I can invest money so that I can always get   returns? If you want something that doesn't require any work on your end, consider having a fee-only financial planner make a plan so that your investments can be automated to generate a cash flow for you or get an annuity as the other classic choices here as most other choices will require some time commitment in one form or other. Note that for stock investments there could be rare instances like what happened for a week in September in 2001 where the markets were closed for 5 days straight that can be the hiccup in having stocks. Bonds can carry a risk of default where there have been municipalities that defaulted on debt as well as federal governments like Russia in the 1990s. Real estate may be subject to natural disasters or other market forces that may prevent there always being a monthly payment coming as if you own a rental property then what happens if there aren't tenants because there was an evacuation of the area? There may be some insurance products to cover some of these cases though what if there are exceptionally high claims all at once that may have an insurance company go under? Would it be to set up an FD in a bank, to buy land, to buy a rental   house, to buy a field, or maybe to purchase gold?  What investment of your own time do you plan on making here? Both in terms of understanding what your long-term strategy is and then the maintenance of the plan. If you put the money in the bank, are you expecting that the interest rate will always be high enough to give you sufficient cash to live as well as having no financial crisis with the bank or currency you are using? Are there any better investments? You may want to reconsider what assumptions you want to make and what risks you want to accept as there isn't likely to be a single solution here that would be perfect."}
{"text": "Recourse with Credit Card company after victimized by fraud? If the business is being investigated by your state's Attorney General's office, then your first call should be to that office.  They will be able to help you in a few ways, even if they can't explicitly resolve the situation, and they also would undoubtedly appreciate your information to add to their case as well. First, they may be able to tell you how other victims have had their cases resolved, particularly if any went to court on their own.  While they won't be able to provide you with personal information of the other victims unless it is public knowledge (via a court case), the information about how the other victims resolved the cases may be helpful - both to show what to do, and what not to do. Second, they may be able to put you in contact with an attorney who is handling other cases like yours. That may reduce the cost of the attorney (as they'll have already done some of the work), and may mean that the attorney is willing to work with no up front fee on the assumption of winning the case. Third, if there are options for getting your money back without a court case, the AG's office may be able to help provide those as well. If the Attorney General's office is unable to help you, then your best bet is to contact an attorney on your own - look for one who specializes in consumer protection and fraud.  This is the purpose attorneys exist for: pursuing your interests against another's.  Let them do their job.  Do make an effort to find a good, honest attorney; you may find some help on how to do this on law.se if you need it (not actual recommendations, mind you, just help with how you would go about finding one).  It sounds like your claim would be above and beyond the level of a small claims court lawsuit, but verify this in your jurisdiction; if small claims court goes up to $10,000, you may be able to pursue it there on your own - but I would still get some help from an attorney, at least finding out what you would need to win."}
{"text": "Facebook buying WhatsApp for 19 Billion. How are existing shareholders affected? Of course it is a dilution of existing shareholders. When you buy milk in the supermarket - don't you feel your wallet diluted a little? You give some $$$ you get milk in return. You give some shares, you get Watsapp in return. That's why such purchases must go through certain process of approval - board of directors (shareholders' representatives) must approve it, and in some cases (don't know if in this particular) - the whole body of the shareholders vote on the deal."}
{"text": "Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market? Fiduciary They are obligated by the rules of the exchanges they are listed with. Furthermore, there is a strong chance that people running the company also have stock, so it personally benefits them to create higher prices. Finally, maybe they don't care about the prices directly, but by being a good company with a good product or service, they are desirable and that is expressed as a higher stock price.  Not every action is because it will raise the stock price, but because it is good for business which happens to make the stock more valuable."}
{"text": "Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments with Monthly Income The best strategy? Skip the loan. Find a way to invest for a low starting amount via a retirement account (such as a 401K or IRA in the United States) or non-retirement account. Use this money to buy individual stocks or funds. Every month put money from your regular income into this investment account. Then buy more stocks or sell if the conditions change based on what the market is doing, not to meet a loan payment. This helps you because if the price fluctuates you will buy more shares if the price is down; and you will buy fewer shares when the price is up. It also allows you to skip worrying about how to repay the loan. It also means that you not have to pull more money out of savings to make the final loan payments if it doesn't make as much money as you plan. Regarding your math. This is a better understanding of the money flow than the earlier question."}
{"text": "What options exist to make money in the US on a work-restricted visa? Income generated from online sales is not considered \"passive income\", so you need to be authorized to work in the U.S. Those without work authorization can acquire passive income (through investments, lending, competition/contest earnings, etc.) In order to sell products on eBay (the description you've given leads me to believe that this is operated as a business), you need to be authorized to work in the U.S., and register a business. See:"}
{"text": "Placing limit order and stop loss on same stock at same time From your question, I am guessing that you are intending to have stoploss buy order. is the stoploss order is also a buy order ?  As you also said, you seems to limit your losses, I am again guessing that you have short position of the stock, to which you are intending to place a buy limit order and buy stoploss order (stoploss helps when when the price tanks). And also I sense that you intend to place buy limit order at the price below the market price. is that the situation?  If you place two independent orders (one limit buy and one stoploss buy). Please remember that there will be situation where two orders also get executed due to market movements. Add more details to the questions. it helps to understand the situation and others can provide a strategic solution."}
{"text": "Why could rental costs for apartments/houses rise while buying prices can go up and down? I am from Australia, so my answer is based on my experience over here, however it should be similar for the USA. Generally, what determines both the price of houses/apartments and the rents for them is supply and demand. When there is high demand and low supply prices (or rents) generally go up. When there is low demand and high supply prices (or rents) usually go down. What can sometimes happen when house prices go down, is that the demand can drop but so can supply. As the prices drop, developers will make less money on building new houses, so stop building new houses. Other developers can go bankrupt. As less people (including investors) are buying houses, and more people (including investors) try to sell their existing houses, there will be more people looking to rent and less rental properties available to rent. This produces a perfect storm of high demand and low supply of rental properties, causing rents to rise strongly. When the property prices start to go up again as demand increases, there is a shortfall of new properties being built (due to the developers not building during the downturn). At this time developers start to build again but there is a lag time before the new houses can be completed. This lack of supply puts more pressure on both house prices and rents to go up further. Until equilibrium between supply and demand is realised or an oversupply of rental properties exists in the market, rents will continue to rise."}
{"text": "What do I need to do to form an LLC? I know that there are a lot service on the internet helping to form an LLC online with a fee around $49. Is it neccessarry to pay them to have an LLC or I can do that myself? No, you can do it yourself. The $49 is for your convenience, but there's nothing they can do that you wouldn't be able to do on your own. What I need to know and what I need to do before forming an LLC? You need to know that LLC is a legal structure that is designed to provide legal protections. As such, it is prudent to talk to a legal adviser, i.e.: a Virginia-licensed attorney. Is it possible if I hire some employees who living in India? Is the salary for my employees a expense? Do I need to claim this expense? This, I guess, is entirely unrelated to your questions about LLC. Yes, it is possible. The salary you pay your employees is your expense. You need to claim it, otherwise you'd be inflating your earnings which in certain circumstances may constitute fraud. What I need to do to protect my company? For physical protection, you'd probably hire a security guard. If you're talking about legal protections, then again - talk to a lawyer. What can I do to reduce taxes? Vote for a politician that promises to reduce taxes. Most of them never deliver though. Otherwise you can do what everyone else is doing - tax planning. That is - plan ahead your expenses, time your invoices and utilize tax deferral programs etc. Talk to your tax adviser, who should be a EA or a CPA licensed in Virginia. What I need to know after forming an LLC? You'll need to learn what are the filing requirements in your State (annual reports, tax reports, business taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, etc). Most are the same for same proprietors and LLCs, so you probably will not be adding to much extra red-tape. Your attorney and tax adviser will help you with this, but you can also research yourself on the Virginia department of corporations/State department (whichever deals with LLCs)."}
{"text": "What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD? That's what I would do; 1.2 million dollars is a lot of money, but it doesn't make you retired for the rest of your life: There is a big crisis coming soon (my personal prediction) in the next 10-15 years, and when this happens: government will hold your money if you leave them in the bank (allowing you to use just part of it; you will have to prove the reason you need it), government will pass bills to make it very hard to close your investment positions, and government will pass new laws to create new taxes for people with a lot of money (you). To have SOME level of security I would separate my investment in the following: 20% I would buy gold certificates and the real thing (I would put the gold in a safe(s)). 20% I would put in bitcoin (you would have to really study this if you are new to crypto currency in order to be safe). 40% I would invest in regular finance products (bonds, stocks and options, FX). 20% I would keep in the bank for life expenses, specially if you don't want work for money any more. 20% I would invest in startup companies exchanging high risk hoping for a great return. Those percentages might change a little depending how good/confident you become after investing, knowing about business, etc..."}
{"text": "In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house? Which is generally the better option (financially)? Invest. If you can return 7-8% (less than the historical return of the S&P 500) on your money over the course of 25 years this will outperform purchasing personal property. If you WANT to own a house for other reason apart from the financial benefits then buy a house. Will you earn 7-8% on your money, there is a pretty good chance this is no because investors are prone to act emotionally."}
{"text": "Are there index tracking funds that avoid the \u201cbuy high - sell low\u201d problem? There are some index funds out there like this - generally they are called \"equal weight\" funds.  For example, the Rydex S&P Equal-Weight ETF.  Rydex also has several other equal weight sector funds"}
{"text": "Cons of withdrawing money from an Roth IRA account? One \"con\" I have not yet seen mentioned: retirement accounts are generally protected from creditors in a bankruptcy.  There are limits and exceptions, Roth has a 1.2 million dollar limit and can be split by a divorce QDRO for instance.  Link Since it seems you have no income this year, you may may be raiding your IRA for living expenses.   If there is a chance you may declare bankruptcy in the next year or so, consider doing that first and raid the IRA for seed money after."}
{"text": "Is it necessary to pay tax if someone lends me money to put into my mortgage? This answer is specifically for the UK, but one building society has an account set up specifically for this. You actually refer your friend/family member to set up an account and then it can be linked to your mortgage. They don't get any interest for their account as it's all offset against your mortgage. If you then happen to give them a cash gift (up to \u00a3250 or possibly \u00a33000 per year, I can't work out which is the reliable number, as of 2015) then it's all completely above board."}
{"text": "How to reconcile performance with dividends? Just look at the published annualized returns, which are inclusive of distributions and fees. From the Vanguard website: Average annual returns include changes in share price and reinvestment of dividends and capital gains."}
{"text": "Should I be more aggressive in a Roth IRA, 401k, or taxable account? I think you may be drawing the wrong conclusion about why you put what type of investment in a taxable vs. tax-advantaged account. It is not so much about risk, but type of return. If you're investing both tax-advantaged and taxable accounts, you can benefit by putting more tax-inefficient investments inside your tax-advantaged accounts. Some aggressive asset types, like real estate, can throw off a lot of taxable income. If your asset allocation calls for investing in real estate, holding it in a 401k or IRA can allow more of your money to remain invested, rather than having to use it to pay for taxes. And if you're holding in a Roth IRA, you get that tax free. But bonds, a decidedly non-aggressive asset, also throw off a lot of taxable income. You're able to hold them in a tax-advantaged account and not pay taxes on the income until you withdraw it from the account (or tax free in the case of a Roth account.) An aggressive stock fund that is primarily expected to provide returns via price appreciation would do well in a taxable account because there's likely little tax consequence to you until it is sold."}
{"text": "Wash sales + restricted stock in US grant date or vesting date?\nA: For restricted stock, I think the vesting date meets the requirements of the second wash sale trigger from IRS Pub 550: Wash Sales: Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade I base this on these two quotes from IRS Pub 525: Restricted Property: any income from the property, or the right to use the property, is included in your income as additional compensation in the year you receive the income or have the right to use the property. - Until the property becomes substantially vested, it is owned by the person who makes the transfer to you, usually your employer.  So on the vest date: The transfer is taxable Ownership is transferred to you That seems close enough to \"a fully taxable trade\" for me.  Maybe this changes if you pay the tax on the stock on the grant date. See Pub 525: Restricted Property: Choosing to include in income for year of transfer. Obviously, if this is important you should consult your tax advisor.  Technicalities aside, I don't think it passes the sniff test. You're getting salable shares when the restricted stock vests. If you're selling other shares at a loss within 30 days of the vesting date, that smells like a wash sale to me."}
{"text": "Simple and safe way to manage a lot of cash If this money is intended to be used for retirement and depending on how old \"older\" is, it sounds a little risky to be putting too much money in a stock based mutual fund.  While the CDs may seem like crappy investments right now, it is important to down-shift risk as you get closer to retirement because this person won't have as much time to recover if the markets take another big dip."}
{"text": "Personal Tax Return software for Linux? TurboTax online works via Firefox (i.e. it is a cloud-based service.) I don't think any downloaded software is available directly for Linux."}
{"text": "How can I use debt management to improve my financial situation? Debt management plans address unsecured debts like credit cards and personal loans. Debt management usually happens through: \\n1. DIY debt management\\n2. Debt management with a credit counselor\\n3. Debt relief company"}
{"text": "How much should a graduate student attempt to save? First, don't save anything in a tax sheltered vehicle. You will be paying so little tax that there will be essentially no benefit to making the contributions, and you'll pay tax when they come out. Tax free compounding for 40 years is terrific, but start that after you're earning more than a stipend. Second, most people recommend having a month's expenses readily available for emergencies. For you, that would be $1500. If you put $100 a month aside, it will take over a year to have your emergency fund. It's easy to argue that you should pick a higher pace, so as to have your emergency money in place sooner. However, the \"emergencies\" usually cited are things like home repair, car repair, needing to replace your car, and so on. Since you are renting your home and don't have a car, these emergencies aren't going to happen to you. Ask yourself, if your home was destroyed, and you had to replace all your clothes and possessions (including furniture), how much would you need? (Keep in mind any insurance you have.) The only emergency expense I can't guess about is health costs, because I live in Canada. I would be tempted to tell you to get a credit card with a $2000 limit and consider that your emergency fund, just because grad student living is so tight to the bone (been there, and 25 years ago I had $1200 a month, so it must be harder for you now.) If you do manage to save up $1500, and you've really been pinching to do that (walking instead of taking the bus, staying on campus hungry instead of popping out to buy food) let up on yourself when you hit the target. Delaying your graduation by a few months because you're not mentally sharp due to hunger or tiredness will be a far bigger economic hit than not having saved $200 a month for 2 or 3 years. The former is 3-6 months of your new salary, the latter 5-7K. You know what you're likely to earn when you graduate, right?"}
{"text": "Do market shares exhaust? As @ApplePie pointed out in their answer, at any given time there is a finite amount of stock available in a company. One subtlety you may be missing is that there is always a price associated with an offer to buy shares. That is, you don't put in an order simply to buy 1 share of ABC, you put in an order to buy 1 share of ABC for $10. If no one is willing to sell a share of ABC for $10, then your order will go unfilled. This happens millions of times a day as traders try to figure the cheapest price they can get for a stock. Practically speaking, there is always a price at which people are willing to sell their shares. You can put in a market order for 1 share of ABC, which says essentially \"I want one share of ABC, and I will pay whatever the market deems to be the price\". Your broker will find you 1 share, but you may be very unhappy about the price you have to pay! While it's very rare for a market to have nobody willing to sell at any price, it occasionally happens that no one is willing to buy at any price. This causes a market crash, as in the 2007-2008 financial crisis, when suddenly everyone became very suspicious of how much debt the major banks actually held, and for a few days, very few traders were willing to buy bank stocks at any price."}
{"text": "Why do employer contributions count against HSA limits? am I comparing apples and oranges? Yes - different purposes, different laws, different regulations.  One rationale could be that HSA benefits are immediate while retirement benefits are deferred, so the benefit of employer contributions are not felt until retirement and thus do not need as stringent a limit, but that's a complete guess."}
{"text": "Can I rely on my home equity to finance large home repairs? Yes, a HELOC is great for that. I just had my roof done last month (~$15K, \"ugh\") and pretty much every major contractor in my area had a 0% same-as-cash for at least 12 months. So that helps - any balance that I don't bank by 11/15/2015 will be on the HELOC."}
{"text": "Impact of RMD on credit worthiness The actual policy will vary based on the specific bank.  But, if I were in your shoes I'd include RMDs in my stated income for credit card purposes."}
{"text": "Who should pay taxes in my typical case? Once you turn 18 you should open an account in your own name and transfer the assets there. Currently your mom is the one responsible as far as the IRS cares with respect to taxes as it is her name on the account. The taxes due will be based on your mom's tax rate. As a good child you can reimburse your mom for the taxes that she has to on your behalf. Also legally that money currently belongs to her. Any legal judgement against your mom can claim that money and it is not available for using as an asset by you on credit applications and such. A better solution would have been for your mom to open a custodial account in your name. This way the money is still yours (you just don't have control of it until you turn 18). While probably not an issue here, the transferring of money between you and your mom (and then back) is considered a gift by the IRS. If the account was very well funded then you could run into having to deal with the annual gift limit and lifetime gift exclusion. Based on the clarification that the question is in reference to India: while I don't know the particulars of the law in India my advice of transferring the assets when you turn 18 still remains. The main difference that I would see been India and the US would be the gift tax / exclusions. Unless someone else knows otherwise I would still expect the law in India to see the current account as being the property of the mother."}
{"text": "Does high inflation help or hurt companies with huge cash reserves? This is a reasonable question about inflation.  I would just like to note that inflation is nearly zero at the moment.  And interest rates are very low.  For a stable enterprise, borrowing cash is very easy right now.  Naturally, things could change in a year.  But the reason a company like Microsoft (but not just them) might hoard cash right now is that it gives them weight for buying up smaller firms, muscling rivals, and signaling their comfort level with the way things look for them.  It could also be because they are out of ideas for what to invest in, and/or are waiting for conditions to change before making any big decisions.  But with an interest rate at close to zero, and an inflation rate at close to zero, at the moment, inflation is not going to be a consideration in evaluating such a company."}
{"text": "If I have $1000 to invest in penny stocks online, should I diversify risk and invest in many of them or should I invest in just in one? There's a grey area where investing and speculating cross. For some, the stock market, as in 10% long term return with about 14% standard deviation, is too risky. For others, not enough action.  Say you have chosen 10 penny stocks, done your diligence, to the extent possible, and from a few dozen this is the 10 you like. I'd rather put $100 into each of 10 than to put all my eggs in one basket. You'll find that 3 might go up nicely, 3 will flounder around, and 4 will go under. The gambler mentality is if one takes off, you have a profit.  After the crash of '08, buying both GM and Ford at crazy prices actually worked, GM stockholders getting nothing, but Ford surviving and now 7X what I bought it for.  Remember, when you go to vegas, you don't drop all your chips on Red, you play blackjack/craps as long as you can, and get all the free drinks you can."}
{"text": "Why is the fractional-reserve banking not a Ponzi scheme? The fundamental underlying difference between a bank and a Ponzi scheme: When a bank lends money and charges interest, people can do things with that borrowed money which are worth it. (Building factories, starting businesses, or just enjoying the comfort and warmth of a single-family home instead of paying rent). This is why fractional-reserve banking is able to work. People may also do things which do not necessarily turn a financial profit (financing large purchases on a credit card) but are worth it in terms of an expenditure. They may also do stupid things (financing useless purchases on a credit card and wasting their money) or otherwise dispose of the money poorly (the new business fails, the home's value plummets, etc). A Ponzi scheme never really bothered to do useful things with the money. Social Security has been mentioned. Part of social security's setup involves the current population of workers paying the current population of retirees; their own retirements will have to be financed by the next generation. This design is not intrinsically a Ponzi scheme: both the population and the economy ought to remain growing for the intermediate future, so there will be at least as much money (and probably much more) for them to pay those bills. Unlike a Ponzi scheme, the idea that it will continue to attract new money to pay out existing claims is a realistic one. The real questions of its sustainability are a matter of specifics: is it collecting enough money to remain functional in the future, or is it outpacing the growth of the economy and the population?"}
{"text": "Is it possible for me to keep my credit card APR at 0% permanently? Banks don't care that you are responsible cardholder. They care to make money. Interest rates are basically 0% by government policy and the banks charge their responsible cardholders 20% interest rates. Think about that for one second, and realize they really do not care about your ability to avoid paying interest, they only need you to 'slip up' one month during your entire lifetime to make a profit from you. It is in their interest for you to get into a spending habit, from 0% promo rates, so that eventually a frivolous purchase or life changing event causes a balance to stay on the card for over one month."}
{"text": "Buying my first car out of college I've seen this approach to buying/funding cars described in a couple of different ways over the years. Random thoughts:"}
{"text": "Low risk withdrawal from market. Is there a converse to dollar-cost-averaging? When you are a certain age you will be able to tap into your retirement accounts, or start receiving pension and social security funds. In addition you may be faced with required minimum distributions from these accounts.  But even before you get to those points you will generally shift the focus of new funds into the retirement account to be more conservative. Depending on the balances in the various accounts and the size of the pension and social security accounts you may even move invested funds from aggressive to conservative investments. The proper proportion of the many different types of investments and revenue streams is open to much debate. During retirement you will be pulling money out of retirement accounts either to support your standard of living or to meet the required minimum distributions. What to sell will be based on either the tax implications or the required distributions that will still maintain the asset allocation you desire.   If your distributions are driven by the law you will be selling enough to meet a specific required $ figure. You will either spend that money or move it into a low interest savings account or a non-retirement investment account. If trying to meet your standard of living expectations you will be selling funds that allow you to keep your desired asset allocation but still have enough to live on. Again you will be trying to meet a specific $ figure.  Of course you may decide at anytime in retirement to rebalance based on changes to your lifestyle, family obligations, or winning the lottery."}
{"text": "Is stock in a private corporation taxable? This stock is the same as any other, but you need to keep clear in your head that you and your company are now different entities.  You (the person) will pay tax on capital gains and losses when you sell any stock that you hold in your own name.  You'll also owe \"regular\" tax if you draw a salary, etc.  The fact that it may be \"your\" company does not change these things. The company will not recognize a gain by selling stock to raise capital since it's nominally exchanging things of equal value, say $100 in cash for $100 in stock.  In order to sell stock, however, you MIGHT need to register with the SEC depending on how you're going about finding your investors, so keep that in mind."}
{"text": "Are there any disadvantages to DHA Investment Properties? I think the strongest reason against DHA purchases (I don't consider them investments) is points 3 and 5 mentioned above. The resale market is only to other investors that are convinced its a good investment.If you can't sell to owner occupiers, you've just removed the MAJORITY of your potential pool of people to resell to - this has a devastating effect on your ability to make any capital gain from your investment - if you're not chasing capital gain...be sure to understand why! (see article below)The marketing people will have you believe that DHA is a great investment from a yield perspective...maybe so, I haven't crunched the numbers. But in my opinion, I would wonder - who cares?Yield is important to ensure you can hold the property, but if there is no capital growth and you can't sell it for a profit or release some equity to buy the next investment, then you've just put a massive road block in your wealth building path.I am at the asset accumulation phase of my investing journey, so my opinion is skewed towards capital growth investments. Unless you have a sizable equity base already, in my opinion $4-5 Million in debt free assets, then you should be looking for capital growth assets...not high yield.This article from Your Investment Property magazine, although now dated, gives a good example to illustrate my point on why capital growth is the sensible strategy during the asset building phase of your wealth creation journey: Why capital growth is still king  I think the strongest reason against DHA purchases (I don't consider them investments) is points 3 and 5 mentioned above.  The resale market is only to other investors that are convinced its a good investment. If you can't sell to owner occupiers, you've just removed the MAJORITY of your potential pool of people to resell to - this has a devastating effect on your ability to make any capital gain from your investment - if you're not chasing capital gain...be sure to understand why! (see article below) The marketing people will have you believe that DHA is a great investment from a yield perspective...maybe so, I haven't crunched the numbers. But in my opinion, I would wonder - who cares? Yield is important to ensure you can hold the property, but if there is no capital growth and you can't sell it for a profit or release some equity to buy the next investment, then you've just put a massive road block in your wealth building path. I am at the asset accumulation phase of my investing journey, so my opinion is skewed towards capital growth investments. Unless you have a sizable equity base already, in my opinion $4-5 Million in debt free assets, then you should be looking for capital growth assets...not high yield. This article from Your Investment Property magazine, although now dated, gives a good example to illustrate my point on why capital growth is the sensible strategy during the asset building phase of your wealth creation journey: Why capital growth is still king"}
{"text": "Should I pay off my mortgage, begin retirement savings, or build my emergency fund? 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."}
{"text": "My university has tranfered me money by mistake, and wants me to transfer it back Confirming whether the payment was an error The simplest method is to confirm manually with the University whether the payment was a mistake and satisfy that between yourselves. If you're concerned it's fraudulant, I recommend calling the University finance office on a phone number you find on their website, or call one of the people you know. Reversing the payment To formally reverse the payment, I'd check your Product Disclosure Statement on your account with the bank. There's almost always a fee involved where a payment is reversed. It's probably easiest to just issue the payment back to the university to an agreed BSB/Account Number."}
{"text": "Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage? This answer is based on Australian tax, which is significantly different. I only offer it in case others want to compare situations. In Australia, a popular tax reduction technique is \"Negative Gearing\". Borrow from a bank, buy an investment property. If the income frome the new property is not enough to cover interest payments (plus maintenance etc) then the excess each year is a capital loss - which you claim each year, as an offset to your income (ie. pay less tax). By the time you reach retirement, the idea is to have paid off the mortgage. You then live off the revenue stream in retirement, or sell the property for a (taxed) lump sum."}
{"text": "What should I do with my $10K windfall, given these options? I've been listening to Dave Ramsey a lot lately, and he encourages (encourage might be too light of a word for him) this priority list for budgeting: I would strongly advise you to tackle this list before you start to think about any sizable \"fun\" spending.  If you don't have #1, set that aside first. The options you mentioned: New roof: You should ask yourself \"what is the potential cost of not getting a new roof?\" If you can save up for it a little at a time, while putting most of the rest of your money to paying off debt, that's what I would do.  Unless, of course, there is damage or risk of damage to your house by not doing it now. Then, you need to do the same measurement (of doing the roof now) against the goal of saving three to six months of expenses.  Especially in your case, with your mortgage underwater, you want to be sure you are prepared should anything happen (for example, losing a job, and potentially being forced to move for a new job). Cars/student loan: (Refer to #3 above \u2014 in other words, yes)."}
{"text": "Does doing your \u201cresearch\u201d/\u201chomework\u201d on stocks make any sense? TL;DR: Sure, \"do your own homework\" is sometimes a cop out. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do our homework. I agree that in many cases this is a cop-out by commentators. However, even if you believe in perfect market efficiency, there is benefit in \"doing your homework\" for many reasons. One of which you already mention in the question: different stocks all with the same \"value\" might have widely ranging risk. Another factor that might vary between stocks is their tax consequences. High dividend stocks might be a better fit for some buyers than others. One stock might be priced at $40 because there is a small chance they might get regulatory approval for a new product. This might make this stock very risky with a 20% of being $150 in 12 months, and a 80% chance of being $20. Another stock might be priced at $40 because the company is a cash cow, declining in revenues but producing a large dividend of $0.40 per quarter. Low risk, but also with some potential tax disadvantages. Another stock might be priced at $40 because it's a high growth stock. This would be less risky than the first example, but more risky than the second example. And the risk would be more generalized, i.e. there wouldn't be one day or one event that would be make or break the stock. In short, even if we assume that the market is pricing everything perfectly, not all stocks are equal and not all stocks are equally appropriate to everyone. Sometimes when we hear an analyst say \"they should have done their homework\" they are really saying \"This was a high risk/high reward stock. They should have known that this had a potential downside.\" And that all assumes that we believe in 100% pure market efficiency. Which many disagree with, at least to some extent. For example, if we instead subscribe to Peter Lynch's theories about \"local knowledge\", we might believe that everyone has some personal fields of expertise where they know more than the experts. A professional stock analyst is going to follow many stocks and many not have technical experience in the field of the company. (This is especially true of small and mid cap stocks.) If you happen to be an expert in LED lighting, it is entirely feasible (at least to me) that you could be able to do a better job of \"doing homework\" on CREE than the analysts. Or if you use a specialized piece of software from a small vendor at work, and you know that the latest version stinks, then you will likely know more than the analyst does. I think it is somewhat akin to going to a doctor. We could say to ourselves \"the doctor is more knowledgeable about me than medicine, I'm just going to do what they tell me to do.\" And 99% of the time, that is the right thing to do. But if we do our \"homework\" anyway, and research the symptoms, diagnoses, and drugs ourselves as well, we can do get benefits. Sometimes we just can express our preferences amongst equal solutions. Sometimes we can ask smarter questions. And sometimes we have some piece of knowledge that the doctor doesn't have and can actually make an important discovery they didn't know. (And, just like investing, sometimes we can also have just enough knowledge to be dangerous and do ourselves harm if we go against the advice of the professionals.)"}
{"text": "Is there any sort of tax write off for unfulfilled pay checks? Unfortunately, no.  Think about the numbers. If you work for me, and I pay you $1000, you owe tax on $1000. If you still work, but I don't pay you, you have no tax due, but there's no benefit for you to collect for my stealing your time."}
{"text": "Filing 1040-NR when I have been outside the US the entire year? Yes, you can still file a 1040nr. You are a nonresident alien and were:  engaged in a trade or business in the United States Normally, assuming your withholding was correct, you would get a minimal amount back. Income earned in the US is definitely Effectively Connected Income and is   taxed at the graduated rates that apply to U.S. citizens and resident aliens. However, there is a tax treaty between US and India, and it suggests that you would be taxed on the entirety of the income by India. This suggests to me that you would get everything that was withheld back."}
{"text": "What considerations are there for making investments on behalf of a friend? There's a sizable community of people and fiscal advisers who advocate not managing the money at all. Set your passive investor friend with automatic bank draft into a simple three/four fund portfolio of low cost index funds and never never ever trade.  See https://www.bogleheads.org/RecommendedReading.php You might be able to beat the stock market for a few years, but probably not over the long term.  Most mutual fund professionals don't.  Playing with your own money is one thing: playing with other people's money is a whole other ball game."}
{"text": "Borrowing money to buy shares for cashflow? Buying individual/small basket of high dividend shares is exposing you to 50%+ and very fast potential downswings in capital/margin calls. There is no free lunch in returns in this respect: nothing that pays enough to help you pay your mortgage at a high rate won\u2019t expose you to a lot of potential volatility. Main issue here looks like you have very poorly performing rental investments you should consider selling or switching up rental usage/how you rent them (moving to shorter term, higher yield lets, ditching any agents/handymen that are taking up capital/try and refinance to lower mortgage rates etc etc). Trying to use leveraged stock returns to pay for poorly performing housing investments is like spraying gasoline all over a fire. Fixing the actual issue in hand first is virtually always the best course of action in these scenarios."}
{"text": "How to rebalance a passive portfolio if I speculate a war is coming? Normally, in a war everybody suffers and the entire economy goes down. Military contractors do better than average, but the average sucks. The way to take advantage of knowing a war is coming is to leave as soon as possible. There are strategic materials that can become valuable in a war, but such investments are generally very specialized and not something an ordinary investor would be in a position to exploit.  The most profitable businesses in war are food, oil, and ammunition."}
{"text": "How to learn about doing technical analysis?  Any suggested programs or tools that teach it? I recall the name Martin Pring. As my fundamental analysis book from grad school was the work of Graham and Dodd titled Security Analysis, Pring was the author of the books I read on technical analysis. If you've not read his work, your education has a ways to go before you hit the tools."}
{"text": "Where can I find historical United States treasury note volume? The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) publishes these and other relevant data on their Statistics page, in the \"Treasury & Agency\" section. The volume spreadsheet contains annual and monthly data with bins for varying maturities. These data only go back as far as January 2001 (in most cases). SIFMA also publishes treasury issuances with monthly data for bills, notes, bonds, etc. going back as far as January 1980. Most of this information comes from the Daily Treasury Statements, so that's another source of specific information that you could aggregate yourself. Somewhere I have a parser for the historical data (since the Treasury doesn't provide it directly; it's only available as daily text files). I'll post it if I can find it. It's buried somewhere at home, I think."}
{"text": "As an American working in the UK, do I have to pay taxes on foreign income? A) a tax treaty probably covers this for the avoidance of double taxation. Tax treaties can be very cryptic and have little precedence clarifying them http://www.irs.gov/businesses/international/article/0,,id=169552,00.html B) I'm going to say NO since the source of your income is going to be US based. But the UK tax laws might also have specific verbage for resident source income. sorry it is an inconclusive answer, but should be some factors to consider and point you in the right direction."}
{"text": "Trouble sticking to a budget when using credit cards for day to day transactions? In your comment in response to this answer, you said that your biggest issue is oversight, which you can do by checking your online bank account regularly. Mint.com looks good but you're in Australia? Easy, check out getpocketbook.com. Using it and love it, helps a lot to track your tracking, and it's a god-send during tax time."}
{"text": "What's the difference between Term and Whole Life insurance? For most people Term is the way to go. I consider life insurance a necessity not an investment. See this article on SmartMoney."}
{"text": "What is the difference between FINRA share volume and NASDAQ share volume? Assuming the data you're referring to is this line: the difference might be related to the different exchanges on which the stock trades.  FINRA could be listing the reported volume from one exchange, while the NASDAQ data might be listing the volume on all exchanges. This is an important distinction because AAV is a Canadian company that is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NYSE. The Q at the end of the line stands for NASDAQ, according to FINRA's codebook for those data. My guess is that the FINRA data is only reporting the volume for the NASDAQ exchange and not the total volume for all exchanges (Toronto, NASDAQ, NYSE, etc.) while the data straight from NASDAQ, oddly enough, is reporting the total volume. However, FINRA could also face reporting discrepancies, since it's a regulatory body and therefore might not have the most up-to-date volume data that the various exchanges can access.  I don't know if it's related or not, but looking at the NASDAQ historical data, it looks like the volume on March 6, the day you're asking about, was much lower than the volume in most of the days immediately before or after it. For all I know, something might have happened that day concerning that particular stock or the market as a whole. I don't remember anything in particular, but you never know."}
{"text": "On what time scales are stock support and resistance levels meaningful? Support and resistance only works as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone trading that stock agrees there's a resistance at so-and-so level, and it is on such-and-such scale, then they will trade accordingly and there will really be a support or resistance. So while you can identify them at any time scale (although as a rule the time scale on which you observed them should be similar to the time scale on which you intend to use them), it's no matter unless that's what all the other traders are thinking as well. Especially if there are multiple possible S/P levels for different time scales, there will be no consensus, and the whole system will break down as one cohort ruins the other group's S/P by not playing along and vice versa. But often fundamentals are expected to dominate in the long run, so if you are thinking of trades longer than a year, support and resistance will likely become meaningless regardless. It's not like that many people can hold the same idea for that long anyhow."}
{"text": "Can a entrepreneur hire a self-employed business owner? Yes. I can by all means start my own company and name myself CEO. If Bill Gates wanted to hire me, I'll take the offer and still be CEO of my own company. Now, whether or not my company makes money and survives is another question.  This is the basis of self-employed individuals who contract out their services."}
{"text": "What is the effect of options expiration on equity pricing? Institutions and market makers tend to try and stay delta neutral, meaning that for every options contract they buy or write, they buy or sell the equivalent underlying asset. This, as a theory, is called max pain, which is more of an observation of this behavior by retail investors. This as a reality is called delta hedging done by market makers and institutional investors. The phenomenom is that many times a stock gets pinned to a very even number at a particular price on options expiration days (like 500.01 or 499.99 by closing bell). At options expiration dates, many options contracts are being closed (instutitions and market makers are typically on the other side of those trades, to keep liquidity), so for every one standard 100 share contract the market maker wrote, they bought 100 shares of the underlying asset, to remain delta neutral. When the contract closes (or get rid of the option) they sell that 100 shares of the underlying asset. At mass volume of options traded, this would cause noticeable downward pressure, similarly for other trades it would cause upward pressure as institutions close their short positions against options they had bought. The result is a pinned stock right above or below an expiration that previously had a lot of open interest. This tends to happen in more liquid stocks, than less liquid ones, to answer that question. As they have more options series and more strike prices. No, this would not be illegal, in the US attempting to \"mark the close\" is supposedly prohibited but this wouldn't count as it, the effect of derivatives on stock prices is far beyond the SEC's current enforcement regime :) although an active area of research"}
{"text": "Why don't banks print their own paper money / bank notes? Who says they don't? In the United Kingdom the Bank of England and the Bank of Scotland print the money. In some other countries (like Hong Kong, Israel, and the US) commercial banks were issuing the currency at some point of time, but now the governments do that. The problem with commercial banks issuing currency is the control. If a bank is allowed to print money - how can the amount of currency be controlled? If it is controlled by the government then the bank will be just a printing press, so what's the point? And since governments now want to control the monetary policy, banks have no reason to just be printing presses for the government, the governments have their own. edit Apparently in Hong Kong it is still the case, as I'm sure it is in some other places in the world as well."}
{"text": "Is this Employee Stock Purchase Plan worth it when adding my student loan into the equation? The closer the contribution is to the December 31st date, the more profitable that specific contribution is, only taking into consideration the 5% discount. On your case, the first contribution that beats your student loans interest rate is the August one, where you get about 9% annual return, the remaining contributions go up from there."}
{"text": "What effect would currency devaluation have on my investments? First, a clarification. No assets are immune to inflation, apart from inflation-indexed securities like TIPS or inflation-indexed gilts (well, if held to maturity, these are at least close). Inflation causes a decline in the future purchasing power of a given dollar1 amount, and it certainly doesn't just affect government bonds, either. Regardless of whether you hold equity, bonds, derivatives, etc., the real value of those assets is declining because of inflation, all else being equal. For example, if I invest $100 in an asset that pays a 10% rate of return over the next year, and I sell my entire position at the end of the year, I have $110 in nominal terms. Inflation affects the real value of this asset regardless of its asset class because those $110 aren't worth as much in a year as they are today, assuming inflation is positive. An easy way to incorporate inflation into your calculations of rate of return is to simply subtract the rate of inflation from your rate of return. Using the previous example with inflation of 3%, you could estimate that although the nominal value of your investment at the end of one year is $110, the real value is $100*(1 + 10% - 3%) = $107. In other words, you only gained $7 of purchasing power, even though you gained $10 in nominal terms. This back-of-the-envelope calculation works for securities that don't pay fixed returns as well. Consider an example retirement portfolio. Say I make a one-time investment of $50,000 today in a portfolio that pays, on average, 8% annually. I plan to retire in 30 years, without making any further contributions (yes, this is an over-simplified example). I calculate that my portfolio will have a value of 50000 * (1 + 0.08)^30, or $503,132. That looks like a nice amount, but how much is it really worth? I don't care how many dollars I have; I care about what I can buy with those dollars.  If I use the same rough estimate of the effect of inflation and use a 8% - 3% = 5% rate of return instead, I get an estimate of what I'll have at retirement, in today's dollars. That allows me to make an easy comparison to my current standard of living, and see if my portfolio is up to scratch. Repeating the calculation with 5% instead of 8% yields 50000 * (1 + 0.05)^30, or $21,6097. As you can see, the amount is significantly different. If I'm accustomed to living off $50,000 a year now, my calculation that doesn't take inflation into account tells me that I'll have over 10 years of living expenses at retirement. The new calculation tells me I'll only have a little over 4 years. Now that I've clarified the basics of inflation, I'll respond to the rest of the answer.  I want to know if I need to be making sure my investments span multiple currencies to protect against a single country's currency failing. As others have pointed out, currency doesn't inflate; prices denominated in that currency inflate. Also, a currency failing is significantly different from a prices denominated in a currency inflating. If you're worried about prices inflating and decreasing the purchasing power of your dollars (which usually occurs in modern economies) then it's a good idea to look for investments and asset allocations that, over time, have outpaced the rate of inflation and that even with the effects of inflation, still give you a high enough rate of return to meet your investment goals in real, inflation-adjusted terms. If you have legitimate reason to worry about your currency failing, perhaps because your country doesn't maintain stable monetary or fiscal policies, there are a few things you can do. First, define what you mean by \"failing.\" Do you mean ceasing to exist, or simply falling in unit purchasing power because of inflation? If it's the latter, see the previous paragraph. If the former, investing in other currencies abroad may be a good idea. Questions about currencies actually failing are quite general, however, and (in my opinion) require significant economic analysis before deciding on a course of action/hedging. I would ask the same question about my home's value against an inflated currency as well. Would it keep the same real value. Your home may or may not keep the same real value over time. In some time periods, average home prices have risen at rates significantly higher than the rate of inflation, in which case on paper, their real value has increased. However, if you need to make substantial investments in your home to keep its price rising at the same rate as inflation, you may actually be losing money because your total investment is higher than what you paid for the house initially. Of course, if you own your home and don't have plans to move, you may not be concerned if its value isn't keeping up with inflation at all times. You're deriving additional satisfaction/utility from it, mainly because it's a place for you to live, and you spend money maintaining it in order to maintain your physical standard of living, not just its price at some future sale date. 1) I use dollars as an example. This applies to all currencies."}
{"text": "How to split stock earnings? If he asked you to invest his money with certain objectives which resulted in you buying specific stocks for him with his money, then sell all the stocks which you bought with his money and the capital and profits to him. You may want to calculate the trading fees that you incurred while buying these specific stocks and taxes from the sale of these stocks, withholding them to over the trading fees that you have already paid and the taxes that you might still need to pay. If you traded with his money no different than yours, then I would think of your investment account as a black box. Calculate the initial money that you both invested at the time you added his capital to the account, calculate how much it all is currently worth, then liquidate and return a percentage equal to that of his initial investment. You can account for trading fees and taxes, subtracting by the same percentage."}
{"text": "How can I save on closing costs when buying a home? As a buyer, one of the easiest ways to save on closing costs is to avoid title insurance.  This will only apply if you are a cash buyer, as a mortgage writer will typically require title insurance.   It is also one of the most ill-advised ways to save money.  You need title insurance.   For the most part, there is really no way to truly save on closing costs.  Wrapping costs into a loan, saving on interest or taxes through timing don't truly save money.  Sometimes you can obtain discounts on closing by using an targeted lender, but that may cost you in higher interest rates.   By paying points on your loan, you may increase your costs at closing in order to save money on interest paid.   Certainly you can't discount required, government imposed fees (like doc stamps).   You may be able to shop around and find a bit lower fees for appraisal, credit reports, title company fees, and title insurance.  However, that is a lot of work for not a lot of return.  Title companies seem to be pretty tight lipped about their fees.   The best yield of your time is to get the other party in the transaction to pay your costs.  The market or local tradition may not allow this.  An additional way to lower your costs is to ask the realtors involved to discount their commissions.  However, they could always say \"no\".   The bottom line is transacting real estate is very expensive."}
{"text": "Why won't my retirement account let me write a \u201ccovered put\u201d? You're correct in your implied point: Selling a cash secured put has less risk (in terms of both volatility and maximum loss) than buying the security outright. However, many brokerages don't allow cash-secured put writing in IRA accounts.   There are three reasons this tends to be the case:"}
{"text": "Paying taxes on dividends even though your capital gains were $0? The issue for you seems to be the sequence of events. Presumably, there will be a gain in the fund. In one year, you have a fund worth $100,000 and the $8500 your netted from the $10,000 dividend. (Dividends are taxed at 15% for most of us. If your taxable income is under $38K single, it's $0) An $8500 net return for the year. Now, if there were no initial dividend, and at the end of a full year, your $100K grew to $110K, and then gave you the $10K dividend, you might not be so unhappy. Even on day 2, you now have a fund worth $90K with a basis of $100K, and the promise of future dividends or cap gains. When you sell, the first $10K of gain from this point will effectively be tax free due to this quick drop.  To directly answer the last few sentences, dividends and cap gains are different. And different still, for the way a fund processes them."}
{"text": "Borrowing money to buy shares for cashflow? Maybe a bit off topic, but I suggest reading \"Rich Dad Poor Dad\" by Robert Kiyosaki. An investment is something that puts money to your pocket. If your properties don't put money to your pocket (and this seems to be the case), then they're not an investment. Instead, they drain money from you pocket. Therefore you should instead turn these \"investments\" into real investments. Make everything to earn some money using them, not to earn money somewhere else to cover the loses they create. If that's not possible, get rid of them and find something that \"puts money into your pocket\"."}
{"text": "Paying for things on credit and immediately paying them off: any help for credit rating? The biggest risk is Credit Utilization rate.  If you have a total of $10,000 in revolving credit (ie: credit card line) and you ever have more than 50% (or 33% to be conservative) on the card at any time then your credit score will be negatively impacted. This will be a negative impact even if you charge it on day one and pay it off in full on day 2.  Doesn't make much sense but credit companies are playing the averages:  on average they find that people who get close to maxing their credit limit are in some sort of financial trouble. You're better off to make small purchases each month, under $100, and pay them off right away.  That will build a better credit history - and score."}
{"text": "Covered call when stock position is at a loss I don't think you understand options. If it expires, you can't write a new call for the same expiration date as it expired that day. Also what if the stock price decreases further to $40 or even more? If you think the stock will move in either way greatly, and you wish to be profit from it, look into straddles."}
{"text": "Why won't my retirement account let me write a \u201ccovered put\u201d? A \"covered put\" of the form of being short, and buying at the strike price if the \"put ... is put\" (excercise), is off the table simply because you can't do shorts in the retirement account. Even if you feel you \"win\" the argument that you're hedged by being short, any broker can say, \"we simply forbid shorts\" and that's that. A \"covered put\" of the form of posting the cash, and spending it to buy at the strike price if the \"put ... is put\" (excercise), might be forbidden by brokerages because, frankly, how do you account for the \"dedicated\" cash? Is it locked down like margin is, or escrow, or what? I don't know offhand how I would address that in my very own firm. Thus, any broker could say, \"we forbid it\" and that's that. The other answers are very interesting in conjunction with this. JoeTaxpayer says, very paraphrased, 'just cuz it's legal doesn't mean we have to offer it.' Jaydles says (again, completely paraphrasing), 'complex stuff for a safe little retirement savings account;' 'difficult to administer' (as I said, how do you account for it); and 'tradition' So maybe look at Scott, per Thorn's answer, LOL. It appears that you can shop around on this issue."}
{"text": "Which student loans to pay off first: Stafford or private? Without knowledge of the special provisions of your loan contract, the one with the highest interest rate should be paid first. Or, if one's fixed payment is much larger than the other, and it is a burden, then it should be paid first, but refinancing may be an option. Socially speaking and possibly even economically since it could affect your reputation, it is probably best to either refinance the cosigned loan or pay that off as rapidly as possible. Economically speaking, I would recommend no prepayment since the asset that is leveraged is your mind which will last many decades, probably exceeding the term of the loan, but some caveats must be handled first: Many would disagree, but I finance the way I play poker: tight-aggressive."}
{"text": "Pros & cons in Hungary of investing retirement savings exclusively in silver? What better alternatives, given my concerns? The points given by DumbCoder are very valid. Diversifying portfolio is always a good idea. Including Metals is also a good idea. Investing in single metal though may not be a good idea.   \u2022Silver is pretty cheap now, hopefully it will be for a while. \u2022Silver is undervalued compared to gold. World reserve ratio is around 1 to 11, while price is around 1 to 60. Both the above are iffy statements. Cheap is relative term ... there are quite a few metals more cheaper than Silver [Copper for example]. Undervalued doesn't make sense. Its a quesiton of demand and supply. Today Industrial use of Silver is more widespread, and its predecting future what would happen. If you are saying Silver will appreciate more than other metals, it again depends on country and time period. There are times when even metals like Copper have given more returns than Silver and Gold. There is also Platinum to consider. In my opinion quite a bit of stuff is put in undervalued ... i.e. comparing reserve ratio to price in absolute isn't right comparing it over relative years is right. What the ratio says is for every 11 gms of silver, there is 1 gm of Gold and the price of this 1 gm is 60 times more than silver. True. And nobody tell is the demand of Silver 60 times more than Gold or 11 times more than Gold. i.e. the consumption. What is also not told is the cost to extract the 11 gms of silver is less than cost of 1 gm of Gold. So the cheapness you are thinking is  not 100% true."}
{"text": "Does the stock market create any sort of value? You are right, it is a Ponzi scheme unless it pays all of the profits as dividends. Here's why: today's millenials are saving a lot less, and instead they choose to be spenders. It's just that their mentality is different. If the trend continues there will be more spenders and less savers.  That means that in 20 years from now, a company might sell more and make more profits, but because there are less investors on the market it will worth less (judging by supply and demand this has to be true).  Doesn't that seem like a disconnect to you guys? Doesn't that just prove that all those profits are not really yours, but instead you're just sitting on the side making bets about them? If I own a company from the point where it goes public and while the value goes up I hold on to it for 50 years. Let's say for 45 years it made tons of profits but never paid a cent in dividend, and then in 5 years it goes out of business. What happened to all the profits they made throughout the 45 years?  If you owned a restaurant that made a profit for 45 years and then went bankrupt you are fine, you took your profits every year because why on earth would you reinvest 100% of the profit forever? But what if you could sell 49.9% of that restaurant on the stock market, get all of that IPO money and still keep all of the profits while claiming that you reinvest it forever? That's exactly what they do! They just buy expensive things for personal use, from fancy cars to private jets, they just write it down as an investment and you can't see what the money was spent on because you are not a majority stakeholder, you have no power. It was not like this forever, companies used to pay all of their profits in dividends and be valued according to that. Not anymore. Now they are just in it for the growth, it will keep growing as long as people keep buying into it, and that's the exact definition of a Ponzi scheme."}
{"text": "Why does the Fed use PCE over CPI? The reason is in your own question. The answer is simple. They use that code to tax the product otherwise it would just be out of pocket expenses."}
{"text": "Why would I vote for an increase in the number of authorized shares? I'll skip the \"authorizing....\" and go right to uses of new shares: Companies need stock as another liquid asset for a variety of purposes, and if not enough stock is available, then may be forced to the open market to acquire, either by exchanging cash or taking on debt to get the cash."}
{"text": "What's a normal personal debt / equity ratio for a highly educated person? What is your biggest wealth building tool?  Income.  If you \"nerf\" your income with payments to banks, cable, credit card debt, car payments, and lattes then you are naturally handicapping your wealth building.  It is sort of like trying to drive home a nail holding a hammer right underneath the head.   Normal is broke, don't be normal. Normal obtains student loans while getting an education.  You don't have to.  You can work part time, or even full time and get a degree. As an example, here is one way to do it in Florida.  Get a job working fast food and get your associates degree using a community college that are cheap.  Then apply for the state troopers.  Go away for about 5 months, earning an income the whole time.  You automatically graduate with a job that pays for state schools.  Take the next three years (or more if you want an advanced degree) to get your bachelors.  Then start your desirable career. What is better to have \"wasted\" approx 1.5 years being a state trooper, or to have a student loan payment for 20 years?  There is not even pressure to obtain employment right after graduation.  BTW, I know someone who is doing exactly what I outlined. Every commercial you watch is geared toward getting you to sign on the line that is dotted, often going into debt to do so.  Car commercials will tell you that you are a bad mom or not a real man if you don't drive the 2015 whatever.   Think differently, throw out your numbers and shoot for zero debt. EDIT:  OP, I have a MS in Comp Sci, and started one in finance.  My wife also has a masters.  We had debt.  We paid that crap off.  Work like a fiend and do the same.  My wife's was significant.  She planned on having her employer pay it off for each year she worked there.  (Like 20% each year or something.)  Guess what, that did not work out!  She went to work somewhere else!  Live like you are still in college and use all that extra money to get rid of your debt.  Student loans are consumer debt."}
{"text": "Any reason to keep IRAs separate? I don't know about keeping different rollover IRAs separate. But I know that there is a reason to keep rollover IRAs separate from other traditional IRAs -- if you want to roll them back into a 401(k) in the future, some 401(k)s only allow funds that were rolled over from a 401(k) originally."}
{"text": "Official site to follow Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway change in investment holdings? The official source is the most recent Form 13F that Berkshire Hathaway, which is  filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission on a quarterly basis .  You can find it through the SEC filing search engine, using BRKA as the ticker symbol. and then looking for the filings marked 13-FR or 13-FR/A (the \"/A\" indicates an amended filing).   As you can see by looking at the 13-F filed for the quarter ending September 30  , the document isn't pretty or necessarily easy to read, hence the popularity of sites such as those that Chad linked to. It is, though, the truly official source from which websites tracking the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio derive their information."}
{"text": "Dealing with Form 1099 Am I required to send form 1099 to non-US citizens who are not even residing in the US? Since they're not required to file US taxes, do I still have to send the form to them? That's tricky. You need to get W8/W9 from them, and act accordingly. You may need to withhold 30% (or different percentage, depending on tax treaty they claim on W8). If you withhold taxes, you also need to file form 1042. I suggest you talk to a tax professional. Is it fine to expose my ITIN (taxpayer identification number) to   individuals or companies who I send the form to them. Since the form   requires me to write my TIN/EIN, what would be the risks of this and   what precautions should be taken to avoid inappropriate/illegal use? No, it is not OK. But if you pay these people directly - you don't have much choice, so deal with it. Get a good insurance for identity theft, and don't transact with people you don't trust. One alternative would be to pay through a payment processor (Paypal or credit cards) - see your next question. I send payments via PayPal and wire transfer. Should I send form   1099-MISC or 1099-K? Paypal is a corporation, so you don't need to send 1099 to Paypal. Whatever Paypal sends to others - it will issue the appropriate forms. Similarly if you use a credit card for payment. When you send money through Paypal - you don't send money directly to your business counterparts. You send money to Paypal."}
{"text": "How to fix Finance::Quote to pull quotes in GnuCash The Yahoo Finance API is no longer available, so Finance::Quote needs to point at something else.  Recent versions of Finance::Quote can use AlphaVantage as a replacement for the Yahoo Finance API, but individual users need to acquire and input an AlphaVantage API key. Pretty decent documentation for how to this is available at the GnuCash wiki. Once you've followed the directions on the wiki and set the API key, you still need to tell each individual security to use AlphaVantage rather than Yahoo Finance: As a warning, I've been having intermittent trouble with AlphaVantage.  From the GnuCash wiki:  Be patient. Alphavantage does not have the resources that Yahoo! did and it is common for quote requests to time out, which GnuCash will present as \"unknown error\". I've certainly been experiencing those errors, though not always."}
{"text": "Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards? The only good reason I find to close cards are: it's a card with an annual fee that you don't need.  No point bleeding money each year. churning rewards.  Open card to get bonus promotion such as \"spend $500 in first 3 months, get $200 bonus\".  Close card and open a year later to do that same bonus again if available.  Many cards don't allow you to do this. making room for newer cards at the same bank.  Example, you have 5 Chase Cards and you want to apply for a 6th.  Chase says you have maximized your credit they will extend you.  You close one of your existing cards to get that new card. I have seen that many banks allow you to shift over some over your existing available credit to your new card without having to close them."}
{"text": "What is the best way to make a bet that a certain stock will go up in the medium term? Specific stock advice isn't permitted on these boards. I'm discussing the process of a call spread with the Apple Jan 13 calls as an example.  In effect, you have $10 to 'bet.' Each bet you'd construct offers a different return (odds). For example, If you bought the $750 call at $37.25, you'd need to look to find what strike has a bid of $27 or higher. The $790 is bid $27.75. So this particular spread is a 4 to 1 bet the stock will close in January over $790, with a $760 break even.  You can pull the number from Yahoo to a spreadsheet to make your own chart of spread costs, but I'll give one more example.  You think it will go over $850, and that strike is now ask $18.85. The highest strike currently listed is $930, and it's bid $10.35. So this spread cost is $850, and a close over $930 returns $8000 or over 9 to 1.  Again, this is not advice, just an analysis of how spreads work. Note, any anomalies in the pricing above is the effect of a particular strike having no trades today, not every strike is active so 'last trade' can be days old.   Note: My answer adds to AlexR's response in that once you used the word bet and showed a desire to make a risky move, options are the answer. You acknowledged you understand the basic concept, but given the contract size of 100 shares, these suggestions are ways to bet under your $1000 limit and profit from the gain in the underlying stock you hope to see."}
{"text": "How hard for US customers make payments to non-resident freelancer by wire transfer? Can you tell me please, is it really hard to make international wire transfer for payment my job and can i resolve this problem without using third party services? This is mostly a barrier, the form at times is quite complicated. For Russia, one has to enter \"Purpose of remittance\" ... at times select intermediate banks, give BIC and other details. This can become unnerving to people who are not used to it.  The other option you can try is set-up a credit card gateway and get funds via cards."}
{"text": "Why is it that stock prices for a company seem to go up after a layoff? If the market believes that the company is overstaffed, then management acknowledging the issue and resolving the problem can result in the price going up.  It can also mean that external events drove the price up, and the bad news was lost in the other issues of the day. Sometimes layoffs are a sign of the company entering a long downward spiral; in other cases it is a sign of the beginning recovery. The layoffs can also be viewed as good news if they weren't as big as some experts feared.  You have to look at the exact situation to understand why news x impacts the companies price."}
{"text": "How can people have such high credit card debts? You must understand that not everyone has or can get credit cards. Consider that those who are in the the lowest 20-30% of income tend to have fewer credit cards (or none), and lower credit debt, although some have quite high credit card debt relative to their income.  So you really aren't comparing the same demographics (the population of all income earners, used to calculate average income, and the population of all credit card debt holders, are not the same groups of people). Once you remove those folks from consideration, then credit card usage may still average higher, but accept that it is unusual for people making less than $20K-30K/year to have much credit card debt. You must understand that wealth and income are two very different (although related) concepts. One must note that there are millions of people in the U.S. who have wealth; they have net assets of over $1M (excluding their homes). Many of those folks have assets greatly exceeding $1M. And although it might seem foolish to carry a large balance on their credit cards, they may have quite low interest rates, and simply find it simpler and more convenient to use credit cards in lieu of personal loans.  Suppose you have $2M in net assets, and want to buy a classic car or a diamond necklace.  Charging $30K and carrying the balance until a dividend check arrives may make sense. Understand also that not everyone makes the same choices, or good choices. Carrying a credit card balance may appear like a poor choice, especially when you are not wealthy, or have lower income. But suppose you have a high credit limit across several cards, and you need to handle a short-term financial challenge (car repair, layoff, medical bills, etc).  You might use the credit card to pay for that purchase, essentially financing an extraordinary event over a longer period of time.  And although having a balance of more than 5-10% of your monthly income may seem foolish to some, it may make sense to others. And some people choose to carry balances of 50% to 100% of their credit limit.  Others realize that keeping their credit utilization below 30%, 20%, or 10% of the credit limit is a better plan (both interest rate and risk wise)."}
{"text": "How companies choose earnings release dates, & effect on Implied Volatility I can't speak authoritatively to your broader question about stocks in general, but in several years tracking AAPL closely, I can tell you that there's little apparent pattern to when their earnings call will be, or when it will be announced. What little I do know:  - AAPL's calls tend to occur on a Tuesday more than any other day of the week  - it's announced roughly a month in advance, but has been announced w/ less notice  - it has a definite range of dates in which it occurs, typically somewhere in the 3rd week of the new quarter plus or minus a few days More broadly for #1: Given the underlying nature of what an option is, then yes, the day an earnings call date is announced could certainly influence the IV/price of options - but only for options that expire inside the \"grey area\" (~2 weeks long) window in which the call could potentially occur.  Options expiring outside that grey area should experience little to no price change in reaction to the announcement of the date - unless the date was itself surprising, e.g. an earlier date would increase the premium on earlier dated options, a later date would increase the premium for later-dated options. As for #2: The exact date will probably always be a mystery, but the main factors are:  - the historical pattern of earnings call dates (and announcements of those dates) which you can look up for any given company  - when the company's quarter ends  - potentially some influence in how long it takes the company to close out their books for the quarter (some types of businesses would be faster than others)  - any special considerations for this particular quarter that affect reporting ability And finally:   - a surprise of an earnings call occurring (substantively) later than usual is rarely going to be a good sign for the underlying security, and the expectation of catastrophe - while cratering the underlying - may also cause a disproportionate rise in IVs/prices due to fear"}
{"text": "Would I need to keep track of 1099s? You have to file and issue each one of them a 1099 if you are paying them $600 or more for the year. Because you need to issue a 1099 to them (so they can file their own taxes), I don't think there's a way that you could just combine all of them. Additionally, you may want to make sure that you are properly classifying these people as contractors in case they should be employees."}
{"text": "Using credit card points to pay for tax deductible business expenses For simplicity, let's start by just considering cash back. In general, cash back from credit cards for personal use is not taxable, but for business use it is taxable (sort of, I'll explain later). The reason is most personal purchases are made with after tax dollars; you typically aren't deducting the cost of what you purchased from your personal income, so if you purchase something that costs $100 and you receive $2 back from the CC company, effectively you have paid $98 for that item but that wouldn't affect your tax bill. However, since businesses typically deduct most expenses, that same $100 deduction would have only been a $98 deduction for business tax purposes, so in this case the $2 should be accounted for. Note, you should not consider that $2 as income though; that would artificially inflate your revenue. It should be treated as a negative expense, similar to how you would handle returning an item you purchased and receiving a CC refund. Now for your specific questions: Part 1: As a small business owner, I wish to attend an annual seminar to improve my business. I have enough credit card reward points to cover the airfare, hotel, and rental car. Will those expenses still be deductible at the value displayed on the receipt? Effectively no, these expenses are not deductible. If you deduct them they will be completely counter-acted by the \"refund\" you receive for the payments. Part 2: Does it matter if those points are accrued on my personal credit card, rather than a business credit card? This is where it gets hairy. Suppose your company policy is that employees make purchases with their own personal credit cards and submit receipts for reimbursement. In this case the employer can simply reimburse and would not know or care if the employee is racking up rewards/points/cashback. The trick is, as the employee, you must always purchase business related items normally so you have receipts to show, and if you receive cashback on the side there seems to be a \"don't ask, don't tell\" rule that the IRS is OK with. It works the same way with heavy business travelers and airline miles- the free vacations those users get as perks are not treated as taxable income. However, I would not go out of my way to abuse this \"loophole\". Typically, things like travel (airfare, hotel, car rental, meals) are expected. But I wouldn't go purchase 100 company laptops on your personal card and ask the company to reimburse you. The company should purchase those 100 laptops on a company card and effectively reduce the sale price by the cashback received. (Or more realistically, negotiate a better discount with your account rep and just cut them a check.) Part 3: Would there be any difference between credit card points and brand-loyalty points? If the rental car were paid for with points earned directly on the rental car company's loyalty system (not a CC), would that yield a different result? There is no difference. Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. This is why when you volunteer and work 10 hours for a charity, you can't call that a \"donation\" of any amount of money because there is no actual payment made that would show up on a bank statement. Instead you could have billed the charity for your 10 hours of work, and then turned around and donated that same amount back to them, but it ends up being a wash."}
{"text": "Why don't SPY, SPX, and the e-mini s&p 500 track perfectly with each other? As Ross says, SPX is the index itself. This carries no overheads. It is defined as a capitalization-weighted mixture of the stocks of (about) 500 companies. SPY is an index fund that tries to match the performance of SPX. As an index fund it has several differences from the index:"}
{"text": "What is a checking account and how does it work? A checking account is one that permits the account holder to write demand drafts (checks), which can be given to other people as payment and processed by the banks to transfer those funds. (Think of a check as a non-electronic equivalent of a debit card transaction, if that makes more sense to you.) Outside of the ability to write checks, and the slightly lower interest rate usually offered to trade off against that convenience, there really is no significant difference between savings and checking accounts.  The software needs to be designed to handle checking accounts if it's to be sold in the US, since many of us do still use checks for some transactions. Adding support for other currencies doesn't change that. If you don't need the ability to track which checks have or haven't been fully processed, I'd suggest that you either simply ignore the checking account feature, or use this category separation in whatever manner makes sense for the way you want to manage your money."}
{"text": "Can saving/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire? Millionaire, Shmillionaire! Let's do this calculation Bruno Mars style (I wanna be a Billionaire...) If my calculations are correct, in the above scenario, at age 80, you would have more than a billion in the bank, after taxes."}
{"text": "What is the formula for determining estimated stock price when I  only have an earning per share number? See this link...I was also looking an answer to the same questions. This site explains with an example  http://www.independent-stock-investing.com/PE-Ratio.html"}
{"text": "why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments? Emergency funds have a very specific and obvious benefit; you'll have money sitting around in case you need it.  A lot of people think a big car repair or some unexpected home repair is an emergency, and that's fine.  Emergency also expands up to \"I lost my job four months ago and we're a year in to a recession, the stock market is down 30% and I need to pay my rent or mortgage.\"  Sure, you could just sell some of your stocks that have lost 30% and pay your rent. I know nobody likes to think about it, but the stock market can go down.  I know nobody likes to think about it, but the economy can slink in to a recession.  In fact, here's a small list of recent U.S. recessions: No competent investment adviser would advise that your emergency funds should be subject to market volatility because that completely defeats the purpose of an emergency fund. It's possible that this manager wants you to indicate a separate emergency fund to allocate a portion of your account to a low volatility US Treasury fund or something of the like, this would be materially different than investing in a broad market/large cap fund like VOO or VTI.  The effects of inflation are not so bad that you should put your emergency money in the market.  Who cares what inflation was if you have to sell an asset at a loss to pay rent?  One last point.  Index fund ETFs are not \"safe.\"  Investing in diversified funds is safER than buying individual company stocks."}
{"text": "I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work? I've skimmed through the answers given and I'd like do add another possible scenario.  I've recently heard about this exact thing happening to someone only the money originally was a loan taken in the receivers name. 1) Scumbag finds out personal data \u2013 including social number, bank account and phone \u2013 of Innocent Victim.  2) Scumbag takes out a loan in the name of Innocent Victim. The money are sent to IV's account. 3) Scumbag calls IV saying 'Oh, I've made a mistake, blah, blah, yada, yada. Could you please send the money back to me? My bank account is...' 4) Innocent Victim, being the good guy that he/she is, of course want to help out and send the money to Scumbag. 5) Scumbag makes a cash withdrawal and is no longer anywhere to be found and Innocent Victim is left with a loan but no money."}
{"text": "I earn $75K, have $30K in savings, no debt, rent from my parents who are losing their home. Should I buy a home now or save? For the vast majority, \"buying\" a house via a mortgage is not an investment.  I use quotes around buying because from a technical perspective you don't own anything until you've paid it off; this is often an important point that people forget. It's highly unlikely you'll make more on it than the amount you put into it (interest, repairs, etc).  Even with relatively low interest rates. The people who successfully invest in homes are those that use actual cash (not borrowed) to buy a home at well below market value.  They then clean it up and make enough repairs to make it marketable and sell it shortly there after.  Sometimes these people get hosed if the housing market tumbles to the point that the home is now worth less than the amount they put into it.  This is especially problematic if they used bank loans to get the process going.  They were actually the hardest hit when the housing bubble popped several years ago.  Well, them and the people who bought on interest only loans or had balloon payments. Whereas the people who use a mortgage are essentially treating it like a bank account with a negative interest rate.  For example, $180k loan on a 30 yr fixed at 4% will mean a total payout of around $310k, excluding normal repairs like roofs, carpet, etc.  Due to how mortgage's work, most of the interest is collected during the first half of the loan period.  So selling it within 2 to 5 years is usually problematic unless the local housing market has really skyrocketed. Housing markets move up and down all the time due to a hundred different things completely out of your control.  It might be a regional depression, weather events, failed large businesses, failed city/local governments, etc.  It could go up because businesses moved in, a new highway is built, state/local taxes decline, etc. My point is, homes are not long term investments.  They can be short term ones, but only in limited circumstances and there is a high degree of risk involved.  So don't let that be a driving point of your decision. Instead you need to focus on other factors.  Such as: what is really going on with the house you are currently in?  Why would they lose it?  Can you help out, and, should you help out?  If things are precarious, it might make more sense to sell that home now and everyone move into separate locations, possibly different rentals or apartments.  If they are foreclosed on then they will be in a world of financial hurt for a long time. If we ignore your parents situation, then one piece of advice I would give you is this: Rent the cheapest apartment you can find that is still a \"safe\" place to live in.  Put every dollar you can into some type of savings/investment that will actually grow.  Stay there for 5+ years, then go pay cash for a nice home.  Making $75k a year while single means that you don't need much to live on.  In other words, live extremely cheap now so you can enjoy a fantastic living experience later that is free from financial fear.  You should be able to put $30k+ per year aside going this route. edit: A bit of support data for those that somehow think buying a home on a mortgage is somehow a good investment:   Robert Shiller, who won a Nobel prize in economics and who predicted the bursting of the housing bubble, has shown that a house is not a good investment.  Why?  First, home prices (adjusted for inflation) have been virtually unchanged for the past 100 years.  (link 1, link 2)  Second, after you add in the costs of maintenance alone then those costs plus what you've paid for the home will exceed what you get out of it.  Adding in the cost of a mortgage could easily double or even triple the price you paid which makes things even worse.  Maintenance costs include things like a new roof, carpet/flooring, water heater, appliances, etc. Yes, a home might cost you $100k and you might sell it for $200k after 15 years.  However during that time you'll likely replace the roof ($10k to $20k), replace appliances ($2k to $5k), water heater ($1k), carpet/flooring ($5k to $20k), paint ($3k to $6k), and mortgage related costs (~$60k - assuming 30 yr fixed @4%).  So your \"costs\" are between $180k and $200k just on those items.  There are many more that could easily escalate the costs further.  Like a fence ($5k+), air conditioner ($5k+), windows, etc. The above is assuming the home actually appreciates in value faster than inflation: which they historically haven't over the long term.   So you have to consider all of the costs ultimately paid to purchase and maintain the home vs the costs of renting during the same time period.   Point is: do your research and be realistic about it.  Buying a home is a huge financial risk."}
{"text": "Best starting options to invest for retirement without a 401k First, check out some of the answers on this question: Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing When you have determined that you are ready to invest for retirement, there are two things you need to consider: the investment and the account.  These are separate items. The investment is what makes your money grow. The type of account provides tax advantages (and restrictions).  Generally, these can be considered separately; for the most part, you can do any type of investment in any account. Briefly, here is an overview of some of the main options: In your situation, the Roth IRA is what I would recommend. This grows tax free, and if you need the funds for some reason, you can get out what you put in without penalty. You can invest up to $5500 in your Roth IRA each year. In addition to the above reasons, which are true for anybody, a Roth IRA would be especially beneficial for you for three reasons: For someone that is closer in age to retirement and in a higher tax bracket now, a Roth IRA is less attractive than it is for you. Inside your Roth IRA, there are lots of choices. You can invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds (which are simply collections of stocks and bonds), bank accounts, precious metals, and many other things. Discussing all of these investments in one answer is too broad, but my recommendation is this: If you are investing for retirement, you should be investing in the stock market. However, picking individual stocks is too risky; you need to be diversified in a lot of stocks. Stock mutual funds are a great way to invest in the stock market.  There are lots of different types of stock mutual funds with different strategies and expenses associated with them. Managed funds actively buy and sell different stocks inside them, but have high expenses to pay the managers. Index funds buy and hold a list of stocks, and have very low expenses. The conventional wisdom is that, in general, index funds perform better than managed funds when you take the expenses into account.  I hope this overview and these recommendations were helpful. If you have any specific questions about any of these types of accounts or investments, feel free to ask another question."}
{"text": "In what cases can a business refuse to take cash? They don't have to take cash if they reasonably told you in advance they don't take cash, because they made fair effort to prevent you from incurring a debt.  They don't have to take cash if the transaction hasn't yet happened (not a debt) or if it can be easily undone at no cost to either party - such as a newspaper subscription they can just stop delivering.  Both of these reasons are limited by the rules against discrimination, see below.  They don't have to take cash if it's impracticable. For instance a transit bus when fares first went to $1.00, it took years to fund new fareboxes able to take paper money.  You don't have to take a mortgage payment in pennies.  Liquor stores don't have to take $100 bills. (it requires them to keep too much change in the till, which makes them a robbery target).  Trouble arises when it appears there's an ulterior motive for the rule.   Suppose a Landlord Jim requires rent to be paid with EFT.  Rent-controlled Marcie tells the judge \"It's a scheme to oust me, he knows I'm unbanked\".  Jim counters \"No. I got mugged last month because criminals know when I collect cash rents.\"  It will turn on whether Jim can show good-faith effort to work with his unbanked tenants to find other ways to pay. If Jim does a particularly bad job of this, he could find himself paying Marcie's legal bills! Even worse if the ulterior motive is discrimination. Chet the plumber hates Muslims. Alice the feed supplier hates the Amish.  So they decide to take credit cards only, knowing those people's religions don't allow them.  Their goose is cooked once they can't show any other reasonable reason to refuse cash."}
{"text": "Do I not have a credit score? I'm the contrarian in the crowd. I think credit scores and debt are the closest thing to evil incarnate. You're in good company. The absence of a credit score simply means the agencies have insufficient data in their behavioral model to determine how profitable your business would be to the bank. The higher your score, the more likely the bank is to make a profit from your loan.  IMHO, you're better off building up cash and investment reserves than a credit history. With sufficient reserves,  you will be able to shop around for a bank that will give you a good rate, if you ever do need a loan.  You'll be surprised at how quickly you get in a position where you don't need a loan if you save and invest wisely. I used to have a (high) credit score,  and I was miserable about it because there were always bills due. I gave up debt 14 years ago, paid the last debt 7 years ago, and have never. been happier. Raising kids without debt (or credit score) is much more fun than with debt."}
{"text": "What strategies can I employ to minimize estate taxes? You want to leave your estate assets to your heirs, and you don't want them to be burdened with a huge tax bill. Fortunately, there are many ways to maximize their tax savings through estate planning. If you can reduce your gross estate value to an amount that is lower than the federal threshold for the tax, your heirs can avoid the estate tax. Let's review nine of the best ways to minimize your taxes. 1. Make Charitable Donations, 2. Set Up a Family Limited Partnership, 3. Use the Marital Deduction, 4. Set Up a Trust, 5. Move to a State without Estate Taxes, 6. Give Gifts Instead of Inheritances, 7. Set Up a Donor Advised Fund, 8. Fund a Qualified Personal Residence Trust, 9. Buy an Extra Life Insurance Policy to Pay the Tax."}
{"text": "Questioning my Realtor A mortgage lender will not usually lend more than they could get if they had to repossess the property and sell it to recover their investment (in the U.S. it is generally accepted that 80% of market value is the golden number that makes the mortgage work).  That's why an appraisal is required. Even with 50% down, the numbers might not add up if your property is appraised very low (extremely unlikely, though. It's more likely your realtor is inexperienced)."}
{"text": "Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings? Remember that due to inflation you are paying back the loan with cheaper dollars in the future.  If there are no gimmicks in the loan like early payment penalties, or must pay by a certain date or that the credit was for a store that sold the products at a higher price than you could get elsewhere then you are not just getting free money they are paying you to take the money."}
{"text": "Missing opportunity cost of mortgage prepayment One other consideration is that by paying off your mortgage early versus, for example, investing that capital in a mutual fund is that you are reducing your net liquidity to some degree. That is, if you find yourself needing an emergency infusion of cash it is easier to sell a stock/fund than to sell your house or get a equity loan.  I suppose if you were planning to need a lot of cash to start a business or invest in real estate, then maybe it would make sense to keep your cash more liquid. However, in your situation I agree with Joe. Pay it off. It feels REALLY good to write that last check!"}
{"text": "How can I determine how much my car insurance will cost me? Accidents and tickets more than 3 years old generally won't affect you.   I use an insurance broker who shops a bunch of different companies and buys me the best policy. (He gets a cut as a middle-man, but saves me more than going direct and gives great advice when I have a question.)   Since you haven't been only your own policy lately, it will cost you more than someone with a 3 year history with a perfect record, but if you shop around, you will find something at a fair price.   Also, your credit score often factors into the price you pay for car insurance also."}
{"text": "Should I pay off my credit card online immediately or wait for the bill? It probably doesn't matter since your credit and your checking are at the same institution, but I don't like to let my credit auto draft my checking.  I always do it the other way around (and keep them at different places) I feel like there is more control when my money is gone that way."}
{"text": "What can cause rent prices to fall? Sure! Anything that affects the balance of supply and demand could cause rent prices to fall. I'll betcha rent prices in Wilmington, Ohio collapsed when the biggest employer, DHL, shut down. An economic depression of any sort would cause people to substitute expensive rentals for cheaper ones, putting downward pressure on rents. It would also cause people to double up or move in with family, decreasing demand for rentals. Anything that makes buying a house cheaper will actually make rents lower, too, because more people will buy houses when houses get cheaper... those people are moving out of rentals, thus decreasing demand for rentals."}
{"text": "Dalbar: How can the average investor lose money? How is it possible for the average investor to underperform the market? The \"average\" investor probably makes some bad decisions. You also might need to take transaction costs into play (including borrowing on margin), so that there's a natural \"erosion\" of returns across the market.  Meaning if transaction/borrowing costs are 1%, and the market return is 5%, the \"average investor\"  Alternatively, if by \"average\" they mean the average of the population, not weighted by amount, it's plausible that the mass of smaller investors perform slightly worse than the smaller number of large investors (and have larger relative transaction costs), thus having a lower average on a per-capita basis. Doesn't the fact that investors can consistently underperform the market by making poor decisions, imply that an investor could consistently outperform the market by making the opposite decisions? No.  If my investment decisions cause me to earn only a 10% return compared to the \"average\" 12% return, then making the opposite decision will cause me to lose 10%, not to make 14%."}
{"text": "At what point should I begin paying off student loans? All great answers. The only thing I didn't see mentioned was that student loans are not dischargable in a bankruptcy. So for example if you took money that could have gone to student loans and poured it into other debt, then for some reason declared bankruptcy later, your student load debt would remain while other debt would be discharged; essentially that money would have been better spent on the student loan. This isn't to advocate that you should pay down student loans with the intent of declaring bankruptcy, or that this makes it a better decision necessarily, just a factor that is sometimes forgotten."}
{"text": "Can I buy a new house before selling my current house? As the other answers suggest, there are a number of ways of going about it and the correct one will be dependent on your situation (amount of equity in your current house, cashflow primarily, amount of time between purchase and sale). If you have a fair amount of equity (for example, $50K mortgage remaining on a house valued at $300K), I'll propose an option that's similar to bridge financing: Place an offer on your new house. Use some of your equity as part of the down payment (eg, $130K). Use some more of your equity as a cash buffer to allow you pay two mortgages in between the purchase and the sale (eg, $30K). The way this would be executed is that your existing mortgage would be discharged and replaced with larger mortgage. The proceeds of that mortgage would be split between the down payment and cash as you desire. Between the closing of your purchase and the closing of your sale, you'll be paying two mortgages and you'll be responsible for two properties. Not fun, but your cash buffer is there to sustain you through this. When the sale of your new home closes, you'll be breaking the mortgage on that house. When you get the proceeds of the sale, it would be a good time to use any lump sum/prepayment privileges you have on the mortgage of the new house.  You'll be paying legal fees for each transaction and penalties for each mortgage you break. However, the interest rates will be lower than bridge financing. For this reason, this approach will likely be cheaper than bridge financing only if the time between the closing of the two deals is fairly long (eg, at least 6 months), and the penalties for breaking mortgages are reasonable (eg, 3 months interest). You would need the help of a good mortgage broker and a good lawyer, but you would also have to do your own due diligence - remember that brokers receive a commission for each mortgage they sell. If you won't have any problems selling your current house quickly, bridge financing is likely a better deal. If you need to hold on to it for a while because you need to fix things up or it will be harder to sell, you can consider this approach."}
{"text": "What are the benefits of opening an IRA in an unstable/uncertain economy? Regarding investing in gold vs. stocks, I don't think I could say it better than Warren Buffett: You could take all the gold that's   ever been mined, and it would fill a   cube 67 feet in each direction. For   what that's worth at current gold   prices, you could buy all -- not some   -- all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon   Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of   walking-around money. Or you could   have a big cube of metal. Which would   you take? Which is going to produce   more value?"}
{"text": "How do I build wealth? Many CEOs I have heard of earn a lot more than 200k. In fact a lot earn more than 1M and then get bonuses as well. Many wealthy people increase there wealth by investing in property, the stock market, businesses and other assets that will produce them good capital growth. Oh yeh, and luck usually has very little to do with their success."}
{"text": "What do I need to start trading in the NSE (National Stock Exchange)? Yes, you can open a Trading Account at one place and a Demat Account at another place. Therefore you can open Trading Account at Sharekhan and Demat Account at OBC. However, it would be more convenient for you if both the accounts are opened at the same place which would reduce unnecessary work after every transaction."}
{"text": "How can I determine which stores are regarded as supermarkets for a rewards credit card? Each company that has an account with the credit card network has to classify themselves as a particular type of business.  The credit card company uses that classification to catagorize the transaction on your statement. If you buy a T-shirt at a grocery, amusement park, gas station, or resturant; the transaction will be labeled by the vendor type.  Look at recent credit card statements, even if they are from different cards, to see how the stores you want to know about are classified."}
{"text": "Why does Bank of America sometimes refer to itself as Banc of America on some documents? From https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Banc: Banq (also Banc, banc-corp, bancorp, or bancorporation) is an intentionally erroneous spelling of the word bank, but pronounced the same way. It has been adopted by companies which are not banks but wish to appear as such, and satisfy legal restrictions on the usage of the word bank. ... For instance, if the original company is known as Bank of America, then the new investment banking entity may be known as Banc of America Securities LLC. If the original company is known as Bank of Manhattan, then its insurance business might be known as \"Banc of Manhattan Insurance\" and its holding company might be called \"Manhattan Bancorp\". This practice originates from legal necessity: Under the laws of most states, a corporation may only use the word \"bank\" in its name if it has obtained a banking charter under state or federal banking laws. So, \"Banc of America\" is the subsidiary of BoA that doesn't have appropriate licenses to be called \"bank\". Wonders of complex regulation :)"}
{"text": "How is stock price determined? Yes, stock price is determined by the last trade price. There are always going to be people who have put in a price to buy a stock (called a bid price) and people who have put in a price to sell a stock (called an ask price). Based on your example, if the last trade price for the stock was $1.23, then you might have the following bid prices and ask prices: So if you put in a limit order to buy 100 shares at $100, you would buy the 40 shares at $1.23, the 15 shares at $1.24, and the 45 shares $1.25.  The price of the stock would go up to $1.25. Conversely, if you put in a limit order to sell 100 shares at $0.01 (I don't think any broker would allow a sell price of $0.00), you would sell 30 shares at $1.22, 20 shares at $1.21, and 50 shares at $1.20.  The price of the stock would go down to $1.20."}
{"text": "Buying a house, how much should my down payment be? The reason to put more money down or accept a shorter maximum term is because the bank sweetens the deal (or fails to sour it in some fashion).  For example, typically, if there is less than 20% down, you have to pay an premium called \"Private Mortgage Insurance\", which makes it bad deal. But I see banks offering the same rate for a 15%-year mortgage as for a 30-year one, and I think: fools and their money.  Take the 30-year and, if you feel like it pay more every month.  Although why you would feel like it, I don't know, since it's very difficult to get that money back if you need it."}
{"text": "How can I pay for school to finish my degree when I can't get a student loan and have bad credit? Here's what you can do: roll up your sleeves and get to work.  Work 2 or 3 jobs while you take 12 credit hours.  Live in the cheapest available housing (that is reasonably safe).  Have no social life.  Wake up, work, class, eat, work, study, sleep. Every day.  Don't eat at restaurants.  Eat only simple meals at home.   Every meal.  Have a car payment?  Get rid of your car and use public transit or get the cheapest running car possible.   One year of nothing but focused effort on paying for and finishing school.  If you can't earn enough to cover 14K on top of your basic living expenses, then you aren't working hard enough, or you have extenuating circumstances that make finishing your degree at this time infeasible."}
{"text": "Where can I find the nominal price of a stock prior a split into multiple companies? When Hewlett Packard split they changed their name to HP Inc. and spun off Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a new corporation. This means HP Inc. has the same stock history and ticker (HPQ) as Hewlett Packard did so that's the one you want to search for. As you noticed this also means it's impossible to search for old Hewlett Packard's stock performance alone. One free service that seems to show the unadjusted historical stock price of HPQ is Google finance: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AHPQ"}
{"text": "What is a good asset allocation for a 25 year old? In my opinion, the key variable for you (and others) is not age, but \"vintage.\" Your \"age\" suggests that you were born in the mid-1980s, in the middle of a bull market. The most remunerative investing periods for you are likely to be in your childhood (past) and middle age (forties and early fifties). Also your, \"old-old\" period (around age 80, in the 2060s), if you live that long. For now, you can, and perhaps should invest cautiously, like today's 40-year olds, with a heavy emphasis on bonds. The main difference between you and them is that you can shift to stocks in about ten years, in your mid to late 30s, while they will find it harder to do so when approaching old age."}
{"text": "Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random? In theory, in a perfect world, what you state is almost true. Apart from transaction fees, if you assume that the market is perfectly efficient (ie: public information is immediately reflected in a perfect reflection of future share value, in all share prices when the information becomes available), then in theory any transaction you would choose to take is opposed by a reasonable person who is not taking advantage of you, just moving their position around. This would make any and all transactions completely reasonable from a cost-benefit perspective.  ie: if the future value of all dividends to be paid by Apple [ie: the value of holding a share in Apple] exactly matches Apple's share price of $1,000, then buying a share for $1,000 is an even trade. Selling a share for $1,000 is also an even trade. Now in a perfectly efficient market, which we have assumed, then there is no edge to valuing a company using your own methods. If you take Apple's financial statements / press releases / reported information, and if you apply modern financial theory to evaluate the future dividends from Apple, you should get the same $1,000 share price that the market has already arrived at. So in this example, why wouldn't you just throw darts at a printout of the S&P 500 and invest in whatever it lands on? Because, even if the 'perfectly efficient market' agrees on the true value of something, different investments have different characteristics. As an example, consider a simple comparison of corporate bonds: Corporations make bond offerings to the public, allowing individual investors to effectively lend money to the corporation, for a future benefit. For simplicity, assume a bond with a 'face value' (the amount to be repaid to the investor on maturity) of $1,000 has these 3 defining characteristics: (1) The price [What the investor pays to acquire it]; (2) Interest payments [how much, if any, the corporation will pay to the investor before maturity, and when those payments will be made]; and (3) a bond rating [which is a third party assessment of how risky the bond is, based on the 'health' of the corporation]. Now if the bond rating agency is perfect in its risk assessment, and if the price of all bond's is fair, then why does it matter who you loan your money to? It matters because different people want different things out of their investments. If you are waiting to make a down payment on a house next year, then you don't want risk - you want to be certain that you will get your cash back, even if it means lower returns. So, even though a high-risk bond may be perfectly priced, it should only be bought by someone willing to bear that risk. If you are retired, and you need your bonds to pay you interest regularly as your sole source of income, then of course a zero-coupon bond [one that pays no interest] is not helpful to you. If you are young, and have a long time to invest, then you may want risk, because you have time to overcome losses and you want to get the most return possible. In addition, taxes are not universal between all investors. Some people benefit from things that would be tax-heavy to their neighbors. For example in Canada, there is a 'dividend tax credit' which reduces the taxes owing on dividends received by a corporation. This credit exists to prevent 'double-taxation', because otherwise the corporation would pay its ~30% of tax, and then a wealthy investor would pay another ~45% of tax. Due to the mechanics of how the credit is calculated, however, someone who makes less money, gets an even lower tax bill than they normally would. This means that someone making under the top tax bracket in Canada, has a tax benefit by receiving dividends. This means that while 2 stocks may be both fairly priced, if one pays dividends and the other doesn't [ie: if the other company instead reinvests more heavily in future projects, creating even more value for shareholders down the road], then someone in the bottom tax brackets may want the dividend paying stock more than the other. In conclusion: Picking investments yourself does require some knowledge to prevent yourself from making a 'bad buy'; this is because the market is not perfectly efficient. As well, specific market mechanics make some trades more costly than they should be in theory; consider for example transaction fees and tax mechanics. Finally, even if you assume that all of the above is irrelevant as a theoretical idea, different investors still have different needs. Just because $1,000,000 is the 'fair' price for a factory in your home town, doesn't mean you might as well convert your retirement savings to buy it as your sole asset."}
{"text": "UK university student finance - should I use my sponsorship money to pay the debt? Borrow the lot (as your family recommended)! The extra money will come in useful when you want to buy a house and move back to the area where your employer is. The government loan in the UK is a fantastic system, just a shame they are charging you so much in tuition fees..."}
{"text": "Real Estate: Please review my recent investment (with numbers from recent purchase) Okay so I am going to break this answer into a couple sections: Okay so first things first. Did you get a good deal? This is challenging to answer for a number of reasons. First, a good deal is relative to the buyers goals. If you're attempting to buy an asset that provides passive income then maybe you met your goal and got a good deal. If you're attempting to buy an asset that provides long term growth, and you purchased above market (I'm speculating of course) then you may have made a bad deal. So how do you determine if you got a good deal? Does your \"Gross Rental Multiplier\" equal that or is less than that of the average GRM in your area. The lower the better.  So how do you use the GRM to determine if you're getting a good deal? Divide your purchase price by the average city (or area) GRM and that will tell you what you should be getting annually in rent.  You can also use the GRM to determine if a future purchase is over or under priced. Just replace purchase price with asking price.  Alright, so these are the tools you can use to decide if you made a bad business deal or not. There are many ways to skin a cat so to speak. These are the tools I use BEFORE I purchase a home. Many people are penny wise and pound foolish. Take your time when making large purchases. It's OKAY to say PASS.  Okay next thing is this new purchase you're looking at. The number one rule when working a franchise is you don't open a second store until you have a perfect working model to go off of. If you've never had to file a tax return for your current rental. Then you need to wait. If you've never read your local and state rental laws. Then you need to WAIT. If you've never had to leave an event early, wake up in the middle of the night, or get a text while you're on a date from one of your tenants. THEN YOU NEED TO WAIT. Give it a year or two. Just learn the unknown about rental properties. Use your first as your test bed. It's WAY more cheaper then if you make a bad mistake and roll it over multiple properties.  Finally I will leave you with this. No one on this site, myself included, knows everything there is to know about real estate. Anyone that claims they do, send their ass packing. This is a complex COMPLEX business. There is always something to learn and if you don't have the passion to continue learning then hand it off to someone who does. There is tax law, rental law, city repair law, contract law and this doesn't even include the stuff that makes you money, like knowing how to leverage low or no money down loans.  Please take some time and go out and learn.  Good luck! -AR"}
{"text": "What taxes are assessed on distributions of an inherited IRA? All transactions within an IRA are irrelevant as far as the taxation of the  distributions from the IRA are concerned. You can only take cash from an IRA, and a (cash) distribution from a Traditional IRA is taxable as ordinary income (same as interest from a bank, say) without the advantage of any of the special tax rates for long-term capital gains or qualified dividends even if that cash was generated within the IRA from sales of stock etc. In short, just as with what is alleged to occur with respect to Las Vegas, what happens within the IRA stays within the IRA. Note: some IRA custodians are willing to make a distribution of stock or mutual fund shares to you, so that ownership of the 100 shares of GE, say, that you hold within your IRA is transferred to you in your personal (non-IRA) brokerage account. But, as far as the IRS is concerned, your IRA custodian sold the stock as the closing price on the day of the distribution, gave you the cash, and you promptly bought the 100 shares (at the closing price) in your personal brokerage account with the cash that you received from the IRA. It is just that your custodian saved the transaction fees involved in selling 100 shares of GE stock inside the IRA and you saved the transaction fee for buying 100 shares of GE stock in your personal brokerage account. Your basis in the 100 shares of GE stock is the \"cash_ that you imputedly received as a distribution from the IRA, so that when you sell the shares at some future time, your capital gains (or losses) will be with respect to this basis. The capital gains that occurred within the IRA when the shares were imputedly sold by your IRA custodian remain within the IRA, and you don't get to pay taxes on that at capital gains rates. That being said, I would like to add to what NathanL told you in his answer. Your mother passed away in 2011 and you are now 60 years old (so 54 or 55 in 2011?). It is likely that your mother was over 70.5 years old when she passed away, and so she likely had started taking Required Minimum Distributions from her IRA before her death. So, You should have been taking RMDs from the Inherited IRA starting with Year 2012. (The RMD for 2011, if not taken already by your mother before   she passed away, should have been taken by her estate, and distributed to her heirs in accordance with her will, or, if she died intestate, in accordance with state law and/or probate court directives). There would   not have been any 10% penalty tax due on the RMDs taken by you on the grounds that you were not 59.5 years old as yet; that rule applies to owners (your mom in this case) and not to beneficiaries (you in this case). So, have you taken the RMDs for 2012-2016? Or were you waiting to turn 59.5 before taking distributions in the mistaken belief that you would have to pay a 10% penalty for early wthdrawal?  The penalty for not taking a RMD is 50% of the amount not distributed; yes, 50%. If you didn't take RMDs from the Inherited IRA for years 2012-2016, I recommend that you consult a CPA with expertise in tax law. Ask the CPA if he/she is an Enrolled Agent with the IRS: Enrolled Agents have to pass an exam administered by the IRS to show that they really understand tax law and are not just blowing smoke, and can represent you in front of the IRS in cases of audit etc,"}
{"text": "Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job? For two reasons: 1- People are entitled to deductions and credits that your employer cannot possibly know. Only you as an individual know about your personal situation and can therefore claim these deductions and credits by filing income tax returns. 2- Me telling you that you made $100,000 last year is not the same as telling you that you made $125,000 last year, but someone took $25,000 out of your pocket. Tax season is the one time of the year when citizens know exactly what chunk of their hard earned money was taken by the government, creating more collective awareness about taxation and giving politicians a harder time when they propose raising taxes."}
{"text": "Why would a stock opening price differ from the offering price? The offering price is what the company will raise by selling the shares at that price.  However, this isn't usually what the general public sees as often there will be shows to drive up demand so that there will be buyers for the stock.  That demand is what you see on the first day when the general public can start buying the stock.  If one is an employee, relative or friend of someone that is offered, \"Friends and Family\" shares they may be able to buy at the offering price. Pricing of IPO from Wikipedia states around the idea of pricing: A company planning an IPO typically appoints a lead manager, known as   a bookrunner, to help it arrive at an appropriate price at which the   shares should be issued. There are two primary ways in which the price   of an IPO can be determined. Either the company, with the help of its   lead managers, fixes a price (\"fixed price method\"), or the price can   be determined through analysis of confidential investor demand data   compiled by the bookrunner (\"book building\"). Historically, some IPOs both globally and in the United States have   been underpriced. The effect of \"initial underpricing\" an IPO is to   generate additional interest in the stock when it first becomes   publicly traded. Flipping, or quickly selling shares for a profit, can   lead to significant gains for investors who have been allocated shares   of the IPO at the offering price. However, underpricing an IPO results   in lost potential capital for the issuer. One extreme example is   theglobe.com IPO which helped fuel the IPO \"mania\" of the late 90's   internet era. Underwritten by Bear Stearns on November 13, 1998, the   IPO was priced at $9 per share. The share price quickly increased   1000% after the opening of trading, to a high of $97. Selling pressure   from institutional flipping eventually drove the stock back down, and   it closed the day at $63. Although the company did raise about $30   million from the offering it is estimated that with the level of   demand for the offering and the volume of trading that took place the   company might have left upwards of $200 million on the table. The danger of overpricing is also an important consideration. If a   stock is offered to the public at a higher price than the market will   pay, the underwriters may have trouble meeting their commitments to   sell shares. Even if they sell all of the issued shares, the stock may   fall in value on the first day of trading. If so, the stock may lose   its marketability and hence even more of its value. This could result   in losses for investors, many of whom being the most favored clients   of the underwriters. Perhaps the best known example of this is the   Facebook IPO in 2012. Underwriters, therefore, take many factors into consideration when   pricing an IPO, and attempt to reach an offering price that is low   enough to stimulate interest in the stock, but high enough to raise an   adequate amount of capital for the company. The process of determining   an optimal price usually involves the underwriters (\"syndicate\")   arranging share purchase commitments from leading institutional   investors. Some researchers (e.g. Geoffrey C., and C. Swift, 2009) believe that   the underpricing of IPOs is less a deliberate act on the part of   issuers and/or underwriters, than the result of an over-reaction on   the part of investors (Friesen & Swift, 2009). One potential method   for determining underpricing is through the use of IPO Underpricing   Algorithms. This may be useful for seeing the difference in that \"theglobe.com\" example where the offering price is $9/share yet the stock traded much higher than that initially."}
{"text": "Should I pay half a large balance this month before I get my CC statement? Utilization is near real-time. What that means is that what is reported is what is taken in terms of debt-to-income (DTI) ratios. When a mortgage broker pulls your credit, they will pull the latest balances with the minimum payments. This is what is taken to determine DTI along with your gross monthly income. If you do not pay your account in full before the statement date, then you more than likely will have to wait an additional statement cycle before it reports to the credit bureaus. Therefore, your utilization is dynamic and the history of your utilization month-to-month is not recorded forever. Only the current balance. What is maintained and reported is your payment history. So you want to never be late if you want to be approved anytime soon for a mortgage. A lower DTI will not help your interest rate. As long as you stay away from the maximum DTI for the mortgage vehicle you are attempting to be approved for (VA, FHA, Conventional, etc), then your DTI should not be a concern. If you are borderline at the time of underwriting, you can take the opportunity and pay off the balances. The mortgage company can then do what is called a credit supplement which entails contacting those lenders where you have proven you have a zero balance and manually input the zero balance cards, that have not yet reported to the bureaus, in your final application to the mortgage company for underwriting approval."}
{"text": "Buying a house for a shorter term If there are a lot of houses for sale, can you be sure that in a year or two you can sell yours? How long does the average house in that area stay on the market before it is sold? What percentage of houses never get sold?  If it can't be sold due to the crowded market you will be forced to rent the house. The question for you then is how much rental income can you get? Compare the rental income to your monthly cost of owning, and managing the house.  One benefit to buying a house in a market that is easy to rent a house would be if you are forced to move quickly, then you aren't stuck being 3 months into a 12 month lease.  Keep in mind that markets can change rather dramatically in just a few years. Housing costs were flat for much of the 90's, then rocketed up in the first half of the last decade, and after a big drop, they are one a slow climb back up. But the actual path they are on depends on the part of the US you are in.  The rule of thumb in the past was based on the fact that over a few years the price would rise enough overcome the closing costs on the two transactions. Unfortunately the slow growth in the 90's meant that many had to bring checks to closing because the equity gained wasn't enough to overcome the closing costs due to low down payment loans.   The fast growth period meant that people got into exotic loans to maximize the potential income when prices were going up 10-20% a year.  When prices dropped some found that they bought houses they couldn't afford, but couldn't sell to break even on the transaction. They were stuck and had to default on the mortgage.  In fact I have never seen a time frame when the rule of thumb ever applied."}
{"text": "How is a probability cone read? A number of ways exist to calculate the chances of a particular outcome. Options, for example, use current price, cost of money, and volatility among other factors to price the chance of an underlying asset reaching a certain price in a certain timeframe.  A graphical forecast simply puts these calculations into a visual format. That said, it appears the image you offer shows the prediction as it existed in the past along with how the stock has done since.  A disclaimer - The odds of a fair die being rolled to a given number are 1 in 6. It's a fact. With stocks, on the other hand, models try to simulate real life and many factors can't be accounted for."}
{"text": "Disputing Items to Improve Credit Report Disputing the remark seems unlikely to move your score, since it is just that -- a remark.  It's hard to say whether the scoring models can/do read the remarks and incorporate them (somehow) into the scoring metric itself. Disputing the revolving account that should be reported as closed is a different matter.  The question there would be what the status of that account is/was.  In other words, is it showing as an open collection or some other status which would indicate the creditor still has a pending claim?  If so, disputing it might have some effect, although nobody would be able to tell you for certain or even how much your score might be affected. If, as you say, that account should have been part of the bankruptcy package then getting that corrected could be important enough to achieve what you're looking for.  You can try it and see, but even if the effect is minor, you still want your credit report to be a true reflection of the facts. I hope this helps. Good luck!"}
{"text": "Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] If you're truly ready to pay an extra $1000 every month, and are confident you'll likely always be able to, you should refinance to a 15 year mortgage. 15 year mortgages are typically sold at around a half a point lower interest rates, meaning that instead of your 4.375% APR, you'll get something like 3.875% APR.  That's a lot of money over the course of the mortgage.  You'll end up paying around a thousand a month more - so, exactly what you're thinking of doing - and not only save money from that earlier payment, but also have a lower interest rate.  That 0.5% means something like $25k less over the life of the mortgage.  It's also the difference in about $130 or so a month in your required payment. Now of course you'll be locked into making that larger payment - so the difference between what you're suggesting and this is that you're paying an extra $25k in exchange for the ability to pay it off more slowly (in which case you'd also pay more interest, obviously, but in the best case scenario).  In the 15 year scenario you must make those ~$4000 payments.  In the 30 year scenario you can pay ~$2900 for a while if you lose your job or want to go on vacation or ... whatever. Of course, the reverse is also true: you'll have to make the payments, so you will.  Many people find enforced savings to be a good strategy (myself among them); I have a 15 year mortgage and am happy that I have to make the higher payment, because it means I can't spend that extra money frivolously. So what I'd do if I were you is shop around for a 15 year refi.  It'll cost a few grand, so don't take one unless you can save at least half a point, but if you can, do."}
{"text": "What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? I wish I would have:"}
{"text": "Canadian personal finance software with ability to export historical credit card transactions? Yodlee and Mint are good solutions if you don't mind your personal financial information being stored \"in the cloud\". I do, so I use Quicken. Quicken stores whatever you give to it for as long as you want: so the only question is how to get the credit card transactions you want into it? All my financial institutions allow me to view my credit card statements for a year back, and download them in a form Quicken can read. So you can have a record of your transactions from a year ago right now, and in a year you will have two year's worth."}
{"text": "Ordering from Canada, charged in CAD or USD? Typically, businesses always charge their 'home' currency, so if the shop is in Canada, you will pay Canadian Dollars. Normally you don't have any choices either. Your credit card company will convert it to your currency, using the current international currency exchange rate (pretty good), plus a potential fee between 0 and 5% - depending on your credit card (not so good). If it is a significant amount, or you plan to do that more than once, and if you have multiple credit cards, check first to see which one has the lowest international fee; 0% is not uncommon, but neither is 3 or 4%. If it's a 10$ thingy, it's probably not worth the time; but 4% of 1000 is already 40$... As of right now, the currency exchange rate is 1.33, so you would pay ~75 USD; plus the potential fee, 0$ - 4$. Understand that this exchange rate is floating continuously; it probably won't change much, but it will change."}
{"text": "Why does ExxonMobil's balance sheet show more liabilities than assets? I believe you are missing knowledge of how to conduct a ratio analysis. Understanding liquidity ratios, specifically the quick or acid-test ratio will be of interest and help your understanding. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/acidtest.asp Help with conducting a ratio analysis. http://www.demonstratingvalue.org/resources/financial-ratio-analysis Finally, after working through the definitions, this website will be of use. https://www.stock-analysis-on.net/NYSE/Company/Exxon-Mobil-Corp/Ratios/Liquidity"}
{"text": "Taking a car loan vs cash and effect on credit score Imagine that your normal mode of using credit gets you a score of X. As time goes by your score trends upward if the positive items (length of credit) outweigh your negative items. But there are no big increases or decrease in your score. Then you make a one time change to how you use credit. If this is a event that helps your score, there will be a increase in your score. If it is bad thing your score will drop. But if you go back to your standard method of operating your score will drift back to the previous range. Getting a car loan for a few months to get a bump in your credit score, will not sustain your score at the new level indefinitely. Overtime the impact will lessen, and the score will return your your normal range. Spending money on the loan just to buy a temporary higher credit score is throwing away money."}
{"text": "A guy scammed me, but he gave me a bank account number & routing number. Can I use that to take out what he owes me? You're potentially in very deep water here. You don't know who this person is that you're dealing with.  Before you'd even met him, he just gave you his banking info, seemingly without a second thought.   You have no idea what the sources of his money are, so what happens if the money is stolen or otherwise illegal?  If it is determined that you used any of that money, you'll be on the hook to return it, at the very least.  Who knows what the legal ramifications are either? So it sounds like you began spending his money before you had any kind of written agreement in place?  Doesn't that seem odd to you to have someone just so trusting as to not even ask for that? Was the source of the email about the $2500 from PayPal, or from him or his advisor?  PayPal always sends you a notice directly when funds are received into your account, and even if they were going to put a temporary hold on them for whatever reason (sometimes they do that), it would still show up in your account. I would HIGHLY (can I be more emphatic?) advise you not to go anywhere NEAR his bank account until or unless you can absolutely verify who he is, where his money comes from, and what the situation is. If you start dipping into his account, whether you think you're somehow entitled to the money or not, he could cry foul and have you arrested for theft. This is a very odd situation, and for someone who says he's normally cautious and skeptical, you sure let your guard down here when you started spending his money without making any serious effort to confirm his bona fides. Just because he passes himself off as smart and the \"doctor type\" doesn't mean squat.  The very best scammers can do that (ever see the movie \"Catch Me If You Can\", based on a true story?), so you have no basis for knowing he's anything at all. I am thoroughly confused as to why you'd just willfully start using his money without knowing anything about him.  That's deeply disconcerting, because you've opened yourself up to a world of potential criminal and civil liability if this situation goes south. If this guy was giving you money as an investment in your business and you instead used some of that money for your own personal expenses then you could land in very serious trouble for co-mingling of funds.  Even if he told you it was okay, it doesn't sound like there's anything in writing, so he could just as easily deny giving you permission to use the money that way and have you charged with embezzlement. You need to step back, take a deep breath, stop using his money, and contact a lawyer for advice.  Every attorney will give you a free consultation, and you need to protect yourself here. Be careful, my friend.  If this makes you suspicious then you need to listen to that voice in your head and find a way to get out of this situation."}
{"text": "For insurance, why should you refuse $4,000/year for only 10 years and prefer $500/year indefinitely? The breakeven amount isn't at 8 years. You calculated how many years of paying $500 it would take to break even with one year of paying $4000. 8 x 10 years = 80 years. So by paying $500/year it will take you 80 years to have spent the same amount ($40000 total) as you did in 10 years. At this point it may seem obvious what the better choice is. Consider where you'll be after 10 years: In scenario #1 you've spent $5000 ($500*10) and have to continue spending $500/year indefinitely. In scenario #2 you've spent $40000 ($4000*10) and don't have to pay any more, but you currently have $35000 ($40000 - $5000) less than you did in scenario #1. If you had stayed with scenario #1 you could invest that $35000 at a measly 1.43% annual return and cover the $500 payments indefinitely without ever dipping into your remaining $35000. Most likely over the long term you'll do better than 1.43% per year and come out far ahead."}
{"text": "1099 Misc for taking care of foreign exchange students According to Intuit, you cannot claim the $50 charitable contribution, so the entire $2000 / month will be taxable instead of $1900. That's only an extra $35 if your combined tax rate is 35%. As TTT mentioned, do this for the experience, not for the money. My wife and I have been hosting international students for 10 years now. https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3152069-i-received-a-1099-misc-employee-compensation-for-hosting-a-foreign-exchange-student-can-i-complete-a-schedule-c-for-the-expenses"}
{"text": "Do Banks Cause Inflation?  What are other possible causes? No, it isn't generally believed that inflation is caused by individual banks printing money.  Governments manage money supply through Central Banks (which may, or may not, be independent of the state). There are a number of theories about money supply and inflation (from Monetarist, to Keynesian, and so on). The Quantity Theory of Inflation says that long-term inflation is the result of money-supply but short-term inflation is related to events/local conditions. Short-term inflation is a symptom of economic change.  It's like a cough for a doctor.  It simply indicates an underlying event. When prices go up it encourages new producers to enter the market, create new supply which will then act to lower prices.  In this way inflation is managed by ensuring that information travels throughout the economy.  If prices go up for specific goods, then - all things being equal - supply should go up since the increase implies increasing demand.  If prices go down then this implies demand has gone down and so producers will reduce supply. Obviously this isn't a perfect relationship.  There is \"stickiness\" which can be caused by a whole bunch of market conditions (from banning of short-selling, to inelasticity of demand/supply). Your question isn't about quantitative easing (which is a state-led way of increasing money-supply and which could increase inflation but is hoped to increase expenditure and investment) so I won't cover that here. The important take-away is that inflation is an essential price signal to investors and business people so that they can assess market cycles.  Without it we would end up with vast over- or under-supply and much greater economic disruption."}
{"text": "Any advantage to exercising ISO's in company that is not yet public? As far as I know, the AMT implications are the same for a privately held company as for one that is publicly traded.  When I was given my ISO package, it came with a big package of articles on AMT to encourage me to exercise as close to the strike price as possible.  Remember that the further the actual price at the time of purchase is from the strike price, the more the likely liability for AMT.  That is an argument for buying early.  Your company should have a common metric for determining the price of the stock that is vetted by outside sources and stable from year to year that is used in a similar way to the publicly traded value when determining AMT liability. During acquisitions stock options often, from what I know of my industry, at least, become options in the new company's stock.  This won't always happen, but its possible that your options will simply translate.  This can be valuable, because the price of stock during acquisition may triple or quadruple (unless the acquisition is helping out a very troubled company). As long as you are confident that the company will one day be acquired rather than fold and you are able to hold the stock until that one day comes, or you'll be able to sell it back at a likely gain, other than tying up the money I don't see much of a downside to investing now."}
{"text": "What happens to bonds values when interest rates rise? [duplicate] You can look at TIPS (which have some inflation protection built in). Generally short term bonds are better than long if you expect rates to rise soon. Other ways that you can protect yourself are to choose higher yield corporate bonds instead of government bonds, or to use foreign bonds. There are plenty of bond funds like Templeton Global or ETFs that offer such features. Find one that will work for you."}
{"text": "Why don't institutions share stock recommendations like Wall Street analysts? Primarily because they don't want big price movements when they are in the market. If they spook the markets, either they have to buy at a higher price, or they sell at a lower price or they decrease the price of their holdings(which isn't always a big factor). The 3 situations they didn't want to be in the first place. And the most important thing is most analysts are dumb bozos, whom you should ignore. They tout because they want to increase their exposure in your eyes, so that they may land a job in one of those big investment companies, or they might be holding stocks and want to profit from it. Frankly speaking if you take advice from the so called analysts, be prepared to say goodbye to your money some day, mayn't be always. One near case maybe Carson Block from Muddy Waters, but he does his homework properly."}
{"text": "Pros/cons for buying gold vs. saving money in an interest-based account? What you are seeing is the effects of inflation. As money becomes less valuable it takes more of it to buy physical things, be they commodities, shares in a company's stock, and peoples time (salaries).  Just about the only thing that doesn't track inflation to some degree is cash itself or money in an account since that is itself what is being devalued.  So the point of all this is, buying anything (a house, gold, stocks) that doesn't depreciate (a car) is something of a hedge against inflation. However, don't be tricked (as many are) into thinking that house just made you a tidy sum just because it went up in value so much over x years. Remember 1) All the other houses and things you'd spend the money on are a lot more expensive now too; and 2) You put a lot more money into a house than the mortgage payment (taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc.) I'm with the others though. Don't get caught up in the gold bubble. Doing so now is just speculation and has a lot of risk associated with it."}
{"text": "Side work and managing finances? I have done similar software work. You do not need an LLC to write off business expenses. The income and expenses go on Schedule C of your tax return. It is easy to write off even small expenses such as travel - if you keep records. The income should be reported to you on a 1099 form, filled out by your client, not yourself.  For a financial advisor you should find one you can visit with personally and who operates as a \"fee-only\" advisor. That means they will not try to sell you something that they get a commission on. You might pay a few $hundred per visit. There are taxes that you have to pay (around 15%) due to self-employment income. These taxes are due 4 times a year and paid with an \"estimated tax\" form. See the IRS web site, and in particular schedule SE. Get yourself educated about this fast and make the estimated tax payments on time so you won't run into penalties at the end of the year."}
{"text": "How can I make a profit by selling a stock short? Being \"long\" - expecting the price to go up to make a profit - is a two step process:  1) buy 2) sell Being \"short\" - expecting the price to go down to make a profit - is a 5 step process:  1) borrow someone else's asset 2) sell their asset on the open market to somebody else a third party 3) pocket the proceeds of the sell for your own account 4) buy an identical asset for a cheaper price 5) return this identical asset to the person that let you borrow their asset if this is successful you keep the difference between 3) and 4)"}
{"text": "Is 6% too high to trade stocks on margin? That seems a little high in my experience.  I've used a home equity line of credit instead, as the rates are much lower (~3.5%)."}
{"text": "Need to change cash to cashier's check without bank account (Just arrived to the US) the easiest thing would be to go to walmart and stock up on 1000$ money orders paying a 70 cents fee for each. your landlord would almost certainly accept money orders, but double check first just in case. i say stock up because you can't get a money order for more than 1000$ and they usually won't let you buy more than 3 per day. alternatively, you can probably open a bank account using your ssn and your passport.  look for any bank offering \"free\" checking, and they should be able to give you a few \"starter\" checks on the spot when you open the account. in any case, they can certainly get you a cashier's check for free or a small fee.  side note: if you want to shop around for a checking account, look for a bank or credit union offering a \"kasasa\" account."}
{"text": "Simple and safe way to manage a lot of cash As your question appears in the second half, so will my answer.  Like you, I will provide some background.  I remember buying gasoline for $1.759 per gallon.  I am so old that I remember buying gasoline for $0.759 per gallon.  I recently paid $2.759 per gallon.  You claim that your  relative is not getting a very good return.  Some would suggest that, at $2.759 per gallon, I am not getting a very good price on gasoline.  Rates, yields, returns and the price of gas are not what they once were.  It is actually difficult to get a pretty bad return relative to the current market.  I suspect your relative is no longer getting what he used to get but he is getting a fair return. About record keeping.  Your Uncle Sam benefits at your expense when you keep poor records.  There are substantial penalties for failing to report everything.  Most high school graduates can manage one checking account, one savings account, several charge cards and about 20 CDs and stocks at different institutions with little more than the following:  a) a wall calendar b) a shoe box and c) a stack of 3 by 5 cards.  Don't misplace the shoe box.  If you can use a spreadsheet, it is even easier.  Backup your data. There are a several reasons why you shouldn't consolidate all his cash and put it in a single mutual fund account and then put together a mix of investments that work well for him.  - you are doing it backwards 1st put together a mix of investments that work well for him 2nd consolidate the assets.  Your phrasing suggests a general lack of understanding  - most CDs have penalties for early withdrawal.   - while you enjoy managing your 401K in a single online account, your older relative might not be as comfortable with a lack of paper statements (see shoe box above)  Let me tell you a little about my 401K.  x% blue chip, y% small cap, z% bonds, w% foreign stock.  Once a quarter, I change my current contribution to re-balance current value towards my target percentages.  Every 30 months or so, I consider changing my asset allocation.  The allocation considers my age, my spouses age, our childrens ages, my risk tolerance and my intermediate view of the markets.  Your mileage my vary. to recap"}
{"text": "Is This Money Laundering? or is this a form of money laundering? May not be, generally the amounts involved in money laundering are much higher. So if there are quite a few such transactions then yes it could be money laundering. It could also be for circumventing taxes, depending on country regulations one may try to do this to get around gift taxes etc. In this specific case it looks more of link harvesting / SEO optimization. Take a low cost item that is often searched and link to other product. if you see the company link on Amazon; Cougar takes you to shoes. So maybe on its own Cougar shoes does not rank high, so link it with similar name brand in different segment and try to boost the link."}
{"text": "Investing in real estate when the stock market is high, investing in stocks when it's low? The right time to buy real estate is easy to spot. It's when it is difficult to get loans or when real estate agents selling homes are tripping over each other. It's the wrong time to buy when houses are sold within hours of the sign going up. The way to profit from equities over time is to dollar-cost average a diversified portfolio over time, while keeping cash reserves of 5-15% around. When major corrections strike, buy a little extra. You can make money at trading. But it requires that you exert a consistent effort and stay up to date on your investments and future prospects."}
{"text": "Is Weiss Research, Inc. a legitimate financial research company? This company was a reputable rating agency for many years. See Weiss Research website, ratings section for a very different perspective on Martin Weiss's work than the websites with which he is now associated. I checked both links provided, and agree with the questioner in every way: These appear to be highly questionable investment research websites. I use such strong terms based on the fact that the website actually uses the distasteful pop-up ploy,  \"Are you SURE you want to leave this site?\" Clearly, something changed between what Weiss Ratings was in the past (per company history since 1971) and what Martin Weiss is doing now. Larry Edelson seems to have been associated exclusively with questionable websites and high pressure investment advice since 2007. From 1996 through the present, he worked as either an employee or contractor of Weiss Research. Let's answer each of your questions.  On June 22, 2006, the Commission instituted settled administrative   proceedings against Weiss Research, Inc., Martin Weiss, and Lawrence   Edelson (collectively, \u201cRespondents\u201d) for violations of the Investment   Advisers Act of 1940 in connection with their operation of an   unregistered investment adviser and the production and distribution of   materially false and misleading marketing materials. Full details about Weiss Ratings operations, including its history from 1996 through 2001, when it operated in compliance with securities laws, then from 2001 through 2005, which was when the SEC filed charges for regulatory violations, are available from the June 2006 U.S. SEC court documents PDF. Finally, this quantitative assessment, \"Safe With Martin Weiss? (December 2010) by CXO Advisory (providers of \"objective research and reviews to aid investing decisions\") for its readers concluded the following: In summary, the performance of Martin Weiss\u2019 premium services in   aggregate over the past year is unimpressive. The study methodology was good, but I recommend reading the article (I posted the URL) to fully understand what caveats and assumptions were done to reach that conclusion."}
{"text": "Will I be paid dividends if I own shares? Yes, as long as you own the shares before the ex-dividend date you will get the dividends. Depending on your instructions to your broker, you can receive cash dividends or you can have the dividends reinvested in more shares of the company. There are specific Dividend ReInvestment Plans (or DRIPs) if you are after stock growth rather than income from dividend payments."}
{"text": "When are investments taxed? An investment is sold when you sell that particular stock or fund. It doesn't wait until you withdraw cash from the brokerage account. Whether an investment is subject to long term or short term taxes depends on how long you held that particular stock. Sorry, you can't get around the higher short term tax by leaving the money in a brokerage account or re-investing in something else. If you are invested in a mutual fund, whether it's long or short term depends on when you buy and sell the fund. The fact that the fund managers are buying and selling behind your back doesn't affect this. (I don't know what taxes they have to pay, maybe you really are paying for it in the form of management fees or lower returns, but you don't explicitly pay the tax on these \"inner\" transactions.) Your broker should send you a tax statement every year giving the numbers that you need to fill in to the various boxes of your income tax form. You don't have to figure it out. Of course it helps to know the rules. If you've held a stock for 11 1/2 months and are planning to sell, you might want to consider waiting a couple of weeks so it becomes a long term capital gain rather than short term and thus subject to lower tax."}
{"text": "Mutual fund invests in mostly the same stuff as ETF, but has much higher expense ratio? (biotech sector) Index funds, like IBB, generally lack active management, which equates to lower expenses. This is simply because the target index, the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index in the case of IBB, is composed of known quantities. This means there won't be stock pickers or analysts constantly swapping holdings, increasing the turnover rate of the portfolio and increasing capital gains; costs that are offset by higher expense ratios in more actively managed funds."}
{"text": "What is inflation? Money itself has no value. A gold bar is worth (fuzzy rushed math, could be totally wrong on this example figure) $423,768.67. So, a 1000 dollars, while worthless paper, are a token saying that you own %.2 of a gold bar in the federal reserve. If a billion dollars are printed, but no new gold is added to the treasury, then your dollar will devalue, and youll only have %.1 percent of that gold bar (again, made up math to describe a hypothetical). When dollars are introduced into the economy, but gold has not been introduced to back it up, things like the government just printing dollars or banks inventing money out of debt (see the housing bubble), then the dollar tokens devalue further. TL;DR: Inflation is the ratio of actual wealth in the Treasury to the amount of currency tokens the treasury has printed."}
{"text": "Using Marine Traffic (AIS) to make stock picks? You can. Speculating on marine traffic is more closely tied to oil trades and ocean shipping container rates, than trades on any particular companies. But companies heavily tied to ocean shipping can be ripe for speculation. The baltic dry index is created for this analytical purpose, and that information can be used as an indicator to hedge or speculate in container freight swap agreements.  The Guggenheim Shipping Exchange Traded Fund also serves as a proxy for maritime shipping profitability, but it is just a bundle of several publicly traded marine shipping companies shares."}
{"text": "Stocks: Where can I find a list of bankrupt/diluting stocks in the US? The only recommendation I have is to try the stock screener from Google Finance : https://www.google.com/finance?ei=oJz9VenXD8OxmAHR263YBg#stockscreener"}
{"text": "What determines a tax resident in Florida I think the 60 days/year come from the IRS tax residency determination, which isn't a Florida law but applies to all the states. Have a look at the \"substantial presence\" paragraph to see where the 60 days are coming from."}
{"text": "Why would a restaurant offer a very large cash discount? Why would such a large discount make business sense to the restaurant? The legit reasons could be;   Or can I assume that the restaurant is trying to avoid leaving a paper trail so that they could avoid paying tax? The illegal reasons could be;"}
{"text": "Do the activities of my LLC need to be limited to a particular field? No. When you file your Articles of Organization, simply state that your business will operate under the law. You don't need to give any further specification."}
{"text": "Is investing in an ETF generally your best option after establishing a Roth IRA? ETFs are a type of investment, not a specific choice. In other words, there are good ETFs and bad. What you see is the general statement that ETFs are preferable to most mutual funds, if only for the fact that they are low cost. An index ETF such as SPY (which reflects the S&P 500 index) has a .09% annual expense, vs a mutual fund which average a full percent or more.  sheegaon isn't wrong, I just have a different spin to offer you. Given a long term return of say even 8% (note - this question is not a debate of the long term return, and I purposely chose a low number compared to the long term average, closer to 10%) and the current CD rate of <1%, a 1% hit for the commission on the buy side doesn't bother me. The sell won't occur for a long time, and $8 on a $10K sale is no big deal. I'd not expect you to save $1K/yr in cash/CDs for the years it would take to make that $8 fee look tiny. Not when over time the growth will overshaddow this.  One day you will be in a position where the swings in the market will produce the random increase or decrease to your net worth in the $10s of thousands. Do you know why you won't lose a night's sleep over this? Because when you invested your first $1K, and started to pay attention to the market, you saw how some days had swings of 3 or 4%, and you built up an immunity to the day to day noise. You stayed invested and as you gained wealth, you stuck to the right rebalancing each year, so a market crash which took others down by 30%, only impacted you by 15-20, and you were ready for the next move to the upside. And you also saw that since mutual funds with their 1% fees never beat the index over time, you were happy to say you lagged the S&P by .09%, or 1% over 11 year's time vs those whose funds had some great years, but lost it all in the bad years.  And by the way, right until you are in the 25% bracket, Roth is the way to go. When you are at 25%, that's the time to use pre-tax accounts to get just below the cuttoff.  Last, welcome to SE.    Edit - see sheegaon's answer below. I agree, I missed the cost of the bid/ask spread. Going with the lowest cost (index) funds may make better sense for you.  To clarify, Sheehan points out that ETFs trade like a stock, a commission, and a bid/ask, both add to transaction cost. So, agreeing this is the case, an indexed-based mutual fund can provide the best of possible options. Reflecting the S&P (for example) less a small anual expense, .1% or less."}
{"text": "How do I build wealth? Another possibility is that a lot of it is bought using borrowed money. Especially if much of your own money is in the stock market, it may be beneficial to take out a loan to buy something compared to selling other assets to raise the same amount of cash. Even going by the likely relatively conservative \u00a3200K/year before taxes, you are looking at a very nice house going for perhaps around 3-5 years' worth of pre-tax income. Let's say you have good contacts at the bank and can secure a loan for \u00a3500K at 3.5% interest (not at all unreasonable if you make half that before taxes in a single year and purchase something that can be used as collateral for the money borrowed; with a bit of negotiating, I wouldn't be surprised if one could push the interest rate even lower, and stock in a publicly traded company can also trivially be used as collateral). That's less than \u00a31500/month in interest, before any applicable tax effects -- less than 10% of the before-tax income. And like @Victor wrote, I think it's reasonable to say that especially if the company is publicly traded, the CEO makes more than \u00a3200K/year. Given an income of \u00a3200K/year and assuming 30% taxes on that amount (the marginal tax would likely be higher, and this includes e.g. interest expense deductions), the money left over after taxes and interest payments on a \u00a3500K 3.5% debt is still about \u00a310K/month. Even with a pretty rapid amortization schedule and even if the actual tax rate is higher, that leaves quite a bit of money to be socked away in savings and other investments."}
{"text": "Do I even need credit cards? If you are in the U.S., without credit cards, you probably don't have a credit history. Without a credit history, you won't be able to get a loan/mortgage, and even if you do, you'll get it on very unfavorable terms. Depending on where you live you might even have great difficulty renting an apartment. So, the most important reason to have credit cards is to have a good credit score. People have already listed other advantages of having credit cards, but another thing that wasn't mentioned is fraud protection. Credit cards are better protected against fraud than debit cards. You probably shouldn't use debit cards online unless you must. Also, without a credit card or credit history, some simple and important liberties like renting a car while you are travelling might be denied to you. So, in conclusion, it's bizarre, but in modern America you need credit cards, and you need them bad."}
{"text": "How important is disability insurance, e.g. long-term, LTD? Employer offers none The reason to have disability insurance is to replace your income if you become disabled and are no longer able to work.  For this purpose, it is kind of similar to life insurance where you want to replace your income to take care of people that depend on your income if you die, but now you are included in the people that depend on your income.   If your employer doesn't provide any disability insurance then it would be wise to look for some Long Term disability insurance.  Short Term disability is more expensive than long term and it is USUALLY better and cheaper to have a good emergency fund to provide for a short term disability such as being sick for a month and not able to work than to buy short-term.  As a web developer - you should be able to get long term disability insurance at a reasonable cost, unless you have some dangerous hobbies like forest fire fighting or shark juggling."}
{"text": "How late is Roth (rather than pretax) still likely to help? My simplest approach is to suggest that people go Roth when in the 15% bracket, and use pre-tax to avoid 25%. I outlined that strategy in my article The 15% solution.  The monkey wrench that gets thrown in to this is the distortion of the other smooth marginal tax curve caused by the taxation of social security. For those who can afford to, it makes the case to lean toward Roth as much as possible.  I'd suggest always depositing pretax, and using conversions to better control the process. Two major benefits to this. It's less a question of too late than of what strategy to use."}
{"text": "How will I pay for college? There are some useful comments about the tradeoffs of the decisions in front of you.  Intertwined with the financial choices, hopefully you can see a map opening up.   Make a little chart if it helps.  Benefit and Cost.  If you're looking for financial options, you will have to also add more columns to that chart:  Option and Cost. An example is the comment on making connections with rich kids.  Trust fund babies are everywhere in this country.  Did you know any rich kids while growing up?  How were those rich kids you knew of back then... in your school... in your town?  How did they treat you?  Were you ever invited to their parties or gatherings?  Now there's an opportunity for the privilege to pay a lot of money to sit in a classroom next to them?  Even in the early days of American history with merit based millionaires... tycoons who made it rich by the seat of their pants.  At fancy dinner parties and soirees, a new term emerged to put each other again out of reach: old money (the deserving) and new money (uncultured climbers).   That's my bias.  You'll have some of your own.  What is important to YOU has to come through because these days, the price tag of any higher education implies a considerable piece of your life's timeline will be committed to... something.  Make sure you get what you feel is worth that commitment. Take stock of what has been said here by the others, but put a value on those choices and seriously consider what you're willing to pay for... and what you're not.  There is no formula for your success as there's been thousands of exceptions... ESID (Every Situation is Different)."}
{"text": "What does it mean if a company pays a quarterly dividend? How much would I get quarterly? Google is a poor example since it doesn't pay a dividend (and doesn't expect to), so let's use another example with easy numbers. Company X has a stock price of $100, and it pays a quarterly dividend (many companies do). Let's assume X pays a dividend of $4. Dividends are always quoted in annual terms, as is dividend yield. When a company says that they pay \"quarterly dividends,\" it means that the company pays dividends every quarter, or every 3 months.  BUT, if a company has a $4 dividend, you will not receive $4 every quarter per share. You will receive $4/4 = $1 per share, every quarter. So over the course of a fiscal year, or 4 quarters, you'll get $1 + $1 + $1 + $1 = $4 per share, which is the annual dividend.  The dividend yield = annual dividend/stock price. So in this case, company X's div. yield will be $4/$100 * 100 = 4%. It's important to note that this is the annual yield. To get the quarterly yield, you must divide by 4. It's also important to note that the yield fluctuates based on stock price, but the dividend payment stays constant unless the company states an announcement. For a real world example, consider Intel Corp. (TICKER: INTC) http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=INTC The share price is currently $22.05, and the dividend is $0.84. This makes the annual yield = $0.84/$22.05 * 100 = 3.80%. Intel pays a quarterly dividend, so you can expect to receive $0.21 every quarter for every share of Intel that you own. Hope that clears it up!"}
{"text": "What's the best way to make money from a market correction? The best way to make money during a market correction is to be a financial services company handling transactions for people who think they can beat the market, and charging a percentage commission on each transaction, while keeping your own money somewhere nice and safe, stable and low-fee."}
{"text": "Should I change 401k investment options to prepare for rising interest rates? I see that you're invested in a couple bond funds. You do not want to be invested in bonds when the Fed raises rates. When rates climb, the value of bond investments decline, and vice-versa. So that means you should sell bonds before a rate hike, and buy them before a rate drop."}
{"text": "Buying a small amount (e.g. $50) of stock via eToro \u201cSocial Trading Network\u201d using a \u201cCFD\u201d? As many people here have pointed out, a CFD is a contract for difference. When you invest in stock at eToro, you buy a CFD reflecting a bid on the price movement of the underlying stock, however, you do not actually own the stock or hold any rights shareholders have. The counterparty to the CFD is eToro. When you close your position, eToro shall pay you the amount representing the difference between your buy and sell price for each stock.  I suggest you read the following article about CFDs, it explains everything clearly and thoroughly: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/09/trade-a-cfd.asp#axzz2G9ZsmX3A As some of the responders have pointed out, and as is mentioned in the article, a broker can potentially misquote the prices of underlying assets in order to manipulate CFDs to their advantage. However, eToro is a highly reputable broker, with over 2 million active accounts, and we guarantee accurate stock quotes. Furthermore, eToro is regulated in Europe (Germany, UK, France, etc.) by institutions that exact strict regulations on the CFD trading sector, and we are obligated to comply with these regulations, which include accurate price quoting.  And of course, CFD trading at eToro has tremendous benefits. Unlike a direct stock investment, eToro allows you to invest as much or as little as you like in your favorite stocks, even if the amount is less than the relevant stock price (i.e. fraction stocks). For example:  if you invest $10 in Microsoft, and on the day of execution eToro\u2019s average aggregated price was $30 after a spread of 0.1%, you will then have a CFD representing 0.33 stocks of Microsoft in your eToro account. In addition, with eToro you can invest in stock in the context of a social trading network, meaning that you can utilize the stock trading expertise of other trader to your advantage by following them, learning their strategies, and even copying their stock investments automatically. To put it briefly, you won\u2019t be facing the stock market alone!  Before you make a decision, I suggest that you try stock trading with an eToro demo account. A free demo account grants you access to all our instruments at real market rates, as well as access to our social network where you can view and participate in trader discussions about trading stocks with eToro, all without risking your hard earned money. Bottom line \u2013 it\u2019s free, there are no strings attached, and you can get a much firmer idea of what trading stocks with eToro is like. If you have any further questions, please don\u2019t hesitate to contact us through our site: www.etoro.com."}
{"text": "How can I work out how much a side-job contracting will be taxed for? Being self-employed, your \"profit\" is calculated as all the bills you send out, minus all business-related cost that you have (you will need a receipt for everything, and there are different rules for things that last for long time, long tools, machinery).  You can file your taxes yourself - the HRS website will tell you how to, and you can do it online. It's close to the same as your normal online tax return. Only thing is that you must keep receipts for all the cost that you claim.  Your tax: Assuming your gross salary is \u00a325,000 and your profits are about \u00a310,000, you will be paying 8% for national insurance, and 20% income tax. If you go above \u00a343,000 or thereabouts, you pay 40% income tax on any income above that threshold, instead of 20%, but your national insurance payments stop."}
{"text": "Possible to use balance transfers to avoid interest with major credit cards? Sure of course you can do balance transfers like this but you are way late to the party and it has gotten to be pretty challenging finding new cards to transfer balances to. Before the current financial crisis in the US you could get enormous amounts of credit (2-5 times a person's annual income) and transfer balances to your bank account to collect interest . There were a bunch of ways to the transfer everything from direct deposit to your bank account to a balance transfer check payable to yourself to overpaying another credit card and requesting a refund. Over paying another account sets off a lot of red flags now days but other methods still work. The financial atmosphere has changed a lot and there are very few available cards with no balance transfer fees or capped fees and the interest rates are a lot lower now so it really isn't worth doing."}
{"text": "How to correct a tax return filed electronically and already approved? Simply file an amended return to correct the mistake. This happens all the time and is a standard procedure that every legitimate tax pro can handle. You can work it out with the tax pro about whose mistake it was and who should pay for the additional service."}
{"text": "When trading put options, is your total risk decreased if you are in a position to exercise the option? In absolute terms the risk is about the same.  If you own the stock and your put option goes in the money, then you have the option to get rid of your stock at yesterday's higher price.  If you don't, you can sell the option for a higher price than you paid for it. But, as you calculated yourself, the net gain or loss (in absolute terms, not percentage terms) is the same either way."}
{"text": "Why is it good to borrow money to buy a house? You can explore the scenarios in which it is better to rent or to buy using this application: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/BuyOrRentInvestmentReturnCalculator/ In the possibly unlikely scenario shown below, at the term of the mortgage (20 years) the tenant and the buyer have practically the same return on investment.  At this point the tenant's savings would be sufficient to buy a house equivalent to the buyer's, and this would be the advisable course of action (based on the figures alone)."}
{"text": "Why is it not a requirement for companies to pay dividends? You have plenty of good answers, but I want to add something that might help you grow your intuition on stocks. There are a lot of differences between the example I am going to give and how the stock market actually runs, but the basic concepts are the same. Lets say your friend asks you if he can borrow some money to start up a company, in exchange you will have some ownership in this company. You have essentially just bought yourself some stock. Now as your friend starts to grow, he is doing well, but he needs more cash to buy assets in order to grow the company more. He is forced with an option, either give you some of the profits, or buy these assets sooner. You decide you don't really need the money right now, and think he can do a lot better with spending the money to buy stuff. This is essentially the same as a company electing to not pay dividends, but instead invest into the future. You as a stock holder are fine with it since you know the money is going toward investing in the future. Even if you never get paid a dividend, as a company grows, you can then turn around and sell the stock to someone else for more money then you gave originally. Of course you always take the risk of having the company failing and loosing some if not all of your investment, but that is just the risk of the market."}
{"text": "Should I replace bonds in a passive investment strategy The fact that some asset (in this case corporate bonds) has positive correlation with some other asset (equity) doesn't mean buying both isn't a good idea.  Unless they are perfectly correlated, the best risk/reward portfolio will include both assets as they will sometimes move in opposite directions and cancel out each other's risk.  So yes, you should buy corporate bonds.  Short-term government bonds are essentially the risk-free asset.  You will want to include that as well if you are very risk averse, otherwise you may not.  Long-term government bonds may be default free but they are not risk free.  They will make money if interest rates fall and lose if interest rates rise.  Because of that risk, they also pay you a premium, albeit a small one, and should be in your portfolio. So yes, a passive portfolio (actually, any reasonable portfolio) should strive to reduce risk by diversifying into all assets that it reasonably can.  If you believe the capital asset pricing model, the weights on portfolio assets should correspond to market weights (more money in bonds than stocks).  Otherwise you will need to choose your weights.  Unfortunately we are not able to estimate the true expected returns of risky assets, so no one can really agree on what the true optimal weights should be.  That's why there are so many rules of thumb and so much disagreement on the subject.  But there is little or no disagreement on the fact that the optimal portfolio does include risky bonds including long-term treasuries. To answer your follow-up question about an \"anchor,\" if by that you mean a risk-free asset then the answer is not really.  Any risk-free asset is paying approximately zero right now.  Some assets with very little risk will earn a very little bit more than short term treasuries, but overall there's nowhere to hide--the time value of money is extremely low at short horizons.  You want expected returns, you must take risk."}
{"text": "What percent of my salary should I save? I disagree with the selected answer. There's no one rule of thumb and certainly not simple ones like \"20 cents of every dollar if you're 35\". You've made a good start by making a budget of your expected expenses. If you read the Mr. Money Mustache blogpost titled The Shockingly  Simple Math Behind Early Retirement, you will understand that it is usually a mistake to think of your expenses as a fixed percentage of your income. In most cases, it makes more sense to keep your expenses as low as possible, regardless of your actual income.  In the financial independence community, it is a common principle that one typically needs 25-30 times one's annual spending to have enough money to sustain oneself forever off the investment returns that those savings generate (this is based on the assumption of a 7% average annual return, 4% after inflation). So the real answer to your question is this: UPDATE Keats brought to my attention that this formula doesn't work that well when the savings rates are low (20% range). This is because it assumes that money you save earns no returns for the entire period that you are saving. This is obviously not true; investment returns should also count toward your 25-times annual spending goal. For that reason, it's probably better to refer to the blog post that I linked to in the answer above for precise calculations. That's where I got the \"37 years at 20% savings rate\" figure from. Depending on how large and small x and y are, you could have enough saved up to retire in 7 years (at a 75% savings rate), 17 years (at a 50% savings rate), or 37 years! (at the suggested 20% savings rate for 35-year olds). As you go through life, your expenses may increase (eg. starting a family, starting a new business, unexpected health event etc) or decrease (kid wins full scholarship to college). So could your income. However, in general, you should negotiate the highest salary possible (if you are salaried), use the 25x rule, and consider your life and career goals to decide how much you want to save. And stop thinking of expenses as a percentage of income."}
{"text": "Should I open a Roth IRA or invest in the S&P 500? A Roth IRA is simply a tax-sheltered account that you deposit funds into, and then invest however you choose (within the limits of the firm you deposit the funds with). For example, you could open a Roth IRA account with Vanguard.  You could then invest the $3000 by purchasing shares of VOO, which tracks the S&P 500 index and has a very low expense ratio (0.04 as of last time I checked).  Fidelity has a similar option, or Schwab, or whatever brokerage firm you prefer. IRAs are basically just normal investment accounts, except they don't owe taxes until you withdraw them (and Roth don't even owe them then, though you paid taxes on the funds you deposit).  They have some limitations regarding options trading and such, but if you're a novice investor just looking to do basic investments, you'll not notice.   Then, your IRA would go up or down in value as the market went up or down in value. You do have some restrictions on when you can withdraw the funds; Roth IRA has fewer than a normal IRA, as you can withdraw the capital (the amount you deposited) without penalty, but the profits cannot be withdrawn until you're retirement age (I won't put an actual year, as I suspect that actual year will change by the time you're that old; but think 60s). The reason not to invest in an IRA is if you plan on using the money in the near future - even as an \"emergency fund\".  You should have some money that is not invested aggressively, that is in something very safe and very accessible, for your emergency fund; and if you plan to buy a house or whatever with the funds, don't start an IRA.  But if this is truly money you want to save for retirement, that's the best place to start. **Note, this is not investment advice, and you should do your own homework prior to making any investment.  You can lose some or all of the value of your account while investing."}
{"text": "Is there a limit on the dollar amount of a personal check? As long as someone is willing to take it, you can write it!  I personally wrote a check for a new car.   The dealership didn't bat an eye."}
{"text": "Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity? If you need access to your data beyond the online availability, you download the transactions and manage the archive yourself. Six months to eighteen months is generally enough time for most people to manage their own archived data. Big banks have the power to store and retrieve all the data online. Unfortunately, the older records are not frequently accessed. Why have these records online when they will be rarely accessed? Backing up data will take longer. Queries to retrieve data will take longer. Everything will take longer just so you can have records that 99% of customers will never access."}
{"text": "Can travel expenses be deducted from Form 1040A if they were used to gather material for a book? Hobby expenses are not tax deductible.  Business expenses are, but only if it's a bona fide business.  First they look at profitability: if you reported a net profit (i.e. paid taxes) in your first 3 years, they will believe you rant on Youtube for a living.   Remember, by the time they get around to auditing you, you'll likely be well into, or through, your third year.   There is an exception for farms.  Other than that, if you lose money year after year, you better be able to show that you look, walk and quack like a business; and one with a reasonable business reason for delayed profitability.  For instance Netflix's old business model of mailing DVDs had very high fixed infrastructure expense that took years to turn profitable, but was a very sensible model.  They're fine with that.  Pets.com swandived into oblivion but they earnestly tried. They're fine with that too.  You can't mix all your activities. If you're an electrician specializing in IoT and smart homes, can you deduct a trip to the CES trade show, you bet.  Blackhat conference, arguable.  SES?  No way.  Now if you had a second business of a product-reco site which profited by ads and affiliate links, then SES would be fine to deduct from that business.  But if this second business loses money every year, it's a hobby and not deductible at all.  That person would want separate accounting books for the electrician and webmaster businesses.  That's a basic \"duck test\" of a business vs. a hobby. You need to be able to show how each business gets income and pays expense separate from every other business and your personal life.  It's a best-practice to give each business a separate checking account and checkbook. You don't need to risk tax penalties on a business-larva that may never pupate.  You can amend your taxes up to 3 years after the proper filing date.  I save my expense reciepts for each tax year, and if a business becomes justifiable, I go back and amend past years' tax forms, taking those deductions.  IRS gives me a refund check, with interest!"}
{"text": "How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent? One of the other things you could do to improve your score would be along the lines of what Pete said in his answer, but using the current financial climate to your advantage. I'm not sure what interest rates are available to you in the UK, but I currently have 4 lines of credit aside from my house. One is a credit card I use for every day purchases and like you pay off immediately with every statement. The other three are technically credit cards, however all three were used to make purchases with 0% financing. The one was for a TV I bought that even gave me 5% off if I pay it off within 6 months. That cash has been sitting in my savings since the day I bought it. I'm making regular payments on all three, but not having to pay any interest. My credit score dropped 25 points with the one as it was an elective medical expense (Visian eye surgery), so for the time the balance is near my credit limit. However, that will bounce back up as the balance lowers. My score was also able to take that hit and still be very high. If you don't have 0% (or very close) available, your better bet would be to follow the other suggestions about saving for a sizable down payment, or other every day expenses like a cell phone."}
{"text": "Do I have to pay a capital gains tax if I rebuy different stocks? Probably.  It sounds like you're looking for a 1031-exchange for stocks and bonds.  From the wikipedia page for 1031-exchanges: To qualify for Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, the properties exchanged must be held for productive use in a trade or business or for investment. Stocks, bonds, and other properties are listed as expressly excluded by Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, though securitized properties are not excluded.  1031-exchanges usually are applicable in real estate."}
{"text": "Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity? Although if you count only your data, it would be quite less 10 MB, multiply this by 1 million customers and you can see how quickly the data grows. Banks do retain data for longer period, as governed by country laws, typically in the range of 7 to 10 years.  The online data storage cost is quite high 5 to 10 times more than offline storage. There are other aspects, Disaster recover time, the more the data the more the time. Hence after a period of time Banks move the data into Archive that are cheaper to store but are not available to online query, plus the storage is not optimized for search. Hence retrieval of this data often takes few days if the regulator demands or court or any other genuine request for data retrieval."}
{"text": "Assessed value of my house You said the tax assessor gave you an appraised value, but I think you mean assessed value. This article YOUR HOME; Market vs. Appraisal: What's the Real Value? explains the differences pretty well."}
{"text": "Avoid Capital Gains on Rental Your question is best asked of a tax expert, not random people on the internet. Such an expert will help you ask the right questions.  For example you did not point out the country or state in which you live.  That matters.   First point is that you will not pay tax on 60K, its expensive to transact real estate, so your net proceeds will be closer to 40K.  Also you can probably the deduct the costs of improvements. You implied that you really like this rental property.  If that is the case, why would you sell...ever?  This home could be a central part of your financial independence plan.  So keep it until you die.  IIRC when it passes to your heirs, a new cost basis is formed thereby not passing the tax burden onto them. (Assuming the property is located in the US.)"}
{"text": "Should I get an accountant for my taxes? Let me offer an anecdote to this -  I started helping a woman, widowed, retired, who had been paying $500/yr to get her taxes done. As I mentioned in my comment here, she got a checklist each year and provided the info requested. From where I sat, it seemed a clerk entered the info into tax software.  As part of the transition to me helping her, I asked the prior guy (very nice guy, really) for a quick consult. She took the standard deduction, but also showed a nice annual donation. Didn't take advantage of the QCD, donate directly from an IRA (she was over 70-1/2) to save on the tax of this sum. That could have saved her $500.  She was in the 15% bracket, with some room left for a Roth conversion. Converting just enough to 'fill' that bracket each year seemed a decent strategy as it would avoid the 25% rate as her RMDs rose each year and would push her to 25%. To both items the guy suggested that this was not his area, he was not a financial planner. Yes, I understand different expertise. With how simple her return was, I didn't understand the value he added.  If you go with a professional, be sure you have an understanding of what he will and won't do for you."}
{"text": "Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use? What I should have done in the first place was just ask them.  From their customer support team: Thanks for writing in and for your interest in Square. It is perfectly acceptable to use Square for personal business, such as a yard sale. You do not need to have a registered business to take advantage of Square and the ability to accept credit cards. Just please note that it is against our Terms of Service to process prepaid cards, gift cards or your own credit card using your own Square account. Additionally, you may not use Square as a money transfer system. For every payment processed through Square, you must provide a legitimate good or service. Please let me know if you have any additional concerns."}
{"text": "Does an employee have the right to pay the federal and state taxes themselves instead of having employer doing it? No, even businesses pay taxes quarterly.  So if you formed Nathan, LLC, or otherwise became self employed, you'd still have to file quarterly estimates and make tax payments.  This would cause taxes to be a much more high touch part of your life. However, you should ensure that you're claiming the proper exemptions etc to avoid excessive withholding."}
{"text": "Investing in dividend-yielding stocks with money borrowed from margin account? Is it safe to invest in a portfolio of dividend stocks yielding 7-9% with the money borrowed at 3-4% from one of these brokerages? Yes and no. It depends on your risk profile! Any investment has its risks of losing your capital, but not investing is a guaranteed risk, as you will be guaranteed to fall behind the rate of inflation. Regarding investing on margin, this can increase your gains but can also increase your loses. Regarding the stock market - when investing in stocks you should not only look at the dividend rate but also the capital gain or loss potential. Remember in regards to investing on margin, if the share price drop too much you can get a margin call no matter how much dividend you are getting. It is no use gaining 9% in dividend yield per year if you are losing 15% or more in capital each year. Also, what is the risk of the dividend rate being cut back or dividends not being paid at all in the future? These are some of the risks you should consider before investing and derive a risk management plan as part of your investment plan before you invest. No investment is totally safe or risk free, but it is less risky than not investing at all, as long as you understand the risks involved and have a risk management plan in place as part of your overall investment plan."}
{"text": "Foreign Earned Income Exclusion - Service vs. Product? As the name says, its for income earned in a Foreign country. If you have been paying US income tax on this while living in the US, nothing is going to change here. You should be informing yourself on how to avoid double taxation in your new country of residence. Passive income earned abroad (dividends, interest) also do not fall under this exemption.  The purpose of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion is to make it easy for expats who work abroad to avoid double income taxation without going through the complicated process of applying for tax credits. The US is the only industrial country that taxes its residents regardless of where they reside. That is also why it only goes to about $100,000 a year. If you are a high earner, they want to make it more difficult. Also as a side note, since you are going to be abroad for a year. I will point out that if you have more than $10,000 in foreign accounts at any point in the year you need to declare this in an FBAR form. This is not advertised as well as it should be and carries ridiculous penalties for non-compliance. I can't count the number of times I have heard a US expat say that they were unaware of this."}
{"text": "Dormant company, never paid taxes, never traded in UK - should I have notified the HMRC? You don't have to register for corporation tax until you start doing business: After you\u2019ve registered your company with Companies House, you\u2019ll need to register it for Corporation Tax. You\u2019ll need to do this within 3 months of starting to do business. Since you haven't needed to do that yet, there also shouldn't be any need to tell HMRC you've stopped trading. So it should just be a question of telling Companies House - I guess it's possible they'll first want you to provide the missing accounts."}
{"text": "Why do some people go through contortions to avoid paying taxes, yet spend money on expensive financial advice, high-interest loans, etc? To some extent, I suppose, most people are okay with paying Some taxes. But, as they teach in Intro to Economics, \"Decisions are made on the margin\". Few are honestly expecting to get away with paying no taxes at all. They are instead concerned about how much they spend on taxes, and how effectively. The classic defense of taxes says \"Roads and national defense and education and fire safety are all important.\" This is not really the problem that people have with taxes. People have problems with gigantic ongoing infrastructure boondoggles that cost many times what they were projected to cost (a la Boston's Big Dig) while the city streets aren't properly paved. People don't have big problems with a city-run garbage service; they have problems with the garbagemen who get six-figure salaries plus a guaranteed union-protected job for life and a defined-benefit pension plan which they don't contribute a penny to (and likewise for their health plans). People don't have a big problem with paying for schools; they have a big problem with paying more than twice the national average for schools and still ending up with miserable schools (New Jersey). People have a problem when the government issues bonds, invests the money in the stock market for the public employee pension plan, projects a 10% annual return, contractually guarantees it to the employees, and then puts the taxpayers on the hook when the Dow ends up at 11,000 instead of ~25,000 (California). And people have a problem with the attitude that when they don't pay taxes they're basically stealing that money, or that tax cuts are morally equivalent to a handout, and the insinuation that they're terrible people for trying to keep some of their money from the government."}
{"text": "Invest all at once after maxing out Roth IRA - or each time I contribute? If you are like most people, your timing is kind of awful.  What I mean by most, is all.  Psychologically we have strong tendencies to buy when the market is high and avoid buying when it is low.  One of the easiest to implement strategies to avoid this is Dollar Cost Averaging.  In most cases you are far better off making small investments regularly. Having said that, you may need to \"save\" a bit in order to make subsequent investments because of minimums.   For me there is also a positive psychological effect of putting money to work sooner and more often.  I find it enjoyable to purchase shares of a mutual fund or stock and the days that I do so are a bit better than the others.   An added benefit to doing regular investing is to have them be automated.  Many wealthy people describe this as a key to success as they can focused on the business of earning money in their chosen profession as opposed to investing money they have already earned.  Additionally the author of I will Teach You to be Rich cites this as a easy, free, and key step in building wealth."}
{"text": "Is the average true range a better measure of volatility than historical volatility ATR really looks at the volatility within the day -- So you would be able to see if the stock is becoming more or less volatile in daily trading.  This is often useful for charting and finding entry and exit locations.   Traditional historic volatility (as you cited) will give you a look at the long term volatility of the security.  The example of this is that there could be trends up or down but the same daily volatility (same ATR) There are methods that try to incorporate both intraday information along with historic volatility.  As for which is a better measure of volatility-- it depends on what you are using the measure for."}
{"text": "Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? Although this has been touched upon in comments, I think the following line from the currently accepted answer shows the biggest issue: There is a clear difference between investing and gambling. The reality is that the difference isn't that clear at all. Tens of comments have been written arguing in both directions and looking around the internet entire essays have been written arguing both positions. The underlying emotion that seems to shape this discussion primarily is whether investing (especially in the stock market) is a form of gambling. People who do invest in this way tend to get relatively emotional whenever someone argues that this is a form of gambling, as gambling is considered a negative thing. The simple reality of human communication is that words can be ambiguous, and the way investors will use the words 'investments' and 'gambles' will differ from the way it is used by gamblers, and once again different from the way it's commonly used. What I definitely think is made clear by all the different discussions however is that there is no single distinctive trait that allows us to differentiate investing and gambling. The result of this is that when you take dictionary definitions for both terms you will likely end up including lottery tickets as a valid form of investment.  That still however leaves us with a situation where we have two terms - with a strong overlap - which have a distinctive meaning in communication and the original question whether buying lottery tickets is an investment. Over on investorguide.com there is an absolutely amazing strongly recommended essay which explores countless of different traits in search of a difference between investing and gambling, and they came up with the following two definitions: Investing: \"Any activity in which money is put at risk for the purpose of making a profit, and which is characterized by some or most of the following (in approximately descending order of importance): sufficient research has been conducted; the odds are favorable; the behavior is risk-averse; a systematic approach is being taken; emotions such as greed and fear play no role; the activity is ongoing and done as part of a long-term plan; the activity is not motivated solely by entertainment or compulsion; ownership of something tangible is involved; a net positive economic effect results.\" Gambling: \"Any activity in which money is put at risk for the purpose of making a profit, and which is characterized by some or most of the following (in approximately descending order of importance): little or no research has been conducted; the odds are unfavorable; the behavior is risk-seeking; an unsystematic approach is being taken; emotions such as greed and fear play a role; the activity is a discrete event or series of discrete events not done as part of a long-term plan; the activity is significantly motivated by entertainment or compulsion; ownership of something tangible is not involved; no net economic effect results.\" The very interesting thing about those definitions is that they capture very well the way those terms are used by most people, and they even acknowledge that a lot of 'investors' are gambling, and that a few gamblers are 'investing' (read the essay for more on that). And this fits well with the way those two concepts are understood by the public. So in those definitions normally buying a lottery ticket would indeed not be an investment, but if we take for example Vadim's operation example If you have $1000 and need $2000 by next week or else you can't have an operation and you will die (and you can't find anyone to give you a loan). Your optimal strategy is to gamble your $1000, at the best odds you can get, with a possible outcome of $2000. So even if you only have a 1/3 chance of winning and getting that operation, it's still the right bet if you can't find a better one. this can suddenly change the perception and turn 'gambling' into 'high-risk investing'."}
{"text": "Why I cannot find a \u201cPure Cash\u201d option in 401k investments? There is no zero risk option! There is no safe parking zone for turbulent times! There is no such thing as a zero-risk investment.  You would do well to get this out of your head now.  Cash, though it will retain its principle over time, will always be subject to inflation risk (assuming a positive-inflation environment which, historically in the US anyway, has always been the case since the Great Depression). But I couldn't find a \"Pure Cash - No investment option\" - what I mean by this is an option where my money is kept idle without investing in any kind of financial instrument (stocks, bonds, other MFs, currencies, forex etc etc whatever).  Getting back to the real crux of your question, several other answers have already highlighted that you're looking for a money market fund.  These will likely be as close to cash as you will get in a retirement account for the reasons listed in @KentA's answer. Investing in short-term notes would also be another relatively low-risk alternative to a money market fund.  Again, this is low-risk, not no-risk. I wanted such kinda option because things may turn bad and I may want nothing invested in the stock markets/bond markets. I was thinking that if the market turns bear then I would move everything to cash Unless you have a the innate ability to perfectly time the market, you are better off keeping your investments where they are and riding out the bear market.  Cash does not generate dividends - most funds in a retirement account do.  Sure, you may have a paper loss of principle in a bear market, but this will go away once the market turns bull again.  Assuming you have a fairly long time before you retire, this should not concern you in the slightest. Again, I want to stress that market timing does not work.  Even the professionals, who get paid the big bucks to do this, on average, get it right as often as they get it wrong.  If you had this ability, you would not be asking financial questions on Stack Exchange, I can tell you that. I would recommend you read The Four Pillars of Investing, by William Bernstein.  He has a very no-nonsense approach to investing and retirement that would serve you (or anybody) well in turbulent financial markets.  His discussion on risk is especially applicable to your situation."}
{"text": "How are stock buybacks not considered insider trading? In fact, buybacks WERE often considered a vehicle for insider trading, especially prior to 1982.  For instance, Prior to the Reagan era, executives avoided buybacks due to fears that   they would be prosecuted for market manipulation. But under SEC Rule   10b-18, adopted in 1982, companies receive a \u201csafe harbor\u201d from market   manipulation liability on stock buybacks if they adhere to four   limitations: not engaging in buybacks at the beginning or end of the   trading day, using a single broker for the trades, purchasing shares   at the prevailing market price, and limiting the volume of buybacks to   25 percent of the average daily trading volume over the previous four   weeks."}
{"text": "How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want I use cash exclusively. I go to the cash machine once a week and withdraw the money I want to spend in one week (so I have to plan if I want to buy something expensive). Otherwise I leave the card at home. As bonus you get anonymity, i.e. big brother cannot track you."}
{"text": "Treasury Bonds, and why has the NYSE 20+ Year Treasury Bond index (AXTWEN) gone up so much in the last year (2011)? The NYSE 20 Year Plus Treasury Bond Index (AXTWEN) is a multiple-security fixed income index that aims to track the total returns of the long-term 20 year and greater maturity range of the U.S. Treasury bond market. The index constituent bonds are weighted by their relative amounts outstanding.One cannot directly invest in an Index. Index Bond Maturities 24 to 27 Years  20.36% /27 to 29 Years     79.64% Index Duration 17.47 Years An oversimplification of how bonds value changes as rates change is they are inversely related based on the duration of the bond.  Think of duration as the time-weighted average of all the coupons and the final payment. In this case, a drop in rates of about 1% will cause a rise in value of about 17.4%. Long term rates took a drop in the last year."}
{"text": "Are buyouts always for higher than the market value of a stock? Buyouts are usually for more than the ORIGINAL value of a stock. That's because the price \"premium\" represents an incentive for holders to \"tender\" their shares to the would-be buyer. Sometimes in these situations, the stock price rises above the proposed buyout price, in anticipation of a higher takeover bid from a SECOND party (that may or may not materialize). To answer the other part of the question, does a bidder have a chance of taking over a dying company for less than the market price? That is a strategy sometimes referred to as a \"take under,\" and it has not been a notably successful strategy. That's because it goes against \"human nature\" (of the seller). \"Where there is life, there is hope.\" They would seldom accept a lower price for \"sure\" survival, when the market is telling them that they are worth a higher price. Very few people realize that the market may disappear tomorrow. Think of all the homeowners who won't cut their price, but insist on bids that meet recent \"comps.\" And if the company is really dying, the prospective buyer may be best served by waiting until it does, and then pick up the individual pieces at auction."}
{"text": "How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? When you're debt free everything you own feels different. The lack of financial stress in your life goes away. BUT! before you do go gung-ho on paying down debt think through these steps (and no I did not come up with them. Dave Ramsey did and others). Truncated from - http://www.daveramsey.com/new/baby-steps/ I have 1 credit card. Only use it for business/travel but pay it off every month (yay for auto-draft). Everthing else is cash/debit and we live by a budget. If it's not in the budget we don't buy it. Easy as pie. The hard part is disciplining yourself to wait. Our society is gear for BUY NOW! PAY LATER! and well you can see where that has taken our country and families. And celebrate the small victories. Pay off 1 debt then go have a nice dinner. Things like that help keep you motivated and pursuing the end goal."}
{"text": "MasterCard won't disclose who leaked my credit card details As indicated in comments, this is common practice in the US as well as EU.  For example, in this Fox Business article, a user had basically the same experience: their card was replaced but without the specific merchant being disclosed.  When the reporter contacted Visa, they were told: \"We also believe that the public interest is best served by quickly notifying financial institutions with the information necessary to protect themselves and their cardholders from fraud losses. Even a slight delay in notification to financial institutions could be costly,\u201d the spokesperson said in an e-mail statement. \u201cVisa works with the breached entity to collect the necessary information and provides payment card issuers with the affected account numbers so they can take steps to protect consumers through independent fraud monitoring, and if needed, reissuing cards. The most critical information needed is the affected accounts, which Visa works to provide as quickly as possible.\u201d What they're not saying, of course, is that it's in Visa's best interests that merchants let Visa know right away when a leak occurs, without having to think about whether it's going to screw that merchant over in the press.  If the merchant has to consider PR, they may not let the networks know in as timely of a fashion - they may at least wait until they've verified the issue in more detail, or even wait until they've found who to pin it on so they don't get blamed. But beyond that, the point is that it's easier for the network (Visa/Mastercard/etc.) to have a system that's just a list of card numbers to submit to the bank for re-issuing; nobody there really cares which merchant was at fault, they just want to re-issue the cards quickly.  Letting you know who's at fault is separate.  There's little reason for the issuing bank to ever know; you should find out from the merchant themselves or from the network (and in my experience, usually the former). Eventually you may well find out - the article suggest that: [T]he situation is common, but there is some good news: consumers do in many cases find out the source of the breach. But of course doesn't go into detail about numbers."}
{"text": "Please explain the relationship between dividend amount, stock price, and option value? Regarding:   1) What's the point of paying a dividend if the stock price automatically decreases? Don't the shareholders just break even?   As dividends distribution dates and amounts are announced in advance, probably the stock price will rise of the same amount of the divident before the day of distribution. If I know that stock share A's value is y and the dividend announced is x, I would be willing to buy shares of A for anything > y and < than x+y before the distribution.So, arbitrageurs probably would take the price to x+y before the dividend distribution, and then after the dividend distribution the price will fall back to y."}
{"text": "Which countries allow eChecks? eChecks (and ACH) are a (desperate?) try of the US banking system to get into the 21st century. All EU countries (and some others) have direct deposits and transfers as the standard way of transferring money since about 20 years, and since about 5 years it is cost-free and one-day across all the EU. The rest of the world runs mostly country specific system, as there is not that large a demand for cross country shifting, and exchange rates are also an issue in any such transaction. Because they have different ways that work fine since decades, other countries will consider the eCheck idea as a step backwards and will probably ignore it, so your answer is 'none'. International companies work with banks in a different relationship than retail customers, so they can do things you and me cannot do - depending on size and volume. Some large companies get a banking license and then handle their own stuff; medium sized companies make favorable contracts with banks (they are golden goose customers - never an issue, no brick and mortar presence needed, banks love them), or they simply suck up the transfer cost (if you move millions, who cares about a 40 $ fee). Small businesses whine and live with what they get..."}
{"text": "What are good games to play to teach young children about saving money? I know this question is closed now, but I just found this site that people might be interested in... http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/games/"}
{"text": "Has anyone compared an in-person Tax Advisor to software like Turbo Tax? I have fairly simple tax returns and my experience was that TurboTax software produced roughly the same result as human accountant and costs much less. The accountant was never able to find any deductions that the program couldn't find.  Of course, if you have business, etc. you probably need an accountant to help you navigate all the rules, requirements, etc. But for simple enough cases I found that the additional pay is not justified."}
{"text": "gift is taxable but is \u201cloan\u201d or \u201cdebt\u201d taxable? (a) you give away your money - gift tax The person who receives the gift doesn't owe any tax.  If you give it out in small amounts, there will be no gift tax. It could have tax and Estate issues for you depending on the size of the gift, the timing, and how much you give away in total.  Of course if you give it away to a charity you could deduct the gift. (b) you loan someone some money - tax free?? It there is a loan, and and you collect interest; you will have to declare that interest as income. The IRS will expect that you charge a reasonable rate, otherwise the interest could be considered a gift. Not sure what a reasonable rate is with savings account earning 0.1% per year. (c) you pay back the debt you owe - tax free ?? tax deductible ?? The borrower can't deduct the interest they pay, unless it is a mortgage on the main home, or a business loan. I will admit that there may be a few other narrow categories of loans that would make it deductible for the borrower. If the loan/gift is for the down payment on a house, the lender for the rest of the mortgage will want to make sure that the gift/loan nature is correctly documented. The need to fully understand the obligations of the homeowner. If it is a loan between family members the IRS may want to see the paperwork surrounding a loan, to make sure it isn't really a gift. They don't look kindly on loans that are never paid back and no interest collected."}
{"text": "How can I detect potential fraud in a company before investing in them? Given that such activities are criminal and the people committing them have to hide them from the law, it's very unlikely that an investor could detect them, let alone one from a different country. The only things that can realistically help is to keep in mind the adage \"If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is\", and to stick to relatively large companies, since they have more auditing requirements and fraud is much harder to hide at scale (but not impossible, see Enron). Edit: and, of course, diversify. This kind of thing is rare, and not systematic, so diversification is a very good protection."}
{"text": "Is it OK to use a credit card on zero-interest to pay some other credit cards with higher-interest? The short answer is: it depends. The longer answer is that balance transfers are tricky, and often a bait-and-switch; they'll offer 0% interest, but charge a 3-4% \"fee\" (which isn't interest and is perfectly legal) on the amount transferred. If you transfer $5000, you now owe the new card company $5,200. Now, that could be fine with you; at an 18-20% APR on your old card you may have been charged that much in just one or two months, and by capitalizing this fee up front you lock in 0% for a year. However, there are other possible machinations behind the scenes. For instance, you may incur retroactive interest on the full balance if not paid off in the year (at 20% APR on $5000, that's an extra grand you will owe if there's even one dollar of the original transferred balance left in the account). Paying off the balance and thus avoiding these penalties has actually been made harder by the CARD Act, which required creditors to apply any payment made to the highest-interest portion of the balance first. As balance transfers are 0% they are the last on the list, so if you transfer a balance and then carry an additional balance you are setting yourself up for failure. You MUST have a zero-dollar balance for one month sometime during the year in order to be sure the balance transfer is paid off and no penalties will be incurred. That can be hard, because 5 grand is a lot to pay off. To pay off a $5000 balance in 12 months requires payments of $417. Miss one and you'll have to make it up over the remaining months. If you transferred a balance, you probably didn't have $420/mo to pay to the card in the first place. In summary, balance transfers can work, but you have to understand all of the terms and conditions, and what will happen should you violate any of them. If you don't understand what you're getting into, you could very well end up worse than you started."}
{"text": "Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house? Paying off your student loan before buying a house is certainly a great risk reduction move for you. It will lower your debt to income ratio allowing your mortgage approval to go easier and it will free up more of your dollars to pay for the many miscellaneous projects that come with buying a house. I think that if you are considering paying off your student loan before buying a house that means that your student loans are an amount you can fathom paying off and that you are motivated to be rid of your student loan debt.   Go for it and pay off your student loan."}
{"text": "Option spreads in registered accounts From my own personal experience, you cannot trade spreads in RRSP or TFSA accounts in Canada. You can only buy options (buy a call or buy a put) or you can sell calls against your stock (covered call selling). You will not be able to sell naked options, or trade any type of spread or combo (calendars, condors, etc). I am not sure why these are the rules, but they are at least where I trade those accounts."}
{"text": "Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth? Assuming you and your family always get along and everyone is happy with the situation... Should you become ill, die, or go on government benefits for some catastrophe, the government will look at all those funds as YOURS, and now your wonderful family is hurt by the estate tax and/or expectations of how much of the bill you handle before support kicks in. Additionally, should you ever reach a point where you are married and then facing divorce (even if no fault of your own), all that investment is now up for grabs in equitable distribution.  So your family's entire investment fund is at risk."}
{"text": "Why is being \u201cupside down\u201d on a mortgage so bad? Sample Numbers: Owe $100k on house.  House (after 'crash') valued at: $50K.  Reason for consternation: What rational person pays $100k for property that is only worth half that amount? True Story: My neighbor paid almost $250K (a quarter-of-a-million dollars - think about that..) for a house that when he walked (ran!) away from it was sold by the bank for $88K.  Unless he declares bankruptcy (and forgoes all his other assets, including retirement savings) he still owes the bank the difference. And even with bankruptcy, he may still owe the bank - this should cause anyone to be a bit concerned about being up-side down in a mortgage loan."}
{"text": "Is an investor of a startup subjected under a vesting schedule? Recently, I asked about what the company valuation is and how many   shares does my 4% represent.CFO told me that there is no point to talk   about \"shares\" or \"stock\" since the company is not public. Is it   right? No, it is wrong. Shares and stocks exist regardless of how they can be traded. Once a company is formed, there are stocks that belong to the owners in the proportion of the ownership. They may not exist physically, but they do exist on paper. As an owner of 5% of the company, you own 5% of the company stocks. I asked if my investor portion equity will be subjected under a   vesting schedule, CFO said yes. That doesn't make sense to me, because   I bought those 4%? Aren't those supposed to be fully vested? I agree   to my employee equity to be vested. Doesn't make sense to me either, since your money is already in their pocket. But I'm not sure if its illegal. If that's what is written in the signed contract - then may be its possible to have that situation. But it doesn't make much sense, because these shares are granted to you in return to your money, not some potential future work (as the 1% employee's portion). You already gave the money, so why wouldn't they be vested? Best to read the contract upon which you gave them your money, I really hope you have at least that and not just gave them a check...."}
{"text": "Investing small amounts at regular intervals while minimizing fees? I was going to comment on the commission-free ETF answer, which I agree with, but I don't have enough reputation. TD Ameritrade has a list of commission-free ETFs and has no minimum deposit required to open an account. Another idea is to keep gifts in cash until a certain threshold is reached. For instance, $100 for birthday, $100 for Christmas, $100 for next birthday, $100 for next Christmas, now execute the trade. Sharebuilder has $4 scheduled trades, so you'd be at about 1% overhead for that. If other people give money, you'll reach the threshold faster of course. For what it's worth, I do something similar for my 2 nieces. I combined their account and prepay Christmas plus birthday, so I do 1 trade a year. I have my account at Sharebuilder because my idea predated the commission-free ETFs that are now pretty popular. I should really transfer the account... hm."}
{"text": "How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup? 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."}
{"text": "Wardrobe: To Update or Not? How-to without breaking the bank New clothes isn't exactly an emergency expense :) so I would strongly suggest that you budget for it on a monthly basis. This doesn't mean you have to go spend the money every month, just put a reasonable amount of money into the clothes budget/savings every month and when you need a new shirt or two, take the money out of the saved money and go shopping. If you buy a piece or two of good quality clothing at a time you'd also not run into the situation where all your clothes fall apart at the same time."}
{"text": "How can I build up my credit history when I have nearly none What's the fastest way I can raise my credit score from nothing? I worked at a bank for almost 6 years and used their secured credit card.  To give you an example of what that did as far as credit was concerned: on Transunion my score increased 200+ points, while on Experian and Equifax, it increased by less than 150.  Most customers who used the card also saw an increase, provided that they paid on time and didn't max out the card. Some strategies I used and I recommended to my customers:"}
{"text": "Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate] The same applies if you were looking for a business to buy: would you pay more for a business that is doing well making increasing profits year after year, or for a business that is not doing so well and is losing money. A share in a company is basically a small part of a company which a shareholder can own. So would you rather own a part of a company that is increasing profits year after year or one that is continuously losing money? Someone would buy shares in a company in order to make a better return than they could make elsewhere. They can make a profit through two ways: first, a share of the company's profits through dividends, and second capital gains from the price of the shares going up. Why does the price of the shares go up over the long term when a company does well and increases profits? Because when a company increases profits they are making more and more money which increases the net worth of the company. More investors would prefer to buy shares in a company that makes increasing profits because this will increase the net worth of the company, and in turn will drive the share price higher over the long term. A company's increase in profits creates higher demand for the company's shares. Think about it, if interest rates are so low like they are now, where it is hard to get a return higher than inflation, why wouldn't investors then search for higher returns in good performing companies in the stock market? More investors' and traders' wanting some of the pie, creates higher demand for good performing stocks driving the share price higher. The demand for these companies is there primarily because the companies are increasing their profits and net worth, so over the long term the share price will increase in-line with the net worth. Over the short to medium term other factors can also affect the share price, sometime opposite to how the company is actually performing; however this is a whole different answer to a whole different question."}
{"text": "Price movement behaviour before earnings announcements This depends entirely on what the market guesses the news will be and how much of that guess has already been factored into the price. There is no general answer beyond that.  Note that this explains the apparently paradoxical responses where a stock good down on good news (the market expected better) or up on bad news (the market expected worse)."}
{"text": "The spread goes to the market maker, is the market maker the exchange? A \"market maker\" is someone that is contractually bound, by the exchange, to provide both bid and ask prices for a given volume (e.g. 5000 shares). A single market maker usually covers many stocks, and a single stock is usually covered by many market makers. The NYSE has \"specialists\" that are market makers that also performed a few other roles in the management of trading for a stock, and usually a single issue on the NYSE is covered by only one market maker.  Market makers are often middlemen between brokers (ignoring stuff like dark pools, and the fact that brokers will often trade stocks internally among their own clients before going to the exchange).  Historically, the market makers gave up buy/sell discretion in exchange for being the \"go-to guys\" for anyone wanting to trade in that stock. When you told your broker to buy a stock for you, he didn't hook you up with another retail investor; he went to the market maker. Market makers would also sometimes find investors willing to step in when more liquidity was needed for a security. They were like other floor traders; they hung out on the exchange floors and interacted with traders to buy and sell stocks. Traders came to them when they wanted to buy one of the specialist's issues. There was no public order book; just ticker tape and a quote. It was up to the market maker to maintain that order book.  Since they are effectively forbidden from being one-sided traders in a security, their profit comes from the bid-ask spread. Being the counter-party to almost every trade, they'd make profit from always selling above where they were buying. (Except when the price moved quickly -- the downside to this arrangement.) \"The spread goes to the market maker\" is just stating that the profit implicit in the spread gets consumed by the market maker. With the switch to ECNs, the role of the market maker has changed. For example, ForEx trading firms tend to act as market makers to their customers. On ECNs, the invisible, anonymous guy at the other end of most trades is often a market maker, still performing his traditional role. Yet brokers can interact directly with each other now, rather than relying on the market maker's book. With modern online investing and public order books, retail investors might even be trading directly with each other. Market makers are still out there; in part, they perform a service sold by an Exchange to the companies that choose to be listed on that exchange. That service has changed to helping tamp volatility during normal high-volatility periods (such as at open and close)."}
{"text": "What risks are there acting as a broker between PayPal and electronic bank transfers? Another reason to think it's a scam: fake paypal email notifications are a thing.  I've seen one that was quite convincing (but it wasn't mine to properly analyse or report), so the intial payment may be a fake from another account belonging to the scammer, and you've just transferred money to the scammer. The fake email can include links to log in to a fake paypal website, which can be quite convincing as the mark will give the login details which can be used to scrape data.  Links not going to where they say is the giveaway here."}
{"text": "What are some simple techniques used for Timing the Stock Market over the long term? I can think of a few simple and quick techniques for timing the market over the long term, and they can be used individually or in combination with each other. There are also some additional techniques to give early warning of possible turns in the market. The first is using a Moving Average (MA) as an indication of when to sell. Simply if the price closes below the MA it is time to sell. Obviously if the period you are looking at is long term you would probably use a weekly or even monthly chart and use a relatively large period MA such as a 50 week or 100 week moving average. The longer the period the more the MA will lag behind the price but the less false signals and whipsawing there will be. As we are looking long term (5 years +) I would use a weekly chart with a 100 week Exponential MA. The second technique is using a Rate Of Change (ROC) Indicator, which is a momentum indicator. The idea for timing the markets in the long term is to buy when the indicator crosses above the zero line and sell when it crosses below the zero line. For long term investing I would use a 13 week EMA of the 52 week ROC (the EMA smooths out the ROC indicator to reduce the chance of false signals). The beauty of these two indicators is they can be used effectively together. Below are examples of using these two indicators in combination on the S&P500 and the Australian S&P ASX200 over the past 20 years.  S&P500 1995 to 2015  ASX200 1995 to 2015 If I was investing in an ETF tracking one of these indexes I would use these two indicators together by using the MA as an early warning system and maybe tighten any stop losses I have so that if the market takes a sudden turn downward the majority of my profits would be protected. I would then use the ROC Indicator to sell out completely out of the ETF when it crosses below zero or to buy back in when the ROC moves back above zero. As you can see in both charts the two indicators would have kept you out of the market during the worst of the downfalls in 2000 and 2008 for the S&P500 and 2008 for the ASX200. If there is a false signal that gets you out of the market you can quite easily get back in if the indicator goes back above zero. Using these indicators you would have gotten into the market 3 times and out of it twice for the S&P500 over a 20 year period. For the ASX200 you would have gone in 6 times and out 5 times, also over a 20 year period. For individual shares I would use the ROC indicator over the main index the shares belong to, to give an indication of when to be buying individual stocks and when to tighten stop losses and stay on the sidelines. My philosophy is to buy rising stocks in a rising market and sell falling stocks in a falling market. So if the ROC indicator is above zero I would be looking to buy fundamentally healthy stocks that are up-trending and place a 20% trailing stop loss on them. If I get stopped out of one stock then I would look to replace it with another as long as the ROC is still above zero. If the ROC indicator crosses below zero I would tighten my trailing stop losses to 5% and not buy any new stocks once I get stopped out. Some additional indicators I would use for individual stock would be trend lines and using the MACD as a momentum indicator. These two indicators can give you further early warning that the stock may be about to reverse from its current trend, so you can tighten your stop loss even if the ROC is still above zero. Here is an example chart to explain:  GEM.AX 3 Year Weekly Chart Basically if the price closes below the trend line it may be time to close out the position or at the very least tighten up your trailing stop loss to 5%. If the price breaks below an established uptrend line it may well be the end of the uptrend. The definition of an uptrend is higher highs and higher lows. As GEM has broken below the uptrend line and has maid a lower low, all that is needed to confirm the uptrend is over is a lower high. But months before the price broke below the uptrend line, the MACD momentum indicator was showing bearish divergence between it and the price. In early September 2014 the price made a higher high but the MACD made a lower high. This is called a bearish divergence and is an early warning signal that the momentum in the uptrend is weakening and the trend could be reversing soon. Notice I said could and not would. In this situation I would reduce my trailing stop to 10% and keep a watchful eye on this stock over the coming months. There are many other indicators that could be used as signals or as early warnings, but I thought I would talk about some of my favourites and ones I use on a daily and weekly basis. If you were to employ any of these techniques into your investing or trading it may take a little while to learn about them properly and to implement them into your trading plan, but once you have done that you would only need to spend 1 to 2 hours per week managing your portfolio if trading long-term or about 1 hour per nigh (after market close) if trading more medium term."}
{"text": "What are the options for a 19-year-old college student who only has about $1000? Put them in Cds.  Better than a savings account, you won't lose capital unlike the stock market."}
{"text": "Free, web-based finance tracking with tag/label support? Mint.com does all of that (except for the cash at hand)."}
{"text": "Are there special exceptions to the rule that (US) capital gains taxes are owed only when the gain materializes? Normally, you don't pay capital gains tax until you actually realize a capital gain.  However, there are some exceptions. The exception that affected Eduardo Saverin is the expatriation tax, or exit tax.  If you leave a country and are no longer a tax resident, your former country taxes you on your unrealized capital gains from the period that you were a tax resident of that country.  There are several countries that have an expatriation tax, including the United States.  Saverin left the U.S. before the Facebook IPO. Saverin was perhaps already planning on leaving the U.S. (he is originally from Brazil and has investments in Asia), so leaving before the IPO limited the amount of capital gains tax he had to pay upon his exit.  (Source: Wall Street Journal: So How Much Did He Really Save?) Another situation that might be considered an exception and affects a lot of us is capital gain distributions inside a mutual fund.  When mutual fund managers sell investments inside the fund and realize gains, they have to distribute those gains among all the mutual fund investors.  This often takes the form of additional shares of the mutual fund that you are given, and you have to pay capital gains tax on these distributions.  As a result, you can invest in a mutual fund, leave your money there and not sell, but have to pay capital gains tax anyway.  In fact, you could owe capital gains tax on the distributions even if the value of your mutual fund investment has gone down."}
{"text": "Child is on the way, invest for college and car fund options - opinions Look at your options with a 529 program. If the money is used for education expenses: that currently includes tuition, room & board (even if living off campus), books, transportation; it grows tax free. Earnings are not subject to federal tax and generally not subject to   state tax when used for the qualified education expenses of the   designated beneficiary, such as tuition, fees, books, as well as room   and board. Contributions to a 529 plan, however, are not deductible. If it is a 529 associated with your state you can also save on state taxes. You can make contributions on a regular basis, or ad hoc. Accounts can even be setup by other relatives. I have used a 529 to fund two kids education. It takes care of most of your education expenses.  529 programs are available from most states, and even some of the big mutual fund companies. Many have the option of shifting the risk level of the investments to be more conservative as the kids hit high school.  Some states have an option to have you pay  a large sum when the child is small to buy semesters of college. The deal is worth considering if you know they will be going to a state school, the deal is less good if they will go out of state or to a private college.  The IRS does limit the maximum amount that you can contribute in a year an amount that exceeds the 14,000 annual gift limit: If in 2014, you contributed more than $14,000 to a Qualified Tuition   Plan (QTP) on behalf of any one person, you may elect to treat up to   $70,000 of the contribution for that person as if you had made it   ratably over a 5-year period. The election allows you to apply the   annual exclusion to a portion of the contribution in each of the 5   years, beginning in 2014. You can make this election for as many   separate people as you made QTP contributions One option at the end is to take any extra money at graduation and give it to the child so that it can be used for graduate school, or if the taxes and penalties are paid it can be used for that first car. It can even be rolled over to another relative."}
{"text": "When applying for a mortgage, can it also cover outstanding debts? Yes, but should you be even trying to get a mortgage if you can't aford at least a 5% deposit? Prove you do want the house by doing without a new car for a few years..."}
{"text": "How to tell if an option is expensive An option, by definition, is a guess about the future value of the stock. If you guess too aggressively, you lose the purchase price of the option; if you guess too conservatively, you may not take the option or may not gain as much as you might have. You need to figure out what you expect to happen, and how confident you are about it, against the cost of taking the option -- and be reasonably confident that the change in the stock's value will be at least large enough to cover the cost of buying into the game. Opinion: Unless you're comfortable with expectation values and bell curves around them, it's significantly easier to lose money on options than to profit on them. And I'm not convinced that even statisticians can really do this well. I've always been told that the best use for options is hedging an investment you've already made; treating them as your primary bet is gambling, not investment."}
{"text": "How to dollar-cost-average with a large amount of money in a savings account? DCA is not 10%/day over 10 days. If I read the objective correctly, I'd suggest about a 5 year plan. It's difficult to avoid the issue of market timing. And any observation I'd make about the relative valuation of the market would be opinion. By this I mean, some are saying that PE/10 which Nobel prize winner Robert Schiller made well known, if not popular, shows we are pretty high. Others are suggesting the current PE is appropriate given the near zero rate of borrowing.  Your income puts long term gains at zero under current tax code. Short term are at your marginal rate.  I would caution not to let the tax tail wag the investing dog. The fellow that makes too many buy/sell decisions based on his taxes is likely to lag he who followed his overall allocation goals."}
{"text": "Double-entry accounting: how to keep track of mortgage installments as expenses? The best thing for you to do will be to start using the Cash Flow report instead of the Income and Expense report. Go to Reports -> Income and Expense -> Cash Flow Once the report is open, open the edit window and open the Accounts tab.  There, choose your various cash accounts (checking, saving, etc.).  In the General tab, choose the reporting period.  (And then save the report settings so you don't need to go hunting for your cash accounts each time.) GnuCash will display for you all the inflows and outflows of money, which appears to be what you really want. Though GnuCash doesn't present the Cash Flow in a way that matches United States accounting rules (with sections for operating, investing, and financial cash flows separated), it is certainly fine for your personal use. If you want the total payment to show up as one line on the Cash Flow report, you will need to book the accrual of interest and the payment to the mortgage bank as two separate entries. Normal entry for mortgage payments (which shows up as a line for mortgage and a line for interest on your Cash Flow): Pair of entries to make full mortgage payment show up as one line on Cash Flow: Entry #1:  Interest accrual Entry #2:  Full mortgage payment (Tested in GnuCash 2.6.1)"}
{"text": "What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario? Bullets, canned goods, and farm supplies that don't need gas (e.g. seed, feed, plows)."}
{"text": "Are my purchases of stock, mutual funds, ETF's, and commodities investing, or speculation? Every investment comes with a risk. There is also a bit of speculation involved. In there is an anticipation that one expects the value to go up in normal course of events. By your definition \"If I buy this equipment, I could produce more widgets, or sell more widgets,\" as an investment. Here again there is an anticipation that the widgets you sell will give you more return. If you are investing in stock/share, you are essentially holding a small portion of value in company and to that extent you are owining some equipment that is producing some widget .... Hence when you are purchasing Stocks, it would be looked as investment if you have done your home work and have a good plan of how you want to invest along with weiging the risk involved. However if you are investing only for the purpose of making quick bucks following so called hot tips, then you are not investing but speculating."}
{"text": "Am I understanding buying options on stock correctly Here is a quick and dirty explanation of options. In a nutshell, you pay a certain amount to buy a contract that gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at a predetermined price at some date in the future. They come in a few flavors:  I'll give you $100 if you let me buy 10,000 shares of XYZ for $10 more   per share than it is trading at today any time before   August 10th. I'll give you $100 if you promise to buy 10,000 shares of XYZ from me   for $10 less per share than it is trading at today if I ask before August 10th. There are also two main types based on the expiration behavior:  There are lots of strategies that employ options, too many to go into.  Two key uses are.. Leverage: Buying Call options can give you a much higher return on your investment than just investing in the actual stock. However, with much higher risk of losing all of your investment instead of just some of it when the stock drops. Hedging: If you already own the underlying stock, put options can be used to buy down risk of serious drops in a holding."}
{"text": "Is this investment opportunity problematic? Every time I have loaned money to family members I have never gotten the money back. If they can't make the down payment, they should not be taking out the loan. It's a bad idea to loan money to friends, because when they can't pay you back (which might be forever) they avoid you. So, you lose both your money and your friends."}
{"text": "What should I be aware of as a young investor? Risk and return always go hand by hand.*  Risk is a measure of expected return volatility. The best investment at this stage is a good, easy to understand but thorough book on finance. *Applies to efficient markets only."}
{"text": "Got a large cash sum, wanna buy stocks. Should I buy all at once, or spread it over time? Depends on what you are, an investor or a speculator. An investor will look at an 'indefinite' investment period. A speculator will be after a fast buck. If you are an investor, buy your stock once as that will cost less commissions. After all, you'll sell your stock in 10, 15, 20 years."}
{"text": "Can I use balance transfer to buy car? It really depends on the exact wording of that zero rate offer.  Some specifically state they are to be used for paying other debt. Others will have wording such as \"pay other debt or write yourself a check to pay for that next vacation, or new furniture.\"  Sorry, it's back on you to check this out in advance."}
{"text": "How can I find hotel properties to buy other than using Google? Probably the easiest way to invest in hotel rooms in the U.S. is to invest in a Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT.  REITs are securities that invest in real estate and trade like a stock.  There are different REITs that invest in different things: some own office buildings, some residential rentals, some hold mortgages, and some are diversified in lots of different types of real estate.  There are also REITs that are exclusively invested in hotels. REITs are required to pay out at least 90% of their profits as dividends, and there are tax advantages to investing in REITs.   You can search for a REIT on REIT.com's Searchable Directory.  You can select a type (Lodging/Resorts), a stock exchange (NYSE), investment sector (equity), and a listing status (public), and you'll see lots of investments for you to consider."}
{"text": "The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card Everyone else seems to have focused (rightly so) on the negatives of credit cards (high interest rates) and why it is important to pay them off before interest starts accruing. Only Marin's answer briefly touched on rewards.  To me, this is the real purpose of credit cards in today's age.  Most good rewards cards can get you anywhere from 1-2% cash back on ALL purchases, and sometimes more on other categories.  Again, assuming you can pay the balance in full each month, and you are good at budgeting money, using a credit card is an easy way to basically discount 1-2% of all of the spending you put on your card.  AGAIN - this only works to your advantage if you pay off the credit card in full; using the above example of 20% interest, that's about 1.6% interest if the interest compounds monthly, which wipes out your return on rewards if you just go one month without paying off the balance."}
{"text": "Better ways to invest money held by my small, privately-held Canadian corporation? Since you are talking about a small firm, for the long term, it would be advisable to invest your money into the expansion - growth, diversification, integration - of your business. However, if your intention is to make proper use of your earnings in the short term, a decent bank deposit would help you to increase the credit line for your business with the benefit of having a high enough liquidity. You can also look at bonds and other such low risk instruments to protect your assets."}
{"text": "In the USA, does the income tax rate on my wages increase with the amount of money in my bank account? besides accrued interest But that's important. one has $40,000 in their account and the other $9,000. Does one now pay higher income tax because he has more in his account or does he pay the same because he makes the same? If they are interest bearing accounts, then yes the guy with the $40K balance will pay a little more* income tax than the guy with $9K. * If the account earns 1%/ann and the $40K and $9K have been in there all year, then the big account will earn $401.84 interest, and the smaller will earn $90.41."}
{"text": "How do finance professionals procounce \u201cCECL\u201d? According to the following links, it is commonly pronounced \"Cecil\".   https://kaufmanrossin.com/blog/bank-ready-meet-cecil/ The proposed model introduces the concept of shifting from an incurred   loss model to the current expected credit loss model commonly referred   to as CECL (pronounced \u201cCecil\u201d). http://www.gonzobanker.com/2016/02/cecl-the-blind-leading-the-blurry/ [...] and its name is CECL (Current Estimated Credit Losses, pronounced like   the name \u201cCecil\u201d). The name Cecil means \u201cblind,\u201d which is ironic, because FASB\u2019s upcoming   guidance will push FIs to clarify the future performance of their loan   portfolios by using models to predict CECL of all loan portfolios. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/operational-financial-impact-cecl-banks-nikhil-deshmukh Termed as Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL, or Cecil, as some call   it), [...]"}
{"text": "How does the price of oil influence the value of currency? From an investor's standpoint, if the value of crude oil increases, economies that are oil dependent become more favourable (oil companies will be more profitable).  Therefore, investors will find that country's currency more attractive in the foreign exchange market."}
{"text": "How do you choose which mortgage structure is appropriate when buying a home? Go for 15 years loan - Lower interest rate over 2-5 years period. If you can afford to pay 20% down then please do. Do not assume the average ROI will +(8-10%). It all depends on market and has variable factors like city, area and demand."}
{"text": "Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly? I'm no financial advisor, but I do have student loans and I do choose to pay them off as slowly as I can. I will explain my reasoning for doing so. (FWIW, these are all things that pertain to government student loans in the US, not necessarily private student loans, and not necessarily student loans from other countries) So that's my reasoning. $55 per month for the rest of my life adds up to a large amount of money over the course of my life, but the impact month-to-month is essentially nonexistent. That combined with the low interest and the super-low-pressure-sales-tactics means I just literally don't have any incentive to ever pay it all off. Like I said before, I'm just a guy who has student loans, and not even one who is particularly good with money, but as someone who does choose not to pay off my student loans any faster than I have to, this is why."}
{"text": "How can I calculate the volatility(standard deviation) of a stock price? and/or ROI (return on investment) of a stock? Use the Black-Scholes formula. If you know the current price, an options strike price, time until expiration, and risk-free interest rate, then knowing the market price of the option will tell you what the market's estimation of the volatility is. This does rely on a few assumptions, such as Gaussian random walk, but those are reasonable assumptions for most stocks. You can also get a list of past stock prices, put them in Excel, and ask Excel to calculate the standard deviation with stdev.s(), but that gives you the past volatility. The market's estimate of future volatility is more relevant."}
{"text": "Does dollar cost averaging apply when moving investments between fund families? The first step I would do is determine the asset class mixture for your current portfolio and the mixture for your new one. If they are the same and all you are doing is changing the funds that you use to invest in that mixture of asset class then just do the change all at once. In this case there is no market risk as you are just swapping funds (hopefully to ones that you feel will better track the underlying asset classes).  If you are also changing your asset class mixture, then it depends on how large the change is. I would still do the whole change at once. But if you are worried about fluctuations then you could slowly rebalance into your final position by taking a couple of intermediary steps. I would still change all of the fund first but maybe in a mix closer to your current asset mix and then over the next couple of months adjust the ratios to reach your final desired asset mix."}
{"text": "Is there a mathematical formula to determine a stock's price at a given time? I found the answer. It was the Stock Ticker that I was looking for. So, if I understand correctly the price at certain moment is the price of the latest sale and can be used to get a global picture of what certain stock is worth at that certain instant."}
{"text": "Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics? The whole point of a credit report and, by extension, a credit score, is to demonstrate (and judge) your ability to repay borrowed funds.  Everything stems from that goal; available credit, payment history, collections, etc all serve to demonstrate whether or not you personally are a good investment for lenders to pursue. Revolving credit balances are tricky because they are more complicated than fixed loans (for the rest of this answer, I'll just talk about credit cards, though it also applies to lines of credit such as overdraft protection for checking accounts, HELOCs, and other such products). Having a large available balance relative to your income means that at any time you could suddenly drown yourself in debt.  Having no credit cards means you don't have experience managing them (and personal finances are governed largely by behavior, meaning experience is invaluable).  Having credit cards but carrying a high balance means you know how to borrow money, but not pay it back.  Having credit cards but carrying no balance means you don't know how to borrow money (or you don't trust yourself to pay it back). Ideally, lenders will see a pattern of you borrowing a portion of the available credit, and then paying it down.  Generally that means utilizing up to 30% of your available credit.  Even if you maintain the balance in that range without paying it off completely, it at least shows that you have restraint, and are able to stop spending at a limit you personally set, rather than the limit the bank sets for you. So, to answer your question, 0% balance on your credit cards is bad because you might as well not have them.  Use it, pay it off, rinse and repeat, and it will demonstrate your ability to exercise self control as well as your ability to repay your debts."}
{"text": "How can I get the car refinanced under my name if my girlfriend signed for the loan? The best solution is to \"buy\" the car and get your own loan (like @ChrisInEdmonton answered). That being said, my credit union let me add my spouse to a title while I still had a loan for a title filing fee.   You may ask the bank that holds the title if they have a provision for adding someone to the title without changing the loan.   Total cost to me was an afternoon at the bank and something like $20 or $40 (it's been a while)."}
{"text": "Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card? @Jeremy Using CVV doesn't decrease the transaction cost. I know this because I have quotes for CC transactions and the cost/transaction doesn't depend on using CVV. That said we don't plan to use CVV because we sell insurance and the likelihood that someone who steals CC will buy insurance is very low."}
{"text": "Where can I find the nominal price of a stock prior a split into multiple companies? Yahoo Finance provides the proper closing price.  HP's historical data around the split date can be found here. The open, high and low of the day are wrong prior the split, but the closing price is right and for HP, it was $26.96 USD.  The next day the closing price was $13.83 USD."}
{"text": "Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal? I linked my bank account (by making a transfer from bank account to Paypal) without linking a card. This should not give Paypal any rights to do anything with my bank account - transfer that I made to link it was exactly the same as any other outgoing transfer from my bank account. On attempting to pay more that resides in my Paypal balance I get  To pay for this purchase right now, link a debit or credit card to your PayPal account. message. Paypal is not mentioning it but one may also transfer money to Paypal account form bank to solve this problem. Note, that one may give allow Paypal to access bank account - maybe linking a card will allow this? Paypal encourages linking card but without any description of consequences so I never checked this. It is also possible that Paypal gained access to your bank balance in other way - for example in Poland it just asked for logins and passwords to bank accounts (yes, using \"Add money instantly using Trustly\" in Poland really requires sharing full login credentials to bank account - what among other things breaks typical bank contract) source for \"Paypal attempts phishing\": https://niebezpiecznik.pl/post/uwaga-uzytkownicy-paypala-nie-korzystajcie-z-najnowszej-funkcji-tego-serwisu/"}
{"text": "How does Value Averaging work in practice? Value averaging has you shift the balance of your portfolio over time, not the amount of contributions.  So you can only do it if you have a portfolio holding both risky assets (shares etc) and some cash. You start out by making a plan about how much you will contribute every month and at what rate you expect the share part of the portfolio to grow.  Perhaps based on 20th century data you think an 8% growth rate is reasonable.  Or alternatively if you know your desired final amount obviously you can work backwards to a desired rate from that. If in any month the share part is falling below its expected growth path, you would put more money into it: possibly your whole paycheck contribution plus some from the savings cash account.  On the other hand if the share component is growing \"too fast\" you would put all your additional savings into cash.  So if your investments are doing well, you're not supposed to spend the excess money, but rather to put it aside into a dedicated cash account to top up your share component when prices fall. In theory, this has the auto-levelling benefit of Dollar Cost Averaging, but even better: when prices are high, you'll automatically buy fewer shares, or even sell some; conversely when prices are low you'll buy extra shares from your reserve account. If it turns out your estimate was unreasonably optimistic, and over your lifetime shares only ever average 3%, you'll end up with an entirely share portfolio, and a bumpier ride than you might have liked.  If you have horrible luck and over your entire investing life shares return less than cash (which has happened, though not yet in the USA), then this will be worse than a standard balanced portfolio. The original book Value Averaging by Edelson has a pretty good explanation of various cases, though I would say some of the examples are worked in excessive detail. I have not implemented this myself, one reason being that the amount I'm able to save from year to year varies, as it probably does for you, and so predicting a path is not quite so simple as he assumes.  You could still do it I suppose. I think you could get a very crude approximation to this by simply directing your savings into cash when the share market's rate of growth over the last several years is above what you think is the long term average."}
{"text": "If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down? Talk to your bank first but shop around a bit as well with other reputable lenders in your area.  Another option, if you're willing to put down ~84% of the purchase price would be to talk to several dealerships BEFORE you set foot on a single lot. Tell them that you are interested in buying a Versa and that you are willing to pay cash but you are not willing to pay more than $10,200. They won't agree (trust me on that) but they will come down from $13,000. Say \"Thanks, I'll call you back.\" and call one of the other dealerships on your list and tell them \"I just spoke with this dealership and they are willing to sell me the car for [whatever number they gave you].\" One of two things will happen, either the dealership will come back with a lower price or they will tell you to go buy the car there. Continue this process until you have one dealership left.  I did this with 3 dealerships in 2011 and bought a truck with a $27,000 sticker price for just over $19,000. It took about a week to make all of the calls and I ended up going to a dealership 3 hours away but it was worth it for $8,000."}
{"text": "What is the difference between trading and non-trading stock? Every company has Stocks.   For the stocks to be traded via some stock exchange, the companies must follow the eligibility criteria and guidelines. Once done, these are then listed on the stock exchange and can be traded. The advantage [amongst others] of listing is liquidity and stocks can easily be bought and sold.  Some small companies or closely held companies may not want to list on stock exchange and hence are not traded. This does not mean they can't be bought and sold, they can be outside of the market, however the deals are complex and every deal has to be worked out. During the course of time a stock that is traded on a stock exchange, would either fail to meet the criteria or voluntarily choose not to be traded and follow the delisting process [either by stock exchange or by company]. After this the stocks are no longer traded on the exchange."}
{"text": "New to Stock Trading Good ones, no there are not.  Go to a bookstore and pick up a copy of \"The Intelligent Investor.\"  It was last published in 1972 and is still in print and will teach you everything you need to know.  If you have accounting skills, pick up a copy of \"Security Analysis\" by Benjamin Graham.  The 1943 version was just released again with a 2008 copyright and there is a 1987 version primarily edited by Cottle (I think).  The 1943 book is better if you are comfortable with accounting and the 1987 version is better if you are not comfortable and feel you need more direction. I know recent would seem better, but the fact that there was a heavy demand in 2008 to reprint a 1943 book tells you how good it is.  I think it is in its 13th printing since 2008.  The same is true for the 72 and 87 book.  Please don't use internet tutorials.  If you do want to use Internet tutorials, then please just write me a check now for all your money.  It will save me effort from having to take it from you penny by penny because you followed bad advice and lost money.  Someone has to capture other people's mistakes.  Please go out and make money instead.   Prudence is the mother of all virtues."}
{"text": "Pros and Cons of Interest Only Loans Given the current low interest rates - let's assume 4% - this might be a viable option for a lot of people.  Let's also assume that your actual interest rate after figuring in tax considerations ends up at around 3%.  I think I am being pretty fair with the numbers. Now every dollar that you save each month based on the savings and invest with a higher net return of greater than 3% will in fact be \"free money\".  You are basically betting on your ability to invest over the 3%.  Even if using a conservative historical rate of return on the market you should net far better than 3%.  This money would be significant after 10 years.   Let's say you earn an average of 8% on your money over the 10 years.  Well you would have an extra $77K by doing interest only if you were paying on average of $500 a month towards interest on a conventional loan.  That is a pretty average house in the US.  Who doesn't want $77K (more than you would have compared to just principal).  So after 10 years you have the same amount in principal plus $77k given that you take all of the saved money and invest it at the constraints above. I would suggest that people take interest only if they are willing to diligently put away the money as they had a conventional loan.  Another scenario would be a wealthier home owner (that may be able to pay off house at any time) to reap the tax breaks and cheap money to invest. Pros: Cons: Sidenote:  If people ask how viable is this.  Well I have done this for 8 years.  I have earned an extra 110K.  I have smaller than $500 I put away each month since my house is about 30% owned but have earned almost 14% on average over the last 8 years.  My money gets put into an e-trade account automatically each month from there I funnel it into different funds (diversified by sector and region).  I literally spend a few minutes a month on this and I truly act like the money isn't there.  What is also nice is that the bank will account for about half of this as being a liquid asset when I have to renegotiate another loan."}
{"text": "Credit card transactions for personal finances I use mint.com for tracking my finances.  It works on mobile phones, tablets, and in a browser.  If you don't mind the initial hassle of putting in the credentials you use to access your account online, you'll find that you're able to build a comprehensive picture of the state of your finances relatively quickly. It does a great job of separating the various types of financial transactions you engage in, and also lets you customize those classifications with tags.  It's ad-supported, so there's no out-of-pocket cost to you, and it doesn't preclude you from using the personal finance software you already have on your phone."}
{"text": "Can a bank statement be submitted as a proof of investment? Probably not. A debit of 50K in your Bank statement does not mean that its invested into tax saving instrument. This question is best answered by the finance department of your company. Practise vary from organization to organization."}
{"text": "Stock Exchange in US The easiest route for you to go down will be to consult wikipedia, which will provide a comprehensive list of all US stock exchanges (there are plenty more than the ones you list!). Then visit the websites for those that are of interest to you, where you will find a list of holiday dates along with the trading schedule for specific products and the settlement dates where relevant. In answer to the other part of your question, yes, a stock can trade on multiple exchanges. Typically (unless you instruct otherwise), your broker will route your order to the exchange where it can be matched at the most favorable price to you at that time."}
{"text": "How will Brexit affect house mortgages? Only you can decide whether it's wise or not given your own personal circumstances. Brexit is certainly a big risk, and noone can really know what will happen yet. The specific worries you mention are certainly valid. Additionally you might find it hard to keep your job or get a new one if the economy turns bad, and in an extreme \"no deal\" scenario you might find yourself forced to leave - though I think that's very unlikely. House prices could also collapse leaving you in \"negative equity\". If you're planning on staying in the same location in the UK for a long time, a house tends to be a worthwhile investment, particularly as you always need somewhere to live, so owning it is a \"hedge\" against prices rising. Even if prices do fall, you do still have somewhere to live. If you're planning on going back to your home country at some point, that reduces the value of owning a house. If you want to reduce your risk, consider getting a mortgage with a long-term fixed rate. There are some available for 10 years, which I'd hope would be enough to get us over most of the Brexit volatility."}
{"text": "Can I claim a tax deduction for working from home as an employee? I work there 90% of the time The short answer is yes you probably can take the deduction for a home office because the space is used exclusively and you are working there for the convenience of your employer if you don't have a desk at your employers office. The long answer is that it may not be worth it to take the home office deduction as an employee. You're deduction is subject to a 2% AGI floor. You can only deduct a percentage of your rent or the depreciation on your home. A quick and dirty example if you make $75k/year, rent a 1200 sqft 2 bedroom apartment for $1000/month and use one bedroom (120 sqft) regularly and exclusively for your employer. You can deduct 10% (120sqft/1200sqft) of the $12000 ($1000*12 months (assumes your situation didn't change)) in rent or $1200. However because you are an employee you are subject to the 2% AGI floor so you can deduct $1200-$1500 (75000*.02 (salary * 2% floor)) = -300 so in order to deduct the first dollar you need an additional $300 worth of deductible expenses.  Depending on your situation it may or may not be worth it to take the home office deduction even if you qualify for it."}
{"text": "How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want Nathan's answer was a +1 from me. The answer is not always simple. Having the money available is surely the first step. Using Pete's process aligns with this.  Another thought is depending where you are in your finances, delay by a day for every $100 in cost. e.g. For a $1000 purchase, sleep on it for 10 days. Adjust the number for your circumstance."}
{"text": "Does buying and selling a stock OR holding onto it make a company look better? I have watched the ticker when I have made a transaction. About \u00bc of the time my buy (or sell) actually moves the going price. But that price movement is wiped out by other transactions within two (or so) munites.  Is your uncle correct? Yes. Will anyone notice? No."}
{"text": "Are online mortgage lenders as good as local brick-and-mortar ones? I had a pretty good experience with Lending Tree, although they are a mortgage broker, not a lender themselves."}
{"text": "Form 1040 - where to place my stipend? Some of the 45,000 might be taxable. The question is how was the stipend determined. Was it based on the days away? The mile driven? The cities you worked in? The IRS has guidelines regarding what is taxable in  IRS Pub 15 Per diem or other fixed allowance.  You may reimburse your employees by travel days, miles, or some other   fixed allowance under the applicable revenue procedure. In these   cases, your employee is considered to have accounted to you if your   reimbursement doesn't exceed rates established by the Federal   Government. The 2015 standard mileage rate for auto expenses was 57.5   cents per mile. The rate for 2016 is 54 cents per mile. The government per diem rates for meals and lodging in the continental   United States can be found by visiting the U.S. General Services   Administration website at www.GSA.gov and entering \"per diem rates\" in   the search box. Other than the amount of these expenses, your   employees' business expenses must be substantiated (for example, the   business purpose of the travel or the number of business miles   driven). For information on substantiation methods, see Pub. 463. If the per diem or allowance paid exceeds the amounts substantiated,   you must report the excess amount as wages. This excess amount is   subject to income tax with-holding and payment of social security,   Medicare, and FUTA taxes. Show the amount equal to the substantiated   amount (for example, the nontaxable portion) in box 12 of Form W-2   using code \u201cL\""}
{"text": "Starting a new job. Help me with retirement/debt planning please! I would go with your alternative idea: get rid of the debt as fast as possible.    You have $32k of debt. It's a lot, but with your new $90k salary, do you think you could get rid of it all in 12 months? See if you can make that happen. Once the debt is gone, you'll be in a position to invest as much as you want and keep all your gains. You are worried about sacrificing future money in your investments, but if you eliminate the debt over the next year, this will be minimized. Just lose the debt."}
{"text": "If someone gives me cash legally, can my deposit trigger an audit for them? Yes you should worry and take care not to violate the law or provide any appearance of impropriety.   Every bank in the USA is required under the Bank Secrecy Act to report cash transactions over $10,000 the same day to the IRS -- and here's the fun secret part -- without notification to the depositor.   But splitting the deposits up into smaller amounts is also a crime, called \"structuring\".   On occasion there is a news story where a retail business that naturally must deposit cash from customers will be (falsely?) accused of structuring, e.g.:  Feds seize grocery store's entire bank account -- Institute for Justice defends grocer Under the legal doctrine of civil asset forfeiture, your money can be accused of a crime, seized, and tried separately from its owner.  The actual cases indicate the money as defendant, i.e. \"US v $124,700\" In this somewhat bizarre system of \"justice\", the owner need not be charged with a crime, and is not in immediate peril of going to prison (about the only upside in this, but might be temporary because the authorities haven't charged the owner yet).  When only the money is charged with a crime, there is no requirement for the government to supply a public defender for the owners who can not afford a lawyer.... can not afford a lawyer, because the government took all their money...."}
{"text": "At Vanguard, can I transfer shares from regular investment account to a Roth IRA? Since you are paying taxes on the distributions from your mutual funds anyway, instead of reinvesting the distributions back into the mutual funds, you could receive them as cash, then contribute them to your Roth IRA once you are able to open one."}
{"text": "Super-generic mutual fund type Since you already have twice your target in that emergency fund, putting that overage to work is a good idea. The impression that I get is that you'd still like to stay on the safe side. What you're looking for is a Balanced Fund.  In a balanced fund the managers invest in both stocks and bonds (and cash). Since you have that diversification between those two asset classes, their returns tend to be much less volatile than other funds. Also, because of their intended audience and the traditions from that class of funds' long history, they tend to invest somewhat more conservatively in both asset classes.  There are two general types of balanced funds: Conservative Allocation funds and Moderate Allocation funds. Conservative allocation funds invest in more fixed income than equity (the classic mix is 60% bonds, 40% stocks). Moderate allocation funds invest in more equity than fixed income (classic mix: 40% bonds, 60% stocks). A good pair of funds that are similar but exemplify the difference between conservative allocation and moderate allocation are Vanguard's Wellesley Income Fund (VWINX) for the former and Vanguard's Wellington Fund (VWELX) for the latter. (Disclaimer: though both funds are broadly considered excellent, this is not a recommendation.) Good luck sorting this out!"}
{"text": "Correct Ways of Importing Personal Finance Transaction Data You'll need to find out in what format MoneyStrands expects the data.  A .qif or an .ofx file may not be the answer."}
{"text": "At what age should I start or stop saving money? There is no age-limit, in fact the sooner you start the better - the sooner the money starts to compound."}
{"text": "Why is Insider Trading Illegal? @sdg - If you can be flippant, I can be pedantic. Insider Trading is not illegal. Any employee of a company can be an insider, yet most of their trades are perfectly legal. What is illegal is trading on Inside Information. Such information may be available to those within a company, or those who have some contact with an employee. In fact, if I am seated at a restaurant table and hear Bill and Warren talking about a purchase they plan to make, I am in possession of inside information and risk prosecution should I purchase shares and profit.  Often, a company will have a \"quiet period\" before earnings reports or potential stock-price-moving-news. During this time, employees are forbidden from buying or selling shares, excluding those that would be automatically bought in their retirement accounts or ESPP."}
{"text": "Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out? One piece of information you didn't mention is how much you paid for the original home.  If you hold onto that home for too long you will have to pay capital gains on the difference between sale price and original price. This can be a TON of money, thousands of dollars easily. The rule is: If you lived in a home for 2 out of the past 5 years, you don't have to pay the capital gains tax. So  if you just moved, you have 3 years to sell.  Perhaps as a compromise you can try renting it for 3 years and then selling it a few months before the deadline."}
{"text": "If banksimple.com is not a bank, what is it? The model itself is fairly common for serving particular niche markets. A few other organizations which operate in similar setups: prepaid card providers such as NetSpend, GreenDot, AccountNow, etc; startups such as SmartyPig, PerkStreet, WePay, and HigherOne. Still, nobody else seems to be providing full-service online banking to mainstream customers the way we plan to.  We plan to have much better security than most banks, which isn't hard given the current sorry state of online banking in the US. And having an intermediary who's looking out for your interests can be a good thing. David, my co-founder Josh lays out our launch plans and why we are invite-only in his latest post. In short, we made a decision to build our own call center rather than outsource it, and that limits how quickly we can bring people on."}
{"text": "Can I deduct personal loans or use them as tax \u201cwrite offs?\u201d You will have to write it off as an offset of capital gains or as bad debt against personal income, limited to $3k/ yr. Write off 3k this year, 2k next. Here's the tax code, you'll need to file a form 8949, link below. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc450/tc453 So, this requires that it is a loan, acknowledged by both you and the borrower, with terms of repayment and stated interest, as well as wording for late payments and time for delinquency.  The loan document doesn't have to be fancy, but it must show a reasonable intention of repayment to distinguish it from a gift.  Then send out a 1099c for cancellation of debt. This is a starting point, it's a good idea to run everything by your tax processional to make sure you're meeting the requirements for bad debt with your contact and payment communication."}
{"text": "Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career? I tell you how I started as an investor: read the writings of probably the best investor of the history and become familiarized with it: Warren Buffett. I highly recommend \"The Essays of Warren Buffett\", where he provides a wise insight on how a company generates value, and his investment philosophy. You won't regret it! And also, specially in finance, don't follow the advice from people that you don't know, like me."}
{"text": "What's the average rate of return for some of the most mainstream index funds? When asking about rate of return it is imperative to specify the time period. Average over all time? Average over the last 10 years? I've heard a good rule of thumb is 8-10% on average for all stocks over all time. That may be overstated now given the current economic climate. You can also look up fund sheets/fact sheets for major index funds. Just Google \"SPY fund sheet\" or \"SPY fact sheet\". It will tell you the annualized % return over a few different periods."}
{"text": "What should I do with my paper financial documents? Here's my approach: As for Google Docs, I think that its safe enough for most people. If you in a profession that was subject to heavy regulatory scrutiny, of if you are cheating on your taxes, I would probably not use a cloud provider. Many providers will provide documents to government agencies without a subpoena or notice to you."}
{"text": "Short term parking of a large inheritance? What are the options available for safe, short-term parking of funds? Savings accounts are the go-to option for safely depositing funds in a way that they remain accessible in the short-term. There are many options available, and any recommendations on a specific account from a specific institution depend greatly on the current state of banks. As you're in the US, If you choose to save funds in a savings account, it's important that you verify that the account (or accounts) you use are FDIC insured. Also be aware that the insurance limit is $250,000, so for larger volumes of money you may need to either break up your savings into multiple accounts, or consult a Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF) rather than random strangers on the internet. I received an inheritance check... Money is a token we exchange for favors from other people. As their last act, someone decided to give you a portion of their unused favors. You should feel honored that they held you in such esteem. I have no debt at all and aside from a few deferred expenses You're wise to bring up debt. As a general answer not geared toward your specific circumstances: Paying down debt is a good choice, if you have any. Investment accounts have an unknown interest rate, whereas reducing debt is guaranteed to earn you the interest rate that you would have otherwise paid. Creating new debt is a bad choice. It's common for people who receive large windfalls to spend so much that they put themselves in financial trouble. Lottery winners tend to go bankrupt. The best way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket. I am not at all savvy about finances... The vast majority of people are not savvy about finances. It's a good sign that you acknowledge your inability and are willing to defer to others. ...and have had a few bad experiences when trying to hire someone to help me Find an AIF, preferably one from a largish investment firm. You don't want to be their most important client. You just want them to treat you with courtesy and give you simple, and sound investment advice. Don't be afraid to shop around a bit. I am interested in options for safe, short \"parking\" of these funds until I figure out what I want to do.  Apart from savings accounts, some money market accounts and mutual funds may be appropriate for parking funds before investing elsewhere. They come with their own tradeoffs and are quite likely higher risk than you're willing to take while you're just deciding what to do with the funds. My personal recommendation* for your specific circumstances at this specific time is to put your money in an Aspiration Summit Account purely because it has 1% APY (which is the highest interest rate I'm currently aware of) and is FDIC insured. I am not affiliated with Aspiration. I would then suggest talking to someone at Vanguard or Fidelity about your investment options. Be clear about your expectations and don't be afraid to simply walk away if you don't like the advice you receive. I am not affiliated with Vanguard or Fidelity. * I am not a lawyer, fiduciary, or even a person with a degree in finances. For all you know I'm a dog on the internet."}
{"text": "I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget? It's simple, really: Practice. Fiscal responsibility is not a trick you can learn look up on Google, or a service you can buy from your accountant.  Being responsible with your money is a skill that is learned over a lifetime.  The only way to get better at it is to practice, and not get discouraged when you make mistakes."}
{"text": "Estimated Taxes Fall Short of tax liability \u2014 how do I pay extra online (Federal and NYS) If you qualify for the safe harbor, you are not required to pay additional quarterly taxes.  Of course, you're still welcome to do so if you're sure you'll owe them; however, you will not be penalized. If your income is over $150k (joint) or $75k (single), your safe harbor is: Estimated tax safe harbor for higher income taxpayers. If your 2014 adjusted gross income was more than $150,000 ($75,000 if you are married filing a separate return), you must pay the smaller of 90% of your expected tax for 2015 or 110% of the tax shown on your 2014 return to avoid an estimated tax penalty. Generally, if you're under that level, the following reasons suggest you will not owe the tax (from the IRS publication 505): The total of your withholding and timely estimated tax payments was at least as much as your 2013 tax. (See Special rules for certain individuals for higher income taxpayers and farmers and fishermen.) The tax balance due on your 2014 return is no more than 10% of your total 2014 tax, and you paid all required estimated tax payments on time. Your total tax for 2014 (defined later) minus your withholding is less than $1,000. You did not have a tax liability for 2013. You did not have any withholding taxes and your current year tax (less any household employment taxes) is less than $1,000. If you paid one-fourth of your last year's taxes (or of 110% of your last-year's taxes) in estimated taxes for each quarter prior to this one, you should be fine as far as penalties go, and can simply add the excess you know you will owe to the next check."}
{"text": "Are these scenarios considered as taxable income? For case 1, there is no tax due as you sold the book for less than your cost basis. If you had sold for more than $100, then you would have had a profit. For case 2, that depends on the value of the gift card with respect to the value of your fare. Most likely that gift card is less than the cost of the fare. And in that case it would generally be treated as a reduction in the purchase price. The same way that rebates and cash back on credit card are treated. Note if for some reason a 1099 was generated that would change the situation and you would need to consult a tax professional. Since that would indicate that the other party to the transaction had a different view of the situation."}
{"text": "Online Foreign Exchange Brokerages: Which ones are good & reputable for smaller trades? I used Oanda.com for Forex trading a couple years ago. I am in the US but I think it's available in the UK as well. At the time, they had no commissions and their spreads were comparable or better than other brokers. The spreads would just quite considerably when a big event like a Fed meeting or the unemployment figures come out, but I suspect that that is the same everywhere (or they have constant spreads and reject trades).  They did not push the high leverages like other brokers were at the time. I considered this to be very reputable, because though the profits to be gotten through 100:1 leverage are great advertising, the reality is that one unexpected spike and a newbie would lose a bunch of money in a margin call."}
{"text": "Personal finance software for Mac that can track stocks and mutual funds? (Even manual updating of share prices will do.) I currently use Moneydance on my Mac.  Before that I had used Quicken on a PC until version 2007. It is pretty good, does most simple investment stuff just fine. It can automatically download prices for regular stocks.  Mutual funds I have to input by hand."}
{"text": "Should I trade in a car I own to lower my payments on a new lease? Trade-in values are generally below what you can get in a private sale. To directly answer your question, you should sell the crossover yourself and use the balance to purchase your new vehicle. I would encourage you to use the $9k to finance directly without a lease, especially if you are planning on financing after the lease term. The lease will not save you money over the time you drive the vehicle in this case, and worse, will likely expose you to risk of having to pay additional fees if you break certain terms in the lease (mileage, wear and tear, etc) Best option mathematically is to use the $9k to purchase a vehicle for cash. This provides the lowest total cost of ownership.  Even if you are afraid of purchasing a lemon, leasing a vehicle is awfully expensive insurance against that possibility. You would have to rack up some significant repairs to justify the cost of the lease vs cash over the term of operating the vehicle."}
{"text": "What size \u201cnest egg\u201d should my husband and I have, and by what age? Here's another answer on the topic: Saving for retirement: How much is enough? An angle on it this question made me think of: a good approach here is to focus on savings rate (which you can control) rather than the final number (which you can't, plus it will fluctuate with the markets and make you nervous). For example, focus on saving at least 10% of your income annually (15% is much safer).  If you focus on the final number: The way it works in the real world is that you save as much as you can, but there are lots of random factors and unknowns. Some people end up having to work a lot longer than they hoped to. Others end up able to retire early. Others retire on time but have to spend less than they hoped. But the one thing you can often control (as long as you have an income and no catastrophes, anyway) is that you spend less than you make."}
{"text": "Why does the Fed use PCE over CPI? (the average person doesn't care nor are they affected by how much their employer spends in healthcare) It may be true that the average person doesn't care how much their employer spends on healthcare, but it's not true that we aren't affected.  From an employer's perspective, healthcare, wages, and all other benefits are part of the cost of having an employee.  When healthcare goes up, it increases the total employee cost.   Employers can handle this in several ways.  They could reduce the amount they give investors (as dividends, stock buybacks, etc.).  But then the stock is worth less and they have to make up the money somewhere else.  They could pass the expense on to customers.  But then the loss in business can easily cost more than the revenue raised.  They can cut wages or other benefits.  Then the average person will start caring...and might get a different job.   (I found this article saying that 12M households spend >=50% of income on rent, so I'm assuming that an even greater number spend more than the recommended 30%, which means rent should be weighted as high as it is in CPI.) According to the census, that's only about 10% of households.  It also notes that 64.4% of households are owner-occupied.  They don't pay rent.  The CPI makes up a number called owner's equivalent rent for those households to get to the higher percentage.   The CPI is intended for things like wages.  This makes it a good choice for a cost of living adjustment, but it doesn't quite represent the overall economy.  And for investments, it's the broader economy that matters.  Household consumption is less important.   What the Fed says."}
{"text": "Should a retail trader bother about reading SEC filings There are many different kinds of SEC filings with different purposes.  Broadly speaking, what they have in common is that they are the ways that companies publicly disclose information that they are legally required to disclose.  The page that you listed gives brief descriptions of many types, but if you click through to the articles on individual types of filings, you can get more info. One of the most commonly discussed filings is the 10-K, which is, as Wikipedia says, \"a comprehensive summary of a company's financial performance\".  This includes info like earnings and executive pay. One example of a form that some people believe has potential utility for investors is Form 4, which is a disclosure of \"insider trading\".  People with a privileged stake in a company (executives, directors, and major shareholders) cannot legally buy or sell shares without disclosing it by filing a Form 4.  Some people think that you can make use of this information in the sense that if, for instance, the CEO of Google buys a bunch of Twitter stock, they may have some reason for thinking it will go up, so maybe you should buy it too.  Whether such inferences are accurate, and whether you can garner a practical benefit from them (i.e., whether you can manage to buy before everyone else notices and drives the price up) is debatable. My personal opinion would be that, for an average retail investor, readng SEC filings is unlikely to be useful.  The reason is that an average retail investor shouldn't be investing in individual companies at all, but rather in mutual funds or ETFs, which typically provide comparable returns with far less risk.  SEC filings are made by individual companies, so it doesn't generally help you to read them unless you're going to take action related to an individual company.  It doesn't generally make sense to take action related to an individual company if you don't have the time and energy to read a large number of SEC filings to decide which company to take action on.  If you have the time and energy to read a large number of SEC filings, you're probably not an average retail investor.  If you are a wheeler dealer who plays in the big leagues, you might benefit from reading SEC filings.  However, if you aren't already reading SEC filings, you're probably not a wheeler dealer who plays in the big leagues. That said, if you're a currently-average investor with big dreams, it could be instructive to read a few filings to explore what you might do with them.  You could, for instance, allocate a \"play money\" fund of a few thousand dollars and try your hand at following insider trades or the like.  If you make some money, great; if not, oh well.  Realistically, though, there are so many people who make a living reading SEC filings and acting on them every day that you have little chance of finding a \"diamond in the rough\" unless you also make a living by doing it every day. It's sort of like asking \"Should I read Boating Monthly to improve my sailing skills?\"  If you're asking because you want to rent a Hobie Cat and go for a pleasure cruise now and then, sure, it can't hurt.  If you're asking because you want to enter the America's Cup, you can still read Boating Monthly, but it won't in itself meaningfully increase your chances of winning the America's Cup."}
{"text": "How can small children contribute to the \u201cfamily economy\u201d? Another suggestion I heard on the radio was to give the child the difference between the name brand they want, and the store brand they settle on.  Then that money can be accumulated as savings. Saving money is as important a feature of the family economy as earning money. Be careful with what you have a child do for reward vs what you have them do as a responsibility.  Don't set a dangerous precedent that certain work does not need to be done unless compensation is on the table.  You might have a child who relies on external motivations only to do things, which can make school work and future employment hard. I would instead have my child do yard work, but while doing it explain opportunity costs of doing the work yourself vs hiring out.  I would show my kid how saving money earns interest, and how that is essentially free money."}
{"text": "Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership? Yes, nothing is impossible! :) You can buy it directly from the factory of manufacturer, but then you will have to pay for sea shipping of this car. E.g. you can buy it directly from Japanese Toyota but then you will have to pay to sea cargo ship to deliver your car in container from Japan. Since this car is already your property, before importing to US, I doubt that you would need to pay any custom fees. In the end, the total payment might be a lot cheaper that you can buy there, but you need to be prepared to all this hassle"}
{"text": "Canceling credit cards - insurance rate increase? Your credit score can be part of the algorithm for setting your rates for auto insurance. It is one of many factors including sex, age, zip code, driving record, type of car... There are some states that are concerned about using credit scores, some sates have passed legislation regarding this issue"}
{"text": "UK: Personal finance book for a twenty-something I will definitely recommend the following books The above books will open lot of eyes to exactly know what you are doing with your personal finances in a day to day basis.These books will surely be in the top of my list which I will be giving away to my kins in my later stage. The concepts are universally the same, feel free to skip the chapters which were US based. I live in UK and I read most of the above books in late twenties, it surely made lot of changes and also drastically improved my personal finance acumen. I wish I have read these books in my early twenties."}
{"text": "What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland? In addition to what George said, there are other things that probably benefit Switzerland:"}
{"text": "Why do people buy stocks that pay no dividend? Shares in a company represent a portion of a company. If that company takes in money and doesn't pay it out as a dividend (e.g. Apple), the company is still more valuable because it has cold hard cash as an asset. Theoretically, it's all the same whether your share of the money is inside the company or outside the company; the only immediate difference is tax treatment.  Of course, for large bank accounts that means that an investment in the company is a mix of investment in the bank account and investment in the business-value of the company, which may stymie investors who aren't particularly interested in buying larve amounts of bank accounts (known for low returns) and would prefer to receive their share of the cash to invest elsewhere (or in the business portion of the company.) Companies like Apple have in fact taken criticism for this. Your company could also use that cash to invest in itself (growing the value of its profits) or buy other companies that are worth money, essentially doing the job for you. Of course, they can do the job well or they can do it poorly... A company could also be acquired by a larger company, or taken private, in exchange for cash or the stock of another company. This is another way that the company's value could be returned to its shareholders."}
{"text": "Are BIC and SWIFT code the same things? IBAN -> is International Bank Account Number. The number is constructed in such a way that it uniquely identifies your account in the world. I.e. it has a country in it, Bank (and branch) and the actual account number. This is an international standard adopted by the EU, Australia and NZ. Going forward it would be sufficient to just quote the IBAN for payment without any other details. BIC, SWIFT Code, SWIFT BIC, SWIFT ID [all mean the same] is a Bank Identifier Code [More correctly Business Identifier Code] that is again an International standard and used on all International payments. The SWIFT BIC is constructed as   Hence SWIFT BIC can be 8 Chars or 11 Chars. The additional 3 Chars help bank identify the Branch where the account is held and where the payment needs to be made. So LOYDGB2L is the main head office  If your branch is, say, in Canary Wharf, the SWIFT BIC would be LOYDGB21 [21-> Canary Wharf] with a 3 digit branch added."}
{"text": "Why the need for human brokers while there are computers? There are still human brokers on the floor primarily due to tradition. Their numbers have certainly dwindled, however, and it's reasonable to expect the number of floor traders to decrease even more as electronic trading continues to grow. A key reason for human brokers, however, is due to privacy. Certain private exchanges such as dark pools maintain privacy for high profile clients and institutional investors, and human brokers are needed to execute anonymous deals in these venues. Even in this region, however, technology is supplanting the need for brokers. I don't believe there is any human-broker-free stock exchange, but Nasdaq and other traditionally OTC (over the counter) exchanges are as close as it gets since they never even had trading floors."}
{"text": "Switch from DINK to SIWK: How do people afford kids? As this is anonymous, can you give us actual numbers? I can make guesses based on your percentages, but it would help. Lets assume you both make $35k (since you said child care would take up the bulk of your wife's income, it must be fairly low incomes) The answer usually isn't a simple \"do this\", but small adjustments in your lifestyle which add up. Church offering is 17%, the standard tithe is 10%. Lower it? It's the most obvious large non-required expense. Transportation is almost 10% of your income. If my numbers are right, that is somewhere around $500 per month? What kind of car/cars do you have? There are very cheap used cars which cost very little in upkeep / fuel. Is it possible your cars are more expensive than needed? My wife and I bought a used car for around $8k in cash a few years ago. Still running strong, only have done oil changes since then. Food is 12%, which would be perhaps $600 or $700 per month. That seems awfully high. Maybe I'm wrong about your salaries :) You said you were cheap, but now the numbers don't add up. Mortgage of 35% ($2k with escrow if I'm guessing on salaries right) seems reasonable. I'm assuming you don't want to downsize, particularly if you're going to have kids. Do you have a great mortgage rate? I assume you're on a 30 year fixed already?"}
{"text": "How do \u201cheld\u201d amounts appear on statements and affect balances of traditional credit cards? The \"hold\" is just placeholder that prevents you from overspending until the transaction is settled. The merchant isn't \"holding\" your money, your bank or card provider is protecting itself from you overdrawing. In general, it takes 1-3 days for a credit transaction to settle. With a credit card, this usually isn't an issue, unless you have a very low credit line or other unusual things going on. With pre-paid and debit cards, it is an issue, since your spending power is contingent upon you having an available balance. I'm a contrarian on this topic, but I don't see any compelling reason to use debit or stored value cards, other than preventing yourself from overspending. I've answered a few other questions in detail in this area, if you're interested."}
{"text": "Can someone explain the Option Chain of AMD for me? The current price is $8.05. If you want the right to sell it to someone (put it to the buyer) for $10, you have to pay $2. Since you're looking at an expiration that's so close, the \"in the money\" value is nearly the same as what it trades for. The JAN 2013 sells for nearly $3."}
{"text": "How do I adjust to a new social class? Under what conditions did you move? My favourite method of judging prices objectively comes from concepts written in Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez. Essentially it normalizes money spent by making you figure out how much an item costs with respect to the number of hours you needed to work to afford it. I prefer that method versus comparing with others since it is objective for yourself and looks beyond just the bare prices."}
{"text": "How can I get a mortgage I can't afford? Save up a bigger downpayment.  The lender's requirement is going to be based on how much you finance, not the price of the house."}
{"text": "Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative to pay off student loans? Personally, I avoid making business deals with friends and relatives. There's just too much of a possibility that things can go wrong.  Let's assume that you're honest people and you have no intention of cheating your mother-in-law. Still, all sorts of things could happen that could make it difficult for you to repay the loan. You could lose your job. You could get some big medical expense. Etc. Then what happens? Then your financial problems become family problems. There's a strong temptation when people borrow from relatives to make paying the loan the lowest priority in their budget. \"I know I promised to pay \\$X per month, but things are really tight right now and Mom should understand.\" Maybe she does understand and can manage without it. But maybe not. And then it becomes a family fight. \"You promised you'd pay it back.\" \"And we will, we're having a hard time right now. Can't you just give us a break?\" Etc. Or she might have some extra expense, and say, \"Hey, can't you pay a little more this month? I really need some extra cash.\" \"I'm sorry, we're struggling just to make the regular payments, we can't.\" \"Well I was willing to loan you all this money. The least you could do is pay me back when I need it.\" Etc. You can end up ruining family relationships over money. Your wife can find herself in the position of having to choose whether to side with her mother or her husband. Etc. I'm sure plenty of people do things like this and it works out just great. But there are big risks. And by the way, apparently this was your idea, not your mother-in-laws. I wonder what her reaction is. Is she eager to help out her daughter and son-in-law and had nothing in particular to do with the money anyway? Or is she feeling very imposed on? It's one thing to ask relatives to let you borrow their car for the weekend. Asking someone to loan you $50,000 is a very big request. If one of my kids asked me to loan them $50,000 from my retirement fund, I'd consider that a very presumptuous request. (Unless they needed the money for life-saving surgery for my grandchild or some such.)"}
{"text": "Why would preferred shares have less potential for capital gain compared to common stock? True blue preferred shares are considered loose hybrids of credit and equity.  They are more senior than common equity in bankruptcy liquidation but pay out a dividend which is not mandatory. Financial institutions issue the bulk of genuine preferred shares because of their need for more flexibility than a bond but not so much that they can afford the cost to shareholders by diluting common equity. Since it is a credit-like security that receives none of the income from operations but merely pays out a potentially unpredictable yet fixed amount of income, it will perform much more like a bond, rising when interest rates fall and vice versa, and since interest rates do not move to the extent of common equity valuations, preferreds' price variances will correspond much more to bonds than common equities.  If the company stops paying the preferred dividend or looks to become in financial trouble, the price of the preferred share should be expected to fall. There are more modern preferred however.  It has now become popular to fund intermediate startups with convertible preferred shares.  Because these are derivatives based upon the common equity, they can be expected to be much more variant."}
{"text": "find stock composition of a publicly traded fund The big websites, Yahoo and the like, only give the 10 biggest positions of any fund. Download the annual report of the fund, go to page 18, you will find the positions on the 31st of December.  However the actual positions could be different. The same applies to all funds. You need the annual report."}
{"text": "Investment strategy for retired couple The safest investment in the United States is Treasures. The Federal Reserve just increased the short term rate for the first time in about seven years. But the banks are under no obligation to increase the rate they pay. So you (or rather they) can loan money directly to the United States Government by buying Bills, Notes, or Bonds. To do this you set up an account with Treasury Direct. You print off a form (available at the website) and take the filled out form to the bank. At the bank their identity and citizenship will be verified and the bank will complete the form. The form is then mailed into Treasury Direct.  There are at least two investments you can make at Treasury Direct that guarantee a rate of return better than the inflation rate. They are I-series bonds and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). Personally, I prefer the I-series bonds to TIPS.  Here is a link to the Treasury Direct website for information on I-series bonds. this link takes you to information on TIPS.  Edit: To the best of my understanding, the Federal Reserve has no ability to set the rate for notes and bonds. It is my understanding that they can only directly control the overnight rate. Which is the rate the banks get for parking their money with the Fed overnight. I believe that the rates for longer term instruments are set by the market and are not mandated by the Fed (or anyone else in government). It is only by indirect influence that the Fed tries to change long term rates."}
{"text": "What is the best use of \u201cspare\u201d money? There's a hellova lot to be said for investing in real estate (simple residential real estate), even though it's grandma's advice. The two critical elements are 1) it's the only realistic way for a civilian to get leverage. this is why it almost always blows away \"tinkering in the stock markets\" in the 10-year frame. 2) but perhaps more importantly - it's a really \"enforced\" saving plan. you just have to pay it off every month. There are other huge advantages like, it's the best possible equity for a civilian, so you can get loans in the future to start your dotcom, etc. Try to buy yourself a very modest little flat (perhaps to rent out?) or even something like a garage or storeroom.  Real estate can crash, but it's very unlikely; it only happens in end of the world situations where it won't matter anyway.  When real estate drops say 30% everyone yells about that being a \"crash\" - I've never, ever owned a stock that hasn't had 30% down times. Food for thought!"}
{"text": "U.S. Mutual Fund Supermarkets: Where are some good places to buy mutual funds? There are hundreds of entities which offer mutual funds - too many to adequately address here. If you need to pick one, just go with Vanguard for the low low low fees. Yes, this is important. A typical expense ratio of 1% may not sound like much until you realize that the annualized real rate of return on the stock market - after inflation - is about 4%... so the fund eats a quarter of your earnings. (Vanguard's typical expense ratios are closer to 0.1-0.2%). If your company offers a tax-deferred retirement account such as a 401(k), you'll probably find it advantageous to use whatever funds that plan offers just to get the tax advantage, and roll over the account to a cheaper provider when you change employers. You can also buy mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) through most brokerages. E*Trade has a nice mutual fund screener, with over 6700 mutual funds and 1180 ETFs. Charles Schwab has one you can browse without even having an account."}
{"text": "Relation between interest rates and currency for a nation What you are asking about is called Interest Rate Parity. Or for a longer explanation the article Interest Rate Parity at Wikipedia.  If the US has a rate of say zero, and the rate in Elbonia is 10%, one believes that in a year the exchange rate will be shifted by 10%, i.e. it will take 1.1 unit of their currency to get the dollars one unit did prior.  Else, you'd always profit from such FOREX trades.  (Disclaimer - I am not claiming this to be true or false, just offering one theory that explains the rate difference effect on future exchange rates."}
{"text": "Equity - date of offer, or date of joining? TL;DR: The date they were granted.  (Usually, this follows both an offer and acceptance.) It's not uncommon for a new vesting clock to start when there's a new round of funding coming in, because the investors want to make sure the key people are going to be engaged and incentivized going forward from that point.  They don't lower their expectations for how long they want folks engaged based on the person having started earlier.  Non-institutional investors may have the same concerns as institutional investors here and use the same vesting strategy to address them. Primary recognition of the benefits from having had people start earlier or be there longer (so long as it correlates with having gotten more done) is embedded in the valuation (which affects how much founders' shares are diluted in the raise)."}
{"text": "Should I invest in the world's strongest currency instead of my home currency? A currency that is strong right now is one that is expensive for you to buy. The perfect one would be a currency that is weak now but will get stronger; the worst currency is one that is strong today and gets weak. If a currency stays unchanged it doesn't matter whether it is weak or strong today as long as it doesn't get weaker / stronger. (While this advice is correct, it is useless for investing since you don't know which currencies will get weaker / stronger in the future).  Investing in your own currency means less risk. Your local prices are usually not affected by currency change. If you safe for retirement and want to retire in a foreign country, you might consider in that country's currency."}
{"text": "How to convert coins into paper money or deposit coins into bank account, without your bank in local? Ask around your area. Some stores will exchange because it saves them having to go to the bank to stock up on change. Some stores have machines that will convert the coins for a small percentage fee.  Some banks may do this exchange for folks who aren't customers, though that's uncommon.  My solution was to open a small account locally specifically as a place to dump my coins into. They'll even run a pile of coins through their counting machine for me, free, so I don't have to make up coin rolls as I did in the past."}
{"text": "Intrinsic value of non-voting shares which don't pay dividends Some companies offer discounts for shareholders. I believe Disney used to do so, for example; if your family was doing the Disneyland-every-year routine that could be a significant benefit."}
{"text": "If I short-sell a dividend-paying stock, do I have to pay the dividend? You could hold a long position in some company XXXX and then short your own shares (assuming your broker will let you do that).  The dividend that would have gone to you would then go to whoever is holding the shares you short sold.  You just don't get a dividend.  If you're going to short in a smart way...  do it on a stock you otherwise believe in, but use it to minimize the pull-backs on the way up."}
{"text": "Why do moving average acts as support and resistance? As you point out, the moving average is just MA(k)t = (Pt-1 + \u2026 + Pt-k )/k and is applied in technical analysis (TA) to smooth out volatile (noise) price action. If it has any logic to it, you might want to think in terms of return series (Pt - Pt-1 / Pt-1) and you could hypothesize that prices are in fact predictable and will oscillate below and above a running moving average.  Below is a link to a study on MA trading rules, published in the Journal of Finance, with the conclusion of predictive power and abnormal returns from such strategies. As with any decision made upon historical arguments, one should be aware of structural changes and or data mining.  Simple  technical trading rules and the stochastic properties of stock  returns Brock, W., J. Lakonishok and B. Le Baron, 1992, Simple technical trading rules and the stochastic properties of stock returns, Journal of Finance, 47, 1731-64. MA rules betterthan chance in US stock market, 1897-1986 I don't know whether you are new to TA or not, but a great commercial site, with plenty of computer-generated signals is FinViz."}
{"text": "What is a typical investment portfolio made up of? An investment portfolio is typically divided into three components: All three of those can be accessed through mutual funds or ETFs. A 401(k) will probably have a small set of mutual funds for you to pick from. Mutual funds may charge you silly expenses if you pick a bad one. Look at the prospectus for the expense ratio. If it's over 1% you're definitely paying too much. If it's over 0.5% you're probably paying too much. If it's less than 0.1% you have a really good deal. US stocks are generally the core holding until you move into retirement (or get close to spending the money on something else if it's not invested for retirement). International stocks are riskier than US stocks, but provide opportunity for diversification and better returns than the US stocks. Bonds, or fixed-income investments, are generally very safe, but have limited opportunities for returns. They tend to do better when stocks are doing poorly. When you've got a while to invest, you should be looking at riskier investments; when you don't, you should be looking for safer investments. A quick (and rough) rule of thumb is that \"your age should match the portion of your portfolio in bonds\". So if you're 50 years old and approaching retirement in 15 years or so, you should have about 50% in bonds. Roughly.  People whose employment and future income is particularly tied to one sector of the market would also do well to avoid investing there, because they already are at risk if it performs badly. For instance, if you work in the technology sector, loading up on tech stocks is extra risky: if there's a big bust, you're not just out of a job, your portfolio is dead as well. More exotic options are available to diversify a portfolio: While many portfolios could benefit from these sorts of holdings, they come with their own advantages and disadvantages and should be researched carefully before taking a significant stake in them."}
{"text": "Should I get cash from credit card at 0% for 8 months and put it on loans? On the face, this appears a sound method to manage long run cumulative interest, but there are some caveats. Maxing out credit cards will destroy your credit rating.  You will receive no more reasonable offers for credit, only shady ones.  Though your credit rating will rise the moment you bring the balance back down to 10%, even with high income, it's easy to overshoot the 8 months, and then a high interest rate kicks in because of the low credit rating. Further, maxing out credit cards will encourage credit card lenders to begin cutting limits and at worse demand early payment. Now, after month 6 hits, your financial payment obligations skyrocket.  A sudden jolt is never easy to manage.  This will increase risk of missing a payment, a disaster for such hair line financing. In short, the probability of decimating your financial structure is high for very little benefit. If you are confident that you can pay off $4,000 in 8 months then simply apply those payments to the student loan directly, cutting out the middle man.  Your creditors will be pleased to see your total liabilities fall at a high rate while your utilization remains small, encouraging them to offer you more credit and lower rates. The ideal credit card utilization rate is 10%, so it would be wise to use that portion to repay the student loans. Building up credit will allow you to use the credit as an auxiliary cushion when financial disaster strikes.  Keeping an excellent credit rating will allow you to finance the largest home possible for your money.  Every percentage point of mortgage interest can mean the difference between a million USD home and a $750,000 one."}
{"text": "Evidence for timing market in the short run? This is the S&P a bit over 20 years. If you've discovered a way to sell at 1400 in 2000, buy at 800 or so in 2003, sell again, well, you get the idea.  There's strong evidence the typical investor hears the S&P is making new highs and rushes in. It's this influx that may send stocks higher from here, until the smart money senses 'overbought' and bails.  I am not the smart money, but my ability to ignore emotion, and use asset allocation naturally had me selling a bit into each run up, and of course buying during downturns. Not all or none, and not with any perfect timing, just at year end when I'm rebalancing.  I am not a fan of short term timing, although I do respect Victor's observations and excellent example of when it's been shown to work."}
{"text": "For the first time in my life, I'm going to be making real money\u2026what should I do with it? Your attitude is great, but be careful to temper your (awesome) ambition with a dose of reality.  Saving is investing is great, the earlier the better, and seeing retirement at a young age with smooth lots of life's troubles; saving is smart and we all know it. But as a college junior, be honest with yourself.  Don't you want to screw around and play with some of that money?  Your first time with real income, don't you want to blow it on a big TV, vacation, or computer? Budget out those items with realistic costs.  See the pros and cons of spending that money keeping in mind the opportunity cost.  For example, when I was in college, getting a new laptop for $2000 (!) was easily more important to me than retirement.  I don't regret that.  I do regret buying my new truck too soon and borrowing money to do it.  These are judgment calls. Here is the classic recipe: Adjust the numbers or businesses to your personal preferences.  I threw out suggestions so you can research them and get an idea of what to compare. And most importantly of all.  DO NOT GET INTO CREDIT CARD DEBT.  Use credit if you wish, but do not carry a balance."}
{"text": "What should I do with the 50k I have sitting in a European bank? Unfortunately I do not have much experience with European banks. However, I do know of ways to earn interest on bank accounts. CDs (Certificates of Deposit) are a good way to earn interest. Its basically a savings account that you cannot touch for a fixed rate of time. You can set it from an average of 6 months to 12 months. You can pull the money out early if there is an emergency as well. I would also look into different types of bank accounts. If you go with an account other than a free one, the interest rate will be higher and as long as you have the minimum amount required you should not be charged. Hope I was able to help!"}
{"text": "Calculate Future Value with Recurring Deposits Using the following values: The formula for the future value of an annuity due is d*(((1 + i)^t - 1)/i)*(1 + i) See Calculating The Present And Future Value Of Annuities In an annuity due, a deposit is made at the beginning of a period and the interest is received at the end of the period.  This is in contrast to an ordinary  annuity, where a payment is made at the end of a period. The formula is derived, by induction , from the summation of the future values of every deposit.  The initial value, with interest accumulated for all periods, can simply be added. So the overall formula is"}
{"text": "Ongoing things to do and read to improve knowledge of finance? I'm another programmer, I guess we all just like complicated things, or got here via stackoverflow. Obligatory tedious but accurate point: Investing is not personal finance, in fact it's maybe one of the less important parts of it. See this answer: Where to start with personal finance?  Obligatory warning for software developer type minds: getting into investing because it's complicated and therefore fun is a really awful idea from a financial perspective.  Or see behavioral finance research on how analytical/professional/creative type people are often terrible at investing, while even-tempered practical people are better. The thing with investing is that inaction is better than action, tried and true is better than creative, and simple is better than complicated. So if you're like me and many programmers and like creative, complicated action - not good for the wallet. You've been warned. That said. :-) Stuff I read In general I hate reading too much financial information because I think it makes me take ill-advised actions. The actions I most need to take have to do with my career and my spending patterns. So I try to focus on reading about software development, for example. Or I answer questions on this site, which at least might help someone out, and I enjoy writing. For basic financial news and research, I prefer Morningstar.com, especially if you get the premium version. The writing has more depth, it's often from qualified financial analysts, and with the paid version you get data and analysis on thousands of funds and stocks, instead of a small number as with Motley Fool newsletters. I don't follow Morningstar regularly anymore, instead I use it for research when I need to pick funds in a 401k or whatever. Another caveat on Morningstar is that the \"star ratings\" on funds are dumb. Look at the Analyst Picks and the analyst writeups instead. I just flipped through my RSS reader and I have 20-30 finance-related blogs in there collecting unread posts. It looks like the only one I regularly read is http://alephblog.com/ which is sort of random. But I find David Merkel very thoughtful and interesting. He's also a conservative without being a partisan hack, and posts frequently. I read the weekly market comment at http://hussmanfunds.com/ as well. Most weeks it says the market is overvalued, so that's predictable, but the interesting part is the rationale and the other ideas he talks about. I read a lot of software-related blogs and there's some bleed into finance, especially from the VC world; blogs like http://www.avc.com/ or http://bhorowitz.com/ or whatever. Anyway I spend most of my reading time on career-related stuff and I think this is also the correct decision from a financial perspective. If you were a doctor, you'd be better off reading about doctoring, too. I read finance-related books fairly often, I guess there are other threads listing ideas on that front. I prefer books about principles rather than a barrage of daily financial news and questionable ideas. Other than that, I keep up with headlines, just reading the paper every day including business-related topics is good enough. If there's some big event in the financial markets, it'll show up in the regular paper. Take a class I initially learned about finance by reading a pile of books and alongside that taking the CFP course and the first CFA course. Both are probably equivalent to about a college semester worth of work, but you can plow through them in a couple months each if you focus. You can just do the class (and take the exam if you like), without having to go on and actually get the work experience and the certifications. I didn't go on to do that. This sounds like a crazy thing to do, and it kind of is, but I think it's also sort of crazy to expect to be competent on a topic without taking some courses or otherwise getting pretty deep into the material. If you're a normal person and don't have time to take finance courses, you're likely better off either keeping it super-simple, or else outsourcing if you can find the right advisor: What exactly can a financial advisor do for me, and is it worth the money?  When it's inevitably complex (e.g. as you approach retirement) then an advisor is best. My mom is retiring soon and I found her a professional, for example. I like having a lot of knowledge myself, because it's just the only way I could feel comfortable. So for sure I understand other people wanting to have it too. But what I'd share from the other side is that once you have it, the conclusion is that you don't have enough knowledge (or time) to do anything fancy anyway, and that the simple answers are fine. Check out http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Simple-Financial-Strategies-People/dp/0743269942 Investing for fun isn't investing for profit Many people recommend Motley Fool (I see two on this question already!). The site isn't evil, but the problem (in my opinion) is that it promotes an attitude toward and a style of investing that isn't objectively justifiable for practical reasons. Essentially I don't think optimizing for making money and optimizing for having fun coexist very well. If investing is your chosen hobby rather than fishing or knitting, then Motley Fool can be fun with their tone and discussion forums, but other people in forums are just going to make you go wrong money-wise; see behavioral finance research again. Talking to others isn't compatible with ice in your decision-making veins. Also, Motley Fool tends to pervasively make it sound like active investing is easier than it is. There's a reason the Chartered Financial Analyst curriculum is a few reams of paper plus 4 years of work experience, rather than reading blogs. Practical investing (\"just buy the target date fund\") can be super easy, but once you go beyond that, it's not. I don't really agree with the \"anyone can do it and it's not work!\" premise, any more than I think that about lawyering or doctoring or computer programming. After 15 years I'm a programming expert; after some courses and a lot of reading, I'm not someone who could professionally run an actively-managed portfolio. I think most of us need to have the fun part separate from the serious cash part. Maybe literally distinct accounts that you keep at separate brokerages. Or just do something else for fun, besides investing. Morningstar has this problem too, and finance.yahoo.com, and Bloomberg, I mean, they are all interested in making you think about investing a lot more than you ought to. They all have an incentive to convince you that the latest headlines make a difference, when they don't. Bottom line, I don't think personal finance changes very quickly; the details of specific mutual funds change, and there's always some new twist in the tax code, but the big picture is pretty stable. I think going in-depth (say, read the Chartered Financial Analyst curriculum materials) would teach you a lot more than reading blogs frequently. The most important things to work on are income (career) and spending (to maximize income minus spending). That's where time investment will pay off. I know it's annoying to argue the premise of the question rather than answering, but I did try to mention a couple things to read somewhere in there ;-)"}
{"text": "How is money actually made from the buying or selling of options? Not all call options that have value at expiration, exercise by purchasing the security (or attempting to, with funds in your account).   On ETNs, they often (always?) settle in cash.  As an example of an option I'm currently looking at, AVSPY, it settles in cash (please confirm by reading the documentation on this set of options at http://www.nasdaqomxtrader.com/Micro.aspx?id=Alpha, but it is an example of this).  There's nothing it can settle into (as you can't purchase the AVSPY index, only options on it).  You may quickly look (wikipedia) at the difference between \"American Style\" options and \"European Style\" options, for more understanding here. Interestingly I just spoke to my broker about this subject for a trade execution.  Before I go into that, let me also quickly refer to Joe's answer:  what you buy, you can sell.  That's one of the jobs of a market maker, to provide liquidity in a market.  So, when you buy a stock, you can sell it.  When you buy an option, you can sell it.  That's at any time before expiration (although how close you do it before the closing bell on expiration Friday/Saturday is your discretion).  When a market maker lists an option price, they list a bid and an ask.  If you are willing to sell at the bid price, they need to purchase it (generally speaking).  That's why they put a spread between the bid and ask price, but that's another topic not related to your question -- just note the point of them buying at the bid price, and selling at the ask price -- that's what they're saying they'll do. Now, one major difference with options vs. stocks is that options are contracts. So, therefore, we can note just as easily that YOU can sell the option on something (particularly if you own either the underlying, or an option deeper in the money).  If you own the underlying instrument/stock, and you sell a CALL option on it, this is a strategy typically referred to as a covered call, considered a \"risk reduction\" strategy.  You forfeit (potential) gains on the upside, for money you receive in selling the option. The point of this discussion is, is simply: what one buys one can sell;  what one sells one can buy -- that's how a \"market\" is supposed to work.  And also, not to think that making money in options is buying first, then selling.  It may be selling, and either buying back or ideally that option expiring worthless. -- Now, a final example.  Let's say you buy a deep in the money call on a stock trading at $150, and you own the $100 calls.  At expiration, these have a value of $50.  But let's say, you don't have any money in your account, to take ownership of the underlying security (you have to come up with the additional $100 per share you are missing).  In that case, need to call  your broker and see how they handle it, and it will depend on the type of account you have (e.g. margin or not, IRA, etc).  Generally speaking though, the \"margin department\" makes these decisions, and they look through folks that have options on things that have value, and are expiring, and whether they have the funds in their account to absorb the security they are going to need to own.  Exchange-wise, options that have value at expiration, are exercised.  But what if the person who has the option, doesn't have the funds to own the whole stock? Well, ideally on Monday they'll buy all the shares with the options you have at the current price, and immediately liquidate the amount you can't afford to own, but they don't have to.  I'm mentioning this detail so that it helps you see what's going or needs to go on with exchanges and brokerages and individuals, so you have a broader picture."}
{"text": "Is it possible for me to keep my credit card APR at 0% permanently? No. There is no incentive for the card issuer to permanently loan you money for free (Even though they make a small amount of money with every transaction). Yes, there are many credit cards that offer introductory 0% APR, often lasting for a year, some even two years. In theory, you could keep applying for new cards with these terms, and continually transfer the balance to the new card (Though you would probably incur a fee for doing so)."}
{"text": "Do ETF dividends make up for fees? Any ETF has expenses, including fees, and those are taken out of the assets of the fund as spelled out in the prospectus.  Typically a fund has dividend income from its holdings, and it deducts the expenses from the that income, and only the net dividend is passed through to the ETF holder.   In the case of QQQ, it certainly will have dividend income as it approximates a large stock index.  The prospectus shows that it will adjust daily the reported Net Asset Value (NAV) to reflect accrued expenses, and the cash to pay them will come from the dividend cash.  (If the dividend does not cover the expenses, the NAV will decline away from the modeled index.) Note that the NAV is not the ETF price found on the exchange, but is the underlying value.  The price tends to track the NAV fairly closely, both because investors don't want to overpay for an ETF or get less than it is worth, and also because large institutions may buy or redeem a large block of shares (to profit) when the price is out of line.  This will bring the price closer to that of the underlying asset (e.g. the NASDAQ 100 for QQQ) which is reflected by the NAV."}
{"text": "What happens to an Earnest Money Deposit if underwriting falls through? Your Purchase and Sale agreement should have a financing contingency. If it doesn't, your money may be at risk, and the agent did you no favor. Edit - I answered when away from computer. This is a snapshot of the standard clause from the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. Each state has its own standard documents.   The normal process is to have some level of prequalification, showing a high probability of final approval, make offer, then after it's accepted, this form is part of the purchase and sale process."}
{"text": "Previous owner of my home wants to buy it back but the property's value is less than my loan\u2026 what to do? I would tell the former owner that you will sell him the house for you current loan balance. He wants the home, he may be willing to pay what you owe. You can't really do a short sale unless you are behind on your payments. Banks only agree to a short sale when they think they are going to have to foreclose on the property. Not to mention a short sale is almost as bad as a foreclosure and will wreck your credit. If the former buying is not willing to buy the house for what you owe your only real option is to come up with the difference. If he offers you say $50K less than you owe, you will have to give the mortgage holder the remaining balance $50K in this example for them to release the property.  Another problem you will face, if the former owner is willing to pay more than what the house is worth, and he is going to finance it, he will have to have enough cash to put down so that the loan amount is not more than the property is worth. Finally if none of that works you can just hold on to the property until the value comes up or you mortgage is payed down enough to make the balance of the mortgage less than the value of the house. Then offer the property to the former owner again."}
{"text": "Opening a bank account with cash: How should bills be presented? Banks have electronic money counters so the order really doesn't matter. When I make a cash deposit that's large, I usually just put it in an envelope and hand it over."}
{"text": "How much would it cost me to buy one gold futures contract on Comex? When you buy a futures contract you are entering into an agreement to buy gold, in the future (usually a 3 month settlement date).  this is not an OPTION, but a contract, so each party is taking risk, the seller that the price will rise, the buyer that the price will fall.  Unlike an option which you can simply choose not to exercise if the price goes down, with futures you are obligated to follow through. (or sell the contract to someone else, or buy it back)  The price you pay depends on the margin, which is related to how far away the settlement date is, but you can expect around 5% , so the minimum you could get into is 100 troy ounces, at todays price, times 5%.  Since we're talking about 100 troy ounces, that means the margin required to buy the smallest sized future contract would be about the same as buying 5 ounces of gold.  roughly $9K at current prices. If you are working through a broker they will generally require you to sell or buy back the contract before the settlement date as they don't want to deal with actually following through on the purchase and having to take delivery of the gold.  How much do you make or lose? Lets deal with a smaller change in the price, to be a bit more realistic since we are talking typically about a settlement date that is 3 months out. And to make the math easy lets bump the price of gold to $2000/ounce.  That means the price of a futures contract is going to be $10K   Lets say the price goes up 10%,  Well you have basically a 20:1 leverage since you only paid 5%, so you stand to gain $20,000. Sounds great right?  WRONG.. because as good as the upside is, the downside is just as bad.  If the price went down 10% you would be down $20000, which means you would not only have to cough up the 10K you committed but you would be expected to 'top up the margin' and throw in  ANOTHER $10,000 as well.  And if you can't pay that up your broker might close out your position for you. oh and if the price hasn't changed, you are mostly just out the fees and commissions you paid to buy and sell the contract.  With futures contracts you can lose MORE than your original investment.  NOT for the faint of heart or the casual investor.  NOT for folks without large reserves who can afford to take big losses if things go against them.  I'll close this answer with a quote from the site I'm linking below The large majority of people who trade futures lose their money.   That's a fact. They lose even when they are right in the medium term,   because futures are fatal to your wealth on an unpredicted and   temporary price blip. Now consider that, especially the bit about 'price blip' and then look at the current volatility of most markets right now, and I think you can see how futures trading can be as they say 'Fatal to your Wealth' (man, I love that phrase, what a great way of putting it)  This Site has a pretty decent primer on the whole thing. their view is perhaps a bit biased due to the nature of their business, but on the whole their description of how things work is pretty decent.  Investopedia has a more detailed (and perhaps more objective) tutorial on the futures thing.  Well worth your time if you think you want to do anything related to the futures market."}
{"text": "Can the Delta be used to calculate the option premium given a certain target? One thing I would like to clear up here is that Black Scholes is just a model that makes some assumptions about the dynamics of the underlying + a few other things and with some rather complicated math, out pops the Black Scholes formula. Black Scholes gives you the \"real\" price under the assumptions of the model. Your definition of what a \"real\" price entails will depend on what assumptions you make. With that being said, Black Scholes is popular for pricing European options because of the simplicity and speed of using an analytic formula as opposed to having a more complex model that can only be evaluated using a numerical method, as DumbCoder mentioned (should note that, for many other types of derivative contracts, e.g. American or Bermudan style exercise, the Black Scholes analytic formula is not appropriate). The other important thing to note here is that the market does not necessarily need to agree with the assumptions made in the Black Scholes model (and they most certainly do not) to use it. If you look at implied vols for a set of options which have the same expiration but differing strike prices, you may find that the implied vols for each contract differ and this information is telling you to what degree the traders in the market for those contracts disagree with the lognormal distribution assumption made by Black Scholes. Implied vol is generally the thing to look at when determining cheapness/expensiveness of an option contract. With all that being said, what I'm assuming you are interested in is either called a \"delta-gamma approximation\" or more generally \"Greek/sensitivities based profit and loss attribution\" (in case you wanted to Google some more about it). Here is an example that is relevant to your question. Let's say we had the following European call contract: Popping this in to BS formula gives you a premium of $4.01, delta of 0.3891 and gamma of 0.0217. Let's say you bought it, and the price of the stock immediately moves to 55 and nothing else changes, re-evaluating with the BS formula gives ~6.23. Whereas using a delta-gamma approximation gives: The actual math doesn't work out exactly and that is due to the fact that there are higher order Greeks than gamma but as you can see here clearly they do not have much of an impact considering a 10% move in the underlying is almost entirely explained by delta and gamma."}
{"text": "How do I find the mappings between sedol and isin codes? You can get this information through Bloomberg, but it's a paid service."}
{"text": "Friend was brainwashed by MLM-/ponzi investment scam. What can I do? As others have stated, it will be very difficult for you to turn your friend around. He has already demonstrated great commitment. What can I do? There may be other people (perhaps mutual friends of you and this man) who are in danger. He may try to get them into this (as he apparently tried to with you). If this was me, I would try to warn the mutual friends of me and him. It's easier to get to them before they have been exposed to the brainwashing. So I would: Yes, I realize this means you're going behind his back, talking to his friends, etc. But I believe these people also deserve to be warned. They are in danger of being adversely affected by what he is doing."}
{"text": "Is it better to buy put options or buy an inverse leveraged ETF? Depends on how far down the market is heading, how certain you are that it is going that way, when you think it will fall, and how risk-averse you are.  By \"better\" I will assume you are trying to make the most money with this information that you can given your available capital. If you are very certain, the way that makes the most money for the least investment from the options you provided is a put.  If you can borrow some money to buy even more puts, you will make even more.  Use your knowledge of how far and when the market will fall to determine which put is optimal at today's prices.  But remember that if the market stays flat or goes up you lose everything you put in and may owe extra to your creditor.  A short position in a futures contract is also an easy way to get extreme leverage.  The extremity of the leverage will depend on how much margin is required.  Futures trade in large denominations, so think about how much you are able to put to risk. The inverse ETFs are less risky and offer less reward than the derivative contracts above.  The levered one has twice the risk and something like twice the reward.  You can buy those without a margin account in a regular cash brokerage, so they are easier in that respect and the transactions cost will likely be lower. Directly short selling an ETF or stock is another option that is reasonably accessible and only moderately risky.  On par with the inverse ETFs."}
{"text": "Should I buy out my brother on a property we will inherit before making improvements? If your father is still able to make financial decisions and sign contracts, I see a better option. Have your father borrow against his equity to finance the renovation.  Example: the house is worth 400 now. He can borrow 100 against that. He spends it on the addition, making the house worth 500, with the same 400 of equity as before. (In some cases, spending 100 might add 150 to the house value, but let's assume here the increase is just what was spent.) When he dies, the mortgage has to be repaid. If he has no other money (that the two of you would otherwise split) then the mortgage has to be repaid by the two of you putting in cash. So you pay your brother 250 (half the new total value of the house) but he gives 50 of that to the bank for the mortgage. You also give 50 of your own money to the bank for the mortgage. Net result: your brother has 200 (the same as if he had inherited half the unimproved house), and you have a 500 house after paying out 300. Your gain is also the same as if the house was unimproved. Now if the house went up 150 by spending 100, or went up 60 by spending 100, you and your brother would also be sharing this profit or loss. If you don't want that to happen, you will need a different agreement. The advantage of the approach I'm suggesting is you just need one appraisal after your father dies.  Not accounted for in this is that you lived (without paying rent) in your father's house for some time, and that you worked (without being paid) as a caregiver to your father for that time. Some families might think those two things balanced, others might feel you need to be compensated for caring for him, and others that you need to compensate the others for your benefit of living in the large house. Be sure to discuss this with your brother so that you agree in advance whether a plan is fair or not."}
{"text": "Is there a free, online stock screener for UK stocks? I use and recommend barchart.com. Again you have to register but it's free. Although it's a US system it has a full listing of UK stocks and ETFs under International > London. The big advantage of barchart.com is that you can do advanced technical screening with Stochastics and RS, new highs and lows, moving averages etc. You're not stuck with just fundamentals, which in my opinion belong to a previous era. Even if you don't share that opinion you'd still find barchart.com useful for UK stocks."}
{"text": "A calculator that takes into account portfolio rebalancing? My answer is Microsoft Excel.  Google \"VBA for dummies\" (seriously) and find out if your brokerage offers an 'API'.  With a brief understanding of coding you can get a spreadsheet that is live connected to your brokers data stream.  Say you have a spreadsheet with the 1990 value of each in the first two columns (cells a1 and b1).  Maybe this formula could be the third column, it'll tell you how much to buy or sell to rebalance them.   then to iterate the rebalance, set both a2 and b2 to =C1 and drag the formula through row 25, one row for each year.  It'll probably be a little more work than that, but you get the idea."}
{"text": "What are \u201cpreferred\u201d stocks? How are they different from normal (common) stocks? I seem not to be able to comment on the first answer due to reputation, so I'll aim to enhanced the first answer which is generally good but with these caveats: 1) Dividends are not \"guaranteed\" to preferred shareholders.  Rather, preferred shareholders are normally in line ahead (i.e. in preference to or \"preferred\") of common shareholders in terms of dividend payment.  This is an extremely important distinction, because unlike investments that we generally consider \"guaranteed\" such as CDs (known as GICs in Canada), a company's board can suspend the dividend at anytime for long periods of time without significant repercussions -- whereas a missed payment to a bank or secured bondholder can often push a company into bankruptcy very quickly. 2) Due to point 1), it is extremely important to know the \"convenants\" or rules sorrounding both the preferred shares you are buying and the other more senior creditors of that issuing company (i.e. taxes (almost always come first), banks loans, leases, bonds etc.).  It is also important to know if a particular preferred share has \"cumulative\" dividends.  You generally only want to buy preferred's that have \"cumulative\" dividends, since that means that anytime the company misses a payment, they must pay those dividends first before any other dividends at the same or lower priority in the future. 3) Unlike a common stock, your upside on a preferred stock is relatively fixed: you get a fixed share of the company's profit and that's it, whereas a common shareholder gets everything that's left over after interest and preferred dividends are paid. So if the company does really well you will theoretically do much better with common stock over time. For the above reasons, it is generally advisable to think of preferred shares as being more similar to really risky bonds in the same company, rather than similar to common stock.   Of course, if you are an advanced investor there are a lot more variables in play such as tax considerations and whether the preferred have special options attached to them such conversion into common shares."}
{"text": "1040 or 1040NR this time? Since you were a nonresident alien student on F-1 visa then you will be considered engaged in a trade or business in the USA. You must file Form 1040NR.  Here is the detailed instruction by IRS - http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxation-of-Nonresident-Aliens"}
{"text": "Is there a \u201creverse wash sale\u201d rule? Yes, the newly bought shares will have a long-term holding period, regardless of when you sell them.  In addition, it's only a wash sale if you sold the first shares for a loss; it's not a wash sale if you sold them for a gain. Wikipedia mentions this: When a wash sale occurs, the holding period for the replacement stock includes the period you held the stock you sold. Example: You've held shares of XYZ for 10 years. You sell it at a loss but then buy it back within the wash sale period. When you sell the replacement stock, your gain or loss will be long-term \u2014 no matter how soon you sell it. Charles Schwab also mentions this: Here's a quick example of a wash sale. On 9/30/XX, you buy 500 shares of ABC at $10 per share. One year later the stock price starts to drop, and you sell all your shares at $9 per share on 10/4/XY. Two days later, on 10/6, ABC bottoms out at $8 and you buy 500 shares again. This series of trades triggers a wash sale. The holding period of the original shares will be added to the holding period of the replacement shares, effectively leaving you with a long-term position."}
{"text": "Would I qualify for a USDA loan? You probably won't get a mortgage. UDSA has a 41% ratio of monthly debt to monthly income limit, and a score of 660 or better. A 250,000 mortgage at current rates for 30 year mortgage is about $1560/mo. (included in this figure is the 1% mortgage insurance premium, the .4% annual fee, the current rate for a 660 credit rating, the 2% points fee added at the front of the mortgage, typical closing cost added to transaction, and the .5% fee for over-mortgage insurance for the first 3 years since your mortgage will be higher than the value of the house due to these additional fees) Credit card payments = $120 ($60 times 2) Car payments = $542 ($271 for your car, $271 for the car you will be getting) Student loan = $50/month Child Support = $500/month Total = $2772/month Your income per month is 82000/12 = $6833/month $2772/$6833 = 40.6%...  This is awfully close to the limit, so they likely would also look at your ability to save.  Not seeing savings in the above example, I assume it is low.  USDA site One mortgage help site breaks down some of the requirements into layman's language. Not knowing your exact location (county/state) and how many children you have, it is hard to be sure whether you make too much to qualify.  This link shows the income limits by number of people in the house and the county/state.  There are few places in which you could be living that would qualify you to any of their programs unless you have a several children. As others have posted, I suggest you get your debt down."}
{"text": "Am I responsible for an annual fee on a credit card I never picked up? In the end, I was not required to pay the fee. After some frustrating initial attempts, I ended up writing a letter and sending a copy to card services, customer support, complaints and the legal department. It basically said: 1 - I never signed anything. 2 - I spoke to a very aggressive person at the airport who told me that she was just taking down my information in order to send information about the card, and that I was under no obligation 3 - I never received a card, activated a card, or used a card. 4 - I want this charge canceled immediately  5 - If this ever shows up on my credit report, I will contact my lawyer regarding this unscrupulous business practice. After that I received a notice in the mail confirming that everything had been cancelled and all charges were reversed."}
{"text": "What expenses do most people not prepare for that turn into \u201cemergencies\u201d but are not covered by an Emergency Fund? Here's a few. Is this what you're looking for? Also this should probably be a community wiki."}
{"text": "What's the difference when asked for \u201cdebit or credit\u201d by a store when using credit and debit cards? Just to add about using debit card as \"credit\" vs \"debit\" way: In addition to the difference of having to enter the PIN when using \"debit\" mode (vs having to sign in \"credit\" mode), for stores that offer cash back (i.e. get cash out of your account at the same time as paying), you can only get cash back when using \"debit\" mode."}
{"text": "If you buy something and sell it later on the same day, how do you calculate 'investment'? Nothing wrong with the other answers, but here's a \"trick\" to hopefully make it totally transparent.   Imagine that you're not the one implementing this business plan, but someone else is.  Let's call this other person your asset manager.  So on the first day, you give your asset manager $9.  He takes this and generates $1 profit from it, recovering the $9 which he then reinvests to generate $1 profit every day.  From your perspective, you just gave him $9.  At the end of the year, he gives you $365 in addition to your original investment of $9 (in real life he'd take the fees of course, or perhaps he's been lending out the money he's been accumulating and taking the interest from that as pay for his services).  So your return on investment is 365 / 9 * 100 % > 4000 %, as claimed by your source."}
{"text": "Should I stockpile nickels? The collectible value of coins will probably increase with the underlying metal value. I'd collect coins for that reason and because I enjoy collecting them. I wouldn't recommend buying bags of rolled nickels or anything though."}
{"text": "Is a stock's trade size history publicly available? My Broker and probably many Brokers provide this information in a table format under \"Course of Sale\". It provides the time, price and volume of each trade on that day. You could also view this data on a chart in some charting programs. Just set the interval to \"Tick by Tick\" and look at the volume. \"Tick by Tick\" will basically place a mark for every trade that is taken and then the volume will tell you the size of that trade."}
{"text": "Should you co-sign a personal loan for a friend/family member? Why/why not? I know this question has a lot of answers already, but I feel the answers are phrased either strongly against, or mildly for, co-signing. What it amounts down to is that this is a personal choice. You cannot receive reliable information as to whether or not co-signing this loan is a good move due to lack of information. The person involved is going to know the person they would be co-signing for, and the people on this site will only have their own personal preferences of experiences to draw from. You know if they are reliable, if they will be able to pay off the loan without need for the banks to come after you.  This site can offer general theories, but I think it should be kept in mind that this is wholly a personal decision for the person involved, and them alone to make based on the facts that they know and we do not."}
{"text": "Is my wash sale being calculated incorrectly? Strangely enough, you have a wash sale, but, for the fact that you sold the shares and then more than 30 days passed, you can take the loss.  I mistakenly used the phrase \"and ended the year with no shared of the stock\" elsewhere, and was corrected, as one can sell at a loss up to 12/31, and have until the end of January to create a wash condition.  In your case, the facts in June combined with you ending the year with no shares removes any doubt, a wash sale, but one that's fully closed out.  Note - while Vicky's answer is correct, it should go on to say that once the stock is not owned for 30 days, the wash sale loss is permitted."}
{"text": "Does wash sale apply if I buy stock on 2 two different dates and sell it later Is wash rule applicable for this? No - because you made a gain on the sale.  You paid $13,500 for the stock and sold it for $14,250.   The wash rule prevents you from claiming a loss if you buy the same stock again within 30 days.  You have no loss to claim, so the rule does not apply."}
{"text": "Short Term Capital Gains tax vs. IRA Withdrawal Tax w/o Quarterly Est. Taxes There is not a special rate for short-term capital gains.  Only long-term gains have a special rate.  Short-term gains are taxed at your ordinary-income rate (see here).  Hence if you're in the 25% bracket, your short-term gain would be taxed at 25%.  The IRA withdrawal, as you already mentioned, would be taxed at 25%, plus a 10% penalty, for 35% total.  Thus the bite on the IRA withdrawal is larger than that on a non-IRA withdrawal. As for the estimated tax issue, I don't think there will be a significant difference there.  The reason is that (traditional) IRA withdrawals count as ordinary taxable income (see here).  This means that, when you withdraw the funds from your IRA, you will increase your income.  If that increase pushes you too far beyond what your withholding is accounting for, then you owe estimated tax.  In other words, whether you get the money by selling stocks in a taxable account or by withdrawing them from an IRA, you still increase your taxable income, and thus potentially expose yourself to the estimated tax obligation. (In fact, there may be a difference.  As you note, you will pay tax at the capital gains rate on gains from selling in a taxable account.  But if you sell the stocks inside the IRA and withdraw, that is ordinary income.  However, since ordinary income is taxed at a higher rate than long-term capital gains, you will potentially pay more tax on the IRA withdrawal, since it will be taxed at the higher rate, if your gains are long-term rather than short term.  This is doubly true if you withdraw early, incurring the extra 10% penalty.  See this question for some more discussion of this issue.) In addition, I think you may be somewhat misunderstanding the nature of estimated tax.  The IRS will not \"ask\" you for a quarterly estimated tax when you sell stock.  The IRS does not monitor your activity and send you a bill each quarter.  They may indeed check whether your reported income jibes with info they received from your bank, etc., but they'll still do that regardless of whether you got that income by selling in a taxable account or withdrawing money from an IRA, because both of those increase your taxable income. Quarterly estimated tax is not an extra tax; it is just you paying your normal income tax over the course of the year instead of all at once.  If your withholdings will not cover enough of your tax liability, you must figure that out yourself and pay the estimated tax (see here); if you don't do so, you may be assessed a penalty.  It doesn't matter how you got the money; if your taxable income is too high relative to your withheld tax, then you have to pay the estimated tax.  Typically tax will be withheld from your IRA distribution, but if it's not withheld, you'll still owe it as estimated tax."}
{"text": "Are there any disadvantages to DHA Investment Properties? Well, I am an investor/ Lessor under DHA properties. Oflate, DHA lost it identity as a Govt agency and try to imitate a worst (not the best) real eastate agent. Every year rental valuation is a drama or waste of time and money to lessor. They pull down the rent by 10 to 22% and ask for a secondary valuation for no reasons. They don't even agree with market evidence and start bullying or black mailing tactics to force you to aceept a below market rent or the threat of third review , a very expensive review shared 50% by lessor and rest the poor tax payers! The thir review also badly influenced by DHA by submitting biased valuations and thereby destroying the independence of valuation. The API appointed valuer neither follow the DHA gudie nor the API guide and also ignore the market reality and take the average rent for the area. You also losse 14 to 18% as management fees paid to DHA. Selling also a problem and its high time the CWG and the Minster in charge of the DHA must institute an independent investigation to expose the potential nexus between the valuers and the DHA and how the lessor (a self funded retiree, pensioners and others). I already lodged a complaint with Ombudsman and waiting for a reply. There are 14 Lessors all in a Private street (Only DHA leased property in that street) near 213 Ray rd Epping 2121 that are leased to DHA for more than 10 years. Please note most of those Lessors almost lost $10000 per year because DHA under cut the rent to them when they paid me the market rent for many years. DHA by mistake send the rent paid to all. We have called for the details of rent paid to all the 14 lessors in that private street from 2008 todate under the Freedom of Information Act and waiting."}
{"text": "Stock Trade Transaction Fee - at what point is it worth it I'm going to assume that you want to be invested all the time and each trade consists in selling a security and buying another one (similar to your example). How much commissions you are willing to pay depends on several factors, but one way to think about it is as follows. You have a position in stock A and you want to switch to stock B because you think it will perform better. If you think there's a good chance (>50%) that B will outperform A by more than x% then you can happily pay up to x/2% commissions and still make money over a long time horizon. If you like formulae, one way to express it is: Where: Example: if you tend to be right 51% of the time (hit rate), and gain 110% more than you lose on average (win loss ratio), you can see that your expected profit is: 5.1% - commissions, so you could pay 2.5% commissions on entering and closing the position and still make money*. Unfortunately, common sense, statistics and numerous studies tell us a sad truth: on average, people have a hit rate of 50% and a win/loss ratio of 100%. Which means that their expected profit per trade is 0% - commission. Based on that crude observation - unless you can prove to yourself that you are better than average - you should aim at reducing commissions paid to your broker as much as possible through: * 51% and 110% are not random numbers, they correspond to the results of the top 15% (professional) managers in a research paper using a sample of 215 funds managing $150bn."}
{"text": "Why would a car company lend me money at a very low interest rate? The car company loans you money at 1 or 2% because it is part of the incentive to get you to buy the car.  Car company transactions are complex involving the manufacturer, the dealership, and the financing part of the car company. Not to mention Rebates, the used car transaction, and the leasing department. If they don't offer you a loan then the profit from that part of transaction is lost to an outside company. The better loan rates from the manufacturer are only with shorter term loans and without the rebate. That is why some suggest that you get the rebate, and then go to a credit union for the loan for lowest overall cost and greatest flexibility. The advertised rates are also only for the customers with great credit scores and the room in their clash flow to pay off the loan in a year or two. If you don't fit in that category, the rates will be higher."}
{"text": "Swap hedging a currency hedge I decided to try this in order to get a feel of it. As far as the interest rates are concerned, it works. You can set it up and forget about holding time as long as the rates and positions stay within a range. The problem is that currency volatility turns the interest paid for shorting USD/JPY into noise at best. And if you look to past performance over a year... Let's just say there is a reason they pay you to hold NZD. So, unless you think buying NZD/USD is a good idea to begin with, you should put your money elsewhere."}
{"text": "Under what circumstance will the IRS charge you a late-payment penalty for taxes? Years ago I mailed my personal tax return one day after the due date, and my check was deposited as normal, and I never heard anything about it. As an employer, I once sent in my employee's withheld federal taxes one day after the due date, and I later received a letter stating my penalty for being late worked out to be around $600. The letter stated that since this was my first time being late they would waive the fee. In both cases, they could have charged me a late fee if they wanted to."}
{"text": "Buy car vs lease vs long term rent for 10 years period This question has been asked and answered before. Financially, owning a car will be more economical than leasing one in most cases. The reason for this is that leasing arrangements are designed to make a profit for the leasing company over and above the value of the car. A leasing company that does not profit off their customers will not be in business for long. This is a zero-sum game and the leasing customer is the loser. The lion's share of the customer losses are in maintenance and in the event of an accident or other damage. In both cases, leasing arrangements are designed to make a large profit for the owner. The average customer assumes they will never get into an accident and they underestimate the losses they will take on the maintenance. For example, if both oxygen sensors need to be replaced and it would have cost you $800 to replace them yourself, but the leasing company charges you $1200, then BOOM! you just lost $400. If the car is totaled, the customer will lose many thousands of dollars. Leasing contracts are designed to make money for the owner, not the customer. Another way leasing agents make money is on \"required maintenance\". Most leasing contracts require the leasor to perform \"required\" maintenance, oil changes, tire rotations, etc. Also, with newer cars manufacturers recalls are common. Those are required as well. Nearly nobody does this maintenance correctly. This gives the agent the excuse to charge the customer thousands of dollars when the vehicle is returned. Bills of $4000 to $6000 on a 3 year lease for failure to perform required maintenance are common. Its items like this that allow the leasing agent to get a profit on what looks like a \"good deal\" when the customer walked in the door 3 years previously. The advantage of leasing is that it costs less up front and it is more convenient to switch to a different car because you don't have to sell the car."}
{"text": "How do dividend reinvestment purchases work? As far as I know, it has the same price, and effects on the market, as any other transaction..."}
{"text": "Are traders 100% responsible for a stock's price changes? Yes traders, living or algorithmic, are the only direct factors that can cause a change in the price of a marketable item. Traders can be affected by news, broken exchanges ;), emotional cycles, lunar cycles, time the trader goes to lunch (or a power cycle if you are an algo running on that unfortunate OS), anything."}
{"text": "How to Calculate Profit and Loss for trading position? Month to date For the month to date (MTD), the price on Feb 28th is $4.58 and the price on March 16th is $4.61 so the return is which can be written more simply as The position is 1000 shares valued at $4580 on Feb 28th, so the profit on the month to date is Calendar year to date For the calendar year to date (YTD), the price on Dec 31st is $4.60 and the price on Feb 28th is $4.58 so the return to Feb 28th is The return from Feb 28th to March 16th is 0.655022 % so the year to date return is or more directly So the 2011 YTD profit on 1000 shares valued at $4600 on Dec 31st is Year to date starting Dec 10th For the year to date starting Dec 10th, the starting value is and the value on Dec 31st is 1000 * $4.60 = $4600 so the return is $4600 / $4510 - 1 = 0.0199557 = 1.99557 % The year to date profit is therefore Note - YTD is often understood to mean calendar year to date.  To cover all the bases state both, ie \"calendar YTD (2011)\" and \"YTD starting Dec 10th 2010\". Edit further to comment For the calendar year to date, with 200 shares sold on Jan 10th with the share price at $4.58, the return from Dec 31st to Jan 10th is The return from Jan 10th to Feb 28th is The return from Feb 28th to March 16th is The profit on 1000 shares from Dec 31st to Jan 10th is $4600 * -0.00434783 = -$20 The profit on 800 shares from Jan 10th to Feb 28th is zero. The profit on 800 shares from Feb 28th to March 16th is So the year to date profit is $4."}
{"text": "Does material nonpublic information cover knowledge of unannounced products? So is knowledge of unannounced products simply not considered material nonpublic information? Well \"material\" is relative but it certainly is nonpublic information.  And trading based on that information would likely be considered illegal if it is actually material.   Many companies require that employees with material non-public info get stock trades approved by their legal department.  This protects not only the employee but the employer from SEC scrutiny.  If the legal department determines that the employee has non-public info that is the genesis of the stock trade, they might deny the request. In many cases these employees receive stock through ESPP, ISO and/or RSUs and often sell while in possession of information about unannounced products. Just receiving stock as part of as part of a compensation program would not be illegal, provided it was part of a normal compensation package and not deliberately awarded in advance of these types of events. Selling or outright buying stock (including RSUs) with that kind of information would certainly be scrutinized.  An employee is granted RSUs, they vest 7 months before announcement of a new product. The employee knows the exact specifications of the product. If they sell the vested stock before the announcement would this constitute insider trading or not? Why? The law is not meant to prevent people from investing in their own company just because they know future plans.  So knowledge of an announcement 7 months out may not be considered material.  If, however, you sold stock the day (or a week) before some announcement that caused the stock to fall, then that would probably be scrutinized.  Or, if you traded shortly before an announcement of a new, revolutionary product that was set to be released in seven months, and the stock rose, then you might be scrutinized. So there is a lot of gray area, but remember that the spirit of the law is to prevent people from benefiting unfairly with non-public information.  It would be hard to prove that gaining on a stock trade 7 months before a product announcement would be considered \"unfair gain\".  A lot can happen in that time."}
{"text": "When are payroll taxes due in the US? It depends on the size of the payroll, not on the number of employees.  Probably you need to file Form 941 quarterly under this scenario.  You may or may not need to deposit taxes more frequently.  If you must deposit, then you need to do it electronically. I excerpted this from the instructions for Form 941: If your total taxes (line 10) are less than $2,500 for   the current quarter or the preceding quarter, and you   did not incur a $100,000 next-day deposit obligation   during the current quarter. You do not have to make a deposit. To avoid a penalty, you must pay the amount in full with a timely filed return or you must deposit the amount timely. ... If you are not sure your total tax liability for the current quarter will be less than $2,500 (and your liability for the preceding quarter was not less than $2,500), make deposits using the semiweekly or monthly rules so you won't be subject to failure to deposit penalties. If your total taxes (line 10) are $2,500 or more for the   current quarter and the preceding quarter.  You must   make deposits according to your deposit schedule. See   section 11 of Pub. 15 (Circular E) for information and rules   about federal tax deposits. I would say that probably for two employees, you need to deposit by the 15th of each month for the prior month, but you really need to check the limits above and the deposit schedule in Pub 15 (as referenced above) based on your actual payroll size. Note that if you have a requirement to deposit, that must be done either through EFTPS or by wire-transfer.  The former is free but requires registration in advance of your first payment (they snail-mail you a PIN that you need to log-in) and it requires that you get your payment in by the night before.  The latter does not incur a charge from the IRS, but your bank will likely charge you a fee.  You can do the wire-transfer on the due date, however, so it's handy if don't get into ETFPS in time. This is all for federal.  You may also need to deposit for your state, and then you'll need to check the state's rules."}
{"text": "Should I use a TSP loan? Never borrow money to purchase a depreciating asset. Especially don't borrow money that has penalties attached."}
{"text": "My investment account is increasingly and significantly underperforming vs. the S&P 500. What should I do? absolutely $SPY ETF is the way to go if your point of comparison is the S&P and you want to do low maintenance."}
{"text": "Buying shares in employer's company during IPO So the key factor here, IMHO, is the amount we are talking about.  $2K is just not a lot of money.  If you lose every penny, you can recover.  On the other hand it is unlikely to make you wealthy.  So if I was you I would buy in, more for the fun of it all. Now if it was a large amount of money that we were talking about it would be about a percentage of my net worth.  For example, lets say the minimum was 20K, and you really believed in the company.  If I had a net worth of less than 200K, I would not do it.  If I had a larger net worth, I would consider it unless I was near retirement. So if I was 30, hand a net worth of 300K, I would probably invest as even if I did lose it all, I could recover.    Having said all that it does not sound like you completely agree that the company will be profitable.  So in that case, don't buy. Also, I have the opportunity to buy my own company's stock at a discount.  However, I do not for two reasons.  The first is I don't like investing in the company I work for.  Secondly, they require you to hold the stock for a year."}
{"text": "Does it make any sense to directly contribute to reducing the US national debt? At its heart, I think the best spirit of \"donation\" is helping others less fortunate than yourself. But as long as the US remains solvent, the chief benefit of paying down the national debt is - like paying off a credit card - lowering the future interest payments the U.S. taxpayer has to make. Since the wealthy pay a disproportionately large portion of taxes (per capita), your hard earned money would be disproportionately benefitting the wealthy. So I'd recommend you do one or both of the following: instead target your donations to a charity whose average beneficiary is less fortunate than yourself take political action with an aim towards balancing the federal budget (since the US national debt is principally financed in the form of 30 year treasuries, the U.S. will be completely out of debt if it can maintain a balanced budget for 30 years recanted, see below)"}
{"text": "If the co-signer on my car loan dies, can the family take the car from me like they're threatening to? If you've been paying on the car for three years, it's possible that your credit is in a place where you don't need a co-signer any more. See if your bank will re-fi with you as the sole debtor.  If they won't do it, find another institution who will.  The re-fi will take your grandpa off the loan, and whichever institution that does the re-fi will still have a lien on the title until you pay it off.  Then, if you can do this soon enough, figure out if grandpa can sign you off the title."}
{"text": "What if I sell an stock that is going to give an stock dividend after the ex-date but before the payable date I know that in the case of cash dividends I will get the dividend as long as I bought the stock before the ex-date but what happens in the case of an stock dividend? This is same as cash dividends. You would receive the additional stock."}
{"text": "Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? Often times the commission fees add up a lot. Many times the mundane fluctuations in the stock market on a day to day basis are just white noise, whereas long term investing generally lets you appreciate value based on the market reactions to actual earnings of the company or basket of companies. Day trading often involves leverage as well."}
{"text": "Do \u201cInstant Approved\u201d credit card inquires appear on credit report? You'll see a hard inquiry for both, but not necessarily on all three agencies (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax). I have both the Amazon Chase and Amazon Store Card. Amazon Chase, is obviously through Chase bank. Amazon Store Card is through GE Money."}
{"text": "Why doesn't Graham consider gold as an investment? During Graham's career, gold and currency were the same thing because of the gold standard. Graham did not advise investing in currencies, only in bonds and stocks, the latter only for intelligent speculation. Graham died a couple of years after Nixon closed the gold window, ending the gold standard.  Gold may be thought of as a currency even today, as endowments and other investors use it as a store of value or for diversification of risks. However, currency or commodities investing does not seem Graham-like. How could you reliably estimate intrinsic value of a currency or commodity, so that you can have a Graham-like margin of safety after subtracting the intrinsic value from the market value?  Saying that gold is \"clearly underpriced in today's market\" is just hand-waving. A Graham analysis such as \"net net\" (valuing stocks by their current tangible assets net of all liabilities) is a quantitative analysis of accounting numbers audited by CPAs and offers a true margin of safety."}
{"text": "Are 'per trade' fees charged on every order or just once per stock? In my experience they charge you coming and going. For example, if a brokerage firm is advertising that their commissions are only $7/trade, then that means you pay money to buy the stock, plus $7 to them, and later on if you want to sell that stock you must pay $7 to get out of the deal.  So, if you want to make any money on a stock (say, priced at $10) you would have to sell it at a price above $10+$7+$7=$24. That kind of sale could take a few years to turn a profit. However, with flat-rate fees like that it is advantageous to buy in bulk."}
{"text": "Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? As per the age of your son you mentions i would suggest Yes, charge them an interest amount but lesser than the market rate. And give them a valid reason behind taking interest on given amount. The reason you might grab from below real incident happen with me at the time of Diwali last year. I am 26, and i am currently doing job and my salary is not so much that i can accomplish all my dreams of buying expensive Watch and many things. So i borrowed some strong amount from my mom. She gave me the amount but she asked me to pay interest of 5% and when i asked the reason behind demanding the interest she said something which was valuable things. She said me \"If i would not give you money then you will definitely ask money from some money lenders or your friends because now that watch is your first priority. And in that case you need to pay the higher interest rate to them. And in life there might be situation where we would not capable to help you in terms of financial. So this is the time you should learn to pay interest and responsibility of borrowing amount and repaying it on time with interest rate. This will help you also to learn a lesson and our money will be withing home I am not expert in parenting because i am still unmarried but i shared my point of view for your question. Thanks"}
{"text": "What's the difference between Buy and Sell price on the stock exchange [duplicate] The same as when you are buying a car. If a dealer quotes 10k and you quote 8k. 8k is the buy price and 10k is the sell price.  Somebody might quote 8.5k and another dealer might quote 9.5k. The the new price that you see on your screen is 8.5k(Best buy price) and 9.5k(Best sell price). When the buyer and seller agree to an amount, the car(In your case stock) is traded."}
{"text": "How can I take advantage of tax-advantaged investments? While your entire investment strategy should not revolve around tax advantages, people who pay attention to these benefits can save themselves a significant amount of money.\\nThese are some of the most popular tax-advantaged investments for building wealth\\n1. Traditional 401(k) Plans\\n2. 403(b) Plans & 457 Plans\\n3. Traditional IRA\\n4. Betterment: Consider a Diversified Approach to Your IRA Investments\\n5. Roth 401(k), 403(b), 457 Plans\\n6. 529 Plan\\n7. Health Savings Account (HSA)\\n8. Municipal Bonds\\n9. Charitable Giving"}
{"text": "Why is the stock market price for a share always higher than the earnings per share? First, the earnings are per year, not per quarter.  Why would you expect to get a 100% per year return on your money? The earnings can go one of two ways. They can be retained, reinvested in the company, or they can be distributed as a dividend. So, the 'return' on this share is just over 5%, which is competitive with the rate you'd get on fixed investments. It's higher, in fact, as there's the risk that comes with holding the stock."}
{"text": "My landlord is being foreclosed on. Should I confront him? If John signs the lease he is entitled to stay there for the duration of the lease regardless of the foreclosure status.   http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/renters-foreclosure-what-are-their-30064.html I would suggest that signing a year lease (even by email), with the plan to leave as early as possible is a good thing.  The key will be to make sure the penalty for leaving early is nothing. John doesn't know the status of the foreclosure, how long it will take, who might own afterwards and a lot of other unknowns.  The worst case is to be unsure of where you are living. Sign the lease, and be secure for one whole year that you know where you will be living.  Spend that year finding a new place to live.   If the bank doesn't offer you clear and obvious ways to submit rent, open an account AT THE BANK and deposit the rent there, on time. You are establishing credibility that you deserve to stay.  You still owe the rent, so pay it. They don't want to be your landlord, but don't let a bank bully you around."}
{"text": "Is it best to exercise options shares when they vest, or wait To me it depends on things like your net worth, debt, and how other assets are invested.   Currently you have 25K invested in the company you work for.   If you have 100K in student loans, are a renter, and 12K in your 401K, then I would recommend exercising almost all of your options.  In that case you have a much to large part of your world wrapped up in your company. If you have 250K in your 401K, own a home and have an emergency fund with no debt then you are fine with letting it ride.  You can afford to absorb a loss of 25K without wrecking your net worth. More than likely, you are somewhere in between (just statistics speaking there).  So why not exercise some of them now with the purpose of improving your financial situation?  Say do a 1/3 now and when they come available.   When 401ks were first invented people put almost all of their money in their company stock.  They lost just about everything when the company went down in value and were often a victim of layoffs exasperating the issue.  This is akin to the same situation.  Most financial advisers recommend against putting any 401K money to company stock, or at least limiting the amount."}
{"text": "Is it normal to think of money in different \u201ccontexts\u201d? Well, this relates to how you interpret something's value. We can use that magazine and restaurant as an example. For you the extra $10-$30 more on a decent meal or wine is worth it while $5 for a magazine entertainment on a train ride might not be. This is how all markets work, people make decisions about how they value something and hence choose to spend or not. If you're asking \"should I value certain things the way I do?\" well that's a different story  e.g. should I keep that picture frame for years in the attic to sell it for $3 on eBay later. (probably not worth it) But again you are making that decision based on how YOU choose to value it. So to answer your question: How can I possibly care about this when my stock portfolio is losing (or gaining) $1000 a day? and is it normal? Yes it is normal and we all care. Everyone makes these decisions throughout each day, people will vary as to what they value something to be, but all in all everyone does just what you explained. Here is something that you may find interesting it is about how we value money: What color is your money? if the pdf doesn't work for you then try this link: What color is your money alt link"}
{"text": "Why is Insider Trading Illegal? Capitalism works best when there is transparency.  Your secret formula for wealth in the stocks should be based on a fair and free market, as sdg said, it is your clever interpretation of the facts, not the facts themselves.  The keyword is fair. Secrets are useful for manufacturing or production, which is only a small part of capitalism.  Even then we had to devise a system to protect ideas (patents, trademarks and copyrights) because as they succeed in the market, their secrecy goes away quickly."}
{"text": "Why do mutual fund trading limitations exist? e.g. 90 day transfer limits? Mutual funds (that are not exchange-traded funds) often need to sell some  of their securities to get cash when a shareholder redeems some shares. Such transactions incur costs that are paid (proportionally) by all the shareholders in the fund, not just the person requesting redemption, and thus the remaining shareholders get a lower return. (Exchange-traded funds are traded as if they are shares of common stock,  and a shareholder seeking a redemption pays the costs of the redemption). For this reason, many mutual funds do not allow redemptions for some period of time after a purchase, or purchases for some period of time after a redemption. The periods of time are chosen by the fund, and are stated in the prospectus (which everyone has acknowledged has been received before an investment was made)."}
{"text": "Why are U.S. credit unions not open to everyone? It's required by law.  12 USC 1759 (b) requires that membership in a credit union be limited to one or more groups with a \"common bond\", or to people within a particular geographic area. For lots more gory details on how this is interpreted and enforced, you can read the manual given to credit unions by the National Credit Union Administration, which is their regulatory agency."}
{"text": "Is Cost of Living overstated? I live in Upstate NY. It's a great, reasonable cost place to live -- provided that you have a job.  In NYC, there are probably a few hundred jobs with duties similar to mine in a 45-minute radius. Upstate, there may be 5-6."}
{"text": "How do I read technicals for tickers that move together but are slightly different? Following comments to your question here, you posted a separate question about why SPY, SPX, and the options contract don't move perfectly together.  That's here Why don't SPY, SPX, and the e-mini s&p 500 track perfectly with each other? I provided an answer to that question and will build on it to answer what I think you're asking on this question.  Specifically, I explained what it means that these are \"all based on the S&P.\"  Each is a different entity, and different market forces keep them aligned.  I think talking about \"technicals\" on options contracts is going to be too confusing since they are really a very different beast based on forward pricing models, so, for this question, I'll focus on only SPY and SPX. As in my other answer, it's only through specific market forces (the creation / redemption mechanism that I described in my other answer), that they track at all.  There's nothing automatic about this and it has nothing to do with some issuer of SPY actually holding stock in the companies that comprise the SPX index. (That's not to say that the company does or doesn't hold, just that this doesn't drive the prices.)  What ever technical signals you're tracking, will reflect all of the market forces at play.  For SPX (the index), that means some aggregate behavior of the component companies, computed in a \"mathematically pure\" way.  For SPY (the ETF), that means (a) the behavior of SPX and (b) the behavior of the ETF as it trades on the market, and (c) the action of the authorized participants.  These are simply different things. Which one is \"right\"?  That depends on what you want to do.  In theory you might be able to do some analysis of technical signals on SPY and SPX and, for example, use that to make money on the way that they fail to track each other.  If you figure out how to do that, though, don't post it here.  Send it to me directly. :)"}
{"text": "Events that cause major movement in forex? Look for unsustainable policies and actions by policy makers, both before and possibly during, when looking at the ForEx markets.  Consider some examples: Each of those events could be seen in the growing unsustainability of local policies.  ForEx markets and local policies can appear to stay on an unsustainable path for a long time, but equilibrium will force itself on everything in the long run.  In two of the above cases, the initial response wasn't enough to offset the mess, and more and more intervention had to be done, only making matters worse.  When you know how unsustainable policies are and how big the corrections need to be, you can quickly ascertain whether an action by policy makers will be enough."}
{"text": "How can I get the most value from my employer's ESPP? A 15% discount is a 17.6% return. (100/85 = 1.176). For a holding period that's an average 15.5 days, a half month. It would be silly to compound this over a year as the numbers are limited.  The safest way to do this is to sell the day you are permitted. In effect, you are betting, 12 times a year, that the stock won't drop 15% in 3 days. You can pull data going back decades, or as long as your company has been public, and run a spreadsheet to see how many times, if at all, the stock has seen this kind of volatility over 3 day periods. Even for volatile stocks, a 15% move is pretty large, you're likely to find your stock doing this less than once per year. It's also safest to not accumulate too many shares of your company for multiple reasons, having to do with risk spreading, diversification, etc.  2 additional points -  the Brexit just caused the S&P to drop 4% over the last 3 days trading. This was a major world event, but, on average we are down 4%. One would have to be very unlucky to have their stock drop 15% over the specific 3 days we are discussing.  The dollars at risk are minimal. Say you make $120K/yr. $10K/month. 15% of this is $1500 and you are buying $1765 worth of stock. The gains, on average are expected to be $265/mo. Doesn't seem like too much, but it's $3180 over a years' time. $3180 in profit for a maximum $1500 at risk at any month's cycle."}
{"text": "Need to change cash to cashier's check without bank account (Just arrived to the US) If you have an SSN and foreign passport - it's all you need to open account, so just open it and order a checkbook. It will take some time before they will issue it but most probably they'll give you some checks to use till that very moment.  So basically you should: Also I strongly suggest you to open two accounts - one would be for you and one for rent exclusively. The thing is that check could be cashed any time and it's pretty annoying exercise to keep that in mind."}
{"text": "Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score? Assuming I only use it to buy things I can afford (which I trust   myself to do), essentially treating it as a debit card, is this a good   idea? This is definitely a good idea. From my own experience, before I got my first credit card through my local bank (age 18), I tired to apply for a card that has cash back rewards and was rejected because I didn't have any credit history. After I had the card from my bank for 6 months, I applied for this Capital One card that I've had ever since."}
{"text": "Why small retail stores ask for ID with a credit card while big don't Probably because large chains can absorb the loss from fraud better than small stores do.  Thus, small stores want to ensure that the person holding the card is the same as the name on the card."}
{"text": "How can I estimate business taxes / filing fees for a business that has $0 income? Is the business an S-Corp, LLC or Sole Prop? I am going to guess based on the question that it is an LLC that you never closed with the state and you live in a state (NY) that charges a fee for having an LLC in the state in which case you owe those fees to the state. I am not aware of any taxes on the mere existence of a business by the IRS. I think you are going to find out that the are no taxes owed to the IRS for this nonexistent activity."}
{"text": "Investment property information resources I personally found the \"For Dummies\" books, on property investment, very helpful and a great primer. I found them unbiased and very informative, laying out the basic principles. Depending on your knowledge it can provide you with enough of a foundation to have an informed conversation with banks/real estates etc.  Watch the markets for a while (at least 6 months) to know what prices vendors will be expecting and rents tenants will be expecting, most property magazines will also contain a suburb summary in the back.  When you get closer to purchase make sure to ask your bank for the RP Data reports on the properties you are looking at, the banks will typically provide these for free. I also set out some points for myself which I made clear for myself at the beginning: This might provide a good starting point and really narrow down your research options as generic research on property investment can be overwhelming. I ended up with a 3 Bedder in western Sydney that has so far happily paid for itself. Building a good relationship with real estate agents and attending lots of open homes/auctions and talking to other investors can only help.  I was once told if you attend free property investment seminars you will always learn at least one new thing (be it statistics, methodologies, finance options etc ), with that in mind always keep a level head, leave your wallet at home and don't sign up to anything.  At the end of the day keep a cool head, don't stop reading and rush nothing."}
{"text": "Can a company charge you for services never requested or received? I have had a couple of businesses do this to me.  I simply ask them to come over to talk about the bill.  Sometimes this ends it.  If they come over then I call the cops to file a report on fraud.  A lot of times the police will do nothing unless they have had a load of complaints but it certainly gets the company off your back.  And if they are truly unscrupulous it doesn't hurt to get a picture of them talking with the police and their van, and then post the whole situation online - you will see others come forward really quick after doing something like this."}
{"text": "Is it possible for me to keep my credit card APR at 0% permanently? No. The intro rate is a gambit by the bank - they accept losing money in the short term but expect to gain money in the long term when your intro is over and you (hopefully) start paying interest. There's not much in it for them if you never get around to paying interest. Same can be said for people who close the card after their intro period, but that's different - the bank is correctly expecting that most people won't bother."}
{"text": "Investing in dividend-yielding stocks with money borrowed from margin account? In addition to the other answers, here's a proper strategy that implements your idea: If the options are priced properly they should account for future dividend payments, so all other things aside, a put option that is currently at the money should be in the money after the dividend, and hence more expensive than a put option that is out of the money today but at the money after the dividend has been paid. The unprotected futures (if priced correctly) should account for dividend payments based on the dividend history and, since maturing after the payment, should earn you (you sell them) less money because you deliver the physical after the dividend has been paid. The protected ones should reflect the expected total return value of the stock at the time of maturity (i.e. the dividend is mentally calculated into the price), and any dividend payments that happen on the way will be debited from your cash (and credited to the counterparty). Now that's the strategy that leaves you with nearly no risk (the only risk you bear is that the dividend isn't as high as you expected).  But for that comfort you have to pay premiums.  So to see if you're smarter than the market, subtract all the costs for the hedging instruments from your envisaged dividend yield and see if your still better than the lending rate.  If so, do the trade."}
{"text": "How do small cap stocks perform vs. large cap stocks (like Dow constituents) during bear trends? To a certain extent, small cap companies will in general follow the same trends as large cap companies. The extent of this cointegration depends on numerous factors, but a prime reason is the presence of systemic risk, i.e. the risk to the entire market. In simple terms, sthis is the risk that your portfolio will approach asymptotically as you increase its diversification, and it's why hedging is also important.  That being said, small cap businesses will, in general, likely do worse than large cap stocks, for several reasons. This was/is certainly the case in the Great Recession.  Small cap businesses have, on average, higher betas, which is a measure of a company's risk compared to the overall market. This means that small cap companies, on average outperform large cap companies during boom times, but it also means that they suffer more on average during bear times. The debate over whether or not the standard beta is still useful for small cap companies continues, however. Some economists feel that small cap companies are better measured against the Russell 2000 or similar indexes instead of the S&P 500.  Small cap companies may face problems accessing or maintaining access to lines of credit. During the Great Recession, major lenders decreased their lending to small businesses, which might make it harder for them to weather the storm.  On a related point, small businesses might not have as large an asset base to use as collateral for loans in bad times. One notable large cap company that used its asset base to their advantage was Ford, which gave banks partial ownership of its factories during hard times. This a) gave Ford a good amount of cash with which to continue their short-term operations, and b) gave the banks a vested interest in keeping Ford's lines of credit open. Ford struggled, but it never faced the financial problems of GM and Chrysler.  Despite political rhetoric about Main Street vs. Wall Street, small businesses don't receive as much government aid in times of crisis as some large cap companies do. For example, the Small Business Lending Fund, a brilliant but poorly implemented idea in 2010, allocated less than $30 billion to small businesses. (The actual amount loaned was considerably less). Compare that to the amounts loaned out under TARP. Discussions about corporate lobbying power aside, small businesses aren't as crucial to the overall stability of the financial system Small businesses don't always have the manpower to keep up with changes in regulation. When the Dodd-Frank Act passed, large banks (as an example), could hire more staff to understand it and adapt to it relatively easily; small banks, however, don't always have the resources to invest in such efforts.  There are other reasons, some of which are industry-specific, but these are some of the basic ones.  If you want visual confirmation that small cap businesses follow a similar trend, here is a graph of the Russell 2000 and S&P 500 indexes:  Here is a similar graph for the Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.   If you wanted to confirm this technically and control for the numerous complicated factors (overlap between indexes, systemic risk, seasonal adjustment, etc.), just ask and I'll try to run some numbers on it when I have a chance. Keep in mind, too, that looking at a pretty picture is no substitute for rigorous financial econometrics. A basic start would be to look at the correlation between the indexes, which I calculate as 0.9133 and 0.9526, respectively. As you can see, they're pretty close. Once again, however, the reality is more complicated technically, and a sufficiently detailed analysis is beyond my capabilities. Just a quick side note. These graphs show the logarithm of the values of the indexes, which is a common statistical nuance that is used when comparing time series with radically different magnitudes but similar trends.  S&P500 and Russell 2000 data came from Yahoo! Finance, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average data came from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) Per usual, I try to provide code whenever possible, if I used it. Here is the Stata code I used to generate the graphs above. This code assumes the presence of russell2000.csv and sp500.csv, downloaded from Yahoo! Finance, and DJIA.csv, downloaded from FRED, in the current directory.  Fidelity published an article  on the subject that you might find interesting, and Seeking Alpha has several pieces related to small-cap vs. large-cap returns that might be worth a read too."}
{"text": "What is the lifespan of a series of currency? US currency doesn't expire, it is always legal tender.  I can see some trouble if you tried to spend a $10,000 bill (you'd be foolish to do so, since they are worth considerably more). Maybe some stores raise eyebrows at old-style $100's (many stores don't take $100 bills at all), but you could swap them for new style at a bank if having trouble with a particular store. Old-series currency can be an issue when trying to exchange US bills in other countries, just because it doesn't expire here, doesn't mean you can't run into issues elsewhere. Other countries have different policies, for example, over the last year the UK phased in a new five pound note, and as of last month (5/5/2017) the old fiver is no longer considered legal tender (can still swap out old fivers at the bank for now at least).  Edit: I mistook which currency you took where, and focused on US currency instead of Canadian, but it looks like it's the same story there."}
{"text": "Can you beat the market by investing in double long ETFs? [duplicate] You miss the step where the return being doubled is daily. Consider you invested $100 today, went up 10%, and tomorrow you went down 10%. Third day market went up 1.01% and without leverage - got even. Here's the calculation for you: day - start - end 1      $100    $120  -  +10% doubled 2      $120    $96   -  -10% doubled 3      $96     $97.94 - +1.01% doubled So in fact you're in $2.06 loss, while without leveraging you would break even. That means that if the trend is generally positive, but volatile - you'll end up barely breaking even while the non-leveraged investment would make profits. That's what the quote means. edit to summarize the long and fruitless discussion in the comments: The reason that the leveraged ETF's are very good for day-trading is exactly the same reason why they are bad for continuous investment. You should buy them when there's a reasonable expectation for the market to immediately go in the direction you expect. If for whatever reason you believe the markets will plunge, or soar, tomorrow - you should buy a leveraged ETF, ride the plunge, and sell it in the end of the day. But you asked the question about volatile markets, not markets going in one direction. There - you lose."}
{"text": "Do my 401k/Roth accounts benefit from compounding? Sure, stocks don't pay interest. I just looked up the word \"compound\" in a couple of dictionaries and the relevant definition in all of them just mentioned interest and not growth in the value of stock. So it may be technically inaccurate to talk about \"compound growth\" of a stock. I'll yield to someone more knowledgeable about the technical language of finance to answer that part. But regardless of whether the word strictly applies, the concept certainly does. Suppose you put $1000 into a mutual fund and the fund grows by 10%. You now have $1100. The next year the fund grows by 15%. So you gain 15% of what? Of your original $1000? No, of your present balance, $1100. The effect is the same as compound interest. There is the fundamental difference that interest is normally a fixed rate: you get such-and-such percent a year as spelled out in a contract. But change in the value of a stock depends on many factors, none of them guaranteed."}
{"text": "Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017? The market capitalization of a stock is the number of shares outstanding (of each stock class), times the price of last trade (of each stock class). In a liquid market (where there are lots of buyers and sellers at all price points), this represents the price that is between what people are bidding for the stock and what people are asking for the stock.  If you offer any small amount more than the last price, there will be a seller, and if you ask any small amount less than the last price, there will be a buyer, at least for a small amount of stock. Thus, in a liquid market, everyone who owns the stock doesn't want to sell at least some of their stock for a bit less than the last trade price, and everyone who doesn't have the stock doesn't want to buy some of the stock for a bit more than the last trade price. With those assumptions, and a low-friction trading environment, we can say that the last trade value is a good midpoint of what people think one share is worth.  If we then multiply it by the number of shares, we get an approximation of what the company is worth. In no way, shape or form does it not mean that there is 32 billion more invested in the company, or even used to purchase stock. There are situations where a 32 billion market cap swing could mean 32 billion more money was invested in the company: the company issues a pile of new shares, and takes in the resulting money.  People are completely neutral about this gathering in of cash in exchange for dilluting shares.  So the share price remains unchanged, the company gains 32 billion dollars, and there are now more shares outstanding. Now, in some sense, there is zero dollars currently invested in a stock; when you buy a stock, you no longer have the money, and the money goes to the person who no longer has the stock. The issue here is the use of the continuous tense of \"invested in\"; the investment was made at some point, but the money doesn't really stay in this continuous state of being.  Unless you consider the investment liquid, and the option to take money out being implicit, it being a continuous action doesn't make much sense. Sometimes the money is invested in the company, when the company causes stocks to come into being and sells them. The owners of stocks has invested money in stocks in that they spent that money to buy the stocks, but the total sum of money ever spent on stocks for a given company is not really a useful value. The market capitalization is an approximation, which under the efficient market hypothesis (that markets find the correct price for things nearly instantly) is reasonably accurate, of the value the company has collectively to its shareholders.  The efficient market hypothesis isn't accurate, but it is an acceptable rule of thumb. Now, this value -- market capitalization -- is arguably not the total value of a company: other stakeholders include bond holders, labour, management, various contract counter-parties, government and customers.  Some companies are structured so that almost all value is captured not by the stock owners, but by contract counter-parties (this is sometimes used for hiding assets or debts). But for most large publically traded companies, it (in theory) shouldn't be far off."}
{"text": "Figuring flood insurance into financing cost Self-insure a $250K+ house that's deemed to be in a flood zone? Wake up, have coffee. If you don't change your mind, have another cup."}
{"text": "Pay or not pay charged-off accounts for mortgage qualification Your post has some assumptions that are not, or may not be true. For one the assumption is that you have to wait 7 years after you settle your debts to buy a home.  That is not the case.  For some people (me included) settling an charged off debt was part of my mortgage application process.  It was a small debt that a doctor's office claimed I owed, but I didn't.  The mortgage company told me, settling the debt was \"the cost of doing business\".  Settling your debts can be looked as favorable. Option 1, in my opinion is akin to stealing.  You borrowed the money and you are seeking to game the system by not paying your debts.  Would you want someone to do that to you?  IIRC the debt can be sold to another company, and the time period is refreshed and can stay on your credit report for beyond the 7 years.  I could be wrong, but I feel like there is a way for potential lenders to see unresolved accounts well beyond specified time periods.  After all, the lenders are the credit reporting agencies customers and they seek to provide the most accurate view of a potential lender.  With 20K of unresolved CC debt they should point that out to their customers. Option 2:  Do you have 20K?  I'd still seek to settle, you do not have to wait 7 years.   Your home may not appreciate in 2 years.  In my own case my home has appricated very little in the 11 years that I have owned it.  Many people have learned the hard way that homes do not necessarily increase in value.   It is very possible that you may have a net loss in equity in two years.  Repairs or improvements can evaporate the small amount of equity that is achieved over two years with a 30 year mortgage.   I would hope that you pause a bit at the fact that you defaulted on 20K in debt.  That is a lot of money.  Although it is a lot, it is a small amount in comparison to the cost and maintenance of a home.  Are you prepared to handle such a responsibility?  What has changed in your personality since the 20K default?  The tone of your posts suggests you are headed for the same sort of calamity. This is far more than a numbers game it is behavioral."}
{"text": "How should I prepare for the next financial crisis? How would gold have protected you during the 2007/8 crisis?  In no way, shape or form. The ways to protect yourself at any time are: Boring, huh?"}
{"text": "What publicly available software do professional stock traders use for stock analysis? Bloomberg Professional seems to be very popular. It provides any kind of data you can imagine. Analysis is a subjective interpretation of the data."}
{"text": "How do dividend reinvestment purchases work? The Brokerage firm will purchase shares for the dividend paid in a omnibus account for the security of the issuer and then they will distribute fractional shares among all their clients that chose Div Reinvest.  They will only have to buy 1 extra share to account for the fractional portion of what they allocate.  The structure of the market does not permit trading of fractional shares. There is generally not any impact to the market place for Div Reinvest with the exception of certain securities that pay large dividends that are not liquid. sometimes this occurs in  preferred securities where a large amount of Div reinvestment could create a large market order that has market impact.  Most brokers place market orders for the opening on the day following the payment of the dividend. When you sell the fractional portion same process as full shares are sold into the market and the fractional if traded between you and the brokers omnibus account.  if it creates a full share for the broker (omnibus has .6 shares and you sell him .5 they would likely flip that out to the street with the full share portion of your order. This would not have impact to outstanding shares and all cost are operational and with the broker handling the Div reinvestment service."}
{"text": "Credit Card Approval Banks use quite a few parameters to arrive at the decision for card approval. The credit score is just one input. There are multiple other inputs it would source, for example total years in job, the number of years in current job, income streams, etc ... the exact formula is a trade secret and varies from Bank to Bank"}
{"text": "Insurance for a house which is not homeowners insurance? What you need will depend on a number of factors that aren't clear from the question. This coverage is simply called \"Vacant home insurance\", but not all companies are willing to offer this coverage. Unfortunately, in New York, insurers can also legally drop your standard homeowners' coverage if they become aware that your property has become vacant for 30 days or more. The Insurer's Concerns Typically, a \"standard\" homeowners policy will have an exclusion clause for vacant homes. The insurance company's concern is that without someone in the home, they will be at risk for break-ins, squatters and vandalism. If you've ever seen \"Flip Men\" on Spike, you'll know this is a serious concern (great show, by the way). They will use a risk model to calculate an estimated risk for the property (this is why a seasonal vacation home in a sparsely-populated area is often less of a concern than a family home in an urban area). If they estimate the risk to be low, some insurance companies will allow to you buy back that exclusion so that vacant properties are covered. In your case, they have probably decided that either: Your Options First, you need to find a company that is comfortable with taking on the extra risk of a vacant home. This will vary quite a bit by location, but the main ones are Farmer's (they use the Foremost brand name in New York) and Castle Rock. There are lots of insurance agencies that also advertise these products, but most of them are middlemen and use one of these two companies to actually write the coverage. Additionally, since this is a specialty policy, make sure you understand all of the details of the policy, and how they vary from a regular policy including: How to Reduce your Premium costs These are general tips from the Murray Group's website (an independent broker in NY) on how to lower the additional cost of vacant coverage: This may sound expensive, but these steps will all reduce the risk of something really bad happening when you're not there. Additionally, do you know anyone you completely trust (relative, unemployed friend) that might want to live in your old house rent-free for a while? This could work out for you if they are willing to keep the place 100% clean around the clock so that you can show the house at any time. If you have additional/specific questions, you should be able to find an independent insurance broker in your area that would be willing to advise you on your specific situation for a flat fee. Best of luck with getting the home covered and sold quickly!"}
{"text": "which types of investments should be choosen for 401k at early 20's? I can't find a decent duplicate, so here are some general guidelines: First of all by \"stocks\" the answers generally mean \"equities\" which could be either single stocks or mutual funds that consist of stocks. Unless you have lots of experience that can help you discern good stocks from bad, investing in mutual funds reduces the risk considerably. If you want to fine-tune the plan, you can weigh certain categories higher to change your risk/return profile (e.g. equity funds will have higher returns and risk than fixed income (bond) funds, so if you want to take a little more risk you can put more in equity funds and less in fixed income funds). Lastly, don't stress too much over the individual investments.  The most important thing is that you get as much company match as you can.  You cannot beat the 100% return that comes from a company match. The allocation is mostly insignificant compared to that.  Plus you can probably change your allocation later easily and cheaply if you don't like it. Disclaimer:  these are _general_ guidelines for 401(k) investing in general and not personal advice."}
{"text": "In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive? It's called extracting consumer surplus. Basically I have a bunch of movie goers (who have paid a lot for their tickets). Some of them don't like popcorn, and some do. Of the people in the latter group, there are some who are willing to pay a lot for it. That's partly because I have a select group (rich movie goers) and partly because some of these people would be willing to pay more for popcorn with a movie than without. If I were just selling \"popcorn,\" I'd have to charge a competitive price. But I'm really selling movies, which have more than covered my costs (rent, heat, etc.) So my costs of selling popcorn are less than that of a non-movie popcorn seller, and I don't really \"need\" to sell it. Ironically, it means that I can \"take my chances\" and sell a relatively small amount at a high price, thereby maximizing my UNIT profit. I don't mind having people NOT buy popcorn because I've already made my profit from them with the movie. From the point of view of the consumer, most consumers see popcorn as an \"afterthought.\" They will seldom  think, \"I can buy popcorn $2.00 cheaper at Theater A than Theater B, and there's a 20 percent chance that I will want to buy popcorn, so Theater A is 40 cents ($2.00*.20) cheaper than Theater B.\" Instead, most make the decision to buy the popcorn after they've arrived at Theater B, because it as \"impulse item.\"  And even if they do the \"40 cents\" calculation, Theater B might be selected because other factors (convenience, location, etc.) outweigh the 40 cent extra cost of popcorn (purchased \"sometimes\"). Put another way, the cost of popcorn is (usually) heavily discounted because of its \"remoteness\" to other facets of the decision."}
{"text": "College student lacking investment experience: How to begin investing money? If you have wage income that is reported on a W2 form, you can contribute the maximum of your wages, what you can afford, or $5500 in a Roth IRA.   One advantage of this is that the nominal amounts you contribute can always be removed without tax consequences, so a Roth IRA can be a deep emergency fund (i.e., if the choice is $2000 in cash as emergency fund or $2000 in cash in a 2015 Roth IRA contribution, choice 2 gives you more flexibility and optimistic upside at the risk of not being able to draw on interest/gains until you retire or claim losses on your tax return).  If you let April 15 2016 pass by without making a Roth IRA contribution, you lose the 2015 limit forever.  If you are presently a student and partially employed, you are most likely in the lowest marginal tax rate you will be in for decades, which utilizes the Roth tax game effectively.   If you're estimating \"a few hundred\", then what you pick as an investment is going to be less important than making the contributions.  That is, you can pick any mutual fund that strikes your fancy and be prepared to gain or lose, call it $50/year (or pick a single stock and be prepared to lose it all).  At some point, you need to understand your emotions around volatility, and the only tuition for this school is taking a loss and having the presence of mind to examine any panic responses you may have.  No reason not to learn this on \"a few hundred\".  While it's not ideal to have losses in a Roth, \"a few hundred\" is not consequential in the long run.   If you're not prepared at this time in your life for the possibility of losing it all (or will need the money within a year or few, as your edit suggests), keep it in cash and try to reduce your expenses to contribute more.  Can you contribute another $100?  You will have more money at the end of the year than investment choice will likely return."}
{"text": "income tax for purchased/sold short term & long term shares No Tax would have been deducted at the time of purchase/sale of shares. You would yourself be required to compute your tax liability and then pay taxes to the govt. In case the shares sold were held for less than 1 year - 15% tax on capital gains would be levied. In case the shares sold were held for more than 1 year - No Tax would be levied and the income earned would be tax free. PS: No Tax is levied at the time of purchase of shares and Tax is only applicable at the time of sale of shares."}
{"text": "Transfering funds from India to the US Can I transfer funds from India to USA which I have borrowed in India. Funds borrowed in India may not be transferred outside of India as per Foreign Exchange Management Act. Loans in rupees to non-residents against security of shares or   immovable property in India:-   Subject to the directions issued by   the Reserve Bank from time to time in this regard, an authorised   dealer in India may grant loan to a non-resident Indian, e) the loan amount shall not be remitted outside India;"}
{"text": "Can I open a Solo 401(k) if I am an independent contractor but also work part-time as an employee? If you have self-employment income you can open a Solo 401k.  Your question is unclear as to what your employment status is.  If you are self-employed as an independent contractor, you can open a Solo 401k.  You can still do this even if you also earn non-self-employment income (i.e., you are an employee and receive a W-2).  However, the limits for contributions to a Solo 401k are based on your self-mployment income, not your total income, so if you have only a small amount of self-employment income, you won't be able to contribute much to the Solo 401k.  You may be able to reduce your taxes somewhat, but it's not like you can earn $1000 of self-employment income, open a Solo 401k, and dump $5000 into it; the limits don't work that way."}
{"text": "Why does my bank suddenly need to know where my money comes from? Banks have a financial, and regulational duty called \"Know your customer\", established to avoid a number of historical problems occurring again, such as money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud, etc. Thanks to the scale, and scope of the problem (millions of customers, billions of transactions a day), the way they're handling this usually involves fuzzy logics matching, looking for irregular patterns, problem escalation, and other warning signs. When exceeding some pre-set limit, these signal clues are then filtered, and passed on for human inspection. Needless to say, these algorithms are not perfect, although, thanks to financial pressure, they are improving. In order to understand why your trading account has been suspended, it's useful to look at the incentives: false positives -suspending your trade, and assuming you guilty until proven otherwise- could cost them merely your LTV (lifetime value of customer -how much your business brings in as profit); while false negatives -not catching you while engaging in activities listed above- might cost them multi-month investigations, penalties, and court.  Ultimately, this isn't against you. I've been with the bank for 15 years and the money in the accounts has been very slowly accumulated via direct-deposit paychecks over that time. From this I gather the most likely explanation, is that you've hit somekind of account threshold, that the average credit-happy customers usually do not exceed, which triggered a routine checkup. How do you deal with it? Practice puppetry! There is only one way to survive angry customers emotionally: you have to realize that they\u2019re not angry at you; they\u2019re angry at your business, and you just happen to be a convenient representative of that business. And since they\u2019re treating you like a puppet, an iconic stand-in for the real business, you need to treat yourself as a puppet, too. Pretend you\u2019re a puppeteer. The customer is yelling at the puppet. They\u2019re not yelling at you. They\u2019re angry with the puppet. Your job is to figure out, \u201cgosh, what can I make the puppet say that will make this person a happy customer?\u201d  In an investigation case, go with boredom: The puppet doesn't care, have no feelings, and is eternally patient. Figure out what are the most likely words that will have the matter \"mentally resolved\" from the investigator's point of view, tell them what they have to hear, and you'll have case closed in no time. Hope this helps."}
{"text": "Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest Think carefully about the added expenses.  It may still make sense, but it probably won't be as cheap as you are thinking.  In addition to the mortgage and property taxes, there is also insurance and building maintenance and repairs. Appliances, carpets, and roofs need to be replaced periodically.  Depending on the area of the country there is lawn maintenance and now removal. You need to make sure you can cover the expenses if you are without a tenant for 6 months or longer.  When tenants change, there is usually some cleaning and painting that needs to be done. You can deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes on your part of the building.  You need to claim any rent as income, but can deduct the other part of the mortgage interest and taxes as an expense.  You can also deduct building maintenance and repairs on the rental portion of the building.  Some improvements need to be depreciated over time (5-27 years).  You also need to depreciate the cost of the rental portion of the building.  This basically means that you get a deduction each year, but lower the cost basis of the building so you owe more capital gains taxes when you sell. If you do this, I would get a professional to do your taxes at least the first year.  Its not hard once you see it done, but there are a lot of details and complications that you want to get right."}
{"text": "Can we compare peer-to-peer loans to savings accounts? That argument is an argument for investing generally, not peer-to-peer lending per se, and the argument as phrased (\"thus you should invest your money at a Peer-to-peer loan platform\") is a false dichotomy. That said, as soon as one is investing as opposed to just getting a small but guaranteed return, then risk comes into play.  In that sense, any savings account is fundamentally different from any investment, and, in that reading, the two shouldn't be compared as different approaches to \"investing\".  Peer-to-peer lending as an investment could be aptly compared with stock market investing, for one."}
{"text": "How safe is a checking account? In addition to @mhoran_psprep answer, and inspired by @wayne's comment.  If the bank won't let you block automatic transfers between accounts, drop the bank like a hot potato They've utterly failed basic account security principles, and shouldn't be trusted with anyone's money. It's not the bank's money, and you're the only one that can authorize any kind of transfer out.  I limit possible losses through debit and credit cards very simply. I keep only a small amount on each (~$500), and manually transfer more on an as needed basis. Because there is no automatic transfers to these cards, I can't lose everything in the checking account, even temporarily."}
{"text": "Should a high-school student invest their (relative meager) savings? Between 1 and 2 G is actually pretty decent for a High School Student.  Your best bet in my opinion is to wait the next (small) stock market crash, and then invest in an index fund. A fund that tracks the SP500 or the Russel 2000 would be a good choice. By stock market crash, I'm talking about a 20% to 30% drop from the highest point. The stock market is at an all time high, but nobody knows if it's going to keep going.  I would avoid penny stocks, at least until you can read their annual report and understand most of what they're claiming, especially the cash flow statement. From the few that I've looked at, penny stock companies just keep issuing stock to raise money for their money loosing operations.  I'd also avoid individual stocks for now. You can setup a practice account somewhere online, and try trading. Your classmates probably brag about how much they've made, but they won't tell you how much they lost.  You are not misusing your money by \"not doing anything with it\". Your classmates are gambling with it, they might as well go to a casino.  Echoing what others have said, investing in yourself is your best option at this point. Try to get into the best school that you can. Anything that gives you an edge over other people in terms of experience or education is good. So try to get some leadership and team experience. , and some online classes in a field that interests you."}
{"text": "Good way to record currency conversion transactions in personal accounting software? I found an answer by Peter Selinger, in two articles, Tutorial on multiple currency accounting (June 2005, Jan 2011) and the accompanying Multiple currency accounting in GnuCash (June 2005, Feb 2007). Selinger embraces the currency neutrality I'm after. His method uses \"[a]n account that is denominated as a difference of multiple currencies... known as a currency trading account.\" Currency trading accounts show the gain or loss based on exchange rates at any moment.  Apparently GnuCash 2.3.9 added support for multi-currency accounting. I haven't tried this myself. This feature is not enabled by default, and must be turned on explicity. To do so, check \"Use Trading Accounts\" under File -> Properties -> Accounts. This must be done on a per-file basis. Thanks to Mike Alexander, who implemented this feature in 2007, and worked for over 3 years to convince the GnuCash developers to include it. Older versions of GnuCash, such as 1.8.11, apparently had a feature called \"Currency Trading Accounts\", but they behaved differently than Selinger's method."}
{"text": "Why deep in the money options have very low liquidity There is less liquidity because they are less volatile. Option traders aren't exactly risk averse (read: are degenerate gamblers) and the other market participants that use options don't have much use for deep in the money options. Also, just trade more liquid assets and equities if you want liquid options. At-the-money options, and at-the-money options strategies have hundreds and thousand percent payoffs on relatively mundane price changes in the underlying asset."}
{"text": "Why deep in the money options have very low liquidity One reason might be the 100% margin requirement on long options.  Suppose I want to go long AAPL.   I could get a deep ITM call or buy shares. $12,700 for 100 shares, with it's 25% margin requirement is like around $3200 locked up cash.  Combine with a deep OTM Jan 2017 $70 strike put for $188, would give a $3400 margin requirement to enter the trade. or I could be in the JAN 2017 $70 strike for nearer $5800, but with a 100% margin requirement due to being a long call. So (3400/5800) = 59% increase in margin requirement for Deep ITM calls. Plus long term the shares will pay dividends, while a LEAP CALL does not."}
{"text": "Ownership in company and rounds of investment Say the company has created 500 shares [or whatever number]. You have 10 shares [equivalent of 2%]. Now when new capital is needed, generally more shares are created. Say they create 100 more shares and sell it to venture capital to raise funds. After this happens; Total Shares: 500+100 = 600 You own: 10 shares Your Ownership % = 1.66% down from 2% Like wise for other older shareholder. The New Venture guy gets 16.66% of ownership.   More funds would mean more growth and overall the value of your 10 shares would be more depending on the valuation."}
{"text": "Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes? @RonJohn's answer for pallet of $20's is right for the specific case. For the general case of all income, it depends on whether or not the the source of the income was potentially criminal. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timtodd/2015/11/16/a-win-for-the-5th-amendment-at-the-tax-court/ I am not a lawyer, but reading that article, one needs to provide the total amount, but not the source if there's a risk of self-incrimination."}
{"text": "Overnight charges for brokers holding stocks? If you are trading CFDs, which are usually traded on margin, you will usually be charged an overnight financing fee for long positions held overnight and you will receive an overnight financing credit for short positions held overnight. Most CFD brokers will have their overnight financing rates set at + or - 2.5% or 3% from the country's official interest rates. So if your country's official interest rate is 5% and your broker uses + or - 2.5%, you will get a 2.5% credit for any short positions held overnight and pay 7.5% fee for any long positions held overnight. In Australia the official interest rate is 2.5%, so I get 0% for short positions and pay 5% for long positions held overnight. If you are looking to hold positions open long term (especially long positions) you might think twice before using CFDs to trade as you may end up paying quite a bit in interest over a long period of time. These financing fees are charged because you are borrowing the funds to open your positions, If you buy shares directly you would not be charged such overnight financing fees."}
{"text": "Technical Analysis not working I would echo @Victor's comments. One book and 1000 web pages doesnt make you a good investor/trader. There are some basic things you should be aware of and read up on There are a few books that I would recommend I have been trading for over 10 years, my dad for over 30 years and we are both continually learning new things. Don't read one book and assume you know it all. Bear in mind that there are always new indicators being thought up and new ways of using and interpreting the same information, so keep reading and educating yourself."}
{"text": "Where do short-term traders look for the earliest stock related news? There's a whole industry devoted to this.  Professionals use Bloomberg terminals. High Frequency Traders have computers read news feeds for them. Amateurs use trading consoles (like Thinkorswim) to get headlines quickly on stocks."}
{"text": "Is there anything comparable to/resembling CNN's Fear and Greed Index? There are a number of ways to measure such things and they are generally called \"sentiment indicators\".  The ones that I have seen \"work\", in the sense that they show relatively high readings near market tops and relatively low readings near market bottoms.  The problem is that there are no thresholds that work consistently.  For example, at one market top a sentiment indicator may read 62.  At the next market top that same indicator might read 55.  So what threshold do you use next time?  Maybe the top will come at 53, or maybe it will not come until 65. There was a time when I could have listed examples for you with the names of the indicators and what they signaled and when.  But I gave up on such things years ago after seeing such wide variation.  I have been at this a long time (30+ years), and I have not found anything that works as well as we would like at identifying a top in real time.  The best I have found (although it does give false signals) is a drop in price coupled with a bearish divergence in breadth.  The latter is described in \"Stan Weinstein's Secrets For Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets\". Market bottoms are a little less difficult to identify in real time.  One thing I would suggest if you think that there is some way to get a significant edge in investing, is to look at the results of Mark Hulbert's monitoring of newsletters.  Virtually all of them rise and fall with the market and almost none are able to beat buy and hold of the Wilshire 5000 over the long term."}
{"text": "What do I do with a P11D Expenses & Benefits form? The P11D is a record of the total benefits you've received in a tax year that haven't been taxed in another way, a bit like the P60 is a record of the total pay and tax you've paid in a tax year. Note that travel for business purposes shouldn't be taxable, and if that's what's being reported on the P11D you may need to make a claim for tax relief to HMRC to avoid having to pay the tax. I'm not sure whether it's normal for such expenses to be reported there. HMRC will normally collect that tax by adjusting your tax code after the P11D is issued, so that more tax is taken off your future income. So you don't need to do anything, as it'll be handled automatically. As to how you know it's accurate, if you have any doubts you'd need to contact your former employer and ask them to confirm the details. In general you ought to know what benefits you actually received so should at least be able to figure out if the number is plausible. If your \"travel\" was a flight to the USA, then probably it was. If it was a bus ticket, less so :-) If you fill in a tax return, you'll also have to report the amount there which will increase the tax you owe/reduce your refund. You won't be charged twice even if your tax code also changes, as the tax return accounts for the total amount of tax you've already paid. For travel benefits, the exact treatment in relation to tax/P11Ds is summarised here."}
{"text": "Can my rent to own equity be used as a downpayment? I think you need to go to a local bank and ask. The key thing is paper trail. For any mortgage I've gotten on a new purchase, the bank needs to see where the down payment came from and how it got to the seller. In this case, it can go either way. If the value is truly 100% to the 80% you are looking to finance, and the paper trail is legit, this may work just fine.  The issue others seem to have is that simply buying at a 20% discount is not a legit way to finance the 80%. Here, it appears to me that the 20% came from you in installments, via the rent."}
{"text": "Car dealer saying that they cannot see any credit information for my co-applicant. Could this be a scam? Its not a scam.  The car dealership does not care how you pay for the car, just that you pay.  If you come to them for a loan they will try and service you.  If you come with cash, they will sell you a car and not try to talk you into financing.  If you come with a check from another bank, they will happily accept it. I would try to work with Equifax or a local credit union to figure out what is going on.  Somehow she probably had her credit frozen. Here are some really good things to mitigate this situation: Oh and make sure you do #1 and forget about financing cars ever again.  I mean if you want to build wealth."}
{"text": "What are the ins/outs of writing equipment purchases off as business expenses in a home based business? Keep this rather corny acronym in mind. Business expenses must be CORN: As other posters have already pointed out, certain expenses that are capital items (computers, furniture, etc.) must be depreciated over several years, but you have a certain amount of capital items that you can write off in the current tax year."}
{"text": "Advice for opening an IRA as a newbie If you want to 'offset' current (2016) income, only deductible contribution to a traditional IRA does that. You can make nondeductible contributions to a trad IRA, and there are cases where that makes sense for the future and cases where it doesn't, but it doesn't give you a deduction now. Similarly a Roth IRA has possible advantages and disadvantages, but it does not have a deduction now. Currently he maximum is $5500 per person ($6500 if over age 50, but you aren't) which with two accounts (barely) covers your $10k.  To be eligible to make this deductible traditional contribution, you must  have earned income (employment or self-employment, but NOT the distribution from another IRA) at least the amount you want to contribute NOT have combined income (specifically MAGI, Modified Adjusted Gross Income) exceeding the phaseout limit (starts at $96,000 for married-joint) IF you were covered during the year (either you or your spouse) by an employer retirement plan (look at box 13 on your W-2's). With whom. Pretty much any bank, brokerage, or mutual fund family can handle IRAs. (To be technical, the bank's holding company will have an investment arm -- to you it will usually look like one operation with one name and logo, one office, one customer service department, one website etc, but the investment part must be legally separate from the insured banking part so you may notice a different name on your legal and tax forms.) If you are satisified with the custodian of the inherited IRA you already have, you might just stay with them -- they may not need as much paperwork, you don't need to meet and get comfortable with new people, you don't need to learn a new website. But if they sold you an annuity at your age -- as opposed to you inheriting an already annuitized IRA -- I'd want a lot of details before trusting they are acting in your best interests; most annuities sold to IRA holders are poor deals. In what. Since you want only moderate risk at least to start, and also since you are starting with a relatively small amount where minimum investments, expenses and fees can make more of an impact on your results, I would go with one or a few broad (= lower risk) index (= lower cost) fund(s). Every major fund familly also offers at least a few 'balanced' funds which give you a mixture of stocks and bonds, and sometimes some 'alternatives', in one fund.  Remember this is not committing you forever; any reasonable custodian will allow you to move or spread to more-adventurous (but not wild and crazy) investments, which may be better for you in future years when you have some more money in the account and some more time to ponder your goals and options and comfort level."}
{"text": "When to hire an investment professional? I don't know what you mean by 'major'. Do you mean the fund company is a Fidelity or Vanguard, or that the fund is broad, as in an s&P fund?  The problem starts with a question of what your goals are. If you already know the recommended mix for your age/risk, as you stated, you should consider minimizing the expenses, and staying DIY. I am further along, and with 12 year's income saved, a 1% hit would be 12% of a year's pay, I'd be working 1-1/2 months to pay the planner?  In effect, you are betting that a planner will beat whatever metric you consider valid by at least that 1% fee, else you can just do it yourself and be that far ahead of the game.  I've accepted the fact that I won't beat the average (as measured by the S&P) over time, but I'll beat the average investor. By staying in low cost funds (my 401(k) S&P fund charges .05% annual expense) I'll be ahead of the investors paying planner fees, and mutual fund fees on top of that. You don't need to be a CFP to manage your money, but it would help you understand the absurdity of the system."}
{"text": "Does the premium of an option of a certain strike price increase at a slower rate from OTM to ITM as gamma affects delta? If we assume constant volatility, gamma increases as the stock gets closer to the strike price. Thus, delta is increasing at a faster rate as the stock reaches closer to ITM because gamma is the derivative of delta. As the stock gets deeper ITM, the gamma will slow down as delta reaches 1 or -1 (depends if a call or a put). Thus, the value of the option will change depending upon the level of the delta. I am ignoring volatility and time for this description.  See this diagram from Investopedia: Gamma"}
{"text": "At what interest rate should debt be used as a tool? 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."}
{"text": "Are there any investment strategies which take advantage of an in-the-money option price that incorporates no \u201ctime value\u201d? you asked for strategies which use deep in the money options:  dividend mispricing can use deep in the money options, basically its an arbitrage play on ex-dividend dates. and any kind of spread can use deep in the money options, depending on how wide you want your spread to be"}
{"text": "What is the best way to make a bet that a certain stock will go up in the medium term? I think that those options might well be your best bet, given the potential 700% return in one year if you're right. You could look and see if any Synthetic Zeros (a Synthetic Zero is a derivative that will pay out a set amount if the underlying security is over a certain price point) exist for the share but chances are if they do they wouldn't offer the 700% return. Also might be worth asking the question at the quant stack exchange to see if they have any other ideas."}
{"text": "Expecting to move in five years; how to lock mortgage rates? If interest rates have gone up, don't sell when you move. Refinance to lock in a low rate and rent out your current house when you move. Let the rent pay your new mortgage."}
{"text": "Average Price of a Stock Edit3: Regarding the usefulness of the bare number itself, it is not useful unless, for example, an employer uses that average in the computation of how many options the employer grants to the employee as part of the compensation paid. One of my employers used just such an average. What is far more common is to use two or more moving averages, of different periods, plotted on a chart.  My original response continues below... Assuming there are 252 trading days a year, the following chart does what you have done but with a moving average: AAPL on Stockcharts.com  Edit: BTW, I looked up the number of Federal holidays, there are 9. The average year has 365.2422 days. 365.2422 \u00d7 5/7 = 260.8873. Subtract 9 and you get 251.8873 trading days in the average year. So 252 is a better number for the SMA than 250 if you want to average a year.  Edit2: Here is the same chart with more than one average included: AAPL chart w/indicators"}
{"text": "Who owns NASDAQ? Does it collect fees from stock transactions? NASDAQ OMX Group owns NASDAQ, a stock exchange. It is a corporation, and is listed on the NASDAQ as NDAQ. It makes money by: source NASDAQ also charges for market data services, found in the NASDAQ \"Datastore\". Other information about the fees charged by NYSE and NASDAQ may be found in the Investopedia article The NYSE And Nasdaq: How They Work."}
{"text": "One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this? Did you read Soichiro Honda's biography? He is the founder of Honda Motor. His plant was destroyed by an earthquake, and then he proceeded to build another factory which, as World War II broke out, was lost again with his money, and many of his friends', but he started again."}
{"text": "Question about Tax Information from a Prospectus A mutual fund could make two different kinds of distributions to you: Capital gains: When the fund liquidates positions that it holds, it may realize a gain if it sells the assets for a greater price than the fund purchased them for. As an example, for an index fund, assets may get liquidated if the underlying index changes in composition, thus requiring the manager to sell some stocks and purchase others. Mutual funds are required to distribute most of their income that they generate in this way back to its shareholders; many often do this near the end of the calendar year.  When you receive the distribution, the gains will be categorized as either short-term (the asset was held for less than one year) or long-term (vice versa). Based upon the holding period, the gain is taxed differently. Currently in the United States, long-term capital gains are only taxed at 15%, regardless of your income tax bracket (you only pay the capital gains tax, not the income tax). Short-term capital gains are treated as ordinary income, so you will pay your (probably higher) tax rate on any cash that you are given by your mutual fund. You may also be subject to capital gains taxes when you decide to sell your holdings in the fund. Any profit that you made based on the difference between your purchase and sale price is treated as a capital gain. Based upon the period of time that you held the mutual fund shares, it is categorized as a short- or long-term gain and is taxed accordingly in the tax year that you sell the shares. Dividends: Many companies pay dividends to their stockholders as a way of returning a portion of their profits to their collective owners. When you invest in a mutual fund that owns dividend-paying stocks, the fund is the \"owner\" that receives the dividend payments. As with capital gains, mutual funds will redistribute these dividends to you periodically, often quarterly or annually. The main difference with dividends is that they are always taxed as ordinary income, no matter how long you (or the fund) have held the asset. I'm not aware of Texas state tax laws, so I can't comment on your other question."}
{"text": "Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk? Rather than thinking of becoming a landlord as a passive \"investment\" (like a bank account or mutual fund), it may be useful to think of it as \"starting a small part-time business\". While certainly many people can and do start their own businesses, and there are many success stories, there are many cases where things don't work out quite as they hoped. I wouldn't call starting any new business \"low risk\", even one that isn't expected to be one's main full-time job, though some may be \"acceptable risk\" for your particular circumstances. But if you're going to start a part-time business, is there any particular reason you'd do so in real estate as opposed to some other activity? It sounds like you'd be completely new to real estate, so perhaps for your first business you're starting you'd want it to be something you're more familiar with. Or, if you do want to enter the real estate world (or any other new business), be sure to do a lot of research, come up with a business plan, and be prepared for the possibility of losing money as with any investment or new business."}
{"text": "If the former owner of my home is still using the address, can it harm me? Don't worry about it. One of the big banks who like to whine a lot about defaulting borrowers is sending credit cards to a former resident of my home. The guy died in the late 90s."}
{"text": "First time homeowner and getting a mortgage? First of all, think of anyone you know in your circle locally who may have gotten a mortgage recently.  Ask him, her, or them for a recommendation on what brokers they found helpful and most of all priced competitively. Second of all, you may consider asking a real estate agent.  Note that this is generally discouraged because agents sometimes (and sometimes justifiably) get a bad reputation for doing anything to get themselves the highest commission possible, and so folks want to keep the lender from knowing the agent.  Yet if you have a reputable, trustworthy agent, he or she can point you to a reputable, trustworthy broker who has been quoting your agent's other clients great rates. Third of all, make sure to check out the rates at places you might not expect - for example, any credit unions you or your spouse might have access to.  Credit unions often offer very competitive rates and fees.  After you have 2-3 brokers lined up, visit them all within a short amount of time (edit courtesy of the below comments, which show that 2 weeks has been quoted but that it may be less).  The reason to visit them close together is that in the pre-approval process you will be getting your credit hard pulled, which means that your score will be dinged a bit.  Visiting them all close together tells the bureaus to count all the hits as one new potential credit line instead of a couple or several, and so your score gets dinged less. Ask about rates, fees (they are required by law to give you what is called a Good Faith Estimate of their final fees), if pre-payment of the loan is allowed (required to re-finance or for paying off early), alternative schedules (such as bi-weekly or what a 20 year mortgage rate might be), the amortization schedule for your preferred loan, and ask for references from past clients. Pick a broker not only who has the best rates but also who appears able to be responsive if you need something quickly in order to close on a great deal."}
{"text": "How to pay bills for one month while waiting for new job? A traditional bank is not likely to give you a loan if you have no source of income. Credit card application forms also ask for your current income level and may reject you based on not having a job. You might want to make a list of income and expenses and look closely at which expenses can be reduced or eliminated. Use 6 months of your actual bills to calculate this list. Also make a list of your assets and liabilities. A sheet that lists income/expenses and assets/liabilities is called a Financial Statement. This is the most basic tool you'll need to get your expenses under control. There are many other options for raising capital to pay for your monthly expenses: Sell off your possessions that you no longer need or can't afford Ask for short term loan help from family and friends  Advertise for short term loan help on websites such as Kijiji Start a part-time business doing something that you like and people need. Tutoring, dog-walking, photography, you make the list and pick from it. Look into unemployment insurance. Apply as soon as you are out of work. The folks at the unemployment office are willing to answer all your questions and help you get what you need. Dip into your retirement fund. To reduce your expenses, here are a few things you may not have considered: If you own your home, make an appointment with your bank to discuss renegotiation of your mortgage payments. The bank will be more interested in helping you before you start missing payments than after. Depending on how much equity you have in your home, you may be able to significantly reduce payments by extending the life of the mortgage. Your banker will be impressed if you can bring them a balance sheet that shows your assets, liabilities, income and expenses.   As above, for car payments as well. Call your phone, cable, credit card, and internet service providers and tell them you want to cancel your service. This will immediately connect you to Customer Retention. Let them know that you are having a hard time paying your bill and will either have to negotiate a lower payment or cancel the service. This tactic can significantly reduce your payments. When you have your new job, there are some things you can do to make sure this doesn't happen again: Set aside 10% of your income in a savings account. Have it automatically deducted from your income at source if you can. 75% of Americans are 4 weeks away from bankruptcy. You can avoid this by forcing yourself to save enough to manage your household finances for 3 - 6 months, a year is better. If you own your own home, take out a line of credit against it based on the available equity. Your bank can help you with that. It won't cost you anything as long as you don't use it. This is emergency money; do not use it for vacations or car repairs. There will always be little emergencies in life, this line of credit is not for that.  Pay off your credit cards and loans, most expensive rate first. Use 10% of your income to do this. When the first one is paid off, use the 10% plus the interest you are now saving to pay off the next most expensive card/loan. Create a budget you can stick to. You can find a great budget calculator here: http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources/interactive_budget_worksheet.html Note I have no affiliation with the above-mentioned site, and have a great respect for this woman's ability to teach people about how to handle money."}
{"text": "How to see a portfolio's overall profit or loss on Yahoo Finance? The steps that I could imagine following:"}
{"text": "Can a Company which is listed at OTC and TSX considered to be serious? The assumption that companies listed OTC are not serious is far from the truth. Many companies on the OTC are just starting off there because they don't meet the requirements to be listed on the NASDAQ or NYSE. Major stock exchanges like the NASDAQ and the NYSE only want the best companies to trade on their exchanges.The NASDAQ, for example, has three sets of listing requirements. A company must meet at least one of the three requirement sets, as well as the main rules for all companies. These include: Now don't assume that the OTC doesn't have rules either, as this is far from the truth as well. While there are no minimum level of revenue, profits or assets required to get listed on the OTC there are requirements for audited financial statements and ongoing filing and reporting to the SEC and NASD. Additionally there are several different levels of the OTC, including the OTCQX, the OTCCB and the OTC Pink, each with their own set of requirements. For more information about what it takes to be listed on OTC look here: http://www.otcmarkets.com/learn/otc-trading A company deciding to trade on the OTC is making the decision to take their company public, and they are investing to make it happen. Currently the fees to get listed on the OTC range from $30,000 to $150,000 depending on the firm you decide to go with and the services they offer as part as their package. Now, I know I wouldn't consider $30K (or more) to not be serious money! When I looked into the process of getting a company listed on the TSX the requirements seemed a lot more relaxed than those of the major U.S. markets as well, consisting of an application, records submission and then a decision made by a TSX committee about whether you get listed. More information about the TSX here: http://apps.tmx.com/en/listings/listing_with_us/process/index.html I think the way that the OTC markets have gotten such a bad reputation is from these \"Get Rich on Penny Stock\" companies that you see pumping up OTC company stocks and getting massive amounts of people to buy without doing their due diligence and investigating the company and reading its prospectus. Then when they loose a bunch of money on an ill-informed investment decision they blame it on the company being an OTC stock.  Whether you decide to trade the OTC market or not, I wouldn't make a decision based on how many exchanges the company is listed on, but rather based on the research you do into the company."}
{"text": "Who can truly afford luxury cars? Most of the people I know that own them are slightly older, and thus in their prime earning years, and many have paid off their homes. That can free up $1000 a month or more in monthly expenses, which would easily cover a nice luxury car payment.  If you've got it, and are into cars, why not? What's the point in having the biggest tombstone in the graveyard?"}
{"text": "give free budgeting advice The counsel of a friend doesn't come with a legal or professional liability. The key to doing this sort of thing successfully is to respect boundaries. You are providing advice and discussion, not taking over your friend's life."}
{"text": "What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US? Bad plan. This seems like a recipe for having your money taken away from you by CBP.  Let me explain the biases which make it so.  US banking is reliable enough for the common citizen, that everyone simply uses banks.  To elaborate, Americans who are unbanked either can't produce simple identity paperwork; or they got an account but then got blacklisted for overdrawing it. These are problems of the poor, not millionaires.  Outside of determined \"off the grid\" folks with political reasons to not be in the banking and credit systsm, anyone with money uses the banking system.  Who's not a criminal, anyway.  We also have strong laws against money laundering: turning cash (of questionable origin) into \"sanitized\" cash on deposit in a bank.  The most obvious trick is deposit $5000/day for 200 days. Nope, that's Structuring: yeah, we have a word for that.  A guy with $1 million cash, it is presumed he has no choice: he can't convert it into a bank deposit, as in this problem - note where she says she can't launder it.  If it's normal for people in your country to haul around cash, due to a defective banking system, you're not the only one with that problem, and nearby there'll be a country with a good banking system who understands your situation.  Deposit it there.  Then retain a US lawyer who specializes in this, and follow his advice about moving the money to the US via funds transfer. Even then, you may have some explaining to do; but far less than with cash.  (And keep in mind for those politically motivated off-the-financial-grid types, they're a bit crazy but definitely not stupid, live a cash life everyday, and know the law better than anybody. They would definitely consider using banks and funds transfers for the border crossing proper, because of Customs.  Then they'll turn it into cash domestically and close the accounts.)"}
{"text": "Is it worth investing in Index Fund, Bond Index Fund and Gold at the same time? Index funds can be a very good way to get into the stock market. It's a lot easier, and cheaper, to buy a few shares of an index fund than it is to buy a few shares in hundreds of different companies. An index fund will also generally charge lower fees than an \"actively managed\" mutual fund, where the manager tries to pick which stocks to invest for you. While the actively managed fund might give you better returns (by investing in good companies instead of every company in the index) that doesn't always work out, and the fees can eat away at that advantage. (Stocks, on average, are expected to yield an annual return of 4%, after inflation. Consider that when you see an expense ratio of 1%. Index funds should charge you more like 0.1%-0.3% or so, possibly more if it's an exotic index.) The question is what sort of index you're going to invest in. The Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is a major index, and if you see someone talking about the performance of a mutual fund or investment strategy, there's a good chance they'll compare it to the return of the S&P 500. Moreover, there are a variety of index funds and exchange-traded funds that offer very good expense ratios (e.g. Vanguard's ETF charges ~0.06%, very cheap!). You can also find some funds which try to get you exposure to the entire world stock market, e.g. Vanguard Total World Stock ETF, NYSE:VT). An index fund is probably the ideal way to start a portfolio - easy, and you get a lot of diversification. Later, when you have more money available, you can consider adding individual stocks or investing in specific sectors or regions. (Someone else suggested Brazil/Russia/Indo-China, or BRICs - having some money invested in that region isn't necessarily a bad idea, but putting all or most of your money in that region would be. If BRICs are more of your portfolio then they are of the world economy, your portfolio isn't balanced. Also, while these countries are experiencing a lot of economic growth, that doesn't always mean that the companies that you own stock in are the ones which will benefit; small businesses and new ventures may make up a significant part of that growth.) Bond funds are useful when you want to diversify your portfolio so that it's not all stocks. There's a bunch of portfolio theory built around asset allocation strategies. The idea is that you should try to maintain a target mix of assets, whatever the market's doing. The basic simplified guideline about investing for retirement says that your portfolio should have (your age)% in bonds (e.g. a 30-year-old should have 30% in bonds, a 50-year-old 50%.) This helps maintain a balance between the volatility of your portfolio (the stock market's ups and downs) and the rate of return: you want to earn money when you can, but when it's almost time to spend it, you don't want a sudden stock market crash to wipe it all out. Bonds help preserve that value (but don't have as nice of a return). The other idea behind asset allocation is that if the market changes - e.g. your stocks go up a lot while your bonds stagnate - you rebalance and buy more bonds. If the stock market subsequently crashes, you move some of your bond money back into stocks. This basically means that you buy low and sell high, just by maintaining your asset allocation. This is generally more reliable than trying to \"time the market\" and move into an asset class before it goes up (and move out before it goes down). Market-timing is just speculation. You get better returns if you guess right, but you get worse returns if you guess wrong. Commodity funds are useful as another way to diversify your portfolio, and can serve as a little bit of protection in case of crisis or inflation. You can buy gold, silver, platinum and palladium ETFs on the stock exchanges. Having a small amount of money in these funds isn't a bad idea, but commodities can be subject to violent price swings! Moreover, a bar of gold doesn't really earn any money (and owning a share of a precious-metals ETF will incur administrative, storage, and insurance costs to boot). A well-run business does earn money. Assuming you're saving for the long haul (retirement or something several decades off) my suggestion for you would be to start by investing most of your money* in index funds to match the total world stock market (with something like the aforementioned NYSE:VT, for instance), a small portion in bonds, and a smaller portion in commodity funds. (For all the negative stuff I've said about market-timing, it's pretty clear that the bond market is very expensive right now, and so are the commodities!) Then, as you do additional research and determine what sort investments are right for you, add new investment money in the places that you think are appropriate - stock funds, bond funds, commodity funds, individual stocks, sector-specific funds, actively managed mutual funds, et cetera - and try to maintain a reasonable asset allocation. Have fun. *(Most of your investment money. You should have a separate fund for emergencies, and don't invest money in stocks if you know you're going need it within the next few years)."}
{"text": "Do I owe taxes if my deductions are higher than my income? I'm going to echo Phil and say that you should add more information. That being said, I think it is possible for you to owe the government that much. If you received a federal health insurance subsidy and live in a state that didn't expand medicaid, you could have received a subsidy through out the year that you did not end up qualifying for. It appears you are outside the medicaid limit of 133% of the poverty level($11,670) or $15,521. If you received a subsidy of $275 a month from the marketplace, you would have received $3300 worth of aid from the government that you don't qualify for. Now they are expecting you to pay it back."}
{"text": "What to sell when your financial needs change, stocks or bonds? You are right about the stock and index funds, with dollar cost averaging over several years, the daily price of the security (especially a dividend paying security) will not matter* because your position will have accumulated larger over several entry points, some entries with cheaper shares and some entries with more expensive shares. In the future your position will be so large that any uptick will net you large gains on your original equity. *not matter being a reference to even extreme forms of volatility. But if you had all your equity in a poor company and tanked, never to rise again, then you would still be in a losing position even with dollar cost averaging. If your only other holdings are bonds, then you MAY want to sell those to free up capital."}
{"text": "Why do stocks gap up after a buyout is announced? The \"random walk\" that you describe reflects the nature of the information flow about the value of a stock.  If the flow is just little bits of relatively unimportant information (including information about the broader market and the investor pool), you will get small and seemingly random moves, which may look like a meander.  If an important bit of information comes out, like a merger, you will see a large and immediate move, which may not look as random. However, the idea that small moves are a meander of search and discovery and large moves are immediate agreements is incorrect.  Both small moves and large moves are instantaneous agreements about the value of a stock in the form of a demand/supply equilibrium.  As a rule, neither is predictable from the point of view of a single investor, but they are not actually random.  They look different from each other only because of the size of the movement, not because of an underlying difference in how the consensus price is reached."}
{"text": "Should I sell when my stocks are growing? If you feel comfortable taking an 8% gain on your stocks, then yes, you should sell. It is generally a good idea to know when you want to sell (either a price or %) before you ever actually buy the stocks. That helps from getting emotional and making poor decisions."}
{"text": "Question about data from FTSE 100 Open, high, low, close, volume. The hint is that volume on new years day is 0.  DC's comment is actually a better answer than mine - when given any data set, you should really know the meaning of each cell/number."}
{"text": "Can someone help me understand my student loans? First to actually answer the question \"how long at these rates/payments?\"-  These is nothing magic or nefarious about what the bank is doing. They add accrued interest and take your payment off the new total.  I'd make higher payments to the 8.75% debt until it's gone, $100/mo extra and be done. The first debt, if you bump it to $50 will be paid in 147 months, at $75/mo, 92 months. Everything you pay above the minimum goes right to the principal balance and gets you closer to paying it off.  The debt snowball is not the ideal way to pay off your debt. Say I have one 24% credit card the bank was nice enough to give me a $20,000 line of credit on. I also have 20 cards each with $1000 in credit, all at 6%. The snowball dictates that the smallest debt be paid first, so while I pay the minimum on the 24% card, the 6% cards get paid off one by one, but I'm supposed to feel good about the process, as I reduce the number of cards every few months.  The correct way to line up debt is to pay off the (tax adjusted) highest rate first, as an extra $100 to the 24% card saves you $2/mo vs 50 cents/mo for the 6% cards. I wrote an article discussing the Debt Snowball which links to a calculator where you can see the difference in methods. I note that if the difference from lowest to highest rate is small, the Snowball method will only cost you a small amount more. If, by coincidence, the balances are close, the difference will also be small.  The above aside, it's the rest of your situation that will tell you the right path for you. For example, a matched 401(k) deposit should take priority over most debt repayment. The $11,000 might be better conserved for a house downpayment as that $66/mo is student loan and won't count as the housing debt, rather \"other debt\" and part of the higher ratio when qualifying for the mortgage. If you already have taken this into account, by all means, pay off the 8.75% debt asap, then start paying off the 3% faster. Keep in mind, this is likely the lowest rate debt one can have and once paid off, you can't withdraw it again. So it's important to consider the big picture first.  (Are you depositing to a retirement account? Is it a 401(k) and are you getting any matching from the company?)"}
{"text": "Does a stock's price represent current liquidation of all shares? What if everyone decided to sell all the shares at a given moment, let's say when the stock is trading at $40? It would fall to the lowest bid price, which could be $0.01 if someone had that bid in place. Here is an example which I happened to find online:  Notice there are orders to buy at half the market price and lower... probably all the way down to pennies.  If there were enough selling activity to fill all of those bids you see, then the market price would be the lowest bid on the screen.  Alternatively, the bid orders could be pulled (cancelled), which would also let the price free-fall to the lowest bid even if there were few actual sellers. Bid-stuffing is what HFT (high frequency trading) algorithms sometimes do, which some say caused the Flash Crash of May 2010.  The computers \"stuff\" bids into the order book, making it look like there is demand in order to trigger a market reaction, then they pull the bids to make the market fall.  This sort of thing happens all the time and Nanex documents it http://www.nanex.net/FlashCrash/OngoingResearch.html Quote stuffing defined: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quote-stuffing.asp I remember the day of the Flash Crash very well.  I found this video on youtube of CNBC at that time.  Watch from the 5:00 min mark on the video as Jim Crammer talks about PG easily not being worth the price of the market at that time.  He said \"Who cares?\", \"Its not a real price\", \"$49.25 bid for 50,000 shares if I were at my hedge fund.\"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86g4_w4j3jU You can value a stock how you want, but its only actually worth what someone will give you for it. More examples: Anadarko Petroleum, which as we noted in today's EOD post, lost $45 billion in market cap in 45 milliseconds (a collapse rate of $1 billion per millisecond), flash crashing from $90 all the way to an (allegedly illegal) stub quote of $0.01. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-17/how-last-second-flash-crash-pushed-sp-500-1667-1666 How 10,000 Contracts Crashed The Market: A Visual Deconstruction Of Last Night's E-Mini Flash Crash http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-21/how-10000-contracts-crashed-market-visual-deconstruction-last-nights-e-mini-flash-cr Symantec Flash-Crash Destroys Over $1.5 Billion In Less Than A Second http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-30/symantec-flash-crash-destroys-over-15-billion-less-second This sort of thing happens so often, I don't pay much attention anymore."}
{"text": "When buying a call option, is the financial stability of the option writer relevant? In the case of regulated, exchange-traded options, the writer of an options contract is obliged to maintain a margin with their broker, and the broker is obliged to maintain a margin with the clearing house.  (Institutional writers of options will deal directly with the clearing house.) In the event that the writer is unable to make a daily margin call, the broker (or clearing house) may automatically close out (all of) their positions using existing margin held.  If there was a shortfall, the broker (or clearing house) would be left to persue the client (writer) to make good on their obligations. None of this effects the position of the original buyer of the options contract.  Effectively, the buyer's counterparty is their broker's clearing house account."}
{"text": "Any Tips on How to Get the Highest Returns Within 4 Months by Investing in Stocks? Invest in an etf called SPXS and hope for a market correction in the next month. Or if you know a lot about markets and trends, select from this list of leveraged etfs available from Direxion."}
{"text": "Can someone explain recent AAMRQ stock price behavior to me? There are things that are clearly beyond me as well. Cash per share is $12.61 but the debt looks like $30 or so per share. I look at that, and the $22 negative book value and don't see where the shareholders are able to recoup anything."}
{"text": "Problems with Enterprise Value and better valuation techniques This is a tough question SFun28.  Let's try and debug the metric. First, let's expand upon the notion share price is determined in an efficient market where prospective buyers and sellers have access to info on an enterprises' cash balance and they may weigh that into their decision making.  Therefore, a desirable/undesirable cash balance may raise or lower the share price, to what extent, we do not know.   We must ask How significant is cash/debt balance in determining the market price of a stock?   As you noted, we have limited info, which may decrease the weight of these account balances in our decision process. Using a materiality level of 5% of net income of operations, cash/debt may be immaterial or not considered by an investor. investors oftentimes interpret the same information differently (e.g. Microsoft's large cash balance may show they no longer have innovative ideas worth investing in, or they are well positioned to acquire innovative companies, or weather a contraction in the sector) My guess is a math mind would ignore the affect of account balances on the equity portion of the enterprise value calculation because it may not be a factor, or because the affect is subjective."}
{"text": "Gigantic point amount on rewards card - what are potential consequences? An ideal option for you would be to use as many or as few as you choose, but have all of them available to you. The service desk guy told you you can do exactly that. Problem, though: you have no proof that a representative of the company told you that. Get proof. Recording, written statement, whatever. If writing a letter, make it clear you expect a response. The time you spend \"being a good guy\" is not free, you should get something for it. No idea how to go about that - mentioning the service desk guy in a letter might give him trouble. Maybe suggest that you could allow your image to be used in a short advertising campaign, as thanks. But whatever you do get, enjoy it. Consequences? Any number of things can happen, from lifetime free meals to court cases, negative points and being banned, regardless of who is right, legally or morally. Someone in Management there might still choose to burden you with responsibility even if their own CEO declared you a saint and lifetime customer of honor. But you might never get to that bridge. For now, get proof, and use what points you know are yours anyway."}
{"text": "If I want to take cash from Portugal to the USA, should I exchange my money before leaving or after arriving? I would just rely on the salary from my job in the US. If you don't have a job in the US, you're very unlikely to get a visa to move there and look for work, and so the question of how to take money there (except for a holiday) doesn't arise. (Unless you have dual Portuguese/American citizenship.)"}
{"text": "Ways to save for child's college education where one need not commit to set contributions? [duplicate] Since this post was migrated from Parenting, my reply was in the context where it appeared to be misrepresenting facts to make a point. I've edited it to be more concise to my main point. In my opinion, the best way to save for your childs future is to get rid of as much of your own debt as possible. Starting today. For the average American, a car is 6-10%. Most people have at least a couple credit cards, ranging from 10-25% (no crap). College loans can be all over the map (5-15%) as can be signature (8-15%) or secured bank loans (4-8%). Try to stop living within your credit and live within your means. Yeah it will suck to not go to movies or shop for cute things at Kohl's, but only today.  First, incur no more debt. Then, the easiest way I found to pay things off is to use your tax returns and reduce your cable service (both potentially $Ks per year) to pay off a big debt like a car or student loan. You just gave yourself an immediate raise of whatever your payment is. If you think long term (we're talking about long-term savings for a childs college) there are things you can do to pay off debt and save money without having to take up a 2nd job... but you have to think in terms of years, not months. Is this kind of thing pie in the sky? Yes and no, but it takes a plan and diligence. For example, we have no TV service (internet only service redirected an additional $100/mo to the wifes lone credit card) and we used '12 taxes to pay off the last 4k on the car. We did the same thing on our van last year. It takes willpower to not cheat, but that's only really necessary for the first year-ish... well before that point you'll be used to the Atkins Diet on your wallet and will have no desire to cheat. It doesn't really hurt your quality of life (do you really NEED 5 HBO channels?) and it sets everyone up for success down the line. The moral of the story is that by paying down your debt today, you're taking steps to reduce long haul expenditures. A stable household economy is a tremendous foundation for raising children and can set you up to be more able to deal with the costs of higher ed."}
{"text": "What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? I used to use Quicken, but support for that has been suspended in the UK.  I had started using Mvelopes, but support for that was suspended as well!  What I use now is an IPhone app called IXpenseit to track my spending."}
{"text": "Investing small amounts at regular intervals while minimizing fees? I think your best bet would be commission-free ETFs, which have no minimum and many have a share price under $100. Most online brokerages have these now, e.g. Vanguard, Fidelity, etc. Just have to watch out for any non-trading fees brokerages may charge with a low balance."}
{"text": "What does F[YY]e mean in reporting It means it's estimate and not final numbers and generally used for future years"}
{"text": "Do Americans really use checks that often? Sorry for this late reply.  I currently live in Iceland (I am a United Statesian). People here told me they thought checks were just something that were in movies. I was amazed by this. So here are some reasons that I see to being why it works still in the usa. 1. Social Security system. Most Euro, Nordic countries have their lives, bank accounts, ect tied to their 'Social Security' number and that number is not top secret like it is in the USA. In fact here in Iceland you throw your number around to anyone who wants it because they cant do anything with it but pay you money really. 2. Banks. In the USA there are millions, MILLIONS of small town banks. That means that doing direct deposits or transfers is much much harder to achieve. Example: Iceland has two banks. The most common way of loaning a friend money or paying for that hotel room if you forgot to bring cash or your card is to say 'Give me your SSN and I will transfer to you'. It takes about 30 seconds to do a funds transfer. In the USA you can't do that. They would think you are lying or not want to give they bank info or because of the fees from small town banks it would be pointless. Also a lot of these small banks will not accept direct deposit (I had a bank growing up that still does not) These are some of the main reasons that I think cause the flow of checks in the usa."}
{"text": "Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? Basically, you have purchased 25% of the condo for $40,000, and your parents bought 75% of the condo for another $115,000. We imagine for a moment that it wasn't you who lived in the condo, but some unrelated person paying rent.  You are paying $7,500 a year for tax and fees, plus $6,000 a year, so there is $13,500 leaving your wallet. If $15,500 a year was a reasonable rent, then the tax and fee would be paid out of that, there would be $8,000 left, of which you would get 25% = $2,000. If you were officially \"renting\" it, you would pay $15,500 a year, and get $2,000 back, again $13,500 leaving your wallet. So you are in exact the same situation financially as you would be if you paid $15,500 rent.   Question: Is $15,500 a year or $1,290 a month an appropriate rent for your condo? If a neighbour is renting his condo, is he or she paying $1,290 or more or less? Could you rent the same place for the same money? If $1,290 is the correct rent then you are fine. If the rent should be lower, then you are overpaying. If the rent should be higher, then you are making money.  Keep in mind that you will also be winning if rents go up in the future."}
{"text": "Do I pay taxes on a gift of mutual funds? I gift my daughter stock worth $1000. No tax issue. She sells it for $2000, and has a taxable gain of $1000 that shows up on her return.  Yes, you need to find out the date of the gift, as that is the date you value the fund for cost basis. The $3500 isn't a concern, as the gift seems to have been given well before that. It's a long term capital gain when you sell it.  And, in a delightfully annoying aspect of our code, the dividends get added to basis each year, as you were paying tax on the dividend whether or not you actually received it. Depending on the level of dividends, your basis may very well be as high as the $6500 current value.  (pls ask if anything here needs clarification)"}
{"text": "How can I legally and efficiently help my girlfriend build equity by helping with a mortgage? Have her pay something like a friendly monthly rent. This should be less than half of the monthly mortgage cost, since you are assuming the risk (and benefits) of a mortgage and closer to the rent of similar places near you. For when you get married and she is to have half the apartment, have a pre-agreed way to calculate a lump-sum that she needs to provide to match your own contributions up to that time, as if you two had equal contributions from the beginning. The financially precise way to do it would be to have her pay more than the mere sum of the amount (since she will be providing the amount at a later time than you), but I would be generous and skip this in your place if the difference is not too big. If you break up, she will have payed what would be a fair amount of rent, as if you two were renting, so, in this sense, it is fair that she would not have a claim on the apartment. In case that you two would like that she keeps the apartment, you can just sell it to her, having her pay this same amount as above and assume responsibility for the rest of the mortgage."}
{"text": "Why do some people say a house \u201cnot an investment\u201d? One reason I have heard (beside to keep you paying rent) is the cost of maintenance and improvements.  If you hire someone else to do all the work for you, then it may very well be the case, though it is not as bad as a car. Many factors come into play:   If you are lucky, you may end up with a lot that is worth more than the house on it in a few decades' time. Personally, I feel that renting is sometimes better than owning depending on the local market.  That said, when you own a home, it is yours.  You do have to weigh in such factors as being tied down to a certain location to some extent.  However, only the police can barge in -- under certain circumstances -- where as a landlord can come in whenever they feel like, given proper notice or an \"emergency.\"  Not to mention that if someone slams a door so hard that it reverberates through the entire place, you can actually deal with it. The point of this last bit is the question of home ownership vs renting is rather subjective.  Objectively, the costs associated with home ownership are the drags that may make it a bad investment.  However, it is not like car ownership, which is quite honestly rarely an invesment."}
{"text": "Who can truly afford luxury cars? Bravo to A.O's analysis, even with it's resentful tone.... I did not have any help from my parents and still can't afford a luxury car. I have two college degrees, raised three children, and have always worked at least a 40 hour work week. The only reason I can give is not wanting it badly enough... It all boils down to what each of us wants out of life and our perspective. If your perspective is to compete with others in appearances, you will end up empty. However, if you want a quality, enriched life, there is nothing wrong with what you drive. It all boils down to how you feel about what you drive...."}
{"text": "Why do credit cards require a minimum annual household income? It is much simpler than any of that.  People who make money have a greater capacity to pay their bills.  Credit card companies make money off of people who can afford to pay several hundred dollars a month in interest charges.  If you only make 500 a month you can not afford to pay 200 in interest.  So their cost of doing business with you is higher.  These cards are issued to make money.  And they make their money off of people paying 12-29% interest on their 5k+ credit limits they have nearly maxed."}
{"text": "How much does a landlord pay in taxes? I'd recommend you use an online tax calculator to see the effect it will have. To your comment with @littleadv, there's FMV, agreed, but there's also a rate below that. One that's a bit lower than FMV, but it's a discount for a tenant who will handle certain things on their own. I had an arm's length tenant, who was below FMV, I literally never met him. But, our agreement through a realtor, was that for any repairs, I was not required to arrange or meet repairmen. FMV is not a fixed number, but a bit of a range.  If this is your first rental, you need to be aware of the requirement to take depreciation. Simply put, you separate your cost into land and house. The house value gets depreciated by 1/27.5 (i.e. you divide the value by 27.5 and that's taken as depreciation each year. You may break even on cash flow, the rent paying the mortgage, property tax, etc, but the depreciation might still produce a loss. This isn't optional. It flows to your tax return, and is limited to $25K/yr. Further, if your adjusted gross income  is over $100K, the allowed loss is phased out over the next $50K of income. i.e. each $1000 of AGI reduces the allowed loss by $500. The losses you can't take are carried forward, until you use them to offset profit each year, or sell the property.  If you offer numbers, you'll get a more detailed answer, but this is the general overview. In general, if you are paying tax, you are doing well, running a profit even after depreciation."}
{"text": "Is Investments by Bodie just an expanded version of Essentials of Investments? They are actually both undergraduate texts; however, Investments is FAR more complex.   Essentials of Investments really waters down the statistical and mathematical notation while Investments does not.  Investments also has an entire section (4-5 chapters) called options, futures, and other derivatives while Essentials of Investments does not.   [Of course, if you want to learn about options, futures, and other derivatives, there is a seminal book by John Hull with that exact title.] That notwithstanding, neither book is sophisticated enough to be considered a true graduate school textbook in quantitative investment theory.  No grad schools worth their salt are going to rely too heavily on Investments in a specialized finance curriculum.   It's a great book to start out, though."}
{"text": "Can company owners use lay offs to prevent restricted stock from vesting before an acquisition? Depending on your local laws, such a layoff may be an unlawful act. If the whole purpose of the lay-off is to strip the employees of their RSU's, the employer may be liable and get sued. However, you have to check that with a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction. In many places there are no laws against this. In any case, you may claim that there was no good faith/just cause in the action and still sue the employer. Mere threat of a lawsuit may thwart the whole deal, so I suggest the employees to lawyer up and talk to the employer. That, by the way, will require to create a union - a representative body for the employees. In some places that by itself may be a just cause for termination (in some extremely anti-union jurisdictions, I would guess if there were some they would be in the US). Bottom line - talk to a lawyer."}
{"text": "Automatic investments for cheap If you are not worried about timing the market and want to buy primarily \"blue chip\" stocks to hold for a while, consider using Loyal3. They don't charge any commission. The downside is that trades are executed at the end of the day and there's only about 60 companies currently available (but there are some really good ones currently available)."}
{"text": "Why do some people go through contortions to avoid paying taxes, yet spend money on expensive financial advice, high-interest loans, etc? The bank provides a service that the customer voluntarily agreed to - the bank will provide funds to the customer now and the customer will pay back those funds plus interest in the future.  The arragement wasn't forced onto the customer. The government, on the other hand, takes money (the exchange is not volutary) from people to provide a \"service\".  This frustrates a lot of people - myself included - since people do not have a choice.  They must pay the taxes or go to jail (or have their house confisicated, wages garnished, etc.).  It gets even more frustrating when the government takes money from the people and gives it to the banks, auto companies, insurance companies, etc.."}
{"text": "Is trading stocks easier than trading commodities? One reason why you may have gotten this advice is that stocks have an expected real return over time, while commodities do not. Therefore, when gambling on individual stocks, odds are in your favor that they will ultimately go up over time. You may do better or worse than the market as a whole, but they will likely go up as the whole market, on average, rises over time. Commodities, on the other hand, have no expected real return. It is more zero-sum. In fact, after costs, a real loss should be expected on average, making gambling in here more risky."}
{"text": "Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area? Some of this is demand management.  The local BJ's wholesale club sells gas $0.10-0.15/gallon less than the prevailing rate. Typically there are lines of 3-5 cars waiting for a pump during busy periods. People are price-conscious when buying gas, which draws crowds and the retailer actually wants a line -- the whole point of the gas station is to draw traffic to the warehouse club. Other gas stations have the opposite problem -- big crowds lead to fewer people buying food and drinks in the convenience store, which is where the business actually makes its money. They want a steady stream of people. In my area, there is a gas station that is on a busy intersection right off the highway ramp going to the airport. Their problem is that people returning rental cars used to swarm the gas station and cause traffic tie-ups on the road -- a problem averted by marking up the gas $0.30."}
{"text": "How do I deal with a mistaken attempt to collect a debt from me that is owed by someone else? It may be a scam. But it also may be a company trying to find a person with the same or similar name. They may have followed a trail to her old address, and still not have the correct person. They bought number of old debts at a large discount, and are trying to track down any money they can find. It is best to ignore it, especially if they know it isn't their debt. If they start providing more proof then get interested. If they keep contacting them tell them there is no business relationship and they should stop."}
{"text": "What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? I wish I would have known macro-economics taught by the Austrian School types at The Mises Institute.  Their teachings would have compelled me to do the following:"}
{"text": "If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting? I'd be a bit concerned about someone who wanted to transact that large of a transaction in cash.  Also consider what you are going to do with the funds, if you deposit it, you will need to tell the bank where it comes from. Why does the bank want to know, because most legal businesses don't transact business with large sums of currency.. What does that tell you about the likelihood the person you are about to do business with is a criminal or involved in criminal affairs?  The lower bill of sale price might be more than just to dodge taxes, it could be part of money laundering..  If they can turn right around and 'sell' the boat for $10K, or trade it in on a bigger boat for the same amount, and have a bill than says $4K, then they have just come up with a legal explanation for how they made 6 grand.  and you could potentially be considered an accomplice if someone is checking up on their finances. Really, is it worth the risk."}
{"text": "Where should I invest my savings? Basically the first thing you should do before you invest your money is to learn about investing and learn about what you want to invest in. Another thing to think about is that usually low risk can also mean low returns. As you are quite young and have some savings put aside you should generally aim for higher risk higher return investments and then when you start to reach retirement age aim for less risky lower return investments. In saying that, just because an investment is considered high risk does not mean you have to be exposed to the full risk of that investment. You do this by managing your risk to an acceptable level which will allow you to sleep at night. To do this you need to learn about what you are investing in. As an example about managing your risk in an investment, say you want to invest $50,000 in shares. If you put the full $50,000 into one share and that share price drops dramatically you will lose a large portion of your money straight away. If instead you spent a maximum of $10,000 on 5 different shares, even if one of them falls dramatically, you still have another 4 which may be doing a lot better thus minimising your losses. To take it one step further you might say if anyone of the shares you bought falls by 20% then you will sell those shares and limit your losses to $2000 per share. If the worst case scenario occurred and all 5 of your shares fell during a stock market crash you would limit your total losses to $10,000 instead of $50,000. Most successful investors put just as much if not more emphasis on managing the risk on their investments and limiting their losses as they do in selecting the investments. As I am not in the US, I cannot really comment whether it is the right time to buy property over there, especially as the market conditions would be different in different states and in different areas of each state. However, a good indication of when to buy properties is when prices have dropped and are starting to stabilise. As you are renting at the moment one option you might want to look at is buying a place to live in so you don't need to rent any more. You can compare your current rent payment with the mortgage payment if you were to buy a house to live in. If your mortgage payments are lower than your rent payments then this could be a good option. But whatever you do make sure you learn about it first. Make sure you spend the time looking at for sale properties for a few months in the area you want to buy before you do buy. This will give you an indication of how much properties in that area are really worth and if prices are stable, still falling or starting to go up. Good luck, and remember, research, research and more research. Even if you are to take someone elses advice and recommendations, you should learn enough yourself to be able to tell if their advice and recommendations make sense and are right for your current situation."}
{"text": "Is my mortgage more likely to be sold if I pre-pay principal? There are two ways that mortgages are sold: The loan is collateralized and sold to investors. This allows the bank to free up money for more loans. Of course sometime the loan may be treated like in the game of hot potato nobody want s to be holding a shaky loan when it goes into default. The second way that a loan is sold is through the servicing of the loan. This is the company or bank that collects your monthly payments, and handles the disbursement of escrow funds. Some banks lenders never sell servicing, others never do the servicing themselves. Once the servicing is sold the first time there is no telling how many times it will be sold.  The servicing of the loan is separate from the collateralization of the loan. When you applied for the loan you should have been given a Servicing Disclosure Statement Servicing Disclosure Statement. RESPA requires the lender or mortgage   broker to tell you in writing, when you apply for a loan or within the   next three business days, whether it expects that someone else will be   servicing your loan (collecting your payments). The language is set by the US government: [We may assign, sell, or transfer the servicing of your loan while the   loan is outstanding.] [or] [We do not service mortgage loans of the   type for which you applied. We intend to assign, sell, or transfer the   servicing of your mortgage loan before the first payment is due.] [or]   [The loan for which you have applied will be serviced at this   financial institution and we do not intend to sell, transfer, or   assign the servicing of the loan.] [INSTRUCTIONS TO PREPARER: Insert   the date and select the appropriate language under \"Servicing Transfer   Information.\" The model format may be annotated with further   information that clarifies or enhances the model language.]"}
{"text": "Purchasing options between the bid and ask prices, or even at the bid price or below? This sometimes happens to me. It depends on how liquid the option is. Normally what I see happening is that the order book mutates itself around my order. I interpret this to mean that the order book is primarily market makers. They see a retail investor (me) come in and, since they don't have any interest in this illiquid option, they back off. Some other retail investor (or whatever) steps in with a market order, and we get matched up. I get a fill because I become the market maker for a brief while. On highly liquid options, buy limits at the bid tend to get swallowed because the market makers are working the spread. With very small orders (a contract or two) on very liquid options, I've had luck getting quick fills in the middle of the spread, which I attribute to MM's rebalancing their holdings on the cheap, although sometimes I like to think there's some other anal-retentive like me out there that hates to see such a lopsided book. :) I haven't noticed any particular tendency for this to happen more with puts or calls, or with buy vs sell transactions. For a while I had a suspicion that this was happening with strikes where IV didn't match IV of other strikes, but I never cared enough to chase it down as it was a minor part of my overall P/L."}
{"text": "How to evaluate stocks? e.g. Whether some stock is cheap or expensive? If you are looking for numerical metrics I think the following are popular: Price/Earnings (P/E) - You mentioned this very popular one in your question.  There are different P/E ratios - forward (essentially an estimate of future earnings by management), trailing, etc..  I think of the P/E as a quick way to grade a company's income statement (i.e: How much does the stock cost verusus the amount of earnings being generated on a per share basis?). Some caution must be taken when looking at the P/E ratio.  Earnings can be \"massaged\" by the company.  Revenue can be moved between quarters, assets can be depreciated at different rates, residual value of assets can be adjusted, etc..  Knowing this, the P/E ratio alone doesn't help me determine whether or not a stock is cheap. In general, I think an affordable stock is one whose P/E is under 15. Price/Book - I look at the Price/Book as a quick way to grade a company's balance sheet.  The book value of a company is the amount of cash that would be left if everything the company owned was sold and all debts paid (i.e. the company's net worth).  The cash is then divided amoung the outstanding shares and the Price/Book can be computed.  If a company had a price/book under 1.0 then theoretically you could purchase the stock, the company could be liquidated, and you would end up with more money then what you paid for the stock. This ratio attempts to answer: \"How much does the stock cost based on the net worth of the company?\" Again, this ratio can be \"massaged\" by the company.  Asset values have to be estimated based on current market values (think about trying to determine how much a company's building is worth) unless, of course, mark-to-market is suspended.  This involves some estimating.  Again, I don't use this value alone in determing whether or not a stock is cheap. I consider a price/book value under 10 a good number.   Cash - I look at growth in the cash balance of a company as a way to grade a company's cash flow statement.  Is the cash account growing or not? As they say, \"Cash is King\".  This is one measurement that can not be \"massaged\" which is why I like it.  The P/E and Price/Book can be \"tuned\" but in the end the company cannot hide a shrinking cash balance. Return Ratios - Return on Equity is a measure of the amount of earnings being generated for a given amount of equity (ROE = earnings/(assets - liabilities)).  This attempts to measure how effective the company is at generating earnings with a given amount of equity.  There is also Return on Assets which measures earnings returns based on the company's assets. I tend to think an ROE over 15% is a good number. These measurements rely on a company accurately reporting its financial condition.  Remember, in the US companies are allowed to falsify accounting reports if approved by the government so be careful.  There are others who simply don't follow the rules and report whatever numbers they like without penalty. There are many others.  These are just a few of the more popular ones.  There are many other considerations to take into account as other posters have pointed out."}
{"text": "Why does the share price tend to fall if a company's profits decrease, yet remain positive? Let's use an example: You buy 10 machines for 100k, and those machines produce products sold for a total of 10k/year in profit (ignoring labor/electricity/sales costs etc). If the typical investor requires a rate of return of 10% on this business, your company would be worth 100k.  In investing terms, you would have a PE ratio of 10.  The immediately-required return will be lower if substantially greater returns are expected in the future (expected growth), and the immediately required return will be higher if your business is expected to shrink. If at the end of the year you take your 10k and purchase another machine, your valuation will rise to 110k, because you can now produce 11k in earnings per year.  If your business has issued 10,000 shares, your share price will rise from $10 to $11.  Note that you did not just put cash in the bank, and that you now have a higher share price. At the end of year 2, with 11 machines, lets imagine that customer demand has fallen and you are forced to cut prices.  You somehow produce only 10k in profit, instead of the anticipated 11k.  Investors believe this 10k in annual profit will continue into the forseable future.  The investor who requires 10% return would then only value your company at 100k, and your share price would fall back from $11 to $10.  If your earnings had fallen even further to 9k, they might value you at 90k (9k/0.1=$90k).  You still have the same machines, but the market has changed in a way that make those machines less valuable. If you've gone from earning 10k in year one with 10 machines to 9k in year two with 11 machines, an investor might assume you'll make even less in year three, potentially only 8k, so the value of your company might even fall to 80k or lower.  Once it is assumed that your earnings will continue to shrink, an investor might value your business based on a higher required rate of return (e.g. maybe 20% instead of 10%), which would cause your share price to fall even further."}
{"text": "Value of credit score if you never plan to borrow again? There's many concrete answers, but there's something circular about your question. The only thing I can think of is that phone service providers ask for credit report when you want to start a new account but I am sure that could be worked around if you just put down a cash deposit in some cases. So now the situation is flipped - you are relying on your phone company's credit!  Who is to say they don't just walk away from their end of the deal now that you have paid in full?   The amount of credit in this situation is conserved. You just have to eat the risk and rely on their credit, because you have no credit. It doesn't matter how much money you have - $10 or $10000 can be extorted out of you equally well if you must always pay for future goods up front. You also can't use that money month-by-month now, even in low-risk investments. Although, they will do exactly that and keep the interest. And I challenge your assumption that you will never default. You are not a seraphic being. You live on planet earth. Ever had to pay $125,000 for a chemo treatment because you got a rare form of cancer? Well, you won't be able to default on your phone plan and pay for your drug (or food, if you bankrupt yourself on the drug) because your money is already gone. I know you asked a simpler question but I can't write a good answer without pointing out that \"no default\" is a bad model, it's like doing math without a zero element. By the way, this is realistic. It applies to renting in, say, New York City. It's better to be a tenant with credit who can withhold rent in issue of neglected maintenance or gross unfair treatment, than a tenant who has already paid full rent and has left the landlord with little market incentive to do their part."}
{"text": "how do I calculate rate of return on call options that are spread Outside of software that can calculate the returns:  You could calculate your possible returns on that leap spread as you ordinarily would, then place the return results of that and the return results for the covered call position side by side for any given price level of the stock you calculate, and net them out. (Netting out the dollar amounts, not percentage returns.)  Not a great answer, but there ya go. Software like OptionVue is expensive"}
{"text": "Net money invested in Stock indexes ended up in red Not sure where you got the 296 crores figure. The data on the sheet shows activity by category of investors. In the end NET of all BUY and SELL across all categories will always be Zero. It has no bearing on whether the stock market goes up or goes down. If you compare only activity by certain category, say FII then there could be more SELL compared to BUY or vice-versa."}
{"text": "Should I buy a home or rent in my situation? MY recommendation is simple.  RENT The fact that you have to ask the question is a clear sign that you have no business buying a home. That's not to say that it's a bad question to ask though. Far more important then rather it's finically wise for you to buy a home, is the more important question of \"are you emotionally ready for the responsibility and permanence\" of a home.  At best, you are tying your self to the same number of rooms, same location, and same set of circumstances for the next 5-7 years. In that time it will be very unlikely that you will be able to sell the house for a profit, get your minor equity back, or even get a second loan for any reason.  You mentioned getting married soon, that means the possibility of more children, divorce, and who knows what else.  You are in an emotionally and financially turblunt time in your life. Now is not the right time to buy anything large. Instead rent, and focus on improving your credit rating. In 5 years time you will have a much better credit rating, get much better rates and fees, and have a much better handle on where you want to be with your home/family situation.  Buying a house is not something you do on a weekend. For most people it's the culmination of years of work, searching, researching, and preparation.  Often times people that buy before they are ready, will end up in foreclosure, and generally have a crappy next 15 years, as they try to work themselves out of the issue."}
{"text": "Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY? The reason diversification in general is a benefit is easily seen in your first graph.  While the purple line (Betterment 100% Stock) is always below the blue line (S&P), and the blue line is the superior return over the entire period, it's a bit different if you retired in 2009, isn't it?  In that case the orange line is superior: because its risk is much lower, so it didn't drop much during the major crash.  Lowering risk (and lowering return) is a benefit the closer you get to retirement as you won't see as big a cumulative return from the large percentage, but you could see a big temporary drop, and need your income to be relatively stable (if you're living off it or soon going to).   Now, you can certainly invest on your own in a diverse way, and if you're reasonably smart about it and have enough funds to avoid any fees, you can almost certainly do better than a managed solution - even a relatively lightly managed solution like Betterment.  They take .15% off the top, so if you just did exactly the same as them, you would end up .15% (per year) better off. However, not everyone is reasonably smart, and not everyone has much in the way of funds. Betterment's target audience are people who aren't terribly smart about investing and/or have very small amounts of funds to invest.  Plenty of people aren't able to work out how to do diversification on their own; while they probably mostly aren't asking questions on this site, they're a large percentage of the population.  It's also work to diversify your portfolio: you have to make minor changes every year at a minimum to ensure you have a nicely balanced portfolio.  This is why target retirement date portfolios are very popular; a bit higher cost (similar to Betterment, roughly) but no work required to diversify correctly and maintain that diversification."}
{"text": "Does high frequency trading provide economic value? This is a very important question and you will find arguments from both sides, in part because it is still understudied. Ben Golub, Economics Ph.D., from Stanford answers \"Is high-frequency trading good for the economy?\" on Quoram quite well.  This is an important but understudied question. There are few   published academic studies on it, though several groups are working on   the subject. You may be interested in the following papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1569067 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1361184 These document some of the phenomena that arise in high frequency   trading, from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. However, a   full equilibrium analysis of the unique features of high frequency   trading is still missing, and until it is done, all our answers will   be kind of  tentative. Nevertheless, there are some obvious things one can say. Currently,   high frequency traders are competing to locate physically closer and   closer to exchanges, because milliseconds matter. Thus, large amounts   of money are being spent to beat other market makers by tiny fractions   of a second. Once many firms make these investments, the market looks   like it did before in terms of competition and prices, but is a tiny   bit faster. This investment is unlikely to be socially efficient: that   is, the users of  the market don't actually benefit from the fact that   their trades are executed half a millisecond faster -- certainly not   enough to cover all the investment that went into making that happen. Some people who study the issue believe that high frequency trading   (HFT) actually exacerbates market volatility; some plots to this   effect are found in the second paper linked above. There is certainly   no widely accepted theory that says faster trading technology   necessarily increases efficiency, and it is easy to think of   algorithms that can make money (at least in the short run) but hurt   most other investors, as well as the informational value of the   market. One caution is that some of the complaining about HFT comes from those   who lose when HFT gets better -- old-style market makers. They   certainly have an incentive to make HFT out to be very bad. So some   complaints about the predatory nature of HFT should be taken with a   grain of salt. There is no strong economic consensus about the value   of this activity. For what it's worth, my personal impression is that   this is more bad than good. I'll post an update here as more   definitive research comes out. You can also find a debate on High-frequency trading from the Economist which gives both sides of the argument. In conclusion: Regardless of how you feel about HFT it seems like it's here to stay and won't be leaving in the foreseeable future. So the debate will rage on... Additional resource you may finding interesting: Europe Begins Push To Ban HFT High Frequency Trading Discussion On CNBC Should High Frequency Trading (HFT) be banned ?"}
{"text": "Interest payments for leveraged positions I think to some extent you may be confusing the terms margin and leverage. From Investopedia Two concepts that are important to traders are margin and leverage. Margin is a loan extended by your broker that allows you to leverage the funds and securities in your account to enter larger trades. In order to use margin, you must open and be approved for a margin account. The loan is collateralized by the securities and cash in your margin account. The borrowed money doesn't come free, however; it has to be paid back with interest. If you are a day trader or scalper this may not be a concern; but if you are a swing trader, you can expect to pay between 5 and 10% interest on the borrowed money, or margin. Going hand-in-hand with margin is leverage; you use margin to create leverage. Leverage is the increased buying power that is available to margin account holders.  Essentially, leverage allows you to pay less than full price for a trade, giving you the ability to enter larger positions than would be possible with your account funds alone. Leverage is expressed as a ratio. A 2:1 leverage, for example, means that you would be able to hold a position that is twice the value of your trading account. If you had $25,000 in your trading account with 2:1 leverage, you would be able to purchase $50,000 worth of stock. Margin refers to essentially buying with borrowed money.  This must be paid back, with interest.  You also may have a \"margin call\" forcing you to liquidate assets if you go beyond your margin limits. Leverage can be achieved in a number of ways when investing, one of which is investing with a margin account."}
{"text": "I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work? This was most likely a scam, although I do know of cases where a transfer intended for one company ended up in the bank account of another company. I am not entirely sure what happened afterwards, but I think the receiving company was asked to return the transfer back to the originating account.  Still, even if this was the case, they wouldn't have just abandoned $1k for a simple administration fee (if there was even any). It doesn't sound logical."}
{"text": "Where can I lookup accurate current exchange rates for consumers? What you see on XE, is the rate at which it is being traded in the market. What you receive from a broker is the rate minus a fee, for the service being provided. You can check what rates are available for visa and mastercard on the following websites.  Visa rates Mastercard rates I want to shop in the currency that will be cheapest in CAD at any given time. This is a mirage and isn't going to help much. The prices you pay might be reflecting the exchange rates, difference in the product quality and other factors too.  Rates are fixed for a day, so any FX movement you see in the market willn't be reflected in what you pay."}
{"text": "After consulting HR Block, are you actually obligated to file your taxes with them, if they've found ways to save you money? It sounds like they want to enter you into a contract in which they are allowed to charge a flat fee for filing contingent on money saving results from a tax review service, paid in full. Like those who answered before I have no legal experience.  IRS Circular 230 defines the ethics for tax practitioners and the definition of a tax practitioner is broad enough (effective Aug 2011) to include those who are not EAs, CTRPs, CPAs as long as the person is compensated to prepare or assist in a substantial part of the preparation of a document pertaining to a taxpayer's liability for submission to the IRS. Section 10.27 Fees: (b)(2)A practitioner may charge a contingent  fee for services rendered in connection with the  Service\u2019s examination of, or challenge to \u2014 (i) An original tax return Paragraph c defines what a contingent fee is basically a fee that depends on the specific result attained, in this case saving you money. In the section above  'Service's examination'  is an audit in plain speak.  If your 2013 return has not been submitted and you have not received a written notice for examination, H&R block can not charge a contingent fee, period. Furthermore, H&R Block cannot hold your tax documents, upon your request, they must return all original tax documents like W2s and 1099s ( they don't have to return the tax forms an employee prepared). Like I said above, I'm not a lawyer, unless I missed a key detail, I don't believe they were permitted to charge you a filing fee contingent on saving you money."}
{"text": "In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house? There's probably no simple answer, but it's fair to say there are bad times to buy, and better times.  If you look at a house and see the rent is more than the mortgage payment, it may be time to consider buying.  Right now, the market is depressed, if you buy and plan to stay put, not caring if it drops from here because you plan to be there for the long term, you may find a great deal to be had. Over the long term, housing matches inflation.  Sounds crazy, but. Even into the bubble, if you looked at housing in terms of mortgage payment at the prevailing 30yr fixed rate and converted the payment to hours needed to work to make the payment, the 2005 bubble never was. Not at the median, anyway. At today's <5% rate, the mortgage will cost you 3.75% after taxes. And assuming a 3% long term inflation rate, less than 1%. You have expenses, to be sure, property tax, maintenance, etc, but if you fix the mortgage, inflation will eat away at it, and ultimately it's over. At retirement, I'll take a paid for house over rising rents any day."}
{"text": "How can my friend send $3K to me without using Paypal? Not to overkill the theres a few more I can think of right now"}
{"text": "Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? I would turn down a 20% raise in salary without thinking, if they would offer that I can have a 4 day work week. I even take a 10% cut for this!"}
{"text": "Is there a term for the risk of investing in an asset with a positive but inferior return? I'm sorry for adding another answer @MatthewFlaschen but it is too long for a comment. It depends on the situation. Say you buy shares of the Apple Inc. and want to know what is the lost opportunity cost. You need to find out what other opportunities are. In other words what are the other possible types of investments you consider. For example in theory you could try to invest in any company from S&P 500, but is it really possible (I don\u2019t mean investing directly in index) . Are you really capable of researching each company.  So in your case you would consider only a few companies as alternative solutions. Also after different time period each choice may be your lost opportunity cost.  To measure the risk you have to: In conclusion I want to say that my goal was to picture in general how the process looks. Also this is just an exemplary answer. All is about in what finance field you are interested. For example in one field you use Internal Rate of Return and in other Value at Risk. Opportunity cost is to vague to exactly tell how measure its risk of wrong anticipation. It connects in every finance field and in every field you have different ways do deal with it. If you specify your question more, maybe someone will provide a better answer."}
{"text": "Should I put more money down on one property and pay it off sooner or hold on to the cash? I would go with the 2nd option (put down as little as possible) with a small caveat: avoid the mortgage insurance if you can and put down 20%. Holding your rental property(ies)'s mortgage has some benefits: You can write off the mortgage interest.  In Canada you cannot write off the mortgage interest from your primary residence. You can write off stuff renovations and new appliances.  You can use this to your advantage if you have both a primary residence and a rental property.  Get my drift? P.S. I do not think it's a good time right now to buy a property and rent it out simply because the housing prices are over-priced.  The rate of return of your investment is too low. P.S.2.  I get the feeling from your question that you would like to purchase several properties in the long-term future.  I would like to say that the key to good and low risk investing is diversification.  Don't put all of your money into one basket.  This includes real estate.  Like any other investment, real estate goes down too.  In the last 50 or so years real estate has only apprepriated around 2.5% per year.  While, real estate is a good long term investment, don't make it 80% of your investment portfolio."}
{"text": "Is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets? I interned for about six months at a firm that employed a few technical analysts, so I'll try to provide what little information I can. Since the bulk of the intra-day trading was decided algorithmically, technical analysts had two main functions: This basically boils down to my answer to your question. There are still enough people, trading firms, etc. who believe in candlestick charting and other visually subjective patterns that if you notice a trend, pattern, etc. before the majority of traders observing, you may be able to time the market successfully and profit. This is becoming increasingly dangerous, however, because of the steps I outlined above. Over time, the charting patterns that have been proven effective (often in many firms individually since the algorithms are all proprietary) are incorporated into computer algorithms, so the \"traders\" you're competing with to see the pattern are increasingly low-latency computer clusters less than a few blocks from the exchange. Summary: Candlestick charting, along with other forms of subjective technical analysis, has its believers, and assuming enough of these believers trade the standard strategies based on the standard patterns, one could conceivably time the market with enough skill to anticipate these traders acting on the pattern and therefore profit. However, the marginal benefits of doing so are decreasing rapidly as computers take over more trading responsibility.  Caveats:  I know you're in Australia, where the market penetration of HF/algo traders isn't as high as in the US, so it might be a few more years before the marginal benefits cease to be profitable; that being said, if various forms of technical analysis proved wildly profitable in Australia, above and beyond profits available in other markets, rest assured that large American or British trading firms would already have moved in.  My experience is limited to one trading firm, so I certainly can't speak for the industry as a whole. I know I didn't address candlestick charts specifically, but since they're only one piece of visual technical analysis, I tried to address the issue as a whole.  This somewhat ties into the debate between fundamental or technical analysis, which I won't get into. Investopedia has a short article on the subject. As I said, I won't get into this because while it's a nice debate for small traders, at large trading firms, they don't care; they want to make profit, and any strategy that can be vetted, whether it's fundamental, technical, or astrological, will be vetted.  I want to add more information to my answer to clear up some of the misconceptions in the comments, including those talking about biased studies and a lack of evidence for or against technical analysis (and candlestick charts; I'll explore this relationship further down).  It's important to keep in mind that charting methods, including candlestick charts, are visually subjective ways of representing data, and that any interpretations drawn from such charts should, ideally, represent objective technical indicators. A charting method is only as good as the indicators it's used to represent. Therefore, an analysis of the underlying indicators provides a suitable analysis for the visual medium in which they're presented.  One important study that evaluates several of these indicators is Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation by Lo, Mamaysky, and Wang. Lest anyone accuse its authors of bias, I should point out that not only is it published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (a highly reputable organization within economics and finance), but also that the majority of its authors come from MIT's Sloan school, which holds a reputation second to none. This study finds that several technical indicators, e.g. head-and-shoulder, double-bottom, and various rectangle techniques, do provide marginal value. They also find that although  human judgment is still superior to most computational algorithms in the area of visual pattern recognition, ... technical analysis can be improved by using automated algorithms Since this paper was published in 2000, computing power and statistical analysis have gained significant ground against human ability to identify and exploit for visual pattern detection like candlestick charts.  Second, I suggest you look into David Aaronson's book, Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and Statistical Inference to Trading Signals. He finds similar results to the Lo, et. al. paper, in that some technical indicators do add value to the investment process, but those that do are those that can be represented mathematically and thus programmed directly into trading algorithms (thus bypassing visual tools like candlestick charts).  He describes how studies, including Lo, et al., have found that head and shoulders patterns are worse than random, i.e. you would earn higher returns if you simply traded at random. That point is worth than repeating. If a day-trader is using a candlestick chart and using head-and-shoulders patterns as part of their toolkit, he's rolling the dice when he uses that pattern and returns that come from its application come from chance. This reminds me of that old story about a company that sends out pamphlets predicting the results of sports games, complete with \"strategies\" and \"data\" to back up the predictions. The company sends out several versions of the pamphlet every game, each predicting a different winner. Given a large enough sample size, by the end of the season, there are a few people who have received a pamphlet that accurately predicted the winner for every game and they're convinced the system is perfect. The others weren't so lucky, however. Relying on candlestick charts and TA patterns that are relics from the pre-computerized era is reassuring to some traders and gives them a sense of control and \"beating the market,\" but how long will chance remain on your side? This is why I maintain that visual tools like candlestick charts are a slowly dying medium. They certainly still add value to some trading firms, which is why Bloomberg terminals still ship with this functionality built in, but as more and more research shows, automated algorithms and statistical indicators can provide more value. It's also important to think about whether the majority of the value added by visual tools like candlestick charts comes in the form of profit or a sense of security to traders who learned the field using them over the past few decades.  Finally, it's extremely important to realize that the actions of retail investors in the equities market cannot begin to represent the behaviors of the market as a whole. In the equities markets alone, trading firms and institutional investors dwarf retail investors, and the difference in scale is even more vastly pronounced in derivatives and currency markets. The fact that some retail investors use candlestick charts and the technical indicators they (hope) underlie them provides nothing but minor anecdotal evidence as to their effectiveness."}
{"text": "What are reasonable administrative fees for an IRA? Whether or not it's reasonable is a matter of opinion, but there are certainly cheaper options out there. It does seem strange to me that your credit union charges a percentage of your assets rather than a flat fee since they shouldn't have to do any more work based on how much money you have invested. I would look into rolling over your IRA to Vanguard or Fidelity. Neither charge administrative fees, and they offer no-load and no-transaction fee funds with low expenses. If you went with Fidelity directly, you'd be bypassing the middle man (your credit union) and their additional administrative fees. Vanguard tends to offer even cheaper funds."}
{"text": "Buy US ETF as foreigner \u2014 a bad idea? Here're some findings upon researches: Two main things to watch out for: Estate tax and the 30% tax withholding. These 2 could be get around by investing in Luxembourg or Ireland  domiciled ETF. For instance there's no tax withholding on Ireland domiciled ETF dividend, and the estate tax is not as high. (source: BogleHead forums)  Some Vanguard ETF offered in UK stock market: https://www.vanguard.co.uk/uk/mvc/investments/etf#docstab. Do note that the returns of S&P 500 ETF (VUSA) are adjusted after the 30% tax withholding! Due to VUSA's higher TER (0.09%), VOO should remain a superior choice. The FTSE Emerging Markets and All-World ETFs though, are better than their US-counterparts, for non-US residents. Non-US residents are able to claim back partials of the withhold tax, by filing the US tax form 1040NR. In 2013, non-US resident can claim back at least $3,900. Kindly correct me if anything is inaccurate."}
{"text": "How to get 0% financing for a car, with no credit score? Yes, of course it is. Car dealers are motivated to write loans even more than selling cars at times. When I bought a new car for the first time in my life, in my 40's, it took longer to get the finance guy out of my face than to negotiate and buy the car.  The car dealer selling you the used car would be happy to package the financing into the selling price. Similar to how 'points' are used to adjust the actual cost of a mortgage, the dealer can tinker with the price up front knowing that you want to stretch the payment out a bit.  To littleadv's point, 3 months isn't long, I think a used car dealer wold be happy to work with you."}
{"text": "Buying my first car out of college I realize I'm drudging up a somewhat old post here (apologies), but I've found myself in a similar situation recently and thought I would chime in. I was considering buying a car where the loan amount would be right around 25k. I tried justifying this by saying it's ridiculously fast (I'm young and stupid, this is appealing), has AWD (nice for Colorado), and a hatchback with plenty of room for snowboards and whatnot in back. This is in comparison to my Civic which has high mileage, can hardly make it up hills due to the high altitude, sucks in snow, and has little room for anything. You have your reasons, I have mine. The thing is, our reasons are just us trying to rationalize an unwise purchase - just admit it, you know it's true. Just so you can see I'm in a similar financial situation, I'm 22, just graduated, and started a job making well over 80k with salary and signing bonus, plus 20k in RSUs on the side. After budgeting I can still put away over 2k/month after I've factored in a car payment, insurance, rent, etc etc. Yes, I could \"afford\" this car... it's just dumb though dude. Don't do it. There are better things we can do with our money. And guess what, I've been drooling over this car since middle school too."}
{"text": "How exactly does dealing in stock make me money? If you have money and may need to access it at any time, you should put it in a savings account.  It won't return much interest, but it will return some and it is easily accessible.   If you have all your emergency savings that you need (at least six months of income), buy index-based mutual funds.  These should invest in a broad range of securities including both stocks and bonds (three dollars in stocks for every dollar in bonds) so as to be robust in the face of market shifts.   You should not buy individual stocks unless you have enough money to buy a lot of them in different industries.  Thirty different stocks is a minimum for a diversified portfolio, and you really should be looking at more like a hundred.  There's also considerable research effort required to verify that the stocks are good buys.  For most people, this is too much work.  For most people, broad-based index funds are better purchases.  You don't have as much upside, but you also are much less likely to find yourself holding worthless paper.   If you do buy stocks, look for ones where you know something about them.  For example, if you've been to a restaurant chain with a recent IPO that really wowed you with their food and service, consider investing.  But do your research, so that you don't get caught buying after everyone else has already overbid the price.  The time to buy is right before everyone else notices how great they are, not after.   Some people benefit from joining investment clubs with others with similar incomes and goals.  That way you can share some of the research duties.  Also, you can get other opinions before buying, which can restrain risky impulse buys.   Just to reiterate, I would recommend sticking to mutual funds and saving accounts for most investors.  Only make the move into individual stocks if you're willing to be serious about it.  There's considerable work involved.  And don't forget diversification.  You want to have stocks that benefit regardless of what the overall economy does.  Some stocks should benefit from lower oil prices while others benefit from higher prices.  You want to have both types so as not to be caught flat-footed when prices move.   There are much more experienced people trying to guess market directions.  If your strategy relies on outperforming them, it has a high chance of failure.  Index-based mutual funds allow you to share the diversification burden with others.  Since the market almost always goes up in the long term, a fund that mimics the market is much safer than any individual security can be.  Maintaining a three to one balance in stocks to bonds also helps as they tend to move in opposite directions.  I.e. stocks tend to be good when bonds are weak and vice versa."}
{"text": "What is insider trading exactly? Using inside sensitive information about corporate and using the same to deal in securities, before the exchanges are made aware of the information. Its mostly used in derivatives to get maximum returns on investmens, but Its illegal in all the exchanges"}
{"text": "Credit Card Purchase - 'it is the bank's money no[t] yours' ? Yes, they're referring to the credit card dispute (chargeback) process. In the case of dispute, credit card company will refund/freeze your charge so you don't have to pay until the dispute is resolved (or at all, if resolved in your favor). If the dispute is resolved in your favor, your credit card company will charge back the merchant's service provider which in turn will charge back (if it can) the merchant itself. So the one taking the most risk in this scenario is the merchant provider, this is why merchants that are high risk pay significantly higher fees or get dropped."}
{"text": "Is it possible to get life insurance as a beneficiary before the person insured dies? Generally no. It does not make sense for insurance company to alter terms and if there are such rules it can be subject to misuse."}
{"text": "End-of-season car sales? Manufacturers sometimes give incentives to car dealers to ensure that the prior year models are sold out before the year is up.  However, dealers are usually pretty smart on only ordering the cars they know they can sell before this happens.  Also, manufacturers are usually pretty good about only producing enough vehicles to cover demand.   Honestly, you aren't likely to see these incentives materialize unless the manufacturer really screwed up.   If that happens then three things occur.  First is that manufacturers give a hidden incentive to the dealers.  Dealers won't publicize this, even internally.  If the cars are still not moving after a month, then the dealers will tell the salespeople that those cars have a specific \"bonus\" on them.  If those cars still don't sell, then the bonus inflates quite a bit and dealers begin advertising that car at a deep discount on the radio.  It's pretty much guaranteed to sell at that point. Barring those circumstances, the deal you get on a brand new car, late in the model year, is likely to be the same you could have gotten early in the model year.   Honestly, if you want the best deal possible, look at the date of the inspection sticker on the car.  If it is close to the 3 month mark then the dealer will bend over backwards to sell the car as the finance costs are racking up on it.  They'll often sell that one at heavy discounts."}
{"text": "How to estimate a reasonable amount for a signing bonus? So you've already considered relocation. Here are a few additional things to consider with respect to negotiating a signing bonus (if any): Would you be leaving a position where you are eligible for an upcoming bonus, profit-share, or other special incentive payout, such as a stock option or RSU vesting date?  A signing bonus can help offset the opportunity cost of leaving a previous job when an incentive payout date is near. At the new company, would you be required to wait some pre-defined period to be eligible to participate in the pension or retirement savings plan with employer basic or matching contributions? If you were receiving ongoing employer contributions in your previous company's plan and would need to wait, say, six months before participating in the new company's plan, a signing bonus can offset lost employer contributions in the interim. Consider funding your own IRA in that time. Would you be required to give up something else of value to you that your previous employer was providing, such as an expensive laptop, that is not expected to otherwise be replaced by the new company? Whether they offer a signing bonus and how much you can expect to negotiate is based on a lot of factors and you'll need to \"play it by ear.\"  Remember what bonus means: \"A payment or gift added to what is usual or expected, in particular.\" Remember also that a signing bonus is a one time thing.  In general, it's more important to consider the overall ongoing compensation package \u2013 salary and incentive plans, vacation, retirement benefits, health benefits, etc. \u2013 and whether those meet your long-term needs."}
{"text": "What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: \u2018this time it\u2019s different'? There's an elephant in the room that no one is addressing: Suckers. Usually when there's a bubble, many people are fully aware that its a bubble. \"This time its different\" is a sales pitch to the outsiders. It the dotcom boom for example a lot of people knew that the P/E was ridiculous but bought objectively valueless tech stocks with the idea of unloading them later to even bigger fools. People view it like the children's game musical chairs: as long as I'm not standing when the music ends some other sucker gets left holding the bag. But once you get that first hit of easy money, its sooo tempting to keep playing the game. Sometimes, if it lasts long enough, you start to drink your own kool-aid: gee maybe it really is different this time. The best way to win a crooked game is not to play*. *Just in case someone thinks I'm advising against the stock market in general, I'm not: I'm advocating not buying stocks that you know are worthless with the hope of unloading them on some other sucker."}
{"text": "I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out? If you can get to a physical branch, get a cashier's check (or call them and have them send you one by mail).  When they draft the cashier's check they remove the money from your account immediately and the check is drawn against the bank itself.  You could hold onto that check for a little while even after your account closes and you make other arrangements for banking. If you cannot get a cashier's check, then you should try to expeditiously open a new account and do an ACH from old to new.  This might take more days to set up than you have left though."}
{"text": "Freelancing and getting taxes taken out up front instead of end of year? Maybe I can explain a little clearer: Your LLC is not a person, and cannot have taxes withheld on its behalf. Therefore, anyone paying your company should not withhold taxes. If they are paying you directly, and withholding taxes, they are treating you as an employee, and will probably issue a W2 instead of a 1099.  Put it this way: Your LLC is a separate company providing services to that company. They shouldn't withhold taxes any more than they would when paying their ISP, or power company."}
{"text": "Contributing to a Roth IRA while income tax filing status is \u201cMarried Filing Separately\u201d? You must file as married for 2013 if you were married as of December 31, 2013. It is true that the Roth IRA contribution phaseout for Married Filing Separately is 0 - $10K. But you can still do backdoor Roth IRA contribution (contribute to a Traditional IRA, then convert it to a Roth IRA; assuming you do not have any pre-tax IRAs, this is identical to a Roth IRA contribution). But you already made a Roth IRA contribution for 2013, and did not do the backdoor. Let's assume that you want to turn it into a backdoor Roth IRA contribution, and that you don't have any pre-tax IRAs. There are two ways to do this: Withdraw the Roth IRA you contributed (including earnings). Then, do a normal backdoor Roth IRA contribution (contribute to a Traditional IRA, then immediately convert it to Roth IRA). The earnings you had in the Roth IRA that you withdrew will be treated as normal income and taxed. The conversion will not be taxable because all of the Traditional IRA was non-deductible when you converted. Re-characterize your original Roth IRA contribution as a Traditional IRA contribution, then convert it to Roth IRA. It will be treated as if you made a Traditional IRA contribution originally, and then waited until now to convert. The earnings in the IRA up till now will be taxed on conversion. So in both cases, you will need to pay income tax on the earnings in the account up to now. The difference between the two is in the amount of money in the IRA now. With the first way, you can only contribute $5500 now. With the second way, you will keep the same amount of money you have in the IRA now."}
{"text": "High Leverage Inflation Hedges for Personal Investors Look into commodities futures & options. Unfortunately, they are not trivial instruments."}
{"text": "Is there any online personal finance software without online banking? SavingsMap is a web-based personal finance forecasting tool that requires no bank account or personal information other than an email address. As founder of SavingsMap, our goal is to forecast future cash flows based on your current budget, while using strategies to minimize US tax obligations and taking into account expected major life events."}
{"text": "Do retailers ever stock goods just to make other goods sell better? There's a concept in retail called a \"loss leader\", and essentially it means that a store will sell an item intentionally at a loss as a way of bringing in business in the hope that while consumers are in the store taking advantage of the discounted item, they'll make other purchases to make up for the loss and generate an overall profit. Many times it only makes sense to carry items that enhance the value of something else the store sells.  Stores pay big money to study consumer behaviors and preferences in order to understand what items are natural fits for each other and the best ways to market them.   A good example of what you're talking about is the fact that many grocery stores carry private label products that sell for higher margins, and they'll stock them alongside the name brands that cost much more.  As a consequence (and since consumers often don't see a qualitative difference between store brands and name brands much of the time to rationalize spending more), the store's own brands sell better. I hope this helps. Good luck!"}
{"text": "Can LLC legally lend money to a friend? I can't say if there is anything specific that makes lending illegal, but if your company goes bankrupt, you might end up in trouble.  First, it's a loan. It must be repaid. It must be in the books as a loan, and if your company couldn't pay its bills, you would have to ask for the money back. If the company goes bankrupt, your creditors will ask for the loan to be repaid.  Now if things are worse, your company goes bankrupt, and the person cannot pay back the money, then you could get into real trouble. Creditors won't like that situation at all. They will claim that you moved that money aside to protect it from creditors. They might be able to force you personally to pay, or even start criminal charges against you if you can't pay either.  In the UK (and probably elsewhere) it's criminal for the company to pay dividends if that means it cannot fulfil its financial obligations. If there is no money left because of that loan, then you can't get dividend payments from your company.  So as long as your company's finances are fine, and that person's finances are fine, you will be Ok (except I don't know if you would need a license), but if there are financial problems then being an LLC might not protect you."}
{"text": "Can LLC legally lend money to a friend? The answer to your question is...it depends.  Depending on the state you, your friend, and the LLC are located in, it can be very easy to run afoul of state banking laws, or to somehow violate some other statute pertaining to the legal activities an LLC may undertake by doing something like a loan. It is not unusual (or illegal) for officers or employees of a business entity to be loaned money by the company they work for, so something of this nature wouldn't be an issue with regulatory agencies.  Having your LLC loan money to a friend who isn't an employee or officer of your LLC just might not be kosher though. The best advice I can give is that you should call the state banking commission or similar agency in your state and ask them whether what you want to do is alright.  The LAST thing you want is to end up with auditors or regulators sniffing around your business, even if you haven't done anything wrong, and you certainly don't want to run the risk of accidentally \"piercing the corporate veil\", as someone else here astutely pointed out. Good luck!"}
{"text": "Is compounding interest on investments a myth? Compound growth isn't a myth, it just takes patience to experience.  A 10% annual return will double the investment not in 10 years, but just over 7.  Even though a mortgage claims to use simple interest, if your loan is 5% and there's 14 years to go, $100 extra principal will knock off $200 from the final payment. The same laws of compounding and Rule of 72 are at play."}
{"text": "Does an issue of bonus shares improve shareholder value? The bonus share also improves the liquidity however there is some difference in treatment. Lets say a company has 100 shares, of $10 ea. The total capital of the compnay is 100*10 = 1000. Assuming the company is doing well, its share is now available in the market for $100 ea. Now lets say the company has made a profit of $1000 and this also gets factored into the price of $100. Lets say the company decides to keep this $1000 kept as Cash Reserve and is not distributed as dividends.   In a share split say (1:1), the book value of each share is now reduced to $5, the number of shares increase to 200. The share capital stays at 200*5 = 1000. The market value of shares come down to $50 ea.   In a Bonus share issue say (1:1), the funds $1000 are moved from Cash Reserve and transferred to share capital. The book value of each share will remain same as $10, the number of shares increase to 200. The share capital increases to 200*10 = 2000. The market value of shares come down to $50 ea.   So essentially from a liquidity point of view both give the same benefit. As to why some companies issue bonus and not a split, this is because of multiple reasons. A split beyond a point cannot be done, ie $10 can be split to $1 ea but it doesn't look good to make it $0.50. The other reason is there is adequate cash reserve and you want to convert this into share holders capital. Having a larger share holders capital improves some of the health ratios for the compnay. At times bouns is used to play upon that one is getting something free."}
{"text": "Risk and reward of a synthetic option position But if underlying goes to 103 at expiration, both the call and the put   expire worthless If the stock closes at 103 on expiration, the 105 put is worth $2, not worthless."}
{"text": "Why is being \u201cupside down\u201d on a mortgage so bad? The problem comes when the borrower cannot afford his home.  If a borrower buys more home than they can afford, as long as he can sell the house for more than he owes, he's not in a disastrous situation. He can sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and choose more affordable housing instead.  If he is upside-down on his home, he doesn't have that option. He's stuck in his home. If he sells it, he will have to come up with extra money to pay off the mortgage (which he doesn't have, because he is in a home he can't afford). It used to be commonplace for banks to issue mortgages for 100% of the value of the home. As long as the home keeps appreciating, everybody is happy. But if the house drops in value and the homeowner finds himself unable to make house payments, both the homeowner and the bank are at risk. Recent regulations in the U.S. have made no-down-payment mortgages less common."}
{"text": "Does this plan make any sense for early 20s investments? The plan doesn't make sense.  Don't invest your money. Just keep it in your bank account. $5000 is not a lot, especially since you don't have a steady income stream. You only have $1000 to your name, you can't afford to gamble $4000. You will need it for things like food, books, rent, student loans, traveling, etc. If you don't get a job right after you graduate, you will be very happy to have some money in the bank. Or what if you get a dream job, but you need a car?  Or you get a job at a suit & tie business and need to get a new wardrobe? Or your computer dies and you need a new one? You find a great apartment but need $2500 first, last & security? That money can help you out much more NOW when you're starting out, then it will when you're ready to retire in your 60's."}
{"text": "Impact of Extreme Situations such as WW2 on \u201clegendary\u201d Investors' Returns? Possibly the best answer to why America became globally dominant after WW2 was written by a FRENCHMAN, Jean-Jacque Sergen-Schreiber, Le Defi American (The American Challenge). Probably the only legendary investor of the proper age to benefit from WW2 was John Templeton, who borrowed $10,000 before the war, and ended up with $40,000 afterward (both worth about ten times more in today's money). His story, and that of others, can be found in John Train's, \"The Money Masters.\""}
{"text": "Is a fixed-price natural gas or electricity contract likely to save money? The answer to this question will vary considerably by state and how utilities are regulated in your area. In New York, ESCOs (Energy Supply Companies) are almost always a ripoff for consumers versus the old-style regulated utility (in NY the utility supply markups are tightly regulated, but ESCOs are less regulated).  You also need to really understand the marketplace rules for \"locking in\" a price. If you can lock in the July price for natural gas for a year, that rocks. There are other factors as well. But even then its a real bet, since weather and supply factors can have a dramatic effect on gas prices in the winter. IMO, the best bet is to run with the market rates and bank the efficiency improvements that you build into your home over time. Some utilities offer \"budget plans\" that smooth out your payments without interest -- I'd recommend that route if predictable bills are your goal."}
{"text": "What are NSCC illiquid charges? NSCC illiquid charges are charges that apply to the trading of low-priced over-the counter (OTC) securities with low volumes. Open net buy quantity represents the total unsettled share amount per stock at any given time during a 3-day settlement cycle. Open net buy quantity must be less than 5,000,000 shares per stock for your entire firm Basically, you can't hold a long position of more than 5 million shares in an illiquid OTC stock without facing a fee. You'll still be assessed this fee if you accumulate a long position of this size by breaking your purchase up into multiple transactions. Open net sell quantity represents the total unsettled share amount per stock at any given time during a 3-day settlement cycle. Open net sell quantity must be less than 10% percent of the 20-day average volume If you attempt to sell a number of shares greater than 10% of the stock's average volume over the last 20 days, you'll also be assessed a fee. The first link I included above is just an example, but it makes the important point: you may still be assessed a fee for trading OTC stocks even if your account doesn't meet the criteria because these restrictions are applied at the level of the clearing firm, not the individual client.  This means that if other investors with your broker, or even at another broker that happens to use the same clearing firm, purchase more than 5 million shares in an individual OTC stock at the same time, all of your accounts may face fees, even though individually, you don't exceed the limits. Technically, these fees are assessed to the clearing firm, not the individual investor, but usually the clearing firm will pass the fees along to the broker (and possibly add other charges as well), and the broker will charge a fee to the individual account(s) that triggered the restriction. Also, remember that when buying OTC/pink sheet stocks, your ability to buy or sell is also contingent on finding someone else to buy from/sell to. If you purchase 10,000 shares one day and attempt to sell them sometime in the future, but there aren't enough buyers to buy all 10,000 from you, you might not be able to complete your order at the desired price, or even at all."}
{"text": "Historical company performance data The S&P report (aka STARS report) for each company has 10 years of financial data. These reports are available free at several online brokers (like E-Trade) if you have an account with the brokerage."}
{"text": "Why would my job recruiter want me to form an LLC? This is pretty normal.   I am in the UK and currently doing the exact same thing.  As some answers state there is additional tax law called IR35. But thats all it is, an additional tax law that may be applicable to your situation (it very well may not). It is all perfectly legal and common (all my university friends now do it). You will be the director of a company, and invoice the recruiters company.  This has benefits and disadvantages. Personally I love it, but each to their own. Don't do it if you don't want to."}
{"text": "How does a no-limit charge card affect your credit score? Apparently it is up to the credit card company on how they want to report your available balance. Another disadvantage to the no-limit   credit card may not be apparent to   most people, but it is something noted   by organizations like The Motley Fool,   which is expert in many issues of   finance and investment. Part of your   credit  score, about 30%, considers   the amount of money you have borrowed,   and the limit on your present credit   cards. A no-limit credit card company   may report your limit as $0 if you   have not used the card, or they may   report  a maximum limit available to   you. They may not, nor are they   obligated, to report times when you   put tons of expenses on a credit  card   and then paid them off. While some companies will report your   timely payments and paid off amounts,   others simply report an extremely low   limit. For instance if you spent $100   US Dollars (USD), your limit might be   considered $100 USD, or it may merely   be reported as zero. You\u2019ll need to   check with a credit card company on   how they report payments and limits on   a no-limit credit card before you   obtain one. Some people who are   scrupulous are paying off their cards   at the end of each month suffer major   losses to their credit score, without   even realizing it, if their spending   ability is rated at zero, or their   payments don\u2019t count toward showing   credit worthiness. Source"}
{"text": "Pay Yourself With Credit Card Make Money With Cash Back [duplicate] The idea is old as dirt, and some millions of people had it before you. Credit card swipes cost you between 2.4 and 4.5%, depending on the cards, the provider, and the amounts, plus potentially a fixed small amount per swipe. Of course, a 2% cash back card cost more than 2% to swipe; and a 3% cash back card cost more than 3% to swipe; those guys are not morons."}
{"text": "What do I need to consider when refinancing one home to pay the down-payment of another? What kind of financial analysis would make you comfortable about this decision? The HELOC and ARM are the biggest red flags to me in your current situation.  While I don't expect interest rates to skyrocket in the near future, they introduce an interest rate risk that is easy to get rid of.  Getting rid of the HELOC and converting to a fixed mortgage would be my first priority. If you also want to upgrade to a new home at the same time (meaning buy a new home contingent on the sale of your first, paying off the HELOC and mortgage), that's fine, but make sure that you can comfortably afford the payment on a fixed-rate mortgage with at least 20% down. I would not take additional cash out of your equity just to save it.  You're going to pay more in interest that you're going to get in savings.   From there things get trickier.   While many people would keep the first property on a mortgage and rent it out, I am not willing to be a landlord for a part-time job, especially when the interest on the mortgage gouges my return on the rent.  PLus leverage increases the risks as well - all it takes is to go one or two months without rent and you can find yourself unable to make a mortgage payment, wrecking your credit and possibly risking foreclosure. So my options in order of precedence would be: At what point does it make sense to become a landlord? The complicated answer is when the benefits (rent, appreciation) relative to the costs (maintenance, interest, taxes, etc.) and risks (lost rent, bad renters, home value variance) give you a better return that you could find in investments of similar risk.  The simple answer is when you can pay cash for it.  That takes interest and lost rent out of the equation.   Again, some are willing to take those risks and pay 20% down on rental property.  Some are able to make it work.  Some of those go broke or lose their properties.   when calculating the 20% down of a new property, does that need to be liquid funds, or can that be based on the value of the home you are selling You can make the purchase of the new home contingent on the sale of the first if you need to get the equity out of it to make the 20%.  Do NOT refinance the first just to pull out the equity to make a down payment.  It's not worth the fees of a refinance."}
{"text": "Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit? I love technical analysis, and use candlesticks as part of my technical analysis system for trading mutual funds in my 401K. However, I would never use a candlestick chart on its own.  I use combination of candlesticks, 2 different EMAs, MACD, bollinger bands, RSI and hand drawn trend lines that I constantly tweak.  That's about as much data input as I can handle, but it is possible to graph it all at once and see it at a glance if you have the right trading platform. My approach is very personal, not very aggressive, and took me years to develop. But it's fairly effective - 90% + of my trades are winners. The big advantage of technical analysis is that it forces you to create repeatable rules around which you base your trading.  A lot of the time I have little attention at all on what fund I am trading or why it is doing well in that particular market condition. It's basically irrelevant as the technical system tells when to buy and sell, and stops you trying to second guess whether housing, chemicals, gold or asian tigers are is doing well right now. If you don't keep to your own rules, you have only yourself to blame. This keeps you from blaming the market, which is completely out of your control. I explain many of my trades with anotated graphs at http://neurotrade.blogspot.com/"}
{"text": "Best Time to buy a stock in a day One of the biggest laws in economics is that if an opportunity is very profitable and is very easily exploitable even by complete beginners, then it will very soon stop being profitable. That's how the market works. If you buy stock when it is at the lowest, then you are making money, but most of the time someone else is losing money. And if there was a magic hour of the day when buying would be the most profitable, then soon everybody would want to buy at that time and no one would want to sell anything, so the scheme would collapse."}
{"text": "How can I diversify investments across currencies in ISA? Just buy a FTSE-100 tracker. It's cheap and easy, and will hedge you pretty well, as the FTSE-100 is dominated by big mining and oil companies who do most of their business in currencies other than sterling."}
{"text": "Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees Why do you think you are entitled to \"fairness\"? In this world you get what you get. I am pretty sure your employer is not paying you for how you \"feel\" either. And by-the-way turning up on time and not leaving early is not exceptional behaviour; it is expected behaviour. Bottom line: do you add more value to your employer's business then the new hires? If so, ask for a raise, if not find a way to add more value and then ask for a raise or keep doing what you're doing and accept what you get."}
{"text": "Is there any instance where less leverage will get you a better return on a rental property? QUICK ANSWER When it comes to fixed income assets, whether rental real estate or government bonds, it's unusual for highly-leveraged assets to yield less than the same asset unleveraged or lowly-leveraged.  This is especially so in countries where interest costs are tax deductible. If we exclude capital losses (i.e. the property sells in future at a price less than it was purchased) or net rental income that doesn't keep up with maintenance, regulatory, taxation, inflation and / or other costs, there is one primary scenario where higher leverage results in lower yields compared to lower leverage, even if rental income keeps up with non-funding costs.  This occurs when variable rate financing is used and rates substantially increase. EXPLANATION Borrowers and lenders in different countries have different mortgage rate customs.  Some are more likely to have long-term fixed rates; some prefer variable rates; and others are a hybrid, i.e. fixed for a few years and then become variable. If variable rates are used for a mortgage and the reference rates increase substantially, as they did in the US during the 1970s, the borrower can easily become \"upside-down,\" i.e. owe more on the mortgage than the property is then worth, and have mortgage service costs that exceed the net rental income.  Some of those costs aren't easy to pass along to renters, even when there are periodic lease renewals or base rent increases referencing inflation rates.  Central banks set policies for what would be the lowest short-term rates in a country that has such a bank.  Private sector rates are established broadly by supply and demand for credit and can thus diverge markedly from central bank rates. Over time, the higher finance-carrying-cost-to-net-rental-income ratio should abate as (1) rental market prices change to reflect the costs and (2) the landlord can reinvest his net rental income at a higher rate.  In the short-term though, this can result in the landlord having to \"eat\" the costs making his yield on his leveraged fixed income asset less than what he would have without leverage, even if the property was later sold at same price regardless of financing method. ========== Interestingly, and on the flip side, this is one of the quirks in finance where an accounting liability can become, at least in part, an economic asset.  If a landlord borrows at a high loan-to-value ratio for a fixed interest rate for the life of the mortgage and rates, variable and fixed, were to increase substantially, the difference between his original rate and the present rates accrues to him. If he's able to sell the property with the loan attached (which is not uncommon for commercial, industrial and sometimes municipal real estate), the buyer will be assuming a liability with a lower carrying cost than his present alternatives and will hence pay a higher price for the property than if it were unleveraged. With long-term rates in many economically advanced countries at historic lows, if a borrower today were to take a long-term fixed rate loan and rates shortly after increased substantially, he may have an instant profit in this scenario even if his property hasn't increased in value."}
{"text": "Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what? In one of your comments you say: Even if the pharmacy is not in the insurance provider network? This is why you got the check instead of your insurance company. I have Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and recently my wife underwent a procedure in the hospital, where one of the physicians involved was not in my providers network. I got a letter from the physicians office stating that since they are out of network, the standard practice was for BCBS to issue the check to me, rather than to the provider. I received the check and made the payment. The main contention is the difference in price, and that is what you need to discuss with both the pharmacy (actual billing) and your insurance company (paid benefits)."}
{"text": "Legal right to ask for someone bank records UK You might want to head on over to https://law.stackexchange.com/ and ask the same question.   However from a personal finance perspective this kind of drama is somewhat common when someone is deceased and financial expectations are not met by the heirs.  It sounds like the daughter was expecting a lot more in inheritance than was actually received.  There was probably an overestimation of dad's net worth and an underestimation of the cost of his care toward the end of his life. Its best not to participate in this drama, and I feel that you are correct that the daughter does not have a right to see the bank account statements prior to dad's passage.  The question is also if she has a right to see it now. Here in the US a joint account can be setup so the ownership transfers to other account holder(s) up death of an owner.  So in this case your mother would own the account.  If the account is setup as such, then the estate has no right to that money.  You may want to check with the bank for some free advice.  What is the classification of the account now that dad has passed?  When a person grants someone else the power of attorney they have the ability to act as if they were that person.  Most of the time POAs are limited in scope so If I give a person the POA to register a car in my name, they cannot apply for a credit card in my name (legally).  In this case, however, the POA was probably general so pretty much your mom could do whatever she pleased. So if your mom took good care of the dad and bought herself some nice jewelry that is perfectly allowable with a general POA. I strongly doubt this daughter has any rights to the past records and may not even have the rights to the joint bank account currently."}
{"text": "How does start-up equity end up paying off? Read the book, \"Slicing Pie: Fund Your Company Without Funds\". You can be given 5% over four years and in four years, they hire someone and give him twice as much as you, for working a month and not sacrificing his salary at all.  Over the four years, the idiot who offered you the deal will waste investors money on obvious, stupid things because he doesn't know anything about how to build what he's asking you to build, causing the need for more investment and the dilution of your equity. I'm speaking from personal experience.  Don't even do this. Start your own company if you're working for free, and tell the idiot who offered you 5% you'll offer him 2% for four years of him working for you for free."}
{"text": "What is the next step to collect money after a judgment has been ignored? A lawyer might be overkill for recovering a judgment.  Do a google search for \"judgment recovery service\" in your area.  They specialize in what you're trying to do. The service will charge you a fee (usually 10%) for any monies recovered.  What happens is that you assign the right to collect on the judgment to the service, and their staff can run with it from there.  Whoever you contract with will get as much information as possible about your ex-husband: employment, businesses, and so forth.  This information can be used to have levies issued by the state, wage garnishment and so forth.  There is no given timetable for how long it takes. If your ex is indigent, it would be hard to collect by way a recovery service or an attorney, because you can't collect what he doesn't have."}
{"text": "Why is a stock dividend considered a dividend? What makes it different from a stock split? A stock dividend isn't exactly a split. Example: You have 100 shares of stock worth $5 a share (total value $500). The company wants to distribute a dividend worth 1%. You could expect a check for $5. But If they wanted to do a stock dividend they could send you 0.01 shares for every share you own, in your case you will be given a single share worth $5. Now you own 101 shares. Why a share dividend? It doesn't take cash to give the dividend. It keeps the money invested in the company. Some investors re-invest a cash dividend, some don't.  A cash dividend is generally taxable income for the investor; a stock dividend isn't. Some investors prefer one over the other, but it depends on their specific financial picture. Neither a stock dividend, a cash dividend or split changes anything.  The split changes the price to meet a goal. The cash dividend lowers the price by sending excess cash to the investors. The stock dividend lowers the price by creating new shares and retaining cash.  It company picks the message and the method. depending on their goals and situation. Remember that a company may want to give a dividend because they have a history of doing so, but not have the cash to do so. It is like a split because the number of shares you own will go up, and the price per share will go down. But a split is generally done to bring the price of a share to within a specific range. The company sees a benefit to having a stock mid priced, instead of very high or very low."}
{"text": "What kinds of information do financial workers typically check on a daily basis? Google Finance and Yahoo! Finance would be a couple of sites you could use to look at rather broad market information.  This would include the major US stock markets like the Dow, Nasdaq, S & P 500 though also bond yields, gold and oil can also be useful as depending on which area one works the specifics of what are important could vary.  If you were working at a well-known bond firm, I'd suspect that various bond benchmarks are likely to be known and watched rather than stock indices. Something else to consider here is what constitutes a \"finance practitioner\" as I'd imagine several accountants and actuaries may not watch the market yet there could be several software developers working at hedge funds that do so that it isn't just a case of what kind of work but also what does the company do."}
{"text": "Why does the calculation for percentage profit vary based on whether a position is short vs. long? Simple math: 50-25=25, hence decline from 50 to 25 is a 50% decline (you lose half), while an advance from 25 to 50 is 100% gain (you gain 100%, double your 25 to 50). Their point is that if you have more upswings than downswings - you'll gain more on long positions during upswings than on short positions during downswings on average. Again - simple math."}
{"text": "When's the best time to sell the stock of a company that is being acquired/sold? This happened to me recently.  What became the final offer was a cash buy-out of all of our shares rather than a conversion.  The cash buy-out was higher than the company's original asking price and than the stock ever went on the market before hand.  I was extremely pleased to have held on to the stock until the end. That said, it sounds like your situation is different.  You can't necessarily time this sort of thing.  You can just make your best decision and determine to be happy with the way it all plays out."}
{"text": "Why would selling off some stores improve a company's value? Maybe the location isn't yet, but will soon become a new loss.  For example older soon out of warranty equipment, new tax laws in the locality soon to take affect or even just declining sales over the past periods of measurement. Perhaps labor disputes or other locality issues make running the store difficult.   There is the possibility that the land the location occupies is worth more sold to the new big box retailer than it will be in the next 10 years of operation. In some cases, companies want to have a ton of cash on hand, or would sell assets to pay off debt."}
{"text": "Should I have more than one brokerage account? I believe the answer here is no: SIPC protection of customers with multiple accounts is determined by \"separate capacity.\" Each separate capacity is protected up to $500,000 for securities and cash (including a $250,000 limit for cash only). Accounts held in the same capacity are combined for purposes of the SIPC protection limits. So even having 2 individual accounts - you would only be covered for $500,000/$250,000. You can see more about the type of accounts that would give your more coverage here. Also note: If you own a stock - the record probably exist.  Therefore you would not lose your ownership or shares.  The SIPC is there to protect the times this does not happen."}
{"text": "How can I profit on the Chinese Real-Estate Bubble? Perhaps buying some internationally exchanged stock of China real-estate companies? It's never too late to enter a bubble or profit from a bubble after it bursts. As a native Chinese, my observations suggest that the bubble may exist in a few of the most populated cities of China such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the price doesn't seem to be much higher than expected in cities further within the mainland, such as Xi'an and Chengdu. I myself is living in Xi'an. I did a post about the urban housing cost of Xi'an at the end of last year: http://www.xianhotels.info/urban-housing-cost-of-xian-china~15 It may give you a rough idea of the pricing level. The average of 5,500 CNY per square meter (condo) hasn't fluctuated much since the posting of the entry. But you need to pay about 1,000 to 3,000 higher to get something desirable. For location, just search \"Xi'an, China\" in Google Maps. =========== I actually have no idea how you, a foreigner can safely and easily profit from this. I'll just share what I know. It's really hard to financially enter China. To prevent oversea speculative funds from freely entering and leaving China, the Admin of Forex (safe.gov.cn) has laid down a range of rigid policies regarding currency exchange. By law, any native individual, such as me, is imposed of a maximum of $50,000 that can be converted from USD to CNY or the other way around per year AND a maximum of $10,000 per day. Larger chunks of exchange must get the written consent of the Admin of Forex or it will simply not be cleared by any of the banks in China, even HSBC that's not owned by China. However, you can circumvent this limit by using the social ID of your immediate relatives when submitting exchange requests. It takes extra time and effort but viable. However, things may change drastically should China be in a forex crisis or simply war. You may not be able to withdraw USD at all from the banks in China, even with a positive balance that's your own money. My whole income stream are USD which is wired monthly from US to Bank of China. I purchased a property in the middle of last year that's worth 275,000 CNY using the funds I exchanged from USD I had earned. It's a 43.7% down payment on a mortgage loan of 20 years: http://www.mlcalc.com/#mortgage-275000-43.7-20-4.284-0-0-0.52-7-2009-year (in CNY, not USD) The current household loan rate is 6.12% across the entire China. However, because this is my first property, it is discounted by 30% to 4.284% to encourage the first house purchase. There will be no more discounts of loan rate for the 2nd property and so forth to discourage speculative stocking that drives the price high. The apartment I bought in July of 2009 can easily be sold at 300,000 now. Some of the earlier buyers have enjoyed much more appreciation than I do. To give you a rough idea, a house bought in 2006 is now evaluated 100% more, one bought in 2008 now 50% more and one bought in the beginning of 2009 now 25% more."}
{"text": "What is my next step with investing, given a signing bonus of restricted stock units? Coincidentally just read a nice post on this topic: http://thefinancebuff.com/no-tax-advantage-in-rsu.html In short, sell the stock as soon as it vests and treat it as a cash bonus. Assuming you're in the US and the stock is possible to sell (public company, no trading window restrictions, you have no material nonpublic information, etc.)  What do you do with a cash bonus? If you have no savings, an emergency fund would be good, then start on retirement savings perhaps... it sounds a bit like you could use some broad general financial planning info, my favorite book for that is: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Simple-Financial-Strategies-People/dp/B0013L2ED6 One exception to selling immediately could be if the company stock is hugely undervalued, but it probably isn't, and it's probably too hard to determine."}
{"text": "Solid reading/literature for investment/retirement/income taxes? You bring up some very high level stuff, each of which can be the subject of a life's work.  For taxes, I first read J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax. I actually read it cover to cover instead of using it as a reference guide. I hit topics that I'd otherwise have never looked up on purpose. Once you familiarize yourself with the current tax code, keeping up on changes to the code goes pretty well.  As far as investing goes, William Bernstein has two titles, \u201cThe Four Pillars of Investing\u201d and \u201cThe Intelligent Asset Allocator\u201d. Others have liked \u201cPersonal Finance for Dummies\u201d by Eric Tyson. These are great introductory books, the classic is \u201cSecurity Analysis\u201d by Graham & Dodd. Warren Buffet was a student of Benjamin Graham and he did fine applying these principals.  For retirement, The Number by Lee Eisenberg was a good read. I consider retirement an extension of the investing education, only the money flow is reversed, withdrawals, no new deposits. Of course this is an oversimplification.  In my own reading list, I include books such as \u201cExtraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds\u201d by Charles MacKay and \u201cThe Great Crash 1929\u2033 by John Kenneth Galbraith. Understanding how these bubbles happen is critical to a complete education. I'm convinced that when it comes to investing if I can teach my daughter to understand the concept of Risk and Reward and to understand there are certain common alerts to such bubbles, the simplest of which is the term \"this time is different\" as though a hundred years of market dynamics can change in a matter of a few years.  Last, there are books like \"Stop Acting Rich\" by Dr Thomas Stanley. Not quite investing, per se, but a good read to get an idea of how we have a distorted view of certain signs of wealth.  Keep reading, no harm in taking books out of the library and returning if the first chapter or two disappoints."}
{"text": "What's the purpose of having separate checking and savings accounts? A checking account is instant access. It can be tapped via check or debit card.  A savings account is supposed to be used to accumulate cash for a goal that is is longer term or for an emergency.  Many people need to separate these funds into different accounts to be able to know if they are overspending or falling short on their savings. In the United States the Federal Reserve also looks at these accounts differently. Money in a checking account generally can't be used to fund loans, money in a savings account can be used as a source of loans by the bank. An even greater percentage of funds in longer term accounts can be used to fund loans. This includes Certificates of Deposit, and retirement accounts."}
{"text": "Can stock market gains be better protected under an LLC arrangement? All corporate gains are taxed at the same rate as corporate income, for the corporate entity, so this actually can be WORSE than the individual capital gains tax rates. There are a lot of things you can do with trading certain asset classes, like opening you up to like-kind re-investment tax perks, but I can't think of anything that helps with stocks. Also, in the US there is now a law against doing things solely to avoid tax if they have no other economic purpose. So be conscious about that, you'll need to be able to rationalize at least a thin excuse for why you jumped through all the hoops."}
{"text": "How can Schwab afford to refund all my ATM fees? I am using my debit card regularly: in ATM's with a pin, in stores with my signature, and online. But later you say  But from what I recall from starting my own business (a LONG time ago), for debit cards there's only a per-transaction fee of like $0.25, not a percentage cut. Only pin transactions have just a per-transaction fee paid by you to the merchant (and you are reimbursed by Schwab).  If you use your card with just a signature or online without a pin, then it is a credit transaction from the merchant's perspective.  The merchant pays a fee and Schwab gets its cut of that.  So for two of the transaction types that you describe, the merchant pays Schwab (indirectly) out of your payment.  Only when you enter your pin does it process as a debit transaction where Schwab pays the merchant.   Because check cards withdraw the money from your account immediately, you don't even get the twenty to fifty day grace period.  So those merchant fees are pure profit for Schwab, offsetting the loss from the ATM fees.   You claim $4-5k in fees at $.25 each.  That's sixteen to twenty thousand transactions.  Assuming that several is four to five years, that's more than ten transactions a day.  That seems like a lot.  I can see three for meals, one for miscellaneous, and maybe some shopping.  But if I go shopping one day, I don't normally go again for a while.  I have trouble seeing a consistent average of five or more transactions a day.   Even if we use just the higher ATM fees (e.g. $2), that's still more than a transaction a day.  That's an extreme level of usage, particularly for someone who also makes frequent purchases via card.   I haven't done any other business with them. I find this confusing.  How does money get into your account?  At some point, you must have deposited money into the account.  You can't debit from an account without a positive balance.  So you must have done or be doing some kind of business with them.  If nothing else, they can invest the balance that you deposit.  Note that they make a profit off such investments.  They share some of that profit with you in the form of interest, but not that much really.   Of course, Schwab may still be losing money on your transactions.  We can't really tell without more information on how much of each transaction type you do and how much of a balance you maintain.  Perhaps they are hoping that you will do other, more profitable, activities in the future.   I doubt there are that many Schwab customers like you describe yourself.  As best I've been able to see, they advertise their banking services just to investment customers.  So it's unlikely that many customers who don't use their investment services use their banking services just for ATM reimbursements."}
{"text": "What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund? Emergency funds are defined in terms of months of tightened-belt living -- that's according to the usual gurus such as Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey etc.   They aren't for short-term emergencies like a blown transmission.  Use other money for those.  Why?  People with bad financial habits have short-term emergencies all the time, and that emergency fund doesn't have a chance of lasting.  This is just their financial habits manifesting.  Here's what an emergency fund is for.    Scenario: big economic bubble bursts.  Stock market drops 50%.  Credit dries up.  This happened in 2007 by the way.  The dominoes start falling boom, boom, boom: I'm exaggerating a bit here, but a lot of people lived at least half this stuff in 2007-11.  Nothing starts those dominoes falling like lack of cash at a key moment.  That's what an emergency fund is all about - keeping things tight-normal for long enough to get back on your feet.  If you want to keep your emergency fund in something risky -- keep a lot more of it!"}
{"text": "Why do car rental companies prefer/require credit over debit cards? A few reasons make sense: They have a defined process for rentals, risk assessment, and customer credit. Especially for a large corporation, making changes to that process is not trivial, adds risk/uncertainty, and will be costly. Such changes for a relatively small customer base might not makes sense. Many rental companies DO allow you to rent with a debit card. Why do some businesses take cash only?  With a debit card, there is no third party guarantee. With a credit card, the cash is coming from a well-established third party who will pay (assuming no disputes) and has a well-established history of paying. Even if the merchant holds your account, it is still your cash under the control of you and your bank until the deposit clears the merchants bank. It is not surprising they view that as more risk and potentially not worth hassling with debit."}
{"text": "Tracking Gold and Silver (or any other commodity investment) in Quicken 2010? You don't need to use a real stock like GLD.  You can just create a \"stock\" called something like \"1 oz Gold\" and buy and sell them as if they were shares.  It won't auto-update the price like GLD, but that's not a big deal to update manually once a month or so. I prefer to have accurate data that is correct at a particular point in time to having data that is 2-3% off, or that requires entering the ounces as 10x reality.  YMMV. This is very similar to how you track US Savings Bonds in Quicken (and might be described in the help under that topic.)"}
{"text": "How can I invest in an index fund but screen out (remove) certain categories of socially irresponsible investments? Hmm, this would seem to be impossible by definition.  The definition of an \"index fund\" is that it includes exactly the stocks that make up the index. Once you say \"... except for ...\" then what you want is not an index fund but something else. It's like asking, \"Can I be a vegetarian but still eat beef?\" Umm, no. There might be someone offering a mutual fund that has the particular combination of stocks that you want, resembling the stocks making up the index except with these exclusions. That wouldn't be an index fund at that point, but, etc. There are lots of funds out there with various ideological criteria. I don't know of one that matches your criteria. I'd say, search for the closest approximation you can find. You could always buy individual stocks yourself and create your own pseudo-index fund. Depending on how many stock are in the index you are trying to match and how much money you have to invest, it may not be possible to exactly match it mathematically, if you would have to buy fractions of shares. If the number of shares you had to buy was very small you might get killed on broker fees. And I'll upvote @user662852's answer for being a pretty close approximation to what you want."}
{"text": "Why invest in becoming a landlord? The value of getting into the landlord business -- or any other business -- depends on circumstances at the time. How much will it cost you to buy the property? How much can you reasonably expect to collect in rent? How easy or difficult is it to find a tenant? Etc. I owned a rental property for about ten years and I lost a bundle of money on it. Things people often don't consider when calculating likely rental income are: There will be times when you have no tenant. Someone moves out and you don't always find a new tenant right away. Maintenance. There's always something that the tenant expects you to fix. Tenants aren't likely to take as good a care of the property as someone who owned it would. And while a homeowner might fix little things himself, like a broken light switch or doorknob, the tenant expects the landlord to fix such things. If you live nearby and have the time and ability to do minor maintenance, this may be no big deal. If you have to call a professional, this can get very expensive very quickly. Like for example, I once had a tenant complain that the water heater wasn't working. I called a plumber. He found that the knob on the water heater was set to \"low\". So he turned it up. He charged me, I think it was $200. I can't really complain about the charge. He had to drive to the property, figure out that that was all the problem was, turn the knob, and then verify that that really solved the problem. Tenants don't always pay the rent on time, or at all. I had several tenants who apparently saw the rent as something optional, to be paid if they had money left over that they couldn't think of anything better to do with. You may get bad tenants who destroy the place. I had one tenant who did $10,000 worth of damage. That include six inches deep of trash all over the house that had to be cleared out, rotting food all over, excrement smeared on walls, holes in the walls, and many things broken. I thought it was disgusting just to have to go in to clean it up, I can't imagine living like that, but whatever. Depending on the laws in your area, it may be very difficult to kick out a bad tenant. In my case, I had to evict two tenants, and it took about three months each time to go through the legal process. On the slip side, the big advantage to owning real estate is that once you pay it off, you own it and can continue to collect rent. And as most currencies in the world are subject to inflation, the rent you can charge will normally go up while your mortgage payments are constant."}
{"text": "How do you find out who the investors are in a U.S. stock? e.g. how ownership may be concentrated? I don't think that you will be able to find a list of every owner for a given stock. There are probably very few people who would know this. One source would be whoever sends out the shareholder meeting mailers.  I suspect that the company itself would know this, the exchange to a lesser extent, and possibly the brokerage houses to a even lesser extent. Consider these resources:"}
{"text": "How it actually works? Selling a call on a stock I hold, but has done poor, might the market thinks may rise What you are proposing is called a \"covered call\" strategy.  It is a perfectly reasonable speculative play on how far the stock will move within a certain amount of time.  If your belief that the stock's volatility is such that it is unlikely to reach the strike price before the maturity is greater than the markets (which it seems it is), then go ahead and sell the call."}
{"text": "Why do people buy insurance even if they have the means to overcome the loss? For a car, you're typically compelled to carry insurance, and picking up \"comprehensive\" coverage (fire, theft, act of god) is normally cheap. If the car was purchased with a loan, the lender will stipulate that you carry comprehensive and collision insurance.  People buy insurance because it limits their liability. In the grand scheme of things, pricing in a fixed rate of loss every year (insurance premium + potential deductible) is appealing to many versus having to cover a catastrophic loss when your car is wrecked or stolen."}
{"text": "Why doesn't buy at open get the official open price? There is no official price. There is only the price a seller is willing to offer and a buyer is willing to accept at that moment. It tends to be close to the price negotiated for the last such sale, but that's just market statistics, not anything actively managed or guaranteed. \"Past performance is no guarantee of future results;\" this buyer and seller may not agree with the previous pair. Especially when the market has been closed overnight but real-world events have continued to occur."}
{"text": "How to increase my credit score Get a credit card is NOT the answer. The reason people have a bad (or no) credit score is often because they're new to the country, have just turned 18, have previously fallen into arrears or are just bad with money. Getting a credit card is risky because, if you don't stay on top of your payments, it'll just damage your score even more.  Now, it sounds like I hate credit cards - but I don't, and they do have their benefits. But avoid them if possible because they can be more hassle than they're worth (ie, paying the credit back on-time, cancelling accounts when the interest comes in, moving money in and out of accounts). It's risky borrowing money from anywhere whether it's a payday lender, a bank, a credit card, etc., so use them as a last resort. If you've got your own income then that's amazing!, try not to live outside of your means and your credit score will look after (and increase) itself. It takes time to build a good credit score, but always make sure you pay the people you owe on time and the full amount. I'd stick with paying your phone provider (and any other direct debits you have setup) and avoid getting a credit card. I'd recommend Noddle to keep track of your credit score and read their FAQ on how to help build it. Unlike Experian, it's free forever so not quite as detailed... but Noddle are owned by CallCredit - one of the biggest Credit Reference Agencies in the UK so they should have the latest information on yourself. In conclusion, if you already have financial commitments like a mobile phone bill, gym membership, store cards, anything that gets paid monthly by direct debit... your credit score will increase (provided you pay the full-amount on time).   I hope this helps. PS. I don't work for any of the companies here, but I've been working in the finance sector (more specifically, short-term loans) for 3+ years now."}
{"text": "Why do I see multiple trades of very small quantities? It looks more like someone is trying to pocket the spread.  The trades are going off at the bid then the ask (from what I can tell without any L1 and L2 data, but the spread could be bigger than what the prices show, since the stock looks pretty volatile given the difference between current price and VWAP...).  Looking through the JSE rule books I didn't find any special provisions on how they handle odd lots in their Central Order Book, but the usual practice in other markets is to display only round lot orders. So these 4 share orders would remain hidden from book participants and could be set there to trigger executions from those who are probing for limit orders. Or to make a market with very limited risk."}
{"text": "How to save money for future expenses First, talk to your husband about this. You really need to persuade him that you need to be saving, and get him to agree on how and how much. Second, if you husband is not good at saving, work on getting something set aside automatically - ideally deducted from a paycheck or transferred to a savings account automatically. If he is the kind of person who might dip into that account, try to make it a place he can't withdraw from Third, get some advice, possibly training, on budgeting. Buy a book, take a video course: even start by watching some TV shows on getting out of debt."}
{"text": "Is it wise to switch investment strategy frequently? A guy who does a sports talk show here in the US can be pretty smart about some things.  His advice:  If you are wondering if something is a good idea, say it out loud.  In his book he cites the fact that people thought, at one time, it would be a good idea to allow smoking on airline flights.  Keep in mind you are using liquid oxygen, news paper, and are 10,000+ feet up in the air.  Say it like that and you hit yourself in the forehead. Read the title of your question in a day or two, and you can answer it yourself with a resounding NO."}
{"text": "In the stock market, why is the \u201copen\u201d price value never the same as previous day's \u201cclose\u201d? Nobody has mentioned the futures market yet. Although the stock market closes at 4pm, the futures market continues trading 24 hours a day and 5.5 days a week. Amongst the products that trade in the future market are stock index futures.  That includes the Dow Jones, the S&P 500. These are weighted averages of stocks and their sectors. You would think that the price of the underlying stock dictates the price of the average, but in this day and age, the derivative actually changes the value of the underlying stock due to a very complex combination of hedging practices. (this isn't meant to be vague and mysterious, it is \"delta hedging\") So normal market fluctuations coupled with macroeconomic events affect the futures market, which can ripple down to individual stocks. Very popular stocks with large market caps will most certainly be affected by futures market trading. But it is also worth mentioning that futures can function completely independently of a \"spot\" price. This is where things start to get complicated and long winded. The futures market factor is worth mentioning because it extends even outside of the aftermarket and pre-market hours of stock trading."}
{"text": "Online tools for monitoring my portfolio gains/losses in real time? This functionality is widely available, not only on brokerage sites, but also financial management and even financial information sites.  For instance, two of the latter are Google Finance and Yahoo Finance.  If you are logged in, they let you create \"portfolios\" listing your stocks and, optionally, the size of your holdings in that stock (which you don't need if you are just \"watching\" a stock).  Then you can visit the site at any time and see the current valuations."}
{"text": "Shares Canceled after Merger It seems like this was a \"stock for stock\" transaction. That is, your company was acquired, not for cash, but for the stock of Company X in a deal that your company's board of directors \"signed off\" on.  Your company no longer exists, and that's why your stock was cancelled. The acquirer will be sending you an equivalent amount of stock in their Company, X. You don't need to worry about taxes, only accounting, because this is a \"non-cash\" transaction. What this means that your cost basis in the stock of Company X will be what you paid for the original company's stock (not its value on the day of the merger, which may be higher or lower than what you paid)."}
{"text": "How do I apply for a mortgage after a cash closing on a property? Is she correct in that you generally can't even apply until the cash   transaction is complete? Probably. How can you commit to mortgage something you do not own? Makes sense for them to wait not even until the transaction is complete - but until the transaction is recorded. Is 45 days reasonable to complete the financing? Yes."}
{"text": "How fast does the available amount of gold in the world increase due to mining? If that fraction is really small, then the amount of gold can be thought of as relatively constant. That fraction is very small. After all, people have been mining gold for thousands of years. So the cumulative results of gold mining have been building up the supply for quite some time. Meanwhile, owners of gold rarely destroy it. A little bit of gold is used in some industries as a consumable. This limited consumption of gold offsets some of the production that comes from mining. But truthfully this effect is minuscule. For the most part people either hoard it like its made of gold, or sell it (after all it is worth its weight in gold). If you're interested Wikipedia lists a few more factors that affect gold prices. (If you're not interested Wikipedia lists them anyway.)"}
{"text": "Self-directed RRSP into mortgage investment The Globe and Mail has an interesting article on what you can do with your RRSPs. Be aware that the article is from early 2011 and rules change. They describe holding your own mortgage inside your RRSP. That is, if you have $100,000 inside your RRSP already and your remaining mortgage is $100,000, you can use that money to pay off your mortgage, then pay back the money at interest, generating a tax-deferred profit inside your RRSP. That approach may be viable, though you'd want to talk to your accountant first. I'd be very cautious about loaning money to someone else for a second mortgage using my RRSP, though. Second mortgages are inherently risky, so this is a very speculative investment. Once you make an RRSP contribution, that space is used up (barring a couple of exceptions such as the life-long learning plan). So, let's say you used $100,000 of your RRSP to loan to someone for a second mortgage. Any interest payments should be sheltered inside the RRSP (substantial benefit), but if the person defaults on the second mortgage (which you should expect to be a significant possibility), you've lost your entire $100,000 contribution room (as well as, obviously, the $100,000 that you loaned out). I can't tell you whether or not it makes sense to invest in risky second-mortgage loans and I can't tell you whether, if you choose to do so, it definitely should be done inside an RRSP. There are substantial risks in the loan and there are both costs and benefits to doing so inside an RRSP. Hopefully, though, I've helped you understand the questions you should be asking yourself."}
{"text": "Can the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) itself go bankrupt? Not sure if I follow your question completely. Re: What if some fraud takes place that's too big even for it to fund?   SIPC does not fund anything. What it does is takes over the troubled brokerage firm, books / assets and returns the money faster. Refer to SIPC - What SIPC Covers... What it Does Not and more specifically SIPC - Why We Are Not the FDIC. SIPC is free for ordinary investors. To get the same from elsewhere one has to pay the premium. Edit: The event we are saying is a large brokrage firm, takes all of the Margin Money from Customer Accounts and loses it and also sell off all the stocks actually shown as being held in customer account ... that would be to big. While its not clear as to what exactly will happens, my guess is that the limits per customers will go down as initial payments. Subsequent payments will only be done after recover of funds from the bankrupt firm. What normally happens when a brokrage firm goes down is some of the money from customers account is diverted ... stocks are typically safe and not diverted. Hence the way SIPC works is that it will give the money back to customer faster to individuals. In absence of SIPC individual investors would have had to fight for themselves."}
{"text": "Buying a car and learning to drive versus paying up study loans Welcome to Money.SE. It appears there's public transportation to get you to work? And the area by your house is walkable? i.e. you and your wife can get groceries and other needs by walking. If it will take 5 years to pay the loans even without a car, how long if you get one? Will you even be able to afford the payments?  There's not enough detail here except to say that all purchases aside from true needs have a cost/reward to consider. Whatever the car's total cost is, will it add that much pleasure to your life? People in cities with great transportation save quite a bit on the expenses a car brings.  Personal anecdote - Mom lives in a city. She never drives out of the city. Ever. Between insurance, maintenance, and gas, even with low miles, she spends $3000/yr. Once per week, she drives 1500 ft (.3mi) each way to the grocery store. Once every month or 2 to a mall 6 miles away. She can walk and groceries delivered for free. In the end, she spends $250/mo for the feeling of freedom. I get that. When I am 70+, as she is, I will gladly pay car service the $20 to drive me around.  You are young, and need to sit with your partner (your wife is your partner in the business of running the family finances, or so I hope) and decide if the benefit is worth the cost. How does she take the kids to a doctor? How do you go out to dinner?"}
{"text": "Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing Great questions -- the fact that you're thinking about it is what's most important. I think a priority should be maximizing any employer match in your 401(k) because it's free money. Second would be paying off high interest debt because it's a big expense. Everything else is a matter of setting good financial habits so I think the order of importance will vary from person to person. (That's why I ordered the priorities the way I did: employer matching is the easiest way to get more income with no additional work, and paying down high-interest debt is the best way to lower your long-term expenses.) After that, continue to maximize your income and savings, and be frugal with your expenses. Avoid debt. Take a vacation once in a while, too!"}
{"text": "How much is university projected to cost in Canada in 18 years? I personally do not buy any those so-call forecasts - look no further than the economic forecasts by those experts with PhDs over the last decade or so.  Truth is there are too many factors that affects the tuition fees that far down the road (think inflation, cost of living, the method for which the education is being delivered, anticipated salary for the teachers, the ratio of schools and students, your children's ability to obtain scholarship money, and etc). Put in what you can afford for RESP - I put in $2000 annually per child to take maximum advantage of the 20% government matching.  And be prepare to augment that with additional fund in 18 years.  I am prepared to take on significant loans if my children both decided and qualified for graduated studies in specialized fields in a prestige universities - I have had met people with graduate degrees from Harvard and Cambridge and the obscure sum they (or their parents) paid on tuition are about as good investment as I have ever seen.  Education is one of the best gifts any parent could give to their child."}
{"text": "Why does it take two weeks (from ex-date) for dividends to pay out? Why does it take two weeks (from ex-date) for dividends to pay out? For logistical and accounting purposes. This article says on the payment date: This date is generally a week or more after the date of record so that the company has sufficient time to ensure that it accurately pays all those who are entitled. It is for the same reasons that there is a often a two-week period between the time an employee submits her time sheet and the employee's pay date. The company needs time to set and send the payment while minimizing accounting errors."}
{"text": "High-risk investing is better for the young? Why? If you spent your whole life earning the same portfolio that amounts $20,000, the variance and volatility of watching your life savings drop to $10,000 overnight has a greater consequence than for someone who is young. This is why riskier portfolios aren't advised for older people closer to or within retirement age, the obvious complementary group being younger people who could lose more with lesser permanent consequence. Your high risk investment choices have nothing to do with your ability to manage other people's money, unless you fail to make a noteworthy investment return, then your high risk approach will be the death knell to your fund managing aspirations."}
{"text": "Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing It isn't always clear cut that you should pay off a debt at all, particularly a mortgage. In simple terms, if you are making a better return than what the bank is charging you, and the investment meets your risk criteria, then you should not pay back the debt. In the UK for example, mortgage rates are currently quite low. Around 2.5 - 3% is typical at the moment. On the other hand, you might reasonably expect a long run average return of around 9 - 11% on property (3 - 5% rental yield, and the rest on capital gains). To make the decision properly you need take into account the following:"}
{"text": "If the put is more expensive than the call, what does it mean What it means is that the stock has already moved down. Options and other derivatives follow the price of the underlying they are not a precursor to what the underlying is going to do. In other words, the price of a derivative is derived from the underlying."}
{"text": "Does a withdrawal of $10000 for 1st home purchase count against Roth IRA basis? From Schwab With a Roth, withdrawals of contributions are always tax-free because   you've already paid income taxes on that money. So are withdrawals of   earnings of up to $10,000 under the homebuyer exemption, assuming   you've had the Roth for five-plus years. But if you withdraw more than   $10,000 in earnings, that money will be subject to both ordinary   income taxes and the 10 percent penalty."}
{"text": "Can signing up at optoutprescreen.com improve my credit score? Some credit checks are ignored as part of the scoring process. Some companies will pull your info, to make sure you haven't become a risk. Others will inquire before they send you an offer. Since you didn't initiate the inquiry it can't impact your score."}
{"text": "What are the procedures or forms for a private loan with the sale of a vehicle? Draft up a promissory notes.  Have a lawyer do it use one of those online contract places if you have simple needs.  Your promissory note need to cover Be specific.  There are probably a lot more items that can be included, and if a quick internet search is any indication it gets deep fast. http://lmbtfy.com/?q=car+sale+promissory+note (Like @LittleAdv says) Head to your DMV with the title and the promissory note.  The title is signed over to you and held by the DMV.  When you pay up, the seller informs the DMV and they send you the title.  If you don't pay up, the seller can legally repossess the car.  All butts are covered. Pay the note as agreed.  When you are all paid up, your friend notifies the DMV who then mail you the title. Your butt is covered because your name is on the car, you can insure it and nobody can take it from you (legally) if you are paying the note as agreed.   Your pal's butt is covered because if you stop paying half way through, he can keep whatever you have paid him and get his car back."}
{"text": "Why buy bonds in a no-arbitrage market? For safety. If something catastrophic happens to your bank and your money is in there you will lose any not covered by FDIC. So if you have a very large amount of money you will store it in bonds as its much less likely that the US treasury will go bankrupt than your bank. I also literally just posted this in another thread: Certain rules and regulations penalize companies or institutions for holding cash, so they are shifting to bonds and bills. Fidelity, for example, is completely converting its $100 billion dollar cash fund to short term bills. Its estimated that over $2 trillion that is now in cash may be converted to bills, and that will obviously put upward preasure on the price of them. The treasury is trying to issue more short term debt to balance out the demand. read more here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/money-funds-clamor-for-short-term-treasurys-1445300813"}
{"text": "Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage? In the Netherlands its cheaper in some cases to have a mortgage then to own a house.   Example: If you own a house you pay more taxes (because you own something expensive you have to pay \"eigendoms belasting\" < owners tax). So if you instead of owning the house,  keep the mortgage low and only pay the mortgage interest, the interest will be much lower then the tax you would have to pay. The sweet spot (for lowest interest and not having to pay the owners tax) is different for any mortgage but by grandparents use this method and they pay a really small amount for a rather large house."}
{"text": "Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area? I only have anecdotal evidence here as members of my family used to own a grocery store / gas station, but they were often time charged much more to have the gasoline delivered to than many gas stations which were just a mile or two away (up to 15% more).  Also depending upon the branding of the gas station, they are required to use certain distributors (i.e. if you are an Exxon gas station you can only use a few select vendors) which gave them less control of their final cost.  All in all the gasoline often had smaller margins than items in the grocery store, which are already extremely low."}
{"text": "What is the name of inverse of synergy? (finance) You could call it \"multiple streams of income\" a la Robert Allen and others. Or you could call it \"Do once, sell many\" or something like that."}
{"text": "How do online referal systems work? Yeah, I'll take the challenge...:) How trustworthy these are and what are their sources of income? These are in fact two separate questions, but the answers are related. How trustworthy? As trustworthy as they're clear about their own sources of income. If you cannot find any clue as to why, what for and how they're paying you - you probably should walk away. What's too good to be true usually is indeed too good to be true. For those of the sites that I know of their sources of income, it is usually advertisements and surveys. To get paid, you have to watch advertisements and/or answer surveys. I know of some sites who are legit, and pay people (not money, but gift cards, airline miles, etc) for participating in surveys. My own HMO (Kaiser in California) in fact pays (small amounts) to members who participate in enough surveys, so its legit. Are these sites worthwhile to consider for extra income? Not something you could live off, but definitely can get you enough gift cards for your weekly trip to Starbucks. What do I need to consider tax wise? Usually the amounts are very low, and are not paid in cash. While it is income, I doubt the IRS will chase you if you don't report the $20 Amazon gift card you got from there. It should, strictly speaking, be reported (probably as hobby income) on your tax return. Most people don't bother dealing with such small amounts though. In some cases (like the HMO I mentioned), its basically a rebate of the money paid (you pay your copays, deductibles etc. Since the surveys are only for members, you basically get your money back, not additional income). This is in fact similar to credit card rebates. Is there a best practice for handling the income? If we're talking about significant amounts (more than $20-30 a year), then you need to keep track of the income and related expenses, and report it as any other business income on your taxes, Schedule C. Is there a good test to determine what is and isn't a scam? As I said - if it looks too good to be true - it most likely is. If you're required to provide your personal/financial information without any explanation as to why, what it will be used for, and why and what for you're going to be paid - I'd walk away. Otherwise, you can also check Internet reviews, BBB ratings, FTC information and the relevant state agencies and consumer watchdogs (for example: http://www.scamadviser.com) whether they've heard of that particular site, and what is the information they have on it. A very good sign for a scam is contact information. Do they have a phone number to call to? Is it in your own country? If its not in your own country - definitely go away (for example the original link that was in the question pointed to a service whose phone number is in the UK, but listed address is in Los Angeles, CA. A clear sign of a scam). If they do have a phone number - try it, talk to them, call several times and see how many different people you're going to talk to. If its always the same person - run and hide. Do they have an address? If not - walk away. If they do - look it up. Is it a PMB/POB? A \"virtual\" office? Or do they have a proper office set up, which you can see on the map and in the listings as their office? And of course your guts. If your guts tell you its a scam - it very likely is."}
{"text": "I'm in Australia.  What should I look for in an online stock broker, for trading mostly on the ASX? OptionsXpress is good. I have used them for many years to trade stocks mainly (writing Covered calls and trading volatility). You set the account up through OptionsXpress Australia, and then fund the account from one of your accounts in Australia (I just use my Bank of Queensland account). The currency conversion will be something to watch (AUD to USD). The rates are low, but one of the best features is \"virtual trading\". It allows you to give yourself virtual funds to practice. You can then experiment with stop-losses and all other features. Perhaps other platforms have this, but I am yet to see it... anyway, if you want to trade in US stocks you are going to need to switch to USD anyway. ASX never moves enough for my interests. Regards, SB"}
{"text": "Does a disciplined stock investor stick with their original sell strategy, or stay in and make more? Ask yourself a better question: Under my current investment criteria would I buy the stock at this price? If the answer to that question is yes you need to work out at what price you would now sell out of the position. Think of these as totally separate decisions from your original decisions to buy and at what price to sell. If you would buy the stock now if you didn't already hold a position then you should keep that position as if you had sold out at the price that you had originally seen as your take profit level and bought a new position at the current price without incurring the costs. If you would not buy now by those criteria then you should sell out as planned. This is essentially netting off two investing decisions. Something to think about is that the world has changed and if you knew what you know now then you would probably have set your price limit higher. To be disciplined as an investor also means reviewing current positions frequently and without any sympathy for past decisions."}
{"text": "Will a credit card company close my account if I stop using it? There is no universal answer here.  Some card issuers will.  Some that will close the account will warn you first.  For my \"sock drawer\" cards I'll try to take each out semi-annually to make a single transaction, then put it back in the drawer. I've heard you should charge something quarterly, I've never had one closed with semi-annual charges."}
{"text": "Received an unexpected cashiers check for over $2K from another state - is this some scam? This is a variation of a very common scam. The principle of the scam is this: I give you a check for a huge amount of money which you pay in your account. Then I ask you to pay some money from your account into a third account. Two months later the bank detects that my check was forged / stolen / cancelled / whatever and takes the huge amount of money away from your account. But you paid the money from your account, and that money is gone from your account and irrevocably ended up in my account."}
{"text": "Does it make any sense to directly contribute to reducing the US national debt? No. Unless you are ten Bill Gates rolled into one man, you can not possibly hope to make a dent in the 14 trillion debt. Even if you were and paid off whole debt in one payment, budget deficits would restore it to old glory in a short time. If you have some extra money, I'd advise to either choose a charity and donate to somebody who needs your help directly or if you are so inclined, support a campaign of a financially conservative politician (only if you are sure he is a financial conservative and doesn't just tell this to get elected - I have no idea how you could do it :)."}
{"text": "How can people have such high credit card debts? In the United States, when applying for credit cards, proof of income is on an honor system. You can make $15k a year and write on your application that you make $150k a year. They don't check that value other than to have their computer systems figure out risk and you get a yes or no. It was traditionally easy to attain credit, but that got tightened in 2008/2009 with the housing crisis. This is starting to change again and credit is flowing much more easily."}
{"text": "Do any publically available documents from IR or SEC include all patents the company holds? It appears as others have said that companies are not required to state this on as any sort of Asset. I remembered a friend of mine is a lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property Rights so asked him and confirmed that there's no document companies are required to file which states all patent holdings as assets. There are two ways he suggested for finding out. Once you find a company you're interested in can search patents by company using one of the two following: US Patent Office website's advanced search: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm aanm/company for example entering into the textarea, \"aanm/google\" without the quotation marks will find patents by Google. The other is a Google Patent Search: http://www.google.com/patents/"}
{"text": "What are \u201ctrailing 12-month total returns\u201d? Total Return is the percent change in value (including andy dividends) of an instrument.  The \"trailing 12-month\" means that your starting point is the value 12 months ago.  So the formula is: where V is the value of the instrument on the reference date, V0 is the value of the instrument 12 months prior to the reference date, and D is the amount of dividends paid between the two dates."}
{"text": "How are the $1 salaries that CEOs sometimes take considered legal? Taxable fringe benefits are included in taxable wages for the purpose of FLSA. So when those executives get to use company cars or company jets that value is \"wage\" even if it isn't salary."}
{"text": "What's the purpose of having separate checking and savings accounts? For some people, it's easier to stick to a budget if they have separate checking and savings accounts because they can deposit funds directly into their savings account and not have those funds accessible by debit/credit card, checks, etc. This allows people to pay themselves first and accumulate savings, while making it slightly more difficult to spend those savings on a whim. One a more technical/legal note, one key difference in the United States comes from Regulation D. \u00a7204.2(d)(2) of the law limits you to six withdrawals from savings and money market accounts. No such limit exists for checking accounts. Regulation D also forbids banks from paying interest on business checking accounts.  In the simplest case, checking accounts and savings accounts are a tradeoff between liquidity and return. Checking accounts are much more liquid, but won't necessarily earn interest, while savings accounts are less liquid because of the withdrawal limits, but earn interest. Nowadays, however, sweep accounts blur this line somewhat because they function like checking accounts, in that you can write an unlimited number of checks, make an unlimited number of withdrawals, etc. but you can also earn interest on your account balance because some or all of the funds are \"swept\" into an investment account when not in use. The definition of \"in use\" can vary from business to business and bank to bank."}
{"text": "still have mortgage on old house to be torn down- want to build new house I could be wrong, but I doubt you're going to be able to roll the current mortgage into a new one. The problem is that the bank is going to require that the new loan is fully collateralized by the new house.  So the only way that you can ensure that is if you can construct the house cheaply enough that the difference between the construction cost and the end market value is enough to cover the current loan AND keep the loan-to-value (LTV) low enough that the bank is secured. So say you currently owe $40k on your mortgage, and you want to build a house that will be worth $200k. In order to avoid PMI, you're going to have to have an LTV of 80% or less, which means that you can spend no more than $160k to build the house.  If you want to roll the existing loan in, now you have to build for less than $120k, and there's no way that you can build a $200k house for $120k unless you live in an area with very high land value and hire the builders directly (and even then it may not be possible). Otherwise you're going to have to make up the difference in cash. When you tear down a house, you are essentially throwing away the value of the house - when you have a mortgage on the house, you throw away that value plus you still owe the money, which is a difficult hole to climb out of. A better solution might be to try and sell the house as-is, perhaps to someone else who can tear down the house and rebuild with cash. If that is not a viable option (or you don't want to move) then you might consider a home equity loan to renovate parts of the house, provided that they increase the market value enough to justify the cost (e.g. modernize the kitchen, add on a room, remodel bathrooms, etc. So it all depends on what the house is worth today as-is, how much it will cost you to rebuild, and what the value of the new house will be."}
{"text": "Are the \u201cdebt reduction\u201d company useful? No. Not in the Uk anyway, they are just an extra person/company that you have to pay."}
{"text": "Highest market cap for a company from historical data In common with many companies, Microsoft has been engaging in share buyback programmes, where it buys its own shares in the market and then cancels them. It's often a more tax-efficient way to distribute profits to the shareholders than paying a dividend. So there were more Microsoft shares in circulation in 1999 than there are now. See here for information."}
{"text": "I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment? I am very surprised no one mentioned the Stock Repair Option Strategy which has real benefits and is one of the mainstream Option Strategies. Quote: Who Should Consider Using the Stock Repair Strategy? In a nutshell, you are buying call options with current strike price (at-the-money) and sell call options with higher strike price (out-of-the-money), all with the same expiry dates.  The only reason to also sell call options here is to recover your premium paid for the other call options. If you are comfortable paying that premium, you just buy the call options without selling the others. In case your stock will rise moderately to a price between the two strike prices, your call option will rise together with your stock, so you will be faster to recover your money. This is the main reason it is called Repair. If you have sold any call options, as the price rises, you have to be careful when it reaches the strike price of the options sold, as from there on you will begin incurring losses. It is however exactly the lucky outcome you were hoping for, your stock is higher, and you can buy back those loss making options - then or shortly before. If you didn't sell any options and payed your premium, you don't need to worry at all at this stage. WARNING It should be noted that the Stock Repair Strategy offers no protection for your stock price further falling down. In that case all those options will expire worthless or you can sell back the ones your bought but likely not for much. In order to have the downside protection for your stock, there are other strategies, the simplest one being buying a Put Option at-the-money or slightly lower. That will effectively cut your possible losses to the Option Premium (which is the main use of that option).  Again, if you hate to pay that premium, you can offset it by selling other options that you either hope won't be exercised or take steps to protect you against those."}
{"text": "Is keeping old credit cards and opening new credit cards with high limits and never using an ideal way to boost credit scores? Problems with your plan (in no particular order) there is a limit, once they have decided that you have enough credit they won't offer any more. If the economy changes (like it did in 2008) they can reduce the limit on existing accounts. If you don't use them, they may decide to close them. Using existing cards will encourage the bank to increase the limit on that card. opening cards can make some lenders nervous. Having a new card close to when you are applying for a mortgage or a car loan can make them less likely to lend you the max. You have to decide: Are you trying to buildup your credit limit? or your credit score?"}
{"text": "In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house? I just read through all of the answers to this question and there is an important point that no one has mentioned yet: Oftentimes, buying a house is actually cheaper than renting the identical house. I'm looking around my area (suburbs of Chicago, IL) in 2017 and seeing some houses that are both for sale and for rent, which makes for an easy comparison. If I buy the house with $0 down (you can't actually put $0 down but it makes the numerical comparison more accurate if you do), my monthly payment including mortgage (P+I), taxes, insurance, and HOA, is still $400 less than the monthly rent payment. (If I put 20% down it's an even bigger savings.) So, in addition to the the tax advantages of owning a home, the locked in price that helps you in an economy that experiences inflation, and the accumulated equity, you may even have extra cash flow too. If you were on the fence when you would have had to pay more per month in order to purchase, it should be a no-brainer to buy if your monthly cost is lower. From the original question: Get a loan and buy a house, or I can live for the rest of my life in rent and save the extra money (investing and stuff). Well, you may be able to buy a house and save even more money than if you rent. Of course, this is highly dependent on your location."}
{"text": "Do I even need credit cards? Credits are expensive, so it's a great advantage to pay in cash. Obviously, it's even more an advantage to pay in cash for a house or a car, of course if you can afford it. But, as annoying as it could be, there are some services, where you're out of option to pay in cash, or even to pay by bank transfer. One of the most prominent examples, Google Play (OK, as I've learned, there are prepaid cards. But Groundspeak, for example, has none.). With the further expansion of Internet and E-Economy there will be more cases like that, where paying in cash is no more an option. Booking of hotels or hostels is already mentioned. There are some that provide no other booking option that giving your credit card number. However, even if the do, for example bank transfer of, say, 20% as reservation fee, please note that international money transfer can be very expensive, and credit card is usually given only for security in case you don't come, and if you do come and pay in cash, no money is taken = no expensive fee for international money transfer and/or disadvantaging currency exchange rate."}
{"text": "Companies that use their cash to buy back stock, issue dividends, etc. \u2014 how does this this typically affect share price? If a company is valued correctly, then paying dividends should lower the share price, and buying back shares should leave the share price unchanged.  If the share price is $100, and the company pays a $10 dividend, then either its cash goes down by $10 per share, it is has to borrow money for the same amount, or some mixture. Either way, the value of the company has gone down by $10 per share.  If the share price is $100, and the company buys back 10 percent of its shares, then it also has to find the money, just as for the dividend, and the value of the company goes down by 10 percent. However, the number of shares also goes down by 10 percent, so the amount of value per share is the same, and the share price should stay unchanged.  Now there are psychological effects. Many people like getting paid dividends, so they will want to own shares of a company paying dividends, so the share price goes up. Similar with a share buyback; the fact that someone buys huge amounts of shares drives the price up. Both effects are purely psychological.  A buyback has another effect if the shares are not valued correctly. If the company is worth $100 per share but for some reason the shareprice is down to $50, then after the buyback the value per share has even gone up. Basically the company buys from stupid investors, which increases the value for clever investors holding on to their shares. If the shareprice were $200, then buying back shares would be a stupid move for the company."}
{"text": "What does it mean \u201csell on ask\u201d , \u201csell on bid\u201d in stocks? Honestly, I wonder if the other answerers aren't overthinking it. Their answers are detailed and correct, but what your coach may be saying is this: When you have bought a stock, on cash or margin, and you are watching it rise you are evaluating when you sell on the price of the stock you are seeing. In reality, you should look at the bid (price buyers will give you for the stock) and ask (price sellers will charge you for the stock) prices. If the stock is going up, odds are the price of the stock is very close to the ask price because it is purchases that are driving it up, but that's not what you're going to get when you sell. You're going to get something around the bid price. If the spread between the two is large (i.e. a volatile stock) this could be many cents or more lower than the ask price. Therefore, what your coach may mean by \"Selling on Ask\" is you're using the stock price when it's equal or close to the ask price to decide when to sell, instead of letting the stock peak and drop (when its price will approach the bid price) or letting the trailing bid offers catch up to your desired sell point and selling then (i.e. letting the stock point grow PAST your sell point, dragging the bid price up with it). Just a thought, but that sounds like a term a coach would come up with to mean selling and getting less than you thought you were going to from the sale. (I know it's a necro reply, but the Interwebs are immortal and people come via Google... I did)"}
{"text": "Ideas for patenting/selling a trading strategy If you have a great technical trading system that gets you winning trading 80-85% of the time in backtesting, the question should be why are you not trading it? To get a better idea of how good your trading system is you should work out your expectancy per trade. This will tell you how much you should make on average for every trade you take. Expectancy not only considers your win rate but also you win size to loss size ratio. For example if you are getting winning trades 80% of the time but your average win size is $100, and your 20% of losses average $500, then you will still be losing money. You should be aiming for an average win size of at least 2.5 to 3 times you average loss size. This will provide you a profitable trading system even if your win rate is 50%. If your trading system is really that good and provides a win size of at least 2.5 times your loss size then you should be actively trading it. Also, if you put your trading system out there in the public domain together with your trading results you will actually find that, quite opposite to what the consensus above is, your results from your trading plan should actually improve further. The more people acting on the outcome of a signal in the same direction the higher the probability that the movement in the desired direction will actually occur. If you are looking to make money from your trading ideas, no one will pay anything unless you have real results to back it up. So if you are so confident about your system you should start trading it with real money. Of course you should start off small and build it up over time as your results eventuate as per your simulations."}
{"text": "ESPP in the UK - worth it? Disqualifying / qualifying sales? ESPP is common among US companies, often with a framework similar to your outline.  In the US, some ESPPs allow sales of shares to be considered qualifying (subject to capital gains rather than ordinary income tax) if they are sold at least 2 years after the enrollment date and at least 1 year after the purchase date.  These details can vary from one plan to another and will be stated in the company's ESPP enrollment documents.   Do look at the high and low values of the stock over the last year.  If it swings up and down more than 15% (or whatever the discount is), then that risk should be a factor in your decision.  If the stock is trending upward over the long term and you are confident in the durability of the company, then you might favor holding."}
{"text": "Is an interest-only mortgage a bad idea? If you took a fixed loan, but paid it off at the accelerated rate, you would ultimately pay less total dollars in interest. So compare the actual amount paid in interest over the course of the loan rather than the interest rate itself.  That should be your answer. Also, plan on failing in your plan to pay it off and see how that will affect you."}
{"text": "Why buy insurance? I keep it simple. Here's what I learned when I took Personal Financial Planning: Insurance is for low likelihood, high-impact events."}
{"text": "Am I able to conduct a private sale of public shares at a price that I determine? Yes, you can do that, but you have to have the stocks issued in your name (stocks that you're holding through your broker are issued in \"street name\" to your broker). If you have a physical stock certificate issued in your name - you just endorse it like you would endorse a check and transfer the ownership. If the stocks don't physically exist - you let the stock registrar know that the ownership has been transferred to someone else. As to the price - the company doesn't care much about the price of private sales, but the taxing agency will. In the US, for example, you report such a transaction as either a gift (IRS form 709), if the transaction was at a price significantly lower than the FMV (or significantly higher, on the other end), or a sale (IRS form 1040, schedule D) if the transaction was at FMV."}
{"text": "Which shareholders cause news-driven whole market stock swings? The people who cause this sort of sell-off immediately are mostly speculators, short-term day-traders and the like. They realize that, because of the lowered potential for earnings in the future, the companies in question won't be worth as much in the future. They will sell shares at the elevated price, including sometimes shares that they borrow for the explicit purpose of selling (short selling), until the share price is more reasonable. Now, the other question is why the companies in question won't sell for as much in the future: Even if every other company in the world looks less attractive all at once (global economic catastrophe etc) people have other options. They could just put the money in the bank, or in corporate bonds, or in mortgage bonds, or Treasury bonds, or some other low-risk instrument, or something crazy like gold. If the expected return on a stock doesn't justify the price, you're unlikely to find someone paying that price. So you don't actually need to have a huge sell-off to lower the price. You just need a sell-off that's big enough that you run out of people willing to pay elevated prices."}
{"text": "What would I miss out on by self insuring my car? As you suspected, there is more than just car replacement taken care of by insurance (some of them are pointed out in Chad's story:"}
{"text": "At what point should I begin paying off student loans? Its almost always better to pay off loans sooner rather than later.   Being debt free is amazingly liberating.   However, in your case, I'd be reluctant to make significant headway on a loan repayment program.  Here's why: The best investment you can make, right now, is in yourself.  Completing your education should be the top priority.  The next would be to meet the requirements of a job after received after school is complete.  So what I would do is estimate the amount of money it would take to complete school.  Add to that an estimate of an amount to move to a new city and setup a household.   That amount should be held in reserve.  Anything above that can used to pay down loans. Once you complete school and get settled into a job, you can then take that money and also throw it at your loans."}
{"text": "What is the compound annual growth rate of the major markets? Under construction, but here's what I have so far: Schwab Data from 1970-2012: About.com data from 1980-2012:"}
{"text": "Can I negotiate a 0% transaction fee with my credit card company? TL;DR summary: 0% balance transfer offers and \"free checks usable anywhere\"   rarely are a good deal for the customer. 0% rate balance transfer offers (and the checks usable anywhere including payment of taxes) come with a transaction fee because the credit card company is paying off the balance on the other card (or the tax or the electric bill) in the full amount of $X as stated on the other card statement or on the tax/electric bill). This is in contrast to a purchase transaction where if you buy something for $X, you pay the card company $X but the card company pays the merchant something less than $X$. (Of course, the merchant has jacked up the sale price of the item to pass on the charge to you.) Can you get the credit card company to waive the transaction fee? You can try asking them but it is unlikely that you will succeed if your credit score is good! I have seen balance transfer offers with no transaction fees made to people who have don't have good credit scores and are used to carrying a balance  on their credit cards. I assume that the company making the offer knows that it will make up the transaction fee from future interest payments. A few other points to keep in mind with respect to using a 0% balance transfer offer to pay off a student loan (or anything else for that matter):"}
{"text": "Can GoogleFinance access total return data? This is the same answer as for your other question, but you can easily do this yourself: ( initial adjusted close / final adjusted close ) ^ ( 1 / ( # of years sampled) ) Note: \"# of years sampled\" can be a fraction, so the one week # of years sampled would be 1/52. Crazy to say, but yahoo finance is better at quick, easy, and free data.  Just pick a security, go to historical prices, and use the \"adjusted close\". money.msn's best at presenting finances quick, easy, and cheap."}
{"text": "I'm 13. Can I buy supplies at a pet store without a parent/adult present? My 12 year old routinely makes purchases with cash or a gift card (either a store's card or a Visa/Amex card that acts like credit card but is a gift card) and has never had an issue. Clothing, make-up, bath items, etc. I understand in some areas you need to be over 18 to buy certain markers, spraypaint, or other propellant items that can be fatal if inhaled. I see little issue with buying pet supplies, but it wouldn't hurt to have your sibling nearby if you think there will be an issue."}
{"text": "If earning as freelancer, is it better to be a Sole Trader or Limited Company? As I understand it (please correct me if i'm wrong, i've looked at this before and i've been a sole trader briefly but I've never formed a LTD company) there are pros and cons to forming a limited company. Pros Cons"}
{"text": "Should I buy a home or rent in my situation? First, you are not a loser nor an idiot! You have avoided many debt mistakes and have a stable income. This move will be good for you and your family and an opportunity to continue to build your life together. The fact you are even thinking about this and asking questions shows that you are responsible. To your rent/buy question, Ben Miller has a great summary in his answer. I have nothing more to add except that you already know you cannot buy. That question is not really your main problem. You need some financial goals and then you need a plan to achieve those goals. As you become more educated about finances, it can be like drinking from a fire hose. Trying to analyze too much information can paralyze you and make you 'freak out' that you are messing everything up! Try this.  Think about where you want to be in 5 years or so. Write down with your fiance some of those dreams and goals. Maybe things like finish college degree(s), buy a house, pay off student loans, wedding, have more kids, etc... As you prioritize these things, you will see that some are short-term goals and some are long-term. Then you lay out a step by step plan to get there. By focusing on each step at a time, you see more success and are more motivated.  As you see movement towards your goals, you will be willing to sacrifice more to get there. You will be willing to rent a cheaper place with less room to make more headway on these things. This will be a several year plan, which is why it is so important to define your goals at the beginning. This will give you motivation and the mental toughness to follow through when it is difficult."}
{"text": "Side work and managing finances? I've done various side work over the years -- computer consulting, writing, and I briefly had a video game company -- so I've gone through most of this. Disclaimer: I have never been audited, which may mean that everything I put on my tax forms looked plausible to the IRS and so is probably at least generally right, but it also means that the IRS has never put their stamp of approval on my tax forms. So that said ... 1: You do not need to form an LLC to be able to claim business expenses. Whether you have any expenses or not, you will have to complete a schedule C. On this form are places for expenses in various categories. Note that the categories are the most common type of expenses, there's an \"other\" space if you have something different. If you have any property that is used both for the business and also for personal use, you must calculate a business use percentage. For example if you bought a new printer and 60% of the time you use it for the business and 40% of the time you use it for personal stuff, then 60% of the cost is tax deductible. In general the IRS expects you to calculate the percentage based on amount of time used for business versus personal, though you are allowed to use other allocation formulas. Like for a printer I think you'd get away with number of pages printed for each. But if the business use is not 100%, you must keep records to justify the percentage. You can't just say, \"Oh, I think business use must have been about 3/4 of the time.\" You have to have a log where you write down every time you use it and whether it was business or personal. Also, the IRS is very suspicious of business use of cars and computers, because these are things that are readily used for personal purposes. If you own a copper mine and you buy a mine-boring machine, odds are you aren't going to take that home to dig shafts in your backyard. But a computer can easily be used to play video games or send emails to friends and relatives and lots of things that have nothing to do with a business. So if you're going to claim a computer or a car, be prepared to justify it. You can claim office use of your home if you have one or more rooms or designated parts of a room that are used \"regularly and exclusively\" for business purposes. That is, if you turn the family room into an office, you can claim home office expenses. But if, like me, you sit on the couch to work but at other times you sit on the couch to watch TV, then the space is not used \"exclusively\" for business purposes. Also, the IRS is very suspicious of home office deductions. I've never tried to claim it. It's legal, just make sure you have all your ducks in a row if you claim it. Skip 2 for the moment. 3: Yes, you must pay taxes on your business income. If you have not created an LLC or a corporation, then your business income is added to your wage income to calculate your taxes. That is, if you made, say, $50,000 salary working for somebody else and $10,000 on your side business, then your total income is $60,000 and that's what you pay taxes on. The total amount you pay in income taxes will be the same regardless of whether 90% came from salary and 10% from the side business or the other way around. The rates are the same, it's just one total number. If the withholding on your regular paycheck is not enough to cover the total taxes that you will have to pay, then you are required by law to pay estimated taxes quarterly to make up the difference. If you don't, you will be required to pay penalties, so you don't want to skip on this. Basically you are supposed to be withholding from yourself and sending this in to the government. It's POSSIBLE that this won't be an issue. If you're used to getting a big refund, and the refund is more than what the tax on your side business will come to, then you might end up still getting a refund, just a smaller one. But you don't want to guess about this. Get the tax forms and figure out the numbers. I think -- and please don't rely on this, check on it -- that the law says that you don't pay a penalty if the total tax that was withheld from your paycheck plus the amount you paid in estimated payments is more than the tax you owed last year. So like lets say that this year -- just to make up some numbers -- your employer withheld $4,000 from your paychecks. At the end of the year you did your taxes and they came to $3,000, so you got a $1,000 refund. This year your employer again withholds $4,000 and you paid $0 in estimated payments. Your total tax on your salary plus your side business comes to $4,500. You owe $500, but you won't have to pay a penalty, because the $4,000 withheld is more than the $3,000 that you owed last year. But if next year you again don't make estimated payment, so you again have $4,000 withheld plus $0 estimated and then you owe $5,000 in taxes, you will have to pay a penalty, because your withholding was less than what you owed last year. To you had paid $500 in estimated payments, you'd be okay. You'd still owe $500, but you wouldn't owe a penalty, because your total payments were more than the previous year's liability. Clear as mud? Don't forget that you probably will also owe state income tax. If you have a local income tax, you'll owe that too. Scott-McP mentioned self-employment tax. You'll owe that, too. Note that self-employment tax is different from income tax. Self employment tax is just social security tax on self-employed people. You're probably used to seeing the 7-whatever-percent it is these days withheld from your paycheck. That's really only half your social security tax, the other half is not shown on your pay stub because it is not subtracted from your salary. If you're self-employed, you have to pay both halves, or about 15%. You file a form SE with your income taxes to declare it. 4: If you pay your quarterly estimated taxes, well the point of \"estimated\" taxes is that it's supposed to be close to the amount that you will actually owe next April 15. So if you get it at least close, then you shouldn't owe a lot of money in April. (I usually try to arrange my taxes so that I get a modest refund -- don't loan the government a lot of money, but don't owe anything April 15 either.) Once you take care of any business expenses and taxes, what you do with the rest of the money is up to you, right? Though if you're unsure of how to spend it, let me know and I'll send you the address of my kids' colleges and you can donate it to their tuition fund. I think this would be a very worthy and productive use of your money. :-) Back to #2. I just recently acquired a financial advisor. I can't say what a good process for finding one is. This guy is someone who goes to my church and who hijacked me after Bible study one day to make his sales pitch. But I did talk to him about his fees, and what he told me was this: If I have enough money in an investment account, then he gets a commission from the investment company for bringing the business to them, and that's the total compensation he gets from me. That commission comes out of the management fees they charge, and those management fees are in the same ballpark as the fees I was paying for private investment accounts, so basically he is not costing me anything. He's getting his money from the kickbacks. He said that if I had not had enough accumulated assets, he would have had to charge me an hourly fee. I didn't ask how much that was. Whew, hadn't meant to write such a long answer!"}
{"text": "HSBC Hong Kong's \u201cDeposit Plus\u201d Product: What is it, and what strategies to employ? HSBC Hong Kong's \u201cDeposit Plus\u201d Product\" the same as \"Dual Currency Product\" .  it's Currency link Sell base Currency Call / Alternative Currency Put FX Option It's not protected by the Deposit Insurance System in HK You can search Key Word \"Dual Currency Product\" & \"Dual Currency Investment\" & \"Dual Currency Deposit\" The only one  of the world's foreign exchange structured product book \u300e\u96d9\u5143\u8ca8\u5e63\u7522\u54c1 Dual Currency Product\u300f ISBN 9789574181506"}
{"text": "Clarify Microsoft's explanation of MIRR The MIRR formula uses the finance rate to discount negative cash flows, but since the only negative cash flow in the example in in the current period, there's nothing to discount.  It's meant to solve problems with IRR like when there are both positive and negative cash flows, which can result in multiple answers for IRR.  The example they give isn't a good one for MIRR because it's a simple spend now, earn later scenario, which IRR is perfectly fine for. If you add a negative cashflow somewhere after the first one you'll see the answer change with difference financing rates."}
{"text": "Diversify or keep current stock to increase capital gains The biggest challenge with owning any individual stock is price fluctuation, which is called risk. The scenarios you describe assume that the stock behaves exactly as you predict (price/portfolio doubles) and you need to consider risk. One way to measure risk in a stock or in a portfolio is Sharpe Ratio (risk adjusted return), or the related Sortino ratio. One piece of advice that is often offered to individual investors is to diversify, and the stated reason for diversification is to reduce risk. But that is not telling the whole story. When you are able to identify stocks that are not price correlated, you can construct a portfolio that reduces risk. You are trying to avoid 10% tax on the stock grant (25%-15%), but need to accept significant risk to avoid the 10% differential tax ($1000). An alternative to a single stock is to invest in an ETF (much lower risk), which you can buy and hold for a long time, and the price/growth of an ETF (ex. SPY) can be charted versus your stock to visualize the difference in growth/fluctuation. Look up the beta (volatility) of your stock compared to SPY (for example, IBM). Compare the beta of IBM and TSLA and note that you may accept higher volatility when you invest in a stock like Tesla over IBM. What is the beta of your stock? And how willing are you to accept that risk? When you can identify stocks that move in opposite directions, and mix your portfolio (look up beta balanced portolio), you can smooth out the variability (reduce the risk), although you may reduce your absolute return. This cannot be done with a single stock, but if you have more money to invest you could compose the rest of your portfolio to balance the risk for this stock grant, keep the grant shares, and still effectively manage risk. Some years ago I had accumulated over 10,000 shares (grants, options) in a company where I worked. During the time I worked there, their price varied between $30/share and < $1/share. I was able to liquidate at $3/share."}
{"text": "Why is early exercise generally not recommended for an in-the-money option? For a deep in the money, it almost makes no difference because the intrinsic value, the price of the option, is seldom far above the liquidation value, the price of the underlying less the strike price. For an at the money, ceteris paribus, an early exercise would immediately cut the value of the option to 0; however, life is not so simple as JB King has shown. Purely theoretically, for an at or near the money option, an early exercise will be an instantaneous cost because the value after exercise is less than the previously trading or implied option price."}
{"text": "Pending euro payment to a usd account Currency exchange is rather the norm than the exception in international wire transfers, so the fact that the amount needs to be exchanged should have no impact at all. The processing time depends on the number of participating banks and their speeds. Typically, between Europe and the US, one or two business days are the norm. Sending from Other countries might involve more steps (banks)  which each takes a bit of time. However, anything beyond 5 business days is not normal. Consider if there are external delays - how did you initiate the sending? Was it in person with an agent of the bank, who might have put it on a stack, and they type it in only a day later (or worse)? Or was it online, so it is in the system right away? On the receiver side, how did you/your friend check? Could there be a delay by waiting for an account statement? Finally, and that is the most common reason, were all the numbers, names, and codes absolutely correct? Even a small mismatch in name spelling might trigger the receiving bank to not allocate the money into the account. Either way, if you contact the sender bank, you will be able to make them follow up on it. They must be able to trace where they money went, and where it currently is. If it is stuck, they will be able to get it \u2018unstuck\u2019."}
{"text": "To pay off a student loan, should I save up a lump sum payoff payment or pay extra each month? If the savings rate is the same as the loan rate, mathematically it doesn't make any difference whether you pay down the loan more and save less or vice versa. However, if the loan rate is higher than the savings rate it's better to pay it down as fast as possible. The chart below compares paying down the loan and saving equally (the gradual scenario), versus paying down the loan quickly at 2 x $193 and then saving 2 x $193.  The savings rate, for illustration, is 2%. Paying quickly pays down the loan completely by month 51.  On the other hand, in the gradual scheme the loan can't be paid down (with the savings) until month 54, which then leaves 3 months less for saving.  In conclusion, it's better to pay down the higher rate loan first.  Practically speaking, it may be useful to have some savings available."}
{"text": "Should I collect receipts after paying with a card? In this answer, I won't elaborate on the possibilities of fraud (or pure human error), because something can always go wrong. I will, however, explain why I think you should always keep receipts. When the (monthly or so) time comes to pay your credit card bill, your credit card company sends you a list of transactions. That list has two primary purposes, both of which I would consider equally important: While for the former item, a receipt is not necessary (though it certainly does not hurt showing the receipt along with the bill to provide further proof that the payment was indeed connected to that bill), the latter point does require you to store the receipts so you can check, item-by-item, whether each of the sums is correct (and matched with a receipt at all). So, unless you can actually memorize all the credit card transactions you did throughout the past one or two months, the receipts are the most convenient way of keeping that information until the bill arrives. Yes, your credit card company probably has some safeguards in place to reveal fraud, which might kick in in time (the criteria are mostly heuristical, it seems, with credit cards or legitimate transactions here getting blocked every now and then simply because some travelling of the actual owner was misinterpreted as theft). However, it is your money, it is your responsibility to discover any issues with the bill, just as you would check the monthly transaction list from your bank account line by line. Ultimately, that is why you sign the vendor copy of the receipt when buying something offline; if you discover an issue in your list of transactions, you have to notify your credit card company that you dispute one of the charges, and then the charging vendor has to show that they have your signature for the respective transaction. So, to summarize: Do keep your receipts, use them to check the list of transactions before paying your credit card bill. EDIT: The receipt often cannot be replaced with the bill from the vendor. The bill is useful for seeing how the sum charged by the respective vendor was created, but in turn, such bills often do not contain any payment information, or (when payment was concluded before the bill was printed, as sometimes happens in pre-paid scenarios such as hotel booking) nondescript remarks such as \"- PAYMENT RECEIVED -\", without any further indication of which one of your credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, stored value cards, or cash was used."}
{"text": "Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time? As some others have pointed out, it's key to remember the difference in market value and accounting value.  To simplify things, book value is the only item that specifically depreciates... it happens in the world of accounting to try to time \"when did I use a long term asset?\" with \"when did I obtain value from that asset?\" For a house, governments usually allow owners to claim depreciation of the building over a set period of time. This does not affect your resale value of the house.  Similarly, for a commercial property, governments set laws for how an individual or a company can time the \"use\" of that asset vs. their accounting. Some companies can have totally depreciated (\"zero cost\") assets that are still very productive.   Market Property values are derived from 3 specific sources: Value in Trade is an estimate of the value that others would be willing to pay for a similar asset. That's why you can buy a house today, and in a \"normal\" market, the same house should be worth a similar amount of money in the future. Value in Use can be more interesting... this is where a farmer can extract $100,000 in value per year from 10 acres of land. But as a region develops, a manufacturing company can generate $300,000 per year from the same 10 acres of land. The company can buy out the farmer at a 'fair' price (>$100,000 per year) and still net positive from the investment.  Income Approach tends to be focused on properties that have a cash flow, but can be adapted to other property estimates. It evaluates the current \"business case\" for any property with the cost of money down, the overall investment price, and the expected value from any returns.  Remember, the market value is very simply, the price you could obtain if you sold the asset at a given time. It is rarely considered in terms of \"how much will this go down?\".  Book value is an accounting exercise and declines by a set amount every year, because it means you can estimate the \"cost\" of owning an asset vs the value it generates in a particular time period."}
{"text": "Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined? The previous answers have raised very good points, but I believe one facet of this has been neglected. While it's true that the total accessible supply of gold keeps growing(although rather slowly as was mentioned earlier) the fact remains that gold, like oil, is a non-renewable natural resource. So, at some point, we are going to run out of gold to mine. Due to this fact, I believe gold will always be highly valued. Of course it can certainly always fluctuate in value. In fact, I expect in the reasonably near future to see a decline in the price of gold due to investors selling it en masse to re-enter the stock market when the economy has recovered more substantially."}
{"text": "Can I get a mortgage from a foreign bank? Simple answer YES you can, there are loads here are some links : world first , Baydon Hill , IPF Just googling \"foreign currency mortgage\", \"international mortgage\", or \"overseas mortgage\" gets you loads of starting points.  I believe its an established and well used process, and they would be \"classified\" as a \"normal\" mortgage. The process even has its own wiki page Incidentally I considered doing it myself. I looked into it briefly, but the cost of fee's seemed to outweigh the possible future benefits of lower interest rates and currency fluctuations."}
{"text": "Advantages of paying more of your mortgage while you know you won't continue to live there your whole life I will add one thought on to this thread.  This is a financial concept called \"Net Present Value\".  In plain English, it means \"What's the best use for your money right now?\" So, let's say you have an extra \u20ac300/month which is not being spent on living expenses. If you leave that money under your pillow (or spend it on beer or fancy electronics!) instead of paying off your startersloan early, that is costing you 300*(0.04/12) per month, every month.  So \u20ac1/month, or \u20ac12/year.  This is cumulative for the life of your loan.  So not paying \u20ac300 this month will ultimately cost you \u20ac120 assuming you keep the loan open for 10 years.  If you're saying \"pay my debts or spend the money on a snappy smartphone?\" the answer is that you should pay your debts. Now, here's the important part.  Let's suppose you have a better use for the money than beer or electronics.  Let's suppose you have a mutual fund which will reliably provide you with a return of 10% a year. If you put that \u20ac300/month into a high-yield fund, and if the returns are consistent, you are STILL paying that \u20ac12/year (because you invested elsewhere and didn't pay your debts), but you are realizing profits of 300*(0.1/12)=\u20ac2.5/month on the invested money.  \u20ac2.5-1=\u20ac1.5/month, which is a net gain.  So, in some cases, paying off your debt may not be the best use of your money. There are a number of other questions involved which are related to your exposure to capital gains taxes, incentives or disincentives for holding debt, &c. &c.  These are generally country specific.  A poster above who seems to be familiar with Netherlands law did a good explanation of some of those incentives.  I'm in the US, and our incentive and disincentive system is different. TL;DR:  It depends."}
{"text": "Why would refinancing my mortgage increase my PMI, even though rates are lower? The PMI rate is calculated at the time your mortgage is underwritten to be terminated at the point where you have 20% equity in your home.  It is calculated based off of default risks based on your current equity value at the time of the loan.  So if you got your mortgage before the banking crisis those risk charts have changed dramatically and not in your favor. So lets say you have a 100k home which you put 10k down so you have a mortgage of 90k.  Since you have accumulated an additional 5k equity so payoff value is now 85k.  If you refinance your mortgage and the home values in your area have dropped 15% you now are borrowing 100% of the value of your home.  So you have higher risk from being at 100% as opposed to 90%.  And the PMI is for the 20% of equity you do not have that the bank can not expect to recover.  So when you originally bought the house your PMI pay out was 10k.  At 85K value and 100% borrowed the PMI payout will be closer to 18k.  While you may still be able to sell your home for the original value when they do the refinance calculations they use what your area has trended.  If that is the case you maybe be able get an actual appraisal to use but that will come out of your pocket. *Disclaimer: These are simplifications of how the whole complex process works if you call the banker they can explain exactly why, show you the numbers, and help you understand your specific circumstances.  *"}
{"text": "Analyze a security using Benjamin Graham's Defensive Investor Criteria Everything you are doing is fine. Here are a few practical notes in performing this analysis: Find all the primary filing information on EDGAR. For NYSE:MEI, you can use https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000065270&type=10-K&dateb=&owner=exclude&count=40 This is the original 10-K. To evaluate earnings growth you need per share earnings for the past three years and 10,11,12 years ago. You do NOT need diluted earnings (because in the long term share dilution comes out anyway, just like \"normalized\" earnings). The formula is avg(Y_-1+Y_-2+Y_-3) / is avg(Y_-10+Y_-11+Y_-12) Be careful with the pricing rules you are using, the asset one gets complicated. I recommend NOT using the pricing rules #6 and #7 to select the stock. Instead you can use them to set a maximum price for the stock and then you can compare the current price to your maximum price. I am also working to understand these rules and have cited Graham's rules into a checklist and worksheet to find all companies that meet his criteria. Basically my goal is to bottom feed the deals that Warren Buffett is not interested in. If you are interested to invest time into this project, please see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vuFmoJDktMYtS64od2HUTV9I351AxvhyjAaC0N3TXrA"}
{"text": "How to transfer money to yourself internationally? Hmmm... As far as I know wire transfers are still the best option. If you make sure your US account accepts international wires for free (like TD Bank does) you'll have eliminated most of the costs (assuming your foreign bank doesn't charge too much for wiring the funds in the first place). Also, if your able to, you could consider wiring 6 or so months at the same time. I'm not familiar with XE.com but it seems it's not set up for transferring money so much as for trading currencies. While you could probably use it to transfer funds if you'd link both your accounts it seems a rather complicated way to go about things. Paypal could be an option if they'd allow you to set up an account in each country (or if you have a relative that could help out), but it gets more expensive than wire-transfers quickly. As for getting the best exchange rate... I've given up on that a long time ago and have accepted that as the cost of living internationally :)."}
{"text": "Why buy stock of a company instead of the holding company who has more than 99% of the stocks In a situation like this, I presume you'd invest in the child company if you thought that the child company would increase in value at a higher rate than the parent. You'd invest in the parent company if you thought the parent company would perform well as a whole, but you did not want to assume the risk of an individual company underneath it. Say the child company is worth 100 million, and the parent company is worth 500 million. You've invested a sum of money in the child company. The child company performs very well, and increases in value by, say, 20 million. As the parent company owns the child, we could say it also increases in value by roughly 20 million. The difference is proportional - Your investment in the child sees a 20% gain in value, whereas your investment in the parent sees a 4% gain in total value, as in this example the parent company, which owns nearly 100% of the child company, is worth 5x more and thus proportionally sees 1/5 the increase in value, due to it being worth more as a whole. Think of it similarly to a mutual fund or ETF that invests in many different stocks on the market. As the market does well, that mutual fund or ETF does well, too.  As the mutual fund is made up of many individual stocks, one stock performing very well, say at a 10-20% increase in value, does not raise the value of the ETF or mutual fund by 10-20%. The etf / mutual fund will perform slightly better (Assuming all other components remain equal for this example), but only proportionally to the fraction of it that's made up of the stock that's performing well."}
{"text": "how derivatives transfer risk from one entity to another By buying the call option, you are getting the benefit of purchasing the underlying shares (that is, if the shares go up in value, you make money), but transferring the risk of the shares reducing in value. This is more apparent when you are using the option to offset an explicit risk that you hold. For example, if you have a short position, you are at unlimited risk of the position going up in value. You could decide you only want to take the risk that it might rise to $X. In that case, you could buy a call option with $X strike price. Then you have transferred the risk that the position goes over $X to the counterpart, since, even if the shares are trading at $X+$Y you can close out the short position by purchasing the shares at $X, while the option counterpart will lose $Y."}
{"text": "How can I predict which way mortgage rates are moving? If economic conditions are weakening, i.e. unemployment rising, business and consummer confidence dropping, etc., you can expect interest rates and thus mortgage rates to drop. If economic conditions are strengthening you can expect interest rates and thus mortgage rates to start rising. As you are in the US, and with official interest rates there at 0.25% there is not much room for these rates to fall further. I am in Australia, with official interest rates at 3.75%, and with the economic weakness in the US and Europe and with China slowing down, we can expect our rates to fall further over the next year. Regarding your timeframe of one to two weeks, unless there is a decision on rates in the US in the next week I don't think there would be much change, especially with rates there at record lows. You are probably best to shop around for the best rates now and refinance once you have found one you are happy with."}
{"text": "How could a company survive just on operations cash flow, i.e. no earnings? It depends on the definition of earnings.  A company could have revenue that nets in excess of expenses, so from that perspective a good cash flow or EBITDA, but have debt servicing costs, taxes, depreciation, amortization, that alters that perspective. So if a company is carrying a large debt load, then the bondholders are in the position to capture any excess revenues through debt service payments and the company is in a negative equity positions (no equity or dividends payable to shareholders) and has not produced earnings. If a company has valuable preferred shares issued and outstanding, then depending on the earnings definition, there may be no earnings (for the common stock) until the preferences are satisfied by the returns. So while the venture itself (revenues minus costs) could be cash flow positive, this may not be sufficient to produce \"earnings\" for shareholders, whose claim on the company still entitles them to zero current liquidation value (i.e. they get nothing if the company dissolves immediately - all value goes to bondholders or preferred).  It could also be that taxes are eating into revenue, or the depreciation of key assets is greater than the excess of revenues over costs (e.g. a bike rental company by the beach makes money on a weekly basis but is rusting out half its stock every 3 months and replacement costs will overwhelm the operating revenues)."}
{"text": "Made more than $600. Company does not issue 1099-MISC's. Enter income as general income? I'm not sure how this gets entered in TurboTax, but this income from the company should be included in the Schedule C (or C-EZ) Line 1 Gross Receipts total, along with all of your 1099-MISC income from your business and any other income that your business took in. You don't need a 1099 from them, and the IRS doesn't care (at least from your perspective) if you got a 1099 or not; in fact, they probably expect you to have some non-1099 income.  We don't know why the company chose not to issue 1099 forms, but luckily it isn't your concern. You can fill out your tax return properly without it.  Note: This answer assumes that you didn't have any tax withheld from your checks from this company. If you did have tax withheld, you'll need to insist on a 1099 to show that."}
{"text": "Are all financial advisors compensated in the same way? No, they certainly are not compensated the same way.  Some are paid by commission that they earn from the products they sell (ie, certain mutual funds, insurance, etc.)  Others are paid for their advice based on an hourly fee, or a percentage of the portfolio you have to invest. This is a great question, because too many of us just assume that if someone is in the business, they will give trustworthy advice.  This may certainly be the case, but think about it, the financial planner at your bank (who also is a mutual fund specialist - just flip that handy business card over) is employed by Bank X.  Bank X sells mutual funds, GIC's, insurance, all kinds of great products.  That Bank X employee is not likely to tell you about products from Bank Z down the street that might be a better fit for you. Find a fee based planner, someone you can pay by the hour for advice, and let them help you review products across the industry.  It's like asking your bank for mortgage advice...they will discuss the options THEY offer, but may not tell you about a deal down the street.  Using a mortgage broker helps you find the best deal across the board. I believe the current issue of Moneysense magazine has an insert discussing planners.  Their magazine and website (www.moneysense.ca) are good sources of reliable, Canadian financial advice."}
{"text": "Is housing provided by a university as employer reported on 1040? You should ask a CPA or tax lawyer to what extent living in specific housing provided by the employer as a job requirement is exempt from taxation.  You might find a nice surprise.  Your tax professional can also help you to report the items properly if mis-reported. Much of this is in the article you cite in the question, but perhaps a look at some of the original sources is warranted and will show why some expert advice might be useful.  I would argue that an RA who is required to police and counsel undergrads in a college dorm in exchange for a room or a flat is closer to a worker with quarters on a ship or at an oil well than a full professor who receives a rental home in a neighborhood near the university as a benefit.  In the first case living at the provided premises is necessary to do the job, but in the second case it is merely a benefit of the job.   The IRS Publication 15-B guidance on employer provided housing  is not entirely clear, so you might want to get some additional advice: Lodging on Your Business Premises You can exclude the value of lodging   you furnish to an employee from the employee's wages if it meets the   following tests. It is furnished on your business premises. It is furnished for your convenience. The employee must accept it as a condition of employment. Different tests may apply to lodging furnished by educational   institutions. See section 119(d) of the Internal Revenue Code for   details. If you allow your employee to choose to receive additional pay instead   of lodging, then the lodging, if chosen, isn\u2019t excluded. The exclusion   also doesn't apply to cash allowances for lodging. On your business premises.   For this exclusion, your business   premises is generally your employee's place of work. For example, if   you're a household employer, then lodging furnished in your home to a   household employee would be considered lodging furnished on your   business premises. For special rules that apply to lodging furnished   in a camp located in a foreign country, see section 119(c) of the   Internal Revenue Code and its regulations.  For your convenience.   Whether or not you furnish lodging for your convenience as an employer   depends on all the facts and circumstances. You furnish the lodging to   your employee for your convenience if you do this for a substantial   business reason other than to provide the employee with additional   pay. This is true even if a law or an employment contract provides   that the lodging is furnished as pay. However, a written statement   that the lodging is furnished for your convenience isn't sufficient. Condition of employment.   Lodging meets this test if you require your   employees to accept the lodging because they need to live on your   business premises to be able to properly perform their duties.   Examples include employees who must be available at all times and   employees who couldn't perform their required duties without being   furnished the lodging.   It doesn't matter whether you must furnish   the lodging as pay under the terms of an employment contract or a law   fixing the terms of employment. Example of qualifying lodging. You employ Sam at a construction project at a remote job site in   Alaska. Due to the inaccessibility of facilities for the employees who   are working at the job site to obtain lodging and the prevailing   weather conditions, you furnish lodging to your employees at the   construction site in order to carry on the construction project. You   require that your employees accept the lodging as a condition of their   employment. You may exclude the lodging that you provide from Sam's   wages. Additionally, since sufficient eating facilities aren\u2019t   available near your place of employment, you may also exclude meals   you provide to Sam from his wages, as discussed under Meals on Your   Business Premises , later in this section. Example of nonqualifying lodging. A hospital gives Joan, an employee of the hospital, the choice of   living at the hospital free of charge or living elsewhere and   receiving a cash allowance in addition to her regular salary. If Joan   chooses to live at the hospital, the hospital can't exclude the value   of the lodging from her wages because she isn't required to live at   the hospital to properly perform the duties of her employment. One question would be how the conflict with IRC 119(d) is resolved for someone who must live in the dorm to watch over the dorm and its undergrads. Here's 26USC119(d) from LII: (d) Lodging furnished by certain educational institutions to employees (1) In general  In the case of an employee of an educational   institution, gross income shall not include the value of qualified   campus lodging furnished to such employee during the taxable year. (2)   Exception in cases of inadequate rent Paragraph (1) shall not apply to   the extent of the excess of\u2014 (A) the lesser of\u2014 (i) 5 percent of the   appraised value of the qualified campus lodging, or (ii) the average   of the rentals paid by individuals (other than employees or students   of the educational institution) during such calendar year for lodging   provided by the educational institution which is comparable to the   qualified campus lodging provided to the employee, over (B) the rent   paid by the employee for the qualified campus lodging during such   calendar year. The appraised value under subparagraph (A)(i) shall be   determined as of the close of the calendar year in which the taxable   year begins, or, in the case of a rental period not greater than 1   year, at any time during the calendar year in which such period   begins.  (3) Qualified campus lodging For purposes of this subsection,   the term \u201cqualified campus lodging\u201d means lodging to which subsection   (a) does not apply and which is\u2014 (A) located on, or in the proximity   of, a campus of the educational institution, and (B) furnished to the   employee, his spouse, and any of his dependents by or on behalf of   such institution for use as a residence.  (4) Educational institution, etc. For purposes of this subsection\u2014 (A) In generalThe term   \u201ceducational institution\u201d means\u2014 (i) an institution described in   section 170(b)(1)(A)(ii) (or an entity organized under State law and   composed of public institutions so described), or (ii) an academic   health center. (B) Academic health centerFor purposes of subparagraph   (A), the term \u201cacademic health center\u201d means an entity\u2014 (i) which is   described in section 170(b)(1)(A)(iii), (ii) which receives (during   the calendar year in which the taxable year of the taxpayer begins)   payments under subsection (d)(5)(B) or (h) of section 1886 of the   Social Security Act (relating to graduate medical education), and   (iii) which has as one of its principal purposes or functions the   providing and teaching of basic and clinical medical science and   research with the entity\u2019s own faculty."}
{"text": "Creating S-Corp: Should I Name My Wife as a Director/Shareholder? There are many aspects to consider in deciding what sort of company you want to form. Instead of an S-corporation, you should determine whether it would be better to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC), Limited Partnership (LP) or even a professional company (PC). Littleadv is correct: There is minimal benefit in forming an S-corp with you and your wife as the shareholders, if you will be the only contributor-worker. There are costs associated with an S-corporation, or any corporation, that might outweigh benefits from more favorable tax treatment, or personal protection from liability: Filing fees and disclosure rules vary from state to state. For example, my father was a cardiologist who had no employees, other than my grandmother (she worked for free), in a state with income taxes (NM). He was advised that a PC was best in New Mexico, while an S-Corp was better in Florida (there are no personal income taxes in Florida).  The only way to know what to do requires that you consult an accountant, a good one, for guidance."}
{"text": "Does an owner of a bond etf get an income even if he sells before the day of distribution? Your ETF will return the interest as dividends.  If you hold the ETF on the day before the Ex-Dividend date, you will get the dividend.  If you sell before that, you will not.  Note that at least one other answer to this question is wrong.  You do NOT need to hold on the Record date.  There is usually 2 days (or so) between the ex-date and the record date, which corresponds to the number of days it takes for your trade to settle.  See the rules as published by the SEC: http://www.sec.gov/answers/dividen.htm"}
{"text": "What are some sources of information on dividend schedules and amounts? I second the Yahoo! Finance key stats suggestion, but I like Morningstar even better: http://quote.morningstar.com/stock/s.aspx?t=roic They show projected yield, based on the most recent dividend; the declared and ex-dividend dates, and the declared amount; and a table of the last handful of dividend payments. Back to Yahoo, if you want to see the whole dividend history, select Historical Prices, and from there, select Dividends Only. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=ROIC&a=10&b=3&c=2009&d=00&e=4&f=2012&g=v"}
{"text": "Where do stock traders get realtime updates on Fed announcements? Is there a feed I could scrape? Tthe easiest place to see Fed announcements as soon as they're published is the Federal Reserve itself. If you want the information as soon as it's made publicly available, scrape the Federal Reserve press releases. I assume you're most interested in the announcements after the FOMC meetings, so you might want to scrape the FOMC calendar. The statements come out right after the meeting, and the minutes are released three weeks later.  If you want to catch instances where the minutes are leaked, that's a bit trickier.  For a lot of other market data, services providers like Bloomberg, Reuters, etc. are usually the best bet for realtime information, since these companies earn their revenue and keep their customers by providing the data as fast as humanly possible. They may offer an analysis or a distilled version of the FOMC minutes for traders to use within minutes of the announcement itself (I'm not sure if they do or not), but the announcements themselves will come from the Federal Reserve itself first and foremost."}
{"text": "Are Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) less safe than regular mutual funds? I wonder if ETF's are further removed from the actual underlying holdings or assets giving value to the fund, as compared to regular mutual funds. Not exactly removed. But slightly different. Whenever a Fund want to launch an ETF, it would buy the underlying shares; create units. Lets say it purchased 10 of A, 20 of B and 25 of C. And created 100 units for price x. As part of listing, the ETF company will keep the purchased shares of A,B,C with a custodian. Only then it is allowed to sell the 100 units into the market. Once created, units are bought or sold like regular stock. In case the demand is huge, more units are created and the underlying shares kept with custodian.  So, for instance, would VTI and Total Stock Market Index Admiral Shares be equally anchored to the underlying shares of the companies within the index? Yes they are. Are they both connected? Yes to an extent. The way Vanguard is managing this is given a Index [Investment Objective]; it is further splitting the common set of assets into different class. Read more at Share Class. The Portfolio & Management gives out the assets per share class. So Vanguard Total Stock Market Index is a common pool that has VTI ETF, Admiral and Investor Share and possibly Institutional share. Is VTI more of a \"derivative\"? No it is not a derivative. It is a Mutual Fund."}
{"text": "Does the Fed keeping interest rates low stimulate investment in the stock market and other investments? Investopedia has this note where you'd want the contrapositive point: The interest rate, commonly bandied about by the media, has a wide and   varied impact upon the economy. When it is raised, the general effect   is a lessening of the amount of money in circulation, which works to   keep inflation low. It also makes borrowing money more expensive,   which affects how consumers and businesses spend their money; this   increases expenses for companies, lowering earnings somewhat for those   with debt to pay. Finally, it tends to make the stock market a   slightly less attractive place to investment. As for evidence, I'd question that anyone could really take out all the other possible economic influences to prove a direct co-relation between the Federal Funds rate and the stock market returns.  For example, of the dozens of indices that are stock related, which ones would you want that evidence: Total market, large-cap, small-cap, value stocks, growth stocks, industrials, tech, utilities, REITs, etc.  This is without considering other possible investment choices such as direct Real Estate holdings, compared to REITs that is, precious metals and collectibles that could also be used."}
{"text": "If stock price drops by the amount of dividend paid, what is the use of a dividend I'm fairly convinced there is no difference whatsoever between dividend payment and capital appreciation.  It only makes financial sense for the stock price to be decreased by the dividend payment so over the course of any specified time interval, without the dividend the stock price would have been that much higher were the dividends not paid.  Total return is equal. I think this is like so many things in finance that seem different but actually aren't. If a stock does not pay a dividend, you can synthetically create a dividend by periodically selling shares.   Doing this would incur periodic trade commissions, however.  That does seem like a loss to the investor.  For this reason, I do see some real benefit to a dividend.  I'd rather get a check in the mail than I would have to pay a trade commission, which would offset a percentage of the dividend. Does anybody know if there are other hidden fees associated with dividend payments that might offset the trade commissions?  One thought I had was fees to the company to establish and maintain a dividend-payment program.  Are there significant administrative fees, banking fees, etc. to the company that materially decrease its value?  Even if this were the case, I don't know how I'd detect or measure it because there's such a loose association between many corporate financials (e.g. cash on hand) and stock price."}
{"text": "Alternatives to Intuit's PayTrust service for online bill viewing and bill payment? (Six years later...) I've used CheckFree for over 20 years, and my uncle started using it back in the early 1980s through a 300 baud modem.  It has e-bills, EDI bills that you schedule yourself, and will also mail checks to people and small businesses. You can make your payments from an unlimited number of banks, can schedule multiple recurring payments for the same bill (I find that useful for when buying large/expensive items by CC: I create a different payment schedule for each), plus ad hoc payments."}
{"text": "What does investment bank risk during IPO? There are two kinds of engagements in an IPO. The traditional kind where the Banks assume the risks of unsold shares. Money coming out of their pockets to hold shares no one wants. That is the main risk. No one buying the stock that the bank is holding.  Secondly, there is a \"best efforts\" engagement. This means that bank will put forth its best effort to sell the shares, but will not be on the hook if any don't sell. This is used for small cap / risky companies.  Source: Author/investment banker"}
{"text": "What is the rate of return for a security when there is no risk-free rate (CAPM)? For starters, the risk-free rate has nothing to do with stocks.  It would be independent of anything.  It pays out the same return in all states of nature.  The definition of a risk-free asset is that regardless of how the universe turns out, including a meteor striking the Earth killing everyone but the recipient, then the payout would happen exactly as planned.  One could imagine a computer still being on, connected to a power supply and printing a check.  Most people use the 90-day t-bill as the risk-free rate.  A beta greater than one implies it is more volatile than the market, not that it moves more perfectly. The CAPM should not be used for this.  Cryptocurrencies should not be used with this model because they have valuation dynamics related to the new issue of coins.  In other words, they have non-market price movements as well as market price movements. In general, you should not use the CAPM because it doesn't work empirically.  It is famous, but it is also wrong.  A scientific hypothesis that is not supported by the data is a bad idea.  My strong recommendation is that you read \"The Intelligent Investor,\" by Benjamin Graham.  It was last published in 1972, and it is still being printed.  I believe Warren Buffett wrote the current forward for it.  Always go where the data supports you and never anywhere else, no matter how elegant. Finally, unless you are doing this like a trip to Vegas, for fun and willing to take the losses, I would avoid cryptocurrencies because you don't know what you are doing yet.  It is obvious from the posting.  I have multiple decades working in every type of financial institution and at every level, bottom to top.  I also have a doctorate, and I am an incredible researcher.  I am professionally qualified in three different disciplines. If you want to learn how to do this, start with the \"Intelligent Investor.\"  Get a basic book on accounting and learn basic accounting.  Pick up economics textbooks at least through \"Intermediate\" for both microeconomics and macroeconomics.  Get William Bolstad's book \"Introduction to Bayesian Statistics.\"  You will need them for reasons that go very far beyond this post.  Trust me; you want to master that book.  Find a statistician and ask them to teach it to you as a special topics course.  It will help you as both either a Marine officer or a Naval officer.  Then after that pick up a copy of \"Security Analysis.\"  Either the 1943 copy (yes it is in print) by Benjamin Graham if you feel good about accounting, or the 1987 copy by Cottle under the Graham/Dodd imprimatur.  Then, if you are still interested in cryptocurrencies and they will be blas\u00e9 by then, then pick up an economics textbook on money.  If I were you, I would learn about Yap money, commodity money, and prison money first, then you might understand why a cryptocurrency may not be an investment for you."}
{"text": "Is an interest-only mortgage a bad idea? Really the question you need to ask yourself is how much Risk you want to take in order to save a little on interest for 5 years. Rates are pretty close to a historic low, and if you have good credit you should shop around a bit to get a good ideal of what a 15 or 30 year fixed loan would go for. For people that are SURE they will be selling a property in a few years, a 5-yeah balloon, or ARM might not be a bad thing.  OTOH, if their plans change, or if you plan to stay in the property for longer (e.g. 10-15 years) then they have the potential to turn into a HUGE trap, and could have the effect of forcing you to sell your house.   The most likely people to fall into such a trap are those who are trying to buy more house than they can really afford and max out what they can pay using a lower rate and then later cannot afford the payments if anything happens that makes the rate go up.  Over the last three years we've seen a large number of foreclosures and short-sales taking place are because of people who fell into just this kind of trap..  I strongly advise you learn from their mistakes and do NOT follow in their footsetps  You need to consider what could happen in 5 years time.   Or if the economy takes off and/or the Fed is not careful with interest rates and money supply, we could see high inflation and high interest rates to go along with it.   The odds of rates being any lower in 5 years time is probably pretty low.  The odds of it being higher depends on who's crystal ball you look at.  I think most people would say that rates are likely to increase (and the disagreement is over just how much and how soon).  If you are forced to refinance in 5 years time, and the rates are higher, will you be able to make the payments, or will you potentially be forced out of the house? Perhaps into something much smaller.  What happens if the rates at that time are 9% and even an ARM is only 6%? Could you make the payments or would you be forced to sell?   Potentially you could end up paying out more in interest than if you had just gotten a simple fixed loan. Myself, I'd not take the risk.  For much of the last 40 years people would have sold off their children or body parts to get rates like we have today on a standard fixed loan.  I'd go for a standard fixed loan between 15 and 30 years duration.  If you want to pay extra principle to get it paid off earlier in order to feel more secure or just get out from under the debt, then do so (personally, I wouldn't bother, not at today's rates)"}
{"text": "VAT and duties payable when importing personal goods from Switzerland and the Channel Islands to the EU? http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/tax-and-duty.htm#3 explains the Import VAT situation quite well.  As for who enforces and collects it, if you're talking about buying online and having it shipped to you then you'll notice on the parcel a Customs sticker declaring the contents and value. It is the responsibility of the courier company to collect any duty due from you and pass it on to HMRC.  In practice what this means is that you receive a card or note from the courier saying \"we're impounding your package until you pay the import duty\" and they usually charge a fee on top of the duty itself.  Of course you can always go out there yourself and bring something back, but then it is your responsibility to declare it at the customs checkpoint when you enter the country."}
{"text": "Why did the Swiss National Bank fix the EUR/CHF exchange rate at CHF 1.20? Due to the issues in the Eurozone, many foreign investors were buying Swiss Francs as a hedge against a Euro devaluation. They were in effect treating the Franc like gold, silver or some other commodity with perceived intrinsic value. This causes huge problems from the Swiss, as the value of the Franc increased and their exports became more expensive for foreigners to purchase. Things were getting bad enough that the Swiss in some places were travelling to Germany to buy groceries! To enforce this \"fixing\" of the Franc, the Swiss Central Bank announced that they would buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities by printing Francs. In reality, just announcing that they were going to do this was sufficient to discourage foreign investors from loading up on Francs. NPR's Planet Money did a really good job covering this topic:"}
{"text": "A friend wants to use my account for a wire transfer. Is this a scam or is it legitimate? I know people who work in the gulf and most contracts are of the 14 days on/ 14 days (or so) off flavor. I've never heard of someone being onboard a ship or platform for a year. I bet this is a scam."}
{"text": "Incentive Stock Option (ISO) tax question - more specific this time Alternatively you could exercise 12000 shares for $36000 and immediately sell 7200 shares to recover your exercise price. Then you use the remaining 4800 share to pay the exercise price of the remaining 8000 options. Both scenarios are equivalent but may have different fees associated, so it's worth checking the fine print.  Tax wise: The above example is \"cash neutral before taxes\". The taxes associated with these transaction are substantial, so it's highly recommended to talk with a tax adviser. \"cash neutral after taxes\" depends highly on your specific tax situation."}
{"text": "Is there a Yahoo Finance ticker for NYMEX Crude Oil Front Month? Yahoo Finance doesn't offer this functionality; I remember looking for this exact feature a couple of years ago for coffee futures. Your best option is to look at the futures chain. However, Yahoo Finance's future chains aren't always complete, since you'll notice that the futures chain for NYMEX crude oil omit the June contract. The contract still exists, but Yahoo doesn't list it in its own futures chain or in the future chain for May."}
{"text": "How do I protect myself from a scam if I want to help a relative? What can I do to help him out, but at the same time protect myself from any potential scams? Find out why he can't do this himself.  Whether your relative is being sincere or not, if he owns both accounts then he should be able to transfer money between them by himself.  If you can find a way to solve that issue without involving your bank account, so much the better. Don't settle for \"something about authorized payees and expired cards.\"  Get details, write them down.  If possible, get documents.  Then go to a bank or financial adviser you can trust and run those details by them to see what they have to say.  Even if there's no scam, if what he's trying to do is illegal (even if he doesn't realize it himself) then you want to know before you get involved.  You say you're willing to deal with \"other issues\" separately, but keep in mind that, even if there's no external scam here, those \"other issues\" could include hefty fees, censures on your own account, or jail time. Ask yourself: Does it make sense that this relative has an account overseas?  I don't have any overseas accounts, because I don't do business in other countries.  Is your relative a dual-citizen?  Does he travel a lot?  What country is the overseas account in?  How long has he had this account?  What bank is it with?  Where the money is going is just as important as how it gets there (ie: through your account.)  Arguably more so. Keep in mind that many scammers tell their marks not to share what's going on with anyone else.  (Because doing so increases the odds of someone telling them to snap out of it.)  It's entirely possible he's being scammed himself and just not telling you the whole story because the 419er is telling him to keep it quiet.  (Check out that link for more details on common scams that your relative may be unwittingly part of, btw.) Get as many details as possible about what he's doing and why.  If he's communicating with anyone else regarding this transfer, find out who.  If there are emails, ask his permission to read them and watch for anything suspicious (ie: people who can't spell their own name consistently, constant pressure to act quickly, etc.)"}
{"text": "Get a loan with low interest rate on small business I am going to assume your location is the US. From what I am seeing it is unlikely you will get a loan other than some government backed thing.  You are a poor risk. At 7k/month, you have above average household income.  The fact that all of your income \"is being washed off somewhere\" is a behavior problem, not a mathematical one.  For example, why do you have a car payment?  You should purchase a car for cash. Failing that, given reasonable rent (1100), reasonable car payment (400), insurances (300), other expenses (1000), you should clear at least 4000 per month in cash flow.  Where is that money going?  Here tracking spending and budgeting is your friend.  Figure out the leaks in your budget and fix them. By cutting back, and perhaps working a second job or somehow earning more you could have a down payment for a home in as little as 10 months.  That is not a very long time.   Similarly we can discuss the grocery store.  Had you prepared for this moment three years ago you could have bought the store for cash.  This would have eliminated a bunch of risk and increase the likelihood of this venture's success.  If you had started this one year ago, you could have gone in with a significant down payment.  The bank would see this as a good risk if you wanted to borrow the remainder. Instead the bank sees you as a person as a poor risk.  You spend every dime you make without much concern for the future or possible negative events (by implication of your question).  If you cannot handle the cash flows of regular employment well, how can you handle the cash flows of a grocery business?  It is far more complex, and there is far less room for error.   So how do you get a loan?  I would start with learning on how to manage your personal finance well prior to delving into the world of business."}
{"text": "If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything? I haven't seen any of the other answers address this point \u2013 shares are (a form of) ownership of a company and thus they are an entitlement to the proceeds of the company, including proceeds from liquidation. Imagine an (extreme, contrived) example whereby you own shares in a company that is explicitly intended to only exist for a finite and definite period, say to serve as the producers of a one-time event. Consider a possible sequence of major events in this company's life: So why would the shares of this hypothetical company be worth anything? Because the company itself is worth something, or rather the stuff that the company owns is worth something, even (or in my example, especially) in the event of its dissolution or liquidation. Besides just the stuff that a company owns, why else would owning a portion of a company be a good idea, i.e. why would I pay for such a privilege? Buying shares of a company is a good idea if you believe (and are correct) that a company will make larger profits or capture more value (e.g. buy and control more valuable stuff) than other people believe. If your beliefs don't significantly differ from others then (ideally) the price of the companies stock should reflect all of the future value that everyone expects it to have, tho that value is discounted based on time preference, i.e. how much more valuable a given amount of money or a given thing of value is today versus some time in the future. Some notes on time preference: But apart from whether you should buy shares in a specific company, owning shares can still be valuable. Not only are shares a claim on a company's current assets (in the event of liquidation) but they are also claims on all future assets of the company. So if a company is growing then the value of shares now should reflect the (discounted) future value of the company, not just the value of its assets today. If shares in a company pays dividends then the company gives you money for owning shares. You already understand why that's worth something. It's basically equivalent to an annuity, tho dividends are much more likely to stop or change whereas the whole point of an annuity is that it's a (sometimes) fixed amount paid at fixed intervals, i.e. reliable and dependable. As CQM points out in their answer, part of the value of stock shares, to those that own them, and especially to those considering buying them, is the expectation or belief that they can sell those shares for a greater price than what they paid for them \u2013 irrespective of the 'true value' of the stock shares. But even in a world where everyone (magically) had the same knowledge always, a significant component of a stock's value is independent of its value as a source of trading profit. As Jesse Barnum points out in their answer, part of the value of stocks that don't pay dividends relative to stocks that do is due to the (potential) differences in tax liabilities incurred between dividends and long-term capital gains. This however, is not the primary source of value of a stock share."}
{"text": "Why do some companies offer 401k retirement plans? Stated plainly... it's a benefit. Companies are not required to offer you any compensation above paying you minimum wage. But benefits attract higher quality employees.  I think a big part of it is that it is the norm. Employees want it because of the tax benefits. Employees expect it because almost all reputable companies of any significant size offer it. You could run a great company, but if you don't offer a 401k plan, you can scare away good potential employees. It would give a bad impression the same way that not offering health insurance would."}
{"text": "Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money? In gambling, the house also takes a cut, so the total money in the game is shrinking by 2-10 percent.  So if you gain $100, it's because other people lost $105, and you do this for dozens of plays, so it stacks up.  The market owns companies who are trying to create economic value - take nothing and make it something. They usually succeed, and this adds to the total pot and makes all players richer regardless of trades.   Gambling is transactional, there's a \"pull\" or a \"roll\" or a \"hand\", and when it's over you must do new transactions to continue playing.   Investing parks your money indefinitely, you can be 30 years in a stock and that's one transaction. And given the long time, virtually all your gains will be new economic value created, at no one else's expense, i.e. Nobody loses.  Now it's possible to trade in and out of stocks very rapidly, causing them  to be transactional like gambling: the extreme example is day-trading.  When you're not in a stock long enough for the company to create any value (paid in dividends or the market appreciating the value), then yes, for someone to gain, someone else must lose. And the house takes a cut (e.g. Etrade's $10 trading fee in and out).  In that case both players are trying to win, and one just had better info on average.   Another case is when the market drops. For instance right after Brexit I dumped half my domestic stocks and bought Euro index funds. I gambled Euro stocks would rebound better than US stocks would continue to perform.  Obviously, others were counterbetting that American stocks will still grow more than Euro will rebound.  Who won that gamble?  Certainly we will all do better long-term, but some of us will do better-er. And that's what it's all about."}
{"text": "How are various types of income taxed differently in the USA? Long-term capital gains, which is often the main element of investment income for investors who are not high-frequency day traders, are taxed at a single rate that is often substantially below the marginal rate they would otherwise be taxed at, particularly for wealthy individuals. There are a few rationales behind this treatment; the two most common are that the government wants to encourage long-term investments (as opposed to short-term speculation), and that capital gains are a kind of double taxation (from one point of view) as they are coming from income that has already been taxed once before (as wage or ordinary income).  The latter in particular is highly controversial, but this is one of the more divisive political issues in the taxation front - one party would eliminate the tax entirely, the other would eliminate the difference. For most individuals, the majority of their long-term capital gains are taxed at 15% up to almost half of a million dollars total AGI, which is a fairly low rate - it's equivalent to the rate a taxpayer would pay on up to $37,000 in wage income (after deductions/exemptions/etc.).  You can see from this table in Wikipedia that it is much preferred to pay long-term capital gains rates when possible - at every point it's at least 10% lower than the tax rate for ordinary income. Ordinary income includes wages and many other sources of income - basically, anything that is not long term capital gains. Wage income is taxed at this rate, and also subject to some non-income-tax taxes (FICA and Medicare in particular); other sources of ordinary income are not subject to those taxes (including IRA income).  Short term capital gains are generally included in this bucket. Qualified Dividends are treated similarly to long-term capital gains (as they are of a similar nature), and taxed accordingly. The \"Net Investment Tax\" is basically applying the Medicare tax to investment income for higher-income taxpayers ($125k single, $250k joint).  It's on top of capital gains rates for them.  It came about through the Affordable Care Act, and is one of the first provisions likely to be repealed by the new Congress (as it can be repealed through the budgeting provision).  It seems likely that 2017 taxes will not contain this provision."}
{"text": "Is Stock Trading legal for a student on F-1 Visa doing CPT in USA? There are no legal reasons preventing you from trading as a F-1 visa holder, as noted in this Money.SE answer. Per this article, here are the things you need to set up an account: What do I need to have for doing Stock trading as F1 student ? Typically, most of the stock brokerage firms require Social Security   Number (SSN) for stock trading. The reason is that, for your capital   gains, it is required  by IRS for tax purposes. If you work on campus,   then you would already get SSN as part of the job application   process\u2026Typically, once you get the on-campus job or work   authorization using CPT or OPT , you use that offer letter and take   all your current documents like Passport, I-20, I-94 and apply for SSN   at Social Security Administration(SSA) Office, check full details at   SSA Website . SSN is typically used to report job wages by employer   for tax purposes or check eligibility of benefits to IRS/Government. I do NOT have SSN, Can I still do stock trading as F1 student ? While many stock brokerage firms require SSN, you are not out of luck,   if you do not have one\u2026you will have to apply for an ITIN Number (   Individual Taxpayer Identification Number )  and can use the same when   applying for stock brokerage account.  While some of the firms accept   ITIN number, it totally depends on the stock brokering firm and you   need to check with the one that you are interested in. The key thing is that you'll need either a SSN or ITIN to open a US-based brokerage account."}
{"text": "Is CFD a viable option for long-term trading? Yes it is viable but uncommon. As with everything to do with investment, you have to know what you are doing and must have a plan. I have been successful with long term trading of CFDs for about 4 years now. It is true that the cost of financing to hold positions long term cuts into profits but so do the spreads when you trade frequently. What I have found works well for me is maintaining a portfolio that is low volatility, (e.g. picking a mix of positions that are negatively correlated) has a good sharpe ratio, sound fundamentals (i.e. co-integrated assets - or at least fairly stable correlations) then leveraging a modest amount."}
{"text": "Why does historical price data not go back all the way on Google Finance? Google Finance and Yahoo Finance have been transitioning their API (data interface) over the last 3 months. They are currently unreliable. If you're just interested in historical price data, I would recommend either Quandl or Tiingo (I am not affiliated with either, but I use them as data sources). Both have the same historical data (open, close, high, low, dividends, etc.) on a daily closing for thousands of Ticker symbols. Each service requires you to register and get a unique token. For basic historical data, there is no charge. I've been using both for many months and the data quality has been excellent and API (at least for python) is very easy! If you have an inclination for python software development, you can read about the drama with Google and Yahoo finance at the pandas-datareader group at https://github.com/pydata/pandas-datareader."}
{"text": "How can one go short in Uber? The answer to this question is related to another question: How would I invest in Uber? Given that Uber is a privately-held company, the average investor cannot directly buy stock.  However, there are some indirect methods that you can use to invest in Uber, and as a result, it is also possible to indirectly short Uber. One method is to invest in (or short) companies that invest in Uber.  Alphabet/Google (GOOG) owns some, as well as Microsoft (MSFT), Toyota (ADR), and other companies.  Theoretically, you could short these companies, as a hit to Uber would be bad for those companies. Another method would be to look at Uber's competitors.  Think about what companies would do well if Uber went under.  Lyft, perhaps, although it is so similar to Uber that if one has trouble, the other may as well.  Perhaps instead you might invest in a traditional taxi company, or a company that provides services to taxi companies, such as Medallion Financial Corporation (MFIN). Keep in mind that either investing or shorting any of these is not really the same as investing/shorting Uber.  It provides you some exposure in Uber, but your investment is also affected by many other things that have nothing to do with Uber. For more information, see the Investopedia article Ways to Invest in Uber before It Goes Public. For the record, I don't recommend that you do any of this."}
{"text": "Super-generic mutual fund type If you are looking for an index index fund, I know vanguard offers their Star fund which invests in 11 other funds of theirs and is diversified across stocks, bonds, and short term investments."}
{"text": "What are the basics of apartment rental finances? Well for starters you want to rent it for more than the apartment costs you.  Aside from mortgage you have insurance, and maintenance costs.  If you are going to have a long term rental property you need to make a profit, or at a bare minimum break even.  Personally I would not like the break even option because there are unexpected costs that turn break even into a severe loss. Basically the way I would calculate the minimum rent for an apartment I owned would be: (Payment + (taxes/12) + (other costs you provide) + (Expected annual maintenance costs)) * 100% + % of profit I want to make. This is a business arrangement.  Unless you are recouping some of your losses in another manner then it is bad business to maintain a business relationship that is costing you money.  The only thing that may be worth considering is what comparable rentals go for in your area.  You may be forced to take a loss if the rental market in your area is depressed.  But I suspect that right now your condo is renting at a steal of a rate.  I would also suspect that the number you get from the above formula falls pretty close to what the going rate in your area is."}
{"text": "Why should we expect stocks to go up in the long term? I feel something needs to be addressed The last 100 years have been a period of economic prosperity for the US, so it's no surprise that stocks have done so well, but is economic prosperity required for such stock growth? Two world wars. The Great Depression. The dotcom bust. The telecom bust. The cold war. Vietnam, Korea. OPEC's oil cartel. The Savings and Loans crisis. Stagflation. The Great Recession. I could go on.  While I don't fully endorse this view, I find it convincing: If the USA has managed 7% growth through all those disasters, is it really preposterous to think it may continue?"}
{"text": "How to approach building credit without a credit card One possible route is to try to have no credit. This is different than bad credit. If you build up a good downpayment (20%), a number of banks would do manual underwriting for you."}
{"text": "How much can I withdraw from Betterment and be considered long-term investment? This question and your other one indicate you're a bit unclear on how capital gains taxes work, so here's the deal: you buy an asset (like shares of stock or a mutual fund).  You later sell it for more than you bought it for.  You pay taxes on your profit: the difference between what you sold it for and what you bought it for.  What matters is not the amount of money you \"withdraw\", but the prices at which assets are bought and sold. In fact, often you will be able to choose which individual shares you sell, which means you have some control over the tax you pay.  For a simple example, suppose you buy 10 shares of stock for $100 each in January (an investment of $1000); we'll call these the \"early\" shares.  The stock goes up to $200 in July, and you buy 10 more shares (investing an additional $2000); we'll call these the \"late\" shares.  Then the stock drops to $150.  Suppose you want $1500 in cash, so you are going to sell 10 shares. The 10 early shares you bought have increased in value, because you bought then for $100 but can now sell them for $150.  The 10 late shares have decreased in value, because you bought them for $200 but can now only sell them for $150.  If you choose to sell the early shares, you will have a capital gain of $500 ($1500 sale price minus $1000 purchase price), on which you may owe taxes.  If you sell the late shares, you will have a capital loss of $500 ($1500 sale price minus $2000 purchase price is -$500), which you can potentially use to reduce your taxes.  Or you could sell 5 of each and have no gain or loss (selling five early shares for $150 gives you a gain of $250, but selling five late shares for $150 gives you a loss of $250, and they cancel out). The point of all this is to say that the tax is not determined by the amount of cash you get, but by the difference between the sale price and the price you purchased for (known as the \"cost basis\"), and this in turn depends on which specific assets you sell.  It is not enough to know the total amount you invested and the total gain.  You need to know the specific cost basis (i.e., original purchase price) of the specific shares you're selling.  (This is also the answer to your question about long-term versus short-term gains.  It doesn't matter how much money you make on the sale.  What matters is how long you hold the asset before selling it.) That said, many brokers will automatically sell your shares in a certain order unless you tell them otherwise (and some won't let you tell them otherwise).  Often they will use the \"first in, first out\" rule, which means they will always sell the earliest-purchased shares first. To finally get to your specific question about Betterment, they have a page here that says they use a different method.  Essentially, they try to sell your shares in a way that minimizes taxes.  They do this by first selling shares that have a loss, and only then selling shares that have a gain.  This basically means that if you want to cash out $X, and it is possible to do it in a way that incurs no tax liability, they will do that. What gets me very confused is if I continue to invest random amounts of money each month using Betterment, then I need to withdraw some cash, what are the tax implications.  As my long answer above should indicate, there is no simple answer to this.  The answer is \"it depends\".  It depends on exactly when you bought the shares, exactly how much you paid for them, exactly when and how much the price rose or fell, and exactly how much you sell them for.  Betterment is more or less saying \"Don't worry about any of this, trust us, we will handle everything so that your tax is minimized.\" A final note: if you really do want to track the details of your cost basis, Betterment may not be for you, because it is an automated platform that may do a lot of individual trades that a human wouldn't do, and that can make tracking the cost basis yourself very difficult.  Almost the whole point of something like Betterment is that you are supposed to give them your money and forget about these details."}
{"text": "Car financed at 24.90% \u2014 what can I do? You could look into refinancing with a bank or credit union.  But to weed out options quickly, use a service like LendingTree, which can vet multiple options for you a whole lot more quickly than you could probably do yourself.  (I don't work for, or get any benefit from LendingTree.)  Whatever you do, try to do all the applying within a short span of time, as to not negatively affect your credit score (read here) by creating extraneous inquiries.   Then again, if your credit sucks, you might not qualify for a re-fi.  If you are turned down, make your payments on time for six months or so, and try again."}
{"text": "First time investor and online brokerage accounts Littleadv has given you excellent general advice, but to my mind, the most important part of it all and the path which I will strongly recommend you follow, is the suggestion to look into a mutual fund. I would add even more strongly,  go to a mutual fund company directly    and make an investment with them directly instead of making the    investment through a brokerage account.  Pick an index fund with low expenses, e.g. there are S&P 500 index funds available with  expenses that are a fraction of 1%. (However, many also require minimum investments on the order of $2500 or $3000 except for IRA accounts).  At this time, your goal should be to reduce expenses as much as possible because expenses, whether they be in brokerage fees which may be directly visible to you or mutual fund expenses which are invisible to you, are what will eat away at your return far more than the difference between the returns of various investments."}
{"text": "Shared groceries expenses between roommates to be divided as per specific consumption ratio and attendance I asked how often grocery purchases are made in a comment, but I'm going to assume weekly for simplicity. If a roommate is present during the week following a grocery purchase, then they owe a share according to their preferences as you outlined them above. You will have to track the grocery cost by category for that week and calculate the balance owed by the person for that week. If there is a partial week where most expect to leave for a holiday or otherwise, then fewer groceries should be purchased for that week, and the cost of shares will decrease accordingly. One need only indicate preferences once, and weekly attendance thereafter. The only issue remaining is to determine how to record shares. If a normal person consumes 3 shares of milk, and .5 shares of butter, and so on, you simply add up all of the milk shares for the week and divide the milk bill by those shares. Same with the butter. The downside of this method is that you have to predict consumption in advance, so you may instead calculate by consumption after the fact with a deposit paid by all to create the initial grocery supply which will be refunded when that person leaves the grocery purchase co-op, and shares are calculated by who participated in the week prior to the grocery purchase. This also allows for a mid-week refresh if any commodity incurs higher than expected consumption, with the mid-week bill being added to the end of week refresh trip."}
{"text": "How to determine whether 1099-MISC income is from self-employment? These kinds of questions can be rather tricky. I've struggled with this sort of thing in the past when I had income from a hobby, and I wanted to ensure that it was indeed \"hobby income\" and I didn't need to call it \"self-employment\". Here are a few resources from the IRS: There's a lot of overlap among these resources, of course. Here's the relevant portion of Publication 535, which I think is reasonable guidance on how the IRS looks at things: In determining whether you are carrying on an activity for profit, several factors are taken into account. No one factor alone is decisive. Among the factors to consider are whether: Most of the guidance looks to be centered around what one would need to do to convince the IRS that an activity actually is a business, because then one can deduct the \"business expenses\", even if that brings the total \"business income\" negative (and I'm guessing that's a fraud problem the IRS needs to deal with more often). There's not nearly as much about how to convince the IRS that an activity isn't a business and thus can be thrown into \"Other Income\" instead of needing to pay self-employment tax. Presumably the same principles should apply going either way, though. If after reading through the information they provide, you decide in good faith that your activity is really just \"Other income\" and not \"a business you're in on the side\", I would find it likely that the IRS would agree with you if they ever questioned you on it and you provided your reasoning, assuming your reasoning is reasonable. (Though it's always possible that reasonable people could end up disagreeing on some things even given the same set of facts.) Just keep good records about what you did and why, and don't get too panicked about it once you've done your due diligence. Just file based on all the information you know."}
{"text": "Why can I see/trade VIX but not S&P/TSX 60 VIX? S&P/TSX 60 VIX (CAD) is an equation and as the implied volatility of two close to the money TSX 60 options change, the output changes. This is why the intra-day price fluctuates on a graph like a traded product.  Although VIXC can't be traded, it can still be used as an important signal for traders. The excerpt is from slide 12, more information can be found here. https://www.m-x.ca/f_publications_en/vixc_presentation_en.pdf Futures (stage 2) Options, ETFs, OTC Products (stage 3) have not been implemented."}
{"text": "Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? Ripped off may be too strong as it implies intent - I'm hopeful it's just bad logic or terminology.   I would say better agreements would be: Borrowing money from family/friends is always risky.  If you and your parents are comfortable with the situation and can reliably keep records of how much is owed at any given time (and how much of the $500/mo is interest) then the loan might be a good option.  If not, and your parents don't need the income stream from the loan, then I would recommend the second option since it's much cleaner. In any case, make sure everything is in writing and the proper legal procedures are followed (just as if you had borrowed the money from a bank). That means either filing a mortgage with the county for option 1 or having both parties on the deed, and having the ownership percentages in writing."}
{"text": "Why are currency forwards needed? Can't I achieve the exact same effect and outcome by exchanging currency now and put that amount of USD in a bank account to gain some interest, then make the payment from one year from now? Sure, assuming that the company has the money now.  More commonly they don't have that cash now, but will earn it over the time period (presumably in Euros) and will make the large payment at some point in time.  Using a forward protects them from fluctuations in the exchange rate between now and then; otherwise they'd have to stow away USD over the year (which still exposes them to exchange rate fluctuations)."}
{"text": "GBP savings, what to do with them if leaving the U.K. in about 2 years time? Key point here is to remember that GBP isnt falling a lot, it has fallen a lot already.  If you havent liquidated your position in pounds by now at a higher rate I would personally not bother switching to another currency right now.  The pound is near its 10 year low(nearing 2008 capital 'C' Crisis levels) and despite what fear mongers may short the market for, the sun will shine after Brexit as well. Britain has a solid economy and that hasnt fundamentally changed, so even if the pound hasnt seen the absolute periodic lowest point yet(which may still come as brexit talks become more prevalent/near their end), it will eventually pull back up.  In essence, you have more to lose acting in panic now than waiting to exchange for a better than today's rate at some point until the eventual Brexit(probably in March 2019) or at any point afterwards(if you wont be needing those savings when you move)."}
{"text": "What are the risks & rewards of being a self-employed independent contractor / consultant vs. being a permanent employee? In the current economy there is no upside to working for yourself.  Get in a salaried position as soon as you can, and sacrifice to whatever gods you worship that you don't get made redundant. If you're already working for yourself, and wouldn't give it up for anything, hire someone, and get them off the street."}
{"text": "I'm 20 and starting to build up for my mortgage downpayment, where should I put my money for optimal growth? The big question is whether you will be flexible about when you'll get that house. The overall best investment (in terms of yielding a good risk/return ratio and requiring little effort) is a broad index fund (mutual or ETF), especially if you're contributing continuously and thereby take advantage of cost averaging. But the downside is that you have some volatility: during an economic downturn, your investment may be worth only half of what it's worth when the economy is booming. And of course it's very bad to have that happening just when you want to get your house. Then again, chances are that house prices will also go down in such times. If you want to avoid ever having to see the value of your investment go down, then you're pretty much stuck with things like your high-interest savings account (which sounds like a very good fit for your requirements."}
{"text": "Where to start with personal finance? My reading list for someone just getting into personal finance would include the following I know it's a bunch but I'm trying to cover a few specific things. Yeah it's a bit of reading, but lets face it, nobody is going to care as much about your money as YOU do, and at the very least this kind of knowledge can help fend off a 'shark attack' by someone trying to sell you something not because it's best for you, but because it earns them a fat commission check. Once you've covered those, you have a good foundation, and oh lord there's so many other good books that you could read to help understand more about money, markets etc..  Personally I'd say hit this list, and just about anything on it, is worth your time to read. I've used publishers websites where I could find them, and Amazon otherwise."}
{"text": "Where can I find information on corporate bonds (especially those rated as \u201cjunk\u201d) ? Bond information is much tougher to get.  Try to find access to a Bloomberg terminal.  Maybe you have a broker that can do the research for you, maybe your local university has one in their business school, maybe you know someone that works for a bank/financial institution or some other type of news outlet.   Part of the reason for the difference in ease of access to information is that bond markets are dominated by institutional investors.  A $100 million bond issues might be 90% owned by 10-20 investors (banks, insurance co's, mutual funds, etc.) that will hold the bonds to maturity and the bonds might trade a few times a month/year.  On the other hand a similar equity offering may have several hundred or thousand owners with daily trading, especially if it's included in an active stock index. That being said, you can get some information on Fidelity's website if you have an account, but I think their junk data is limited.  Good luck with the hunt."}
{"text": "What's the appropriate way to signify an S-Corp? Subchapter S Corporations are a special type of corporation; the difference is how they are taxed, not how they relate to their vendors or customers.  As a result, they are named the same way as any other corporation. The rules on names of corporations vary by state.  \"Corporation\" and \"Incorporated\" (and their abbreviations) are allowed by every state, but some states allow other names as well.  The Wikipedia article \"Types of business entity\" lists an overview of corporation naming rules for each state. The S-Corp that I work for has \"Inc.\" at the end of its name."}
{"text": "What is the most effective saving money method? First pay yourself. When you get salary, send some parts of that (for example 10%) to your saving account.  Step by step you'll save nice money ;)"}
{"text": "Received a late 1099 MISC for income I reported already, do I have to amend? Why would the IRS be coming after you if you reported the income? If you reported everything, then the IRS will use the 1099 to cross-check, see that everything is in order, be happy and done with it. The lady was supposed to give you the 1099 by the end of January, and she may be penalized by the IRS for being late, but as long as you/wifey reported all the income - you're fine. It was supposed to be reported on Schedule C or as miscellaneous income on line 21 (schedule C sounds more suitable as it seems that your wifey is in a cleaning business). But there's no difference in how you report whether you got 1099 or not, so if you reported - you should be fine."}
{"text": "When you're really young and have about 2K to start investing $ for retirement, why do some people advise you to go risky? Why it is good to be risky The reason why it is good to be risky is because risky investments can result in higher returns on your money. The problem with being risky, is there is a chance you can lose money. However, in the long term you can usually benefit from higher returns even if you have a few slip ups. Let me show you an example:  These two lines are based off of placing $2,000 in a retirement fund at age of 20 and then at age of 25 start investing $6,500 a year (based off of a salary of $65,000 with a company that will 1 to 1 match up to 5% IRA contribution, presumably someone with a Master's should be able to get this) and then being able to increase your contribution amount by $150 a year as your salary begins to increase as well. The blue line assumes that all of this money that you are putting in a retirement account has a fixed 3% interest (compounded yearly for simplicity sake) every year until you retire. The red line is earning a 12% interest rate while you are 20 years old and then decreasing by 0.5% per year until you retire. Since this is using more risky investments when you are younger, I have even gone ahead and included losing 20% of your money when you are 24, another 20% when you are 29, and then again another 20% when you are 34. As you can see, even with losing 20% of your money 3 different times, you still end up with more money then you would have had if you stuck with a more conservative investment plan. If I change this to 50% each 3 times, you will still come out about equal to a more conservative investment. Now, I do have these 3 loses placed at a younger age when there is less to lose, but this is to be expected since you are being more risky when you are young. When you are closer to retirement you have less of a chance of losing money since you will be investing more conservatively. Why it is OK to be risky when you are young but not old Lets say you loose 20% of your $2,000 when you are young, you have 30-40 years to make that back. That's roughly $1 a month extra that you are having to come up with. So, if you have a risky investment go bad when you are young, you have plenty of time to account for it before you retire.  Now lets say you have $1,000,000 when you are 5 years from retiring and loose 20% of it, you have to come up with an extra $3,333 a month if you want to retire on time. So, if you have a risky investment go bad when you are close to retiring, you will most likely have to work for many more years just to be able to recover from your loses. What to invest in This is a little bit more difficult question to answer. If there was one \"right\" way to invest your money, every one would be doing that one \"right\" way and would result in it not turning out to be that good of investment. What you need to do is come up with a plan for yourself. My biggest advice that I can give is to be careful with fees. Some places will charge a fixed dollar amount per trade, while others might charge a fixed dollar amount per month, while even others might charge a percentage of your investment. With only having $2,000 to invest, a large fee might make it difficult to make money."}
{"text": "What happens to public shareholders when a public stock goes private? I can see two possibilities. Either a deal is struck that someone (the company itself, or a large owner) buys out the remaining shares. This is the scenario @mbhunter is talking about, so I won't go too deeply into it, but it simply means that you get money in your bank account for the shares in question the same as if you were to sell them for that price (in turn possibly triggering tax effects, etc.). I imagine that this is by far the most common approach. The other possibility is that the stock is simply de-listed from a public stock exchange, and not re-listed elsewhere. In this case, you will still have the stock, and it will represent the same thing (a portion of the company), but you will lose out on most of the \"market\" part of \"stock market\". That is, the shares will still represent a monetary value, you will have the same right to a portion of the company's profits as you do now, etc., but you will not have the benefit of the market setting a price per share so current valuation will be harder. Should you wish to buy or sell stock, you will have to find someone yourself who is interested in striking a deal with you at a price point that you feel comfortable with."}
{"text": "About dividend percentage Dividend prices are per share, so the amount that you get for a dividend is determined by the number of shares that you own and the amount of the dividend per share. That's all. People like to look at dividend yield because it lets them compare different investments; that's done by dividing the dividend by the value of the stock, however determined. That's the percentage that the question mentions. A dividend of $1 per share when the share price is $10 gives a 10% dividend yield. A dividend of $2 per share when the share price is $40 gives a 5% dividend yield. If you're choosing an investment, the dividend yield gives you more information than the amount of the dividend."}
{"text": "Do I need a business credit card? It can certainly help build a credit score, but remember that businesses gain credit differently from individuals.  Depending on the country, there isn't usually a national register of business credit ratings the way there is for individuals.  The credit record you'd be gaining is with your own bank only. Banks will usually base your business credit record on revenue and transactional loads rather than merely on having and holding a credit card.  That said, it isn't always that easy to get a business credit card and so it is a useful thing to have for credibility with clients (depending on the type of work you do). A credit card can also sometimes work out cheaper (and faster) for financing small overdrafts than a regular business overdraft facility.  That said, I've found that larger loans over a five-year term can work out much cheaper for an established business than they would for an individual, even where the business itself has no history of using credit."}
{"text": "How does GST on PayPal payments work for Australian Taxation? Regardless of wether or not you are registered for GST, you are legally required to include a GST total on every invoice sent to an Australian customer. This GST total must be 10% of the payment amount if you are registered for GST, or it must be $0.00 if you are not registered for GST. Since all GST transactions with the government are in Australian dollars, this amount on the invoice also needs to be in AUD, or else it's impossible for you and your customer to both be working off the same GST amount. This means you need to transfer your money from USD to AUD in PayPal's \"Manage Currencies\" area before you can send a tax invoice to the customer, so that you can provide the correct amount in AUD based on the actual exchange rate for the day (and you are required to send invoices promptly). Alternatively, you can collect payments in AUD using PayPal or use a different payment service that collects payments in USD but immediately converts them to AUD for sending an invoice (australian paypal competitors often provide this service)."}
{"text": "How does the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) divisor change to account for dividends? Scrip dividends are similar to stock splits. With a stock split, 100 shares can turn into 200 shares; with scrip dividends they might turn into 105 shares."}
{"text": "What is inflation? Inflation refers to the money supply. Think of all money being air in a balloon. Inflation is what happens when you blow more air in the balloon. Deflation is what happens when you let air escape. Inflation may cause prices to go up. However there are many scenarios possible in which this does not happen. For example, at the same time of inflation, there might be unemployment, making consumers unable to pay higher prices. Or some important resource (oil) may go down in price (due to political reasons, war has ended etc), compensating for the money having less value.  Similarly, peoples wages will tend to rise over time. They have to, otherwise everyone would be earning less, due to inflation. However again there are many scenarios in which wages do not keep up with inflation, or rise much faster. In fact over the past 40 years or so, US wages have not been able to keep up with inflation, making the average worker 'poorer' than 40 years ago. At its core, inflation refers to the value of the money itself. As all values of other products, services, assets etc are expressed in terms of money which itself also changes value, this can quickly become very complex. Most countries calculate inflation by averaging the price change of a basket of goods that are supposed to represent the average Joe's spending pattern. However these methods are often criticized as they would be 'hiding' inflation. The hidden inflation may come back later to bite us."}
{"text": "Must ETF companies match an investor's amount invested in an ETF? The point here is actually about banks, or is in reference to banks. They expect you know how a savings account at a bank works, but not mutual funds, and so are trying to dispel an erroneous notion that you might have -- that the CBIC will insure your investment in the fund.  Banks work by taking in deposits and lending that money out via mortgages. The mortgages can last up to 30 years, but the deposits are \"on demand\". Which means you can pull your money out at any time.  See the problem? They're maintaining a fiction that that money is there, safe and sound in the bank vault, ready to be returned whenever you want it, when in fact it's been loaned out. And can't be called back quickly, either. They know only a little bit of that money will be \"demanded\" by depositors at any given time, so they keep a percentage called a \"reserve\" to satisfy that, er, demand.  The rest, again, is loaned out. Gone.  And usually that works out just fine. Except sometimes it doesn't, when people get scared they might not get their money back, and they all go to the bank at the same time to demand their on-demand deposits back. This is called a \"run on the bank\", and when that happens, the bank \"fails\". 'Cause it ain't got the money.  What's failing, in fact, is the fiction that your money is there whenever you want it. And that's really bad, because when that happens to you at your bank, your friends the customers of other banks start worrying about their money, and run on their banks, which fail, which cause more people to worry and try to get their cash out, lather, rinse repeat, until the whole economy crashes. See -- The Great Depression.  So, various governments introduced \"Deposit Insurance\", where the government will step in with the cash, so when you panic and pull all your money out of the bank, you can go home happy, cash in hand, and don't freak all your friends out. Therefore, the fear that your money might not really be there is assuaged, and it doesn't spread like a mental contagion. Everyone can comfortably go back to believing the fiction, and the economy goes back to merrily chugging along.  Meanwhile, with mutual funds & ETFs, everyone understands the money you put in them is invested and not sitting in a gigantic vault, and so there's no need for government insurance to maintain the fiction.  And that's the point they're trying to make.  Poorly, I might add, where their wording is concerned."}
{"text": "Is it irresponsible for me to lease a $300/month car for 18 months? With a gross income of $ 95,000 per year, and a net savings rate of over $ 18,000 per year, a budget of $ 3,600 per year for automobile interest and depreciation is not irresponsible. But poor car choices, poor car maintenance habits, and driving habits that risk totalling cars are irresponsible.  Also, not fully understanding a lease deal is irresponsible. The \"great lease deal\" might be encouraging you to make a different \"poor car choice\" than you made last time.  A \"great deal\" on a bad car is not really a great deal.  Also, depending on the contract and your driving habits, you might have a surprising cost at the end of the lease."}
{"text": "What are the advantages and disadvantages of leasing out a property or part of a property (such as a basement apartment)? Complexity has mentioned some good points. I'd also like to add on the downsides:  It's not that easy to get rid of a tenant!  Imagine if your tenant passed your background check with flying colors but then turned out to be the tenant from hell...  How would you resolve the situation?  If the thought of that kind of situation stresses you (it would stress me!), I would consider carefully whether you really want to be a landlord."}
{"text": "It is worth using a discount stock broker? I heard they might not get the best price on a trade? Always use limit orders never market orders. Period. Do that and you will always pay what you said you would when the transaction goes through. Whichever broker you use is not going to \"negotiate\" for the best price on your trade if you choose a market order.  Their job is to fill that order so they will always buy it for more than market and sell it for less to ensure the order goes through. It is not even a factor when choosing between TradeKing and Scottrade. I use Trade King and my friend uses ScottTrade.  Besides the transaction fee (TK is a few $$ cheaper), the only other things to consider are the tools and research (and customer service if you need it) that each site offers. I went with TK and the lower transaction fee since tools and research can be had from other sources. I basically only use it when I want to make a trade since I don't find the tools particularly useful and I never take an analyst's opinion of a stock at face value anyway since everybody always has their own agenda."}
{"text": "Why can't 401(k) statements be delivered electronically? There are a lot of unintended consequences of fairly arbitrary IRS guidelines when it comes to 401Ks, they both close and create tons of loopholes and many companies are left to implement their own policy around these laws. Ultimately what you are left with are a lot of random things, interpreted differently by every single company in the country, that aren't directly codified by the IRS or Congress. If you have a choice regarding what brokerage firm manages your 401(k), then just call around. Be sure to ask the pencil pusher on the phone to double check because they might say \"OF COURSE you can get paperless statements it is 2015\" but then when you sign up it becomes \"ooohhh sorry due to recent guidelines this kind of account isn't eligible for paperless statements\""}
{"text": "Close to retirement & we may move within 7 years. Should we re-finance our mortgage, or not? Think of your mortgage this way - you have a $130K 16 year mortgage, at 6.75%.  At 4%, the same payment ($1109 or so) will pay off the loan in 12.4 years. So, I agree with littleadv, go for a 15yr fixed (but still make the higher payment) or 10 yr if you don't mind the required higher payment. Either way, a refinance is the way to go.  Edit - My local bank is offering me a 3.5% 15 yr loan with fees totaling $2500. For the OP here, a savings of 3.25% or first year interest savings of $4225. 7 months to breakeven.  It's important not to get caught up in trying to calculate savings 15-20 years out. What counts today is the rate difference and looking at it over the next 12 months is a start. If you break even to closing costs so soon, that's enough to make the decision."}
{"text": "How to determine contractor hourly rate and employee salary equivalents? Take $100,000 base salary, x 1.5 = $150,000 contractor salary, divide by 1,872 hours = $80/hr"}
{"text": "Why should I trust investment banks' ratings? If there's indeed no reason to trust GS, i.e. those are just guides   then the question is: Why do investors seem to care? Because there's a reason to trust. You're just reading the bottom line - the target price range. More involved investors read the whole report, including the description of the current situation, the premises for the analysis, the expectations on the firm's performance and what these expectations are based on, the analysis of how the various scenarios might affect the valuation, and the evaluation of chances of these scenarios to occur. You don't have to trust everything and expect it to be 100% correct, analysts are not prophets. But you do have an option of reading their reports and critically analyzing their conclusions. What you suspect GS of doing (\"I tend to believe those guys just want themselves a cheap buy price a few days before Q2 earnings release\") is a criminal offence."}
{"text": "Bonds vs equities: crash theory Diversify into leveraged short/bear ETFs and then you can quit your job and yell at your boss \"F you I'm short your house!\" edit: this is a quote from Greg Lippmann and mentioned in the book \"The Big Short\""}
{"text": "What are the real risks in \u201cbio-technology\u201d companies? Be wary of pump and dump schemes. This scheme works like this: When you observe that \"From time to time the action explodes with 100 or 200% gains and volumes exceeding one million and it then back down to $ 0.02\", it appears that this scheme was performed repeatedly on this stock. When you see a company with a very, very low stock price which claims to have a very bright future, you should ask yourself why the stock is so low. There are professional stock brokers who have access to the same information you have, and much more. So why don't they buy that stock? Likely because they realize that the claims about the company are greatly exaggerated or even completely made up."}
{"text": "Why is there so much variability on interest rate accounts Pay attention to nickel-and-dime charges (atm fees, low balance fees, limit on atm transactions per month, charge for human teller transaction, charge for paper statements or tax records).  Consider that a financial company will spend on the order of $100-500 to sign up a good customer.  Are you getting this in a cash bonus, competitive high interest rate, reasonable other gift, or advertising directed at your eyeballs?  A variation in rates less than 1% easily fits into a marketing cost and there doesn't have to be any other magic to it."}
{"text": "Employer no longer withholds, how do I self administer 401k You can't be doing it yourself. Only your employer can do it. If the employer doesn't provide the option - switch employers. The only way for you to do it yourself is if you're the employer, i.e.: self-employed."}
{"text": "How are the best way to make and save money at 22 years old Fantastic question to be asking at the age of 22! A very wise man suggested to me the following with regard to your net income I've purposely not included saving a sum of money for a house deposit, as this is very much cultural and lots of EU countries have a low rate of home ownership. On the education versus entrepreneur question. I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I am a big advocate of education (I have a B.Eng) but have following working in the real world for a number of years have started an IT business in data analytics. My business partner and I saw a gap in the market and have exploited it. I continue to educate myself now in short courses on running business, data analytics and investment. My business partner did things the otherway around, starting the company first, then getting an M.Sc. Other posters have suggested that investing your money personally is a bad idea. I think it is a very good idea to take control of your own destiny and choose how you will invest your money.   I would say similarly that giving your money to someone else who will sometimes lose you money and will charge you for the privilege is a bad idea. Also putting your money in a box under your bed or in the bank and receive interest that is less than inflation are bad ideas. You need to choose where to invest your money otherwise you will gain no advantage from the savings and inflation will erode your buying power. I would suggest that you educate yourself in the investment options that are available to you and those that suit you personality and life circumstances. Here are some notes on learning about stock market trading/investing if you choose to take that direction along with some books for self learning."}
{"text": "Why I can't view my debit card pre-authorized amounts? No money is stolen. They don't show you the hold for whatever reason (not so good a bank?), but the money is still yours. You just cannot use it, but it is still on your account. These holds usually go away after a week. In certain cases (like a security deposit) it may take up to 30 days. You can request from the merchant to cancel the hold if it is no longer necessary. They'll have to be proactive on that, and some merchants wouldn't want the hassle. It is however a known issue. When I was working in the banking industry, we would routinely receive these hold cancellation requests from merchants (hotels and car rentals)."}
{"text": "The life cycle of money Echoing JohnF, and assuming you mean the physical, rather than abstract meaning of money?  The abstract concept obviously isn't replaced (unless the currency is discredited, or like the creation of the Euro which saw local currencies abandoned). The actual bits of paper are regularly collected, shredded (into itty-bitty-bits) and destroyed.  Coinage tends to last a lot longer, but it also collected and melted down eventually. Depends on the country, though.  No doubt, many people who took a gap year to go travelling in points diverse came across countries where the money is a sort of brown-grey smudge you hold with care in thick wadges. The more modern economies replace paper money on a dedicated cycle (around three years according to Wikipedia, anyway)."}
{"text": "Credit Card Points from Refund That transaction probably cost the merchant $0.50 + 3% or close to $5.  They should have refunded your credit card so they could have recouped some of the fees. (I imagine that's why big-box retailers like Home Depot always prefer to put it back on your card than give you store credit) Consider yourself lucky you made out with $0.15 this time.  (Had they refunded your card, the 1% of $150 credit would have gone against next month's reward) Once upon a time folks were buying money from the US Mint by the tens of thousands $ range and receiving credit card rewards, then depositing the money to pay it off.. They figured that out and put a stop to it."}
{"text": "How to motivate young people to save money Teach them that money can help solve most (if not all the problems) in life. If they truly appreciate the value of saving every single penny, eventually they will come to realize that if you don't touch your money (waste it on useless things you don't need such as eating out) that it can grow. Also teach them the value of compounding interest, even a TFSA/high interest savings account with a modest 3-4% annual ROI can be big with yearly additions and no withdrawals for a lifetime.  Tell them to take Johnny Appleseed for example. Johnny starts up his TFSA with help from mom and dad at the age of 15, let's say they put in $5000 all together. Now let's say he adds in a modest $2500 to his TFSA every year until he is 55 years old. If the TFSA has an interest rate of 4%, then when he's 55 he'll have over half a million dollars in the bank and he really didn't have to do much besides not touch it."}
{"text": "When will the U.K. convert to the Euro as an official currency? In many countries in Europe the prices shot through the roof, so it is not all positive. Also the switching country gives out lot of monetary control that is not welcomed by many.  I think that UK is not going to change to euro for a long long time."}
{"text": "Closing a credit card with an annual fee without hurting credit score? The two factors that will hurt you the most is the age of the credit account, and your available credit to debt ratio.  Removing an older account takes that account out of the equation of calculating your overall credit score, which can hurt significantly, especially if that is the only, or one of just a couple, of open credit lines you have available. Reducing your available credit will make your current debt look bigger than what it was before you closed your account. Going over a certain percentage for your debt to available credit can make you look less favorable to lenders. [As stated above, closing a credit card does remove it from the credit utilization calculation which can raise your debt/credit ratio. It does not, however; affect the average age of credit cards. Even closed accounts stay on your credit report for ten years and are credited toward average age of cards. When the closed credit card falls off your report, only then, will the average age of credit cards be recalculated.] And may I suggest getting your free credit report from https://www.annualcreditreport.com . It's the only place considered 'official' to receive your free annual credit report as told by the FTC. Going to other 3rd party sites to pull your credit report can risk your information being traded or sold. EDIT: To answer your second point, there are numerous factors that banks and creditors will consider depending on the type of card you're applying for. The heavier the personal rewards (cash back, flyer miles, discounts, etc.) the bigger the stipulation. Some factors to consider are your income to debt ratio, income to available credit ratio, number of revolving lines of credit, debt to available credit ratio, available credit to debt ratio, and whether or not you have sufficient equity and/or assets to cover both your debt and available credit. They want to make sure that if you go crazy and max out all of your lines of credit, that you are capable of paying it all back in a sufficient amount of time. In other words, your volatility as a debt-consumer."}
{"text": "When should I walk away from my mortgage? Very few people's credit is worth $100,000. The average homeowner's credit (family of four with good to very good credit) is worth about $30,000. This is a pure business decision. The bank knew the law when they extended the mortgage to you, and part of the amount they're charging you goes to cover the risk that you might opt to walk away. The mortgage was an agreement between you and the bank and it specified the penalty for you walking away. Taking the agreed upon penalty for an action specifically contemplated in the agreement is also keeping the agreement."}
{"text": "Why not pay in full upfront for a car? There many car loans at zero percent interest.   Finance the car at zero percent, then take your money and invest it. If you want to be super safe buy a CD the same length as the car loan. 5 years you will get 2%.  If you still want safety and a better return take up a asset allocation strategy that moves your cash to risky assets when the market is performing well, then to cash, bonds, or cds when the market under-performs. Now you have your car with a zero percent loan and you are making the return on the money instead of the car company."}
{"text": "APR for a Loan Paid Off Monthly If your APR is quoted as nominal rate compounded monthly, the APR is 108.6 %. Here is the calculation, (done in Mathematica ). The sum of the discounted future payments (p) are set equal to the present value (pv) of the loan, and solved for the periodic interest rate (r).  Details of the effective interest rate calculation can be found here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_interest_rate#Calculation"}
{"text": "How to start investing for an immigrant? I am in a similar situation (sw developer, immigrant waiting for green card, no debt, healthy, not sure if I will stay here forever, only son of aging parents). I am contributing to my 401k to max my employer contribution (which is 3.5%, you should find that out from your HR).  I don't have any specific financial goal in my mind, so beside an emergency fund (I was recommended to have at least 6 months worth of salary in cash) I am stashing away 10% of my income which I invest with a notorious robot-adviser. The rate is 80% stocks, 20% bonds, as I don't plan to use those funds anytime soon. Should I go back to my country, I will bring with me (or transfer) the cash, and leave my investments here. The 401K will keep growing and so the investments, and perhaps I will be able to retire earlier than expected. It's quite vague I know, but in the situation we are, it's hard to make definite plans."}
{"text": "Visitor Shopping in the US: Would I get tax refund? Would I have to pay anything upon departure? The US doesn't have a Value Added Tax, which is the one usually refundable upon departing the country... so sales taxes you pay in this country stay in this country and you don't get a refund. Just remember to treat the tax as an implied part of the price. (And be aware that state and local taxes may vary, so the total price may be higher in one place than in another. New York City adds a few percent on top of the state sales tax, for example.) If you aren't sure how much tax would be, don't be afraid to ask."}
{"text": "What is the purpose of endorsing a check? I actually had to go to the bank today and so I decided to ask. The answer I was given is that a check is a legal document (a promise to pay).  In order to get your money from the bank, you need to sign the check over to them.  By endorsing the check you are attesting to the fact that you have transferred said document to them and they can draw on that account."}
{"text": "How do I account for 100 percent vendor discounts in GnuCash 2.6.5 The answer was provided to me at the Gnucash chat by \"warlord\". The procedure is as follows: After doing this you will have:"}
{"text": "How can I find out what factors are making a stock's price rise? At any moment, the price is where the supply (seller) and demand (buyer) intersect. This occurs fast enough you don't see it as anything other than bid/ask. What moves it? News of a new drug, device, sandwich, etc. Earning release, whether above or below expectations, or even dead-on, will often impact the price.  Every night, the talking heads try to explain the day's price moves. When they can't, they often report \"profit taking\" for a market drop, or other similar nonsense. Some moves are simple random change."}
{"text": "Are there capital gains taxes or dividend taxes if I invest in the U.S. stock market from outside of the country? I believe that tax will be withheld (at 30%?) on dividends paid to non-residents.  You can claim it back if your country has a tax treaty with the USA, but you will need to file.  You probably also need to file a W-series withholding form (eg a W9-BEN). Interesting question.  I would like to hear a more definitive answer."}
{"text": "Rules for Broker Behavior with Covered Calls Number 2 cannot occur. You can buy the call back and sell the stock, but the broker won't force that #2 choice. To trade options, you must have a margin account. No matter how high the stock goes, once \"in the money\" the option isn't going to rise faster, so your margin % is not an issue.  And your example is a bit troublesome to me. Why would a $120 strike call spike to $22 with only a month left? You've made the full $20 on the stock rise and given up any gain after that. That's all. The call owner may exercise at any time. Edit: @jaydles is right, there are circumstances where an option price can increase faster than the stock price. Options pricing generally follows the Black-Scholes model. Since the OP gave us the current stock price, option strike price, and time to expiration, and we know the risk free rate is <1%, you can use the calculator to change volatility. The number two scenario won't occur, however, because a covered call has no risk to the broker, they won't force you to buy the option back, and the option buyer has no motive to exercise it as the entire option value is time premium."}
{"text": "Investment options in Australia It depends on the exact level of risk that you want, but if you want to keep your risk close to zero you're pretty much stuck with the banks (and those rates don't look to be going up any time soon). If you're willing to accept a little more risk, you can invest in some index tracking ETFs instead, with the main providers in Australia being Vanguard, Street State and Betashares.  A useful tool for for an overview of the Australian ETF market is offered by StockSpot. The index funds reduce your level of risk by investing in an index of the market, e.g. the S&P 200 tracked by STW.  If the market as a whole rises, then your investment will too, even though within that index individual companies will rise and fall. This limits your potential rate of return as well, and is still significantly more risky than leaving your cash in an Aussie bank (after all, the whole market can fall), but it might strike the right balance for you. If you're getting started, HSBC, Nabtrade, Commsec and Westpac were all offering a couple of months of free trades up to a certain value.  Once the free trades are done, you'll do better to move to another broker (you can migrate your shares to the others to take advantage of their free trades too) or to a cheaper broker like CMC Markets."}
{"text": "Effect of Job Change on In-Progress Mortgage Application I just closed on a refi last week Thursday. The app went to the lender mid to late May. The lender called my employer for an employment verification on the Monday before closing. I would wait till after the loan funds to change jobs. FWIW, we signed on Thursday afternoon, escrow had to FedEx the originals to the lender on Friday, lender should have received it on Monday, we are still waiting to fund. I expect the loan to fund no later than tomorrow."}
{"text": "Should I pay my Education Loan or Put it in the Stock Market? 2.47% is a really, really good rate, doubly so if it's a fixed rate, and quadruply so if the interest is tax-deductible. That's about as close to \"free money\" as you're ever going to get. Heck, depending on what inflation does over the next few years, it might even be cheaper than free. So if you have the risk tolerance for it, it's probably more effective to invest the money in the stock market than to accelerate your student loan payoff. You can even do better in the bond market (my go-to intermediate-term corporate bond fund is yielding nearly 4% right now.) Just remember the old banker's aphorism: Assets shrink. Liabilities never shrink. You can lose the money you've invested in stocks or bonds, and you'll still have to pay back the loan. And, when in doubt, you can usually assume you're underestimating your risks. If you're feeling up for it, I'd say: make sure you have a good emergency fund outside of your investment money - something you could live on for six months or so and pay your bills while looking for a job, and sock the rest into something like the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth fund or a similar instrument (Vanguard's just my personal preference, since I like their style - and by style, I mean low fees - but definitely feel free to consider alternatives). You could also pad your retirement accounts and avoid taxes on any gains instead, but remember that it's easier to put money into those than take it out, so be sure to double-check the state of your emergency fund."}
{"text": "Small investing for spending money? Congrats on saving the money but unfortunately, you're looking for a 24% annual rate of return and that's not \"reasonable\" to expect.  $200 per month, is $2,400 per year.  $2,400/$10,000 is 24%. In a 1% savings account with spending of $200 per month spending you'll have about $7,882 at the end of the year.  You'll earn about $90 of interest over the course of the year.  I'm sure other people will have more specific opinions about the best way to deploy that money.  I'd open a brokerage account (not an IRA, just a regular plain vanilla brokerage account), break off $5,000 and put it in to a low fee no commission S&P index fund; which CAN lose value.  Put the rest in a savings account/checking account and just spend wisely."}
{"text": "Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings? If a shop offers 0% interest for purchase, someone is paying for it. e.g., If you buy a $X item at 0% interest for 12 months, you should be able to negotiate a lower cash price for that purchase. If the store is paying 3% to the lender, then techincally, you should be able to bring the price down by at least 2% to 3% if you pay cash upfront. I'm not sure how it works in other countries or other purchases, but I negotiated my car purchase for the dealer's low interest rate deal, and then re-negotiated with my preapproved loan. Saved a good chunk on that final price!"}
{"text": "Why is the stock market closed on the weekend? Simply, most of the above given 'answers' are mere 'justifications' for a practice that has become anachronistic. It did make sense once in the past, but not any more. Computers and networks can run non-stop 24/7; even though the same human beings cannot be expected to work 24/7, we have invented the beautiful concept of multiple shifts; banks may be closed during nights and weekends, but banking is never closed in the internet era; ...The answer must lie in the vested interests of a few stakeholder groups - or - it could just be our difficult to change habits."}
{"text": "How to buy stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange? You probably bought the cross listed WestJet stock.  If you wanted to buy shares on the TSE, I'd suspect you'd have to find a way to open a brokerage account within Canada and then you'd be able to buy the shares.  However, this could get complicated to some extent as there could be requirements of Canadian tax stuff like a Social Insurance Number that may require some paperwork.  In addition, you'd have to review tax law of both countries to determine how to appropriately report to each country your income as there are various rules around that. TD Waterhouse would be the Canadian subsidiary of TD Ameritrade though I haven't tried to create a Canadian brokerage account."}
{"text": "Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career? Adding to the very good advises above - Concentrate on costs related to investment activity. Note all expenses and costs that you pay. Keep it low."}
{"text": "How do I factor dividends and yield into the performance of a security? Instead of a price chart can use a performance chart, which is usually expressed as a percentage increase from the original purchase price.  To factor in the dividends, you can either add in all of your dividends to the final price, or subtract the accumulated dividends from your cost basis (the initial price)."}
{"text": "Opening and funding an IRA in three days - is this feasible? Some banks and credit unions have IRA accounts. They pay interest like a savings account or a CD but they are an IRA. After the 15th you can roll them over into a IRA at one of the big investment companies so you can get invest in an index or Target Retirement Fund. But it is not too late. Opening an account at one of the big companies takes ten minutes (you need to know your social security number and your bank account info) they can pull it out of your bank account. I helped my kid do the same thing this week. We went on-line Tuesday night, and they pulled the money from his account on Thursday morning. Also know which type you want (Roth or regular) before you start. Also make sure you specify that the money is for 2013 not 2014."}
{"text": "Recovering over-contribution to Social Security between two employers? This is a common occurrence when somebody has multiple jobs in one year. The employer can't know if you have reached the annual limit. They know to stop when you have hit the maximum for their company, but don't have information on the other jobs. In fact the IRS doesn't let them factor in the other jobs. They have to keep making their payment until you hit the max for their company. When you fill out the 1040 there will be a line that checks that the total social security amount for each person was not over the annual limit. The extra will be refunded when you file your taxes. In the future if this happens again you can adjust your withholding to minimize the overage. For the example given in the question to get the 4K extra sooner, increase the number of allowances on the W-4.  You can under withhold federal income tax because you will over withhold social security tax."}
{"text": "Walking away from an FHA loan One additional penalty is you will be put on the CAIVRS (\"cavers\") for your default on the FHA mortgage which will preclude you from FHA financing in the future. When purchasing the multifamily unit it is an FHA requirement that you occupy one of the units.   Lastly, I would advise against FHA due to elevated costs.  Conventional options have 95% financing options, and don't have mortgage insurance that lasts forever, like FHA does."}
{"text": "What happens to public shareholders when a public stock goes private? If a deal is struck, you're part of that deal because you own shares.  If someone offers $10/share for the entire company, you'll get that.  If the stock price is $1.50 and someone offers $2/share, you'll get that."}
{"text": "Understanding the T + 3 settlement days rule The key word you forgot to include from Slide 29 is: Free-Riding Investopedia defines free-riding as: In the context of a brokerage firm, a free rider problem refers to a situation where a client has been allowed to purchase shares without actually paying for them, and then subsequently sells the shares (ideally for profit). The problem with this scenario is that the client, if allowed to free ride, can profit from a stock trade without actually using any of his or her own capital. This is illegal. I have not heard of any issues with this type of action being a problem with trading accounts in Australia, nor have I been able to find any such rules on the ASX website or any of by brokers websites. So I think this may be an issue in the USA but not Australia. You should check the rules in any other countries you wish to trade in."}
{"text": "Credit balance on new credit card A Credit Balance means that you overpayed. That's nothing to worry about; it will just be used up by your next charges. Note that this can have two reasons - either you really paid too much; or you paid off a charge that is still 'pending' - meaning it has not yet posted and is not considered in the amount you owe: Most charges in restaurants for example are pending for a day or more, because the original charge is your bill without tip (they don't know the tip when the run the card!), and the merchant spends his weekends or evenings to type in the final amount (including tip) and post the pending charge. If this is the case, it will settle ('get posted') in a day or two, and then it will match up."}
{"text": "Passing money through a different account to avoid cash pay-in fees Let me do the math. .6% * (not large) = really tiny. Since \"not large\" = \"small\" , etc.  I suggest that even a small chance that you need to explain this to anyone in the future is a sign to avoid the risk. Yes, there are times that it's illegal. A real estate office may not deposit escrow funds into anything but a segregated escrow account.  In your case, even if legal, it messes up 'the books' and can cost you more in grief than the 'tiny amount' saves you in cash."}
{"text": "What Did Benjamin Graham Mean by Earnings Stability in The Intelligent Investor? Yes - this is exactly what it means.  No losses (negative earnings).   With today's accounting methods, you might want to determine whether you view earnings including or excluding extraordinary items.   For example, a company might take a once-off charge to its earnings when revising the value of a major asset.  This would show in the \"including\" but not in the \"excluding\" figure.   The book actually has a nice discussion in Chapter 12 \"Things to Consider About Per-Share Earnings\" which considers several additional variables to consider here too. Note that this earnings metric is different from \"Stock Selection for the Defensive Investor\" which requires 10 years. PS - My edition (4th edition hardback) doesn't have 386 pages so your reference isn't correct for that edition.  I found it on page 209 in Chapter 15 \"Stock Selection for the Enterprising Investor\"."}
{"text": "Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal? As the other answers stated: Yes PayPal will transfer money from your bankaccount automatically if your PayPal balance isn't sufficient. Let's add some proof to the story: (Note, I am in the EU, specifically the Netherlands, situation might be different in other parts of the world) If I login to PayPal and go to my wallet, I have a section that looks like this:  If I click on it, I am presented with a screen with details about the connection.  Note the \"Direct debit instruction\". If I click on the \"view\" link I am presented with the following text (emphasis mine): [snip some arbitrary personal details] This authorisation allows (A) PayPal to send instructions to your bank account and (B) your bank to debit your account in accordance with the instructions from PayPal. As part of your rights, you are entitled to a refund from your bank under the Terms and Conditions of your agreement with your bank. A refund must be claimed within 8 weeks starting from the date on which your account was debited. Your rights are explained in a statement that you can obtain from your bank. Below this text is a button to delete the authorization."}
{"text": "Can I default on my private student loans if I was an international student? What are the consequences if I ignore the emails? If you ignore the emails they will try harder to collect the money from you until they give up. Unlike what some other people here say, defaulting on a loan is NOT a crime and is NOT the same as stealing. There is a large number of reasons that can make someone unable to pay off a loan. Lenders are aware of the risk associated with default; they will try to collect the debt but at the end of the day if you don't have money/assets there is not much they can do.   As far as immigration goes, there is nothing on a DS-160 form that asks you about bankruptcies or unpaid obligations. I doubt the consular officer will know of this situation, but it is possible. It is not grounds for visa ineligibility however, so you will be fine if everything else is fine. The only scenario in which unpaid student loans can come up relevant in immigration to the US is if and when you apply for US Citizenship. One of the requirements for Citizenship is having good moral character. Having a large amount of unpaid debt constitutes evidence of a poor moral character. But it is very unlikely you'd be denied Citizenship on grounds of that alone.  I got a social security number when I took up on campus jobs at the school and I do have a credit score. Can they get a hold of this and report to the credit bureaus even though I don't live in America? Yes, they probably already have.  How would this affect me if I visit America often? Does this mean I would not ever be able to live in America? No. See above. You will have a hard time borrowing again.  Will they know when I come to America and arrest me at the border or can they take away my passport? No. Unpaid debt is no grounds for inadmissibility, so even if the CBP agent knows of it he will not do anything. And again, unpaid debt is not a crime so you will not be arrested."}
{"text": "Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains? There are people (well, companies) who make money doing roughly what you describe, but not exactly. They're called \"market makers\". Their value for X% is somewhere on the scale of 1% (that is to say: a scale at which almost everything is \"volatile\"), but they use leverage, shorting and hedging to complicate things to the point where it's nothing like a simple as making a 1% profit every time they trade. Their actions tend to reduce volatility and increase liquidity. The reason you can't do this is that you don't have enough capital to do what market makers do, and you don't receive any advantages that the exchange might offer to official market makers in return for them contracting to always make both buy bids and sell offers (at different prices, hence the \"bid-offer spread\"). They have to be able to cover large short-term losses on individual stocks, but when the stock doesn't move too much they do make profits from the spread. The reason you can't just buy a lot of volatile stocks \"assuming I don't make too many poor choices\", is that the reason the stocks are volatile is that nobody knows which ones are the good choices and which ones are the poor choices. So if you buy volatile stocks then you will buy a bunch of losers, so what's your strategy for ensuring there aren't \"too many\"? Supposing that you're going to hold 10 stocks, with 10% of your money in each, what do you do the first time all 10 of them fall the day after you bought them? Or maybe not all 10, but suppose 75% of your holdings give no impression that they're going to hit your target any time soon. Do you just sit tight and stop trading until one of them hits your X% target (in which case you start to look a little bit more like a long-term investor after all), or are you tempted to change your strategy as the months and years roll by? If you will eventually sell things at a loss to make cash available for new trades, then you cannot assess your strategy \"as if\" you always make an X% gain, since that isn't true. If you don't ever sell at a loss, then you'll inevitably sometimes have no cash to trade with through picking losers. The big practical question then is when that state of affairs persists, for how long, and whether it's in force when you want to spend the money on something other than investing. So sure, if you used a short-term time machine to know in advance which volatile stocks are the good ones today, then it would be more profitable to day-trade those than it would be to invest for the long term. Investing on the assumption that you'll only pick short-term winners is basically the same as assuming you have that time machine ;-) There are various strategies for analysing the market and trying to find ways to more modestly do what market makers do, which is to take profit from the inherent volatility of the market. The simple strategy you describe isn't complete and cannot be assessed since you don't say how to decide what to buy, but the selling strategy \"sell as soon as I've made X% but not otherwise\" can certainly be improved. If you're keen you can test a give strategy for yourself using historical share price data (or current share price data: run an imaginary account and see how you're doing in 12 months). When using historical data you have to be realistic about how you'd choose what stocks to buy each day, or else you're just cheating at solitaire. When using current data you have to beware that there might not be a major market slump in the next 12 months, in which case you won't know how your strategy performs under conditions that it inevitably will meet eventually if you run it for real. You also have to be sure in either case to factor in the transaction costs you'd be paying, and the fact that you're buying at the offer price and selling at the bid price, you can't trade at the headline mid-market price. Finally, you have to consider that to do pure technical analysis as an individual, you are in effect competing against a bank that's camped on top of the exchange to get fastest possible access to trade, it has a supercomputer and a team of whizz-kids, and it's trying to find and extract the same opportunities you are. This is not to say the plucky underdog can't do well, but there are systematic reasons not to just assume you will. So folks investing for their retirement generally prefer a low-risk strategy that plays the averages and settles for taking long-term trends."}
{"text": "Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation? Sensitive topic ;) Inflation is a consequence of the mismatch between supply and demand.  In an ideal world the amount of goods available would exactly match the demand for those goods.   We don't live in an ideal world. One example of oversupply is dollar stores where you can buy remainders from companies that misjudged demand.  Most recently we've seen wheat prices rise as fires outside Moscow damaged the harvest and the Russian government banned exports. And that introduces the danger of inflation. Inflation is a signal, like the pain you feel after an injury.  If you simply took a painkiller you may completely ignore a broken leg until gangrene took your life. Governments sometimes \"ban\" inflation by fixing prices.  Both the Zimbabwean and Venezuelan governments have tried this recently.  The consequence of that is goods become unavailable as producers refuse to create supply for less than the cost of production. As CrimonsX pointed out, governments do desperately want to avoid deflation as much as they want to avoid hyperinflation. There is a \"correct\" level and that has resulted in the monetary policy called \"Inflation targetting\" where central banks attempt to manage inflation into a target range (usually around 2% to 6%). The reason is simply that limited inflation drives investment and consumption.  With a guaranteed return on investment people with cash will lend it to people with ideas.  Consumers will buy goods today if they fear that the price will rise tomorrow. If prices fall (as they have done during the two decades of deflation in Japan) then the result is lower levels of investment and employment as companies cut production capacity.  If prices rise to quickly (as in Zimbabwe and Venezuela) then people cannot save enough or earn enough and so their wealth is drained away. Add to this the continual process of innovation and you see how difficult it is to manage inflation at all.  Innovation can result in increased efficiency which can reduce prices.  It can also result in a new product which is sufficiently unique to allow predatory pricing (the Apple iPhone, new types of medicines, and so on). The best mechanism we have for figuring out where money should be invested and who is the best recipient of any good is the price mechanism.  Inflation is the signal that investors need to learn how best to manage their efforts. We hide from it at our peril."}
{"text": "Responsible investing - just a marketing trick? You are correct that, barring an equity capital raise, your money doesn't actually end up in the company. However, interest in their stock can help a company in other ways; Management/board members hopefully own shares or options themselves, thus knowing that \"green\" policies are favorable for the stock price (as your fund might buy shares) can be quite an incentive for them to go green(er).  Companies with above average company share performance are also often viewed as financially healthy and so creditors tend to charge lower interest for companies with good share performance.  Lastly, a high share price makes a company difficult to take over (as all those shares have to be acquired) and at the same time makes it easier for the company to perform takeovers themselves as they can finance such acquisitions by issuing more of their own shares. There is also the implication that money flowing towards such green companies is money flowing out of/away from polluting companies, for these \"dirty\" companies the inverse of the previous points can hold true. Of course on the other hand there is quite an argument to be made that large enough \"green\" funds should actually buy substantial positions in companies with poor environmental records and steer the company towards greener policies but that might be a hard sell to investors."}
{"text": "Investing in income stocks for dividends - worth it? is it worth it? You state the average yield on a stock as 2-3%, but seem to have come up with this by looking at the yield of an S&P500 index.  Not every stock in that index is paying a dividend and many of them that are paying have such a low yield that a dividend investor would not even consider them.  Unless you plan to buy the index itself, you are distorting the possible income by averaging in all these \"duds\". You are also assuming your income is directly proportional to the amount of yield you could buy right now.  But that's a false measure because you are talking about building up your investment by contributing $2k-$3k/month.  No matter what asset you choose to invest in, it's going to take some time to build up to asset(s) producing $20k/year income at that rate.  Investments today will have time in market to grow in multiple ways. Given you have some time, immediate yield is not what you should be measuring dividends, or other investments, on in my opinion.  Income investors usually focus on YOC (Yield On Cost), a measure of income to be received this year based on the purchase price of the asset producing that income.  If you do go with dividend investing AND your investments grow the dividends themselves on a regular basis, it's not unheard of for YOC to be north of 6% in 10 years.  The same can be true of rental property given that rents can rise. Achieving that with dividends has alot to do with picking the right companies, but you've said you are not opposed to working hard to invest correctly, so I assume researching and teaching yourself how to lower the risk of picking the wrong companies isn't something you'd be opposed to. I know more about dividend growth investing than I do property investing, so I can only provide an example of a dividend growth entry strategy: Many dividend growth investors have goals of not entering a new position unless the current yield is over 3%, and only then when the company has a long, consistent, track record of growing EPS and dividends at a good rate, a low debt/cashflow ratio to reduce risk of dividend cuts, and a good moat to preserve competitiveness of the company relative to its peers.  (Amongst many other possible measures.)  They then buy only on dips, or downtrends, where the price causes a higher yield and lower than normal P/E at the same time that they have faith that they've valued the company correctly for a 3+ year, or longer, hold time. There are those who self-report that they've managed to build up a $20k+ dividend payment portfolio in less than 10 years.  Check out Dividend Growth Investor's blog for an example.  There's a whole world of Dividend Growth Investing strategies and writings out there and the commenters on his blog will lead to links for many of them. I want to point out that income is not just for those who are old.  Some people planned, and have achieved, the ability to retire young purely because they've built up an income portfolio that covers their expenses.   Assuming you want that, the question is whether stock assets that pay dividends is the type of investment process that resonates with you, or if something else fits you better.  I believe the OP says they'd prefer long hold times, with few activities once the investment decisions are made, and isn't dissuaded by significant work to identify his investments.  Both real estate and stocks fit the latter, but the subtypes of dividend growth stocks and hands-off property investing (which I assume means paying for a property manager) are a better fit for the former.  In my opinion, the biggest additional factor differentiating these two is liquidity concerns.  Post-tax stock accounts are going to be much easier to turn into emergency cash than a real estate portfolio.  Whether that's an important factor depends on personal situation though."}
{"text": "Opportunity to buy Illinois bonds that can never default? If you give money to a person or entity, and they don't have the ability to pay you back, it doesn't matter if they are legally required to pay you."}
{"text": "Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in? Not normally, for a limited liability company anyway. In extreme circumstances a court may \"lift the veil\" of incorporation and treat shareholders as if they were partners. If you are an office bearer or a director that is found to have breached duties/responsibiities then that is another matter. Dim views can be taken of shonky arrangents for companies formed for activites not of a bona fide business nature too."}
{"text": "Can after-hours trading affect options pricing? There is a white paper on \"The weekend effect of equity options\" it is a good paper and shows that (for the most part) option values do lose money from Friday to Monday. Which makes sense because it is getting closer to expiration. Of course this not something that can be counted on 100%.  If there is some bad news and the stock opens down on a Monday the puts would have increased and the calls decreased in value. Article Summary (from the authors): \"We find that returns on options on individual equities display markedly lower returns over weekends (Friday close to Monday close) relative to any other day of the week. These patterns are observed both in unhedged and delta-hedged positions, indicating that the effect is not the result of a weekend effect in the underlying securities. We find even stronger weekend effects in implied volatilities, but only after an adjustment to quote implied volatilities in terms of trading days rather than calendar days.\"  \"Our results hold for puts and calls over a wide range of maturities and strike prices, for both equally weighted portfolios and for portfolios weighted by the market value of open interest, and also for samples that include only the most liquid options in the market. We find no evidence of a weekly seasonal in bid-ask spreads, trading volume, or open interest that could drive the effect. We also find little evidence that weekend returns are driven by higher levels of risk over the weekend.  \"The effect is particularly strong over expiration weekends, and it is also present to a lesser degree over mid-week holidays. Finally, the effect is stronger when the TED spread and market volatility are high, which we interpret as providing support for a limits to arbitrage explanation for the persistence of the effect.\" - Christopher S. Jones & Joshua Shemes You can read more about this at this link for Memphis.edu"}
{"text": "Assessing risk, and Identifying scams in Alternative Investments 10 to 20% return on investment annually. \"When I hear that an investment has a 10%+ return on it I avoid it because...\". In my opinion, and based on my experience, 10% annually is not an exageration. I start to ask questions only if one talks about return of 30% annually or more. These kind of returns are possible, but very rare.  What sort of things do we need to look out for with alternative investment? First the quality of the website and the documentation provided. Then the resume of the founders. Who are those guys? I check their LinkedIn profile. If they have none, I am out. A LinkedIn profile is a minimum if you manage an investment company. I also look for diversification and this is the case with Yieldstreet. How do we assess the risks associated with alternative investments? I would never put more than 10% of my capital in any investment, alternative ones included. I also try to find financial information on the promoter itself. In Yieldstreet case check the legal advisor. I remember an international fraud case I analyse. The promoter I investigated had seven small trust involved: in British Virgin Islands, in Panama, in Holland, in Portugal, in the United States and Canada plus a banking account in Switzerland and the biggest shareholding company in the Isle of Man. No need to talk about what happened after. The investors were all non residents in the juridictions involved and no legal recourse were possible. They lost everything. These promoters regularly change juridictions to avoid detection. As far as Yieldstreet is concerned, what I read and checked seems interesting. Thanks for your question. I will check it out myself more. I am also a very cautious investor. To evaluate alternative investments is difficult , but no need to be afraid or to avoid them. We are accredited investors after all."}
{"text": "Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest A professional home inspection will clue you in on any problems you might be buying, so it's important in any real estate transaction. If the seller finances the loan, you need a lawyer. It might be a nice opportunity - being in the right place at the right time.  You just have to investigate all angles."}
{"text": "Ghana scam and direct deposit scam? It's a scam. Here's someone who paid \"Josie\" 2000 pounds and lost it all Here's a Google search result list of how this softcore porn actor, Josie Ann Miller, is being used as the face and name of scams"}
{"text": "Understanding stock market terminology One of the most useful ways to depict Open, High, Low, Close, and Volume is with a Candlestick Chart. I like to use the following options from Stockcharts.com: http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=SPY&p=D&yr=0&mn=3&dy=0&id=p57211761385"}
{"text": "Table of how many years it takes to make a specified return on the stock market? Well depends but \"on average\" the stock market has historically returned somewhere around 10% per year.  Note, this can vary wildly from year to year see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P_500#Market_statistics So it would be roughly 2.8 years to get your 30% if you happen to get the average market return for those 3 years, but the chances of that happening exactly are slim to none.  You could end up with +50% or -30% over that ~3 year period of time - so the calculation doesn't do you that much good for that short period of time, but if you are talking a span of 30 years then you could plan using that as a very rough ballpark. Good rule of thumb is you shouldn't put any money in the stock market you think you will need anytime in the next 5 years. Formula to figure out total gain would be  Principal x (1+ rate of return) ^ years"}
{"text": "What could cause a stock to trade below book value? The key to evaluating book value is return on equity (ROE). That's net profit divided by book value.  The \"value\" of book value is measured by the company's ROE (the higher the better). If the stock is selling below book value, the company's assets aren't earning enough to satisfy most investors. Would you buy a CD that was paying, say two percentage points below the going rate for 100 cents on the dollar? Probably not. You might be willing to buy it only by paying 2% less per year, say 98 cents on the dollar for a one year CD. The two cent discount from \"book value\" is your compensation for a low \"interest\" rate."}
{"text": "What is a call spread and how does it work? A bullish (or 'long') call spread is actually two separate option trades.  The A/B notation is, respectively, the strike price of each trade. The first 'leg' of the strategy, corresponding to B, is the sale of a call option at a strike price of B (in this case $165).  The proceeds from this sale, after transaction costs, are generally used to offset the cost of the second 'leg'. The second 'leg' of the strategy, corresponding to A, is the purchase of a call option at a strike price of A (in this case $145). Now, the important part: the payoff.  You can visualize it as so. This is where it gets a teeny bit math-y.  Below, P is the profit of the strategy, K1 is the strike price of the long call, K2 is the strike price of the short call, T1 is the premium paid for the long call option at the time of purchase, T2 is the premium received for the short call at the time of sale, and S is the current price of the stock.  For simplicity's sake, we will assume that your position quantity is a single option contract and transaction costs are zero (which they are not). P = (T2 - max(0, S - K2)) + (max(0, S - K1) - T1) Concretely, let's plug in the strikes of the strategy Nathan proposes, and current prices (which I pulled from the screen).  You have: P = (1.85 - max(0, 142.50 - 165)) - (max(0, 142.50 - 145)) = -$7.80 If the stock goes to $150, the payoff is -$2.80, which isn't quite break even -- but it may have been at the time he was speaking on TV. If the stock goes to $165, the payoff is $12.20. Please do not neglect the cost of the trades!  Trading options can be pretty expensive depending on the broker.  Had I done this trade (quantity 1) at many popular brokers, I still would've been net negative PnL even if NFLX went to >= $165."}
{"text": "It is worth using a discount stock broker? I heard they might not get the best price on a trade? They're not negotiating trade rates for you, you set the trade rates in your order. What they might have is a slightly slower system, delivering your orders a second later than the competition would. If that's critical to you then you should look at that, otherwise look at their fees, customer support and research aids because that's where the broker value is."}
{"text": "Self-employed individual 401k self, match, and profit sharing contribution limits? It seems I can make contributions as employee-elective, employer   match, or profit sharing; yet they all end up in the same 401k from my   money since I'm both the employer and employee in this situation. Correct. What does this mean for my allowed limits for each of the 3 types of   contributions? Are all 3 types deductible? \"Deductible\"? Nothing is deductible. First you need to calculate your \"compensation\". According to the IRS, it is this: compensation is your \u201cearned income,\u201d which is defined as net earnings   from self-employment after deducting both: So assuming (numbers for example, not real numbers) your business netted $30, and $500 is the SE tax (half). You contributed $17.5 (max) for yourself. Your compensation is thus 30-17.5-0.5=12. Your business can contribute up to 25% of that on your behalf, i.e.: $4K. Total that you can contribute in such a scenario is $21.5K. Whatever is contributed to a regular 401k is deferred, i.e.: excluded from income for the current year and taxed when you withdraw it from 401k (not \"deducted\" - deferred)."}
{"text": "Why do people buy stocks that pay no dividend? Nobody is going to buy a stock without returns.  However, returns are dividends + capital gains.  So long as there is enough of the latter it doesn't matter if there is none of the former. Consider:  Berkshire Hathaway--Warren Buffet's company.  It has never paid dividends.  It just keeps going up because Warren Buffet makes the money grow.  I would expect the price to crash if it ever paid dividends--that would be an indication that Warren Buffet couldn't find anything good to do with the money and thus an indication that the growth was going to stop."}
{"text": "Price graphs: why not percent change? Actually, total return is the most important which isn't necessarily just price change as this doesn't account for dividends that may be re-invested.  Thus, the price change isn't necessarily that useful in terms of knowing what you end up with as an ending balance for an investment. Secondly, the price change itself may be deceptively large as if the stock initial price was low, e.g. a few dollars or less adjusting for stock splits as most big companies will split the stock once the price is high enough, then the percentages can be quite large years later. Something else to consider is the percentage change would be based on what as the initial base.  The price at the start of the chart or something else?  Carefully consider what you want the initial starting point to be in determining price shifts here as one could take either end and claim a rationale for using it. Most people want to look at the price to get an idea of what would X shares cost to purchase rather than look at the percentage change from day to day."}
{"text": "Questrade - What happens if I buy U.S. stock with Canadian money? I don't believe from reading the responses above that Questrade is doing anything 'original' or 'different' much less 'bad'. In RRSPs you are not allowed to go into debt. So the costs of all trades must be covered.  If there is not enough USD to pay the bill then enough CAD is converted to do so.  What else would anyone expect? How margin accounts work depends on whether the broker sets up different accounts for different currencies. Some do, some don't.  The whole point of using 'margin' is to buy securities when you don't have the cash to cover the cost.  The result is a 'short' position in the cash.  Short positions accrue interest expense which is added to the balance once a month.  Every broker does this. If you buy a US stock in a USD account without the cash to cover it, you will end up with USD margin debt.  If you buy US stock in an account that co-mingles both USD and CAD assets and cash, then there will be options during the trade asking if you want to settle in USD or CAD.  If you settle in CAD then obviously the broker will convert the necessary CAD funds to pay for it.  If you settle in US funds, but there is no USD cash in the account, then again, you have created a short position in USD."}
{"text": "Lease vs buy car with cash? A lease is a rental plain and simple.  You borrow money to finance the expected depreciation over the course of the lease term.  This arrangement will almost always cost more over time of your \"ownership.\"  That does not mean that a lease is always a worse \"deal.\"   Cars are almost always a losing proposition; save for the oddball Porsche or Ferrari that is too scarce relative to demand.  You accept ownership of a car and it starts to lose value.  New cars lose value faster than used cars.  Typically, if you were to purchase the car, then sell it after 3 years, the total cost over those three years will work out to less total money than the equivalent 36 month lease.  But, you will have to come up with a lot more money down, or a higher monthly payment, and/or sell the car after 36 months (assuming the pretty standard 36 month lease).  With this in mind, some cars lease better than others because the projected depreciation is more favorable than other brands or models.   Personally, I bought a slightly used car certified pre-owned with a agreeable factory warranty extension.  My next car I may lease.  Late model cars are getting so unbelievably expensive to maintain that more and more I feel like a long term rental has merit. Just understand that for the convenience, for the freeing up of your cash flow, for the unlikelihood of maintenance, to not bother with resale or trading the car in, a lease will cost a premium over a purchase over the same time frame."}
{"text": "What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US? Once you declare the amount, the CBP officials will ask you the source and purpose of funds. You must be able to demonstrate that the source of funds is legitimate and not the proceeds of crime and it is not for the purposes of financing terrorism. Once they have determined that the source and purpose is legitimate, they will take you to a private room where two officers will count and validate the amount (as it is a large amount); and then return the currency to you. For nominal amounts they count it at the CBP officer's inspection desk. Once they have done that, you are free to go on your way. The rule (for the US) is any currency or monetary instrument that is above the equivalent of 10,000 USD. So this will also apply if you are carrying a combination of GBP, EUR and USD that totals to more than $10,000."}
{"text": "When the Reserve Bank determines the interest rates, do they take the house prices into account? The Central Banks sets various rate for lending to Banks and Paying interest to Banks on excess funds. Apart from these the Central Banks also sets various other ratios that either create more liquidity or remove liquidity from Market.  The CPI is just one input to the Central Bank to determine rate, is not the only deciding criteria. The CPI does not take into account the house price or the cost of renting in the basket of goods.  One of the reasons could be that CPI contains basic essentials and also the fact that it should be easily mesurable over the period of time. For example Retail Price of a particular item is easily mesurable. The rent is not easily mesurable."}
{"text": "Events that cause major movement in forex? currency's central bank or treasury/finance department speeches that can announce a significant change in policy.  That includes: Particularly when it is a high level figure within the department such as the President or Prime Minister making the announcement. Macroeconomic stats:  GeoPolitical considerations, such as: Economic calendars, such as ForexFactory and MyFxBook track planned economic news releases.  Obviously, a coup d'etat or war declaration may not be well known in advance."}
{"text": "Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what? You mentioned depositing the check and then sending a personal check. Be sure to account for time, since any deposit over $10,000 the money will be made available in increments, so it may take 10-14 days to get the full amount in your account before you could send a personal check. I would not recommend this option regardless, but if you do, just a heads up."}
{"text": "In what category would I put a loan I took to pay an expense A loan is most generally a liability, a part of the balance sheet.  Expenses & income are part of the income statement.  Income is the net of revenues after expenses. The interest is an expense on the income statement, but the loan itself does not reside there unless if it is defaulted and forgiven.  Then it would become a revenue or contra-expense, depending on the methodology. The original purpose of the income statement is to show the net inflows of short term operational accruals which would exclude new borrowing and repaid loans. The cash flow statement will better show each cash event such as borrowing debt, repaying debt, or paying off a bill. To show how a loan may have funded a bill, which in theory it directly did not because an entity, be it a person or business, is like a single tank of water with multiple pipes filling and multiple pipes extracting, so it is impossible to know which exact inflow funded which exact outflow unless if there is only one inflow per period and one outflow per the same period. That being said, with a cash flow statement, the new loan will show a cash inflow when booked under the financing portion, and paying a bill will show a cash outflow when booked under the operating portion.  With only those two transactions booked and an empty balance sheet beforehand, it could be determined that a new loan funded a bill payment."}
{"text": "How to explain quick price changes early in the morning You may simply be asking why stocks 'gap up' or 'gap down' when the stock market opens. This is because the price adjusts to news that occurred while the exchanges were closed overnight. Perhaps Asian stocks crashed, or perhaps a news story was released in the New York Times about some major company. There are thousands of factors that affect market sentiment, and the big gaps that happen at the open of every trading day is the price of the stocks catching up to those factors."}
{"text": "How much (paper) cash should I keep on hand for an emergency? No cash is necessary for most people.  In the modern day in the US there is no need to keep paper currency around for emergencies; any sort of emergency that knocked out all of the ability to use plastic (ATMs, credit cards, etc.) for an extended period of time AND knocked your bank out of service would be of the level that cash  might not have any value either. Your $100 of cash for natural disasters is likely more than enough, and even that I wouldn't necessarily consider a vital thing in this day where even a major natural disaster probably isn't going to have too much impact on the financial sector outside of the immediate area (that you should be exiting quickly).  Keep however much cash around that you need for day to day cash expenses, and that should be enough. The level of emergency that would suggest cash being needed would probably need more than you'd actually want to keep around, anyway - i.e., a complete collapse of the American or World financial system would imply you need months' worth of cash.  That's just not feasible, nor is it practical financially.  You should have your emergency fund making at least a bit of interest - 1% or so isn't hard to get right now, and in the near future that may increase substantially if interest rates go up. It also would make you a substantial theft target if it were known you had months' worth of cash around the house (i.e., thousands of dollars).  Safes don't necessarily give you sufficient protection unless you've got a very good safe - commercial ones are only as safe as the ability to crack them and/or transport them is. Now, if you find yourself regularly out at 2am and run out of cash, and you live somewhere that ATMs don't exist, and you find yourself needing to pay cab drivers from time to time after a drunk bender... then I'd keep at least one cab's worth of cash at home."}
{"text": "Is there a good rule of thumb for how much I should have set aside as emergency cash? First you should maintain a monthly expense and find out the burn rate. There would be certain expenses that are annual but mandatory [School fees, Insurance Premium, Property Taxes, etc]. So the ideal emergency fund depending on your industry should be 3 month to 6 months plus your mandatory yearly payments, more so if they come together. For example Most of my annual payments come out in May and I bank on the Bonus payout in April to cater to this spike in expense. So if I were to lose a job in March, my emergency funds would be sufficient for routine expenses, if i don't provision for additional funds Second you need to also figure out the reduced rate of monthly burn and ideally the emergency funds should be for 3 months of normal burn and 6 months of reduced burn."}
{"text": "Using stop-loss as risk management: Is it safe? A stop-loss does not guarantee a sale at the given price; it just automatically triggers an unlimited sale as soon as the market reaches the limit. Depending on the development, your sale could be right at, slightly under, or deeply under the stop-loss limit you gave - it could even be it is never executed, if there are no further deals. The point is that each sell needs a partner that buys for that price, and if nobody is buying, no sale happens, no matter what you do (automated or manually) - your stop loss cannot 'force' a sale. Stop-loss works well for minor corrections in liquid shares; it becomes less useful the less liquid a share is, and it will not be helpfull for seldomly traded shares."}
{"text": "APR for a Loan Paid Off Monthly The periodic rate (here, the interest charged per month), as you would enter into a finance calculator is 9.05%. Multiply by 12 to get 108.6% or calculate APR at 182.8%. Either way it's far more than 68%.  If the $1680 were paid after 365 days, it would be simple interest of 68%. For the fact that payment are made along the way, the numbers change.  Edit - A finance calculator has 5 buttons to cover the calculations:  N = number of periods or payments %i = the interest per period PV = present value PMT = Payment per period FV= Future value In your example, you've given us the number of periods, 12, present value, $1000, future value, 0, and payment, $140. The calculator tells me this is a monthly rate of 9%. As Dilip noted, you can compound as you wish, depending on what you are looking for, but the 9% isn't an opinion, it's the math. TI BA-35 Solar. Discontinued, but available on eBay. Worth every cent.  Per mhoran's comment, I'll add the spreadsheet version.  I literally copied and pasted his text into a open cell, and after entering the cell shows,  which I rounded to 9.05%. Note, the $1000 is negative, it starts as an amount owed.  And for Dilip - 1.0905^12 = 2.8281 or 182.8% effective rate. If I am the loanshark lending this money, charging 9% per month, my $1000 investment returns $2828 by the end of the year, assuming, of course, that the payment is reinvested immediately. The 108 >> 182 seems disturbing, but for lower numbers, even 12% per year, the monthly compounding only results in 12.68%"}
{"text": "Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership? As someone who was just recently a salesman at Honda, I'd recommend buying a Honda instead :). If you really prefer your Toyota, I always found quote-aggregation services (Truecar, I'm blanking on others) very competitive in their pricing. Alternatively, you could email several dealerships requesting a final sale price inclusive of taxes and tags with the make, model, and accessories you'd wish to purchase, and buy the vehicle from them if your local dealership won't match that price. Please keep in mind this is only persuasive to your local dealership if said competitors are in the same market area (nobody will care if you have a quote from out-of-state).  As many other commenters noted, you should arrange your own financing. A staple of the sales process is switching a customer to in-house financing, but this occurs when the dealership offers you better terms than you are getting on your own. So allow them the chance to earn the financing, but don't feel obligated to take it if it doesn't make sense fiscally."}
{"text": "As a total beginner, how do I begin to understand finance & stocks? Your understanding of the stock market is absolutely correct theoretically. However there is a lot more to it. A stock on a given day is effected by a lot of factors. These factors could really be anything. For example, if you are buying a stock in an agricultural company and there was no rainfall this year, there is a big chance that your stock will lose value. There is also a chance that a war breaks out tomorrow and due to all the government spending on the war, the economy collapses and effects the prices of stocks. Why does this happen? This happens because bad rainfall or war can get people to lose confidence in a stock market. On the other hand GDP growth and low unemployment rates can make people think positive and increase the demand in a stock driving the prices up. The main factor in the stock market is sentiment(How people perceive certain news). This causes a stock to rise or fall even before the event actually happens. (For example:- Weather pundits predicted good rainfall for next year. That news is already known to people, so if the weather pundit was correct, it might not drive the prices up. However, if the rainfall was way better than people expected it to be it would drive the price up and vice versa.   These are just examples at a basic level. There are a lot of other factors which determine the price of the stock. The best way to look at it(In my personal opinion) is the way Warren Buffet puts it, i.e. look at the stock as a business and see the potential growth over a long period of time.  There will be unexpected events, but in the long run, the business must be profitable. There are various ways to value a company such as Price to earnings ratios, PEG ratios, discounted cash flows and you can also create your own. See what works best for you and record your success/failure ratio before you actually put money in.  Good Luck,"}
{"text": "Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord? Here are the issues, as I see them - It's not that I don't trust banks, but I just feel like throwing all   of our money into intangible investments is unwise. Banks have virtually nothing to do with this. And intangible assets has a different meaning than you assume. You don't have to like the market, but try to understand it, and dislike it for a good reason. (Which I won't offer here). Do your 401(k) accounts offer company match? When people start with \"we'd like to reduce our deposits\" that's the first thing we need to know. Last - you plan to gain \"a few hundred dollars a month.\" I bet it's closer to zero or a loss. I'll return to edit, we have recent posts here that reviewed the expenses to consider, and I'd bet that if you review the numbers, you've ignored some of them. \"A few hundred\" - say it's $300. Or $4000/yr. It would take far less work and risk to simply save $100K in your retirement accounts to produce this sum each year.  The investment may very well be excellent. I'm just offering the flip side, things you might have missed.   Edit - please read the discussion at How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent? The answers offer a good look at the list of expenses you need to consider. In my opinion, this is one of the most important things. I've seen too many new RE investors \"forget\" about so many expenses, a projected monthly income reverts to annual losses."}
{"text": "Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit? John Person has a pattern called the High Close Doji that is probably the most reliable signal in the world of candle patterns. I would check out Candle Stick and Pivot Point Trade Triggers. It all I use in trading stocks + forex."}
{"text": "Clear example of credit card balance 55 days interest-free \u201ctrick\u201d? Well, I answered a very similar question \"Credit card payment date\" where I showed that for a normal cycle, the average charge isn't due for 40 days. The range is 35-55, so if you want to feel good about the float just charge everything the day after the cycle closes, and nothing else the rest of the month. Why is this so interesting? It's no trick, and no secret.  By the way, this isn't likely to be of any use when you're buying gas, groceries, or normal purchases. But, I suppose if you have a large purchase, say a big TV, $3000, this will buy you extra time to pay. It would be remiss of me to not clearly state that anyone who needs to take advantage of this \"trick\" is the same person who probably shouldn't use credit cards at all. Those who use cards are best served by charging what they can afford to pay at that moment and not base today's charges on what paychecks will come in by the due date of the credit card bill."}
{"text": "What resources can I use to try and find out the name of the manager for a given fund? The fund prospectus is a good place to start."}
{"text": "Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? If you expect your taxes to be higher next year, it saves you the trouble of sending estimates or changing the withholding levels. But yes, its basically a free loan you're giving to the government."}
{"text": "Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? @OP:  It's all about risk.  With a cash buyer the decision is left up to one person.  With a financed buyer it adds another approval process (the lender).  It's another opportunity for the deal to fall through.  If the bank is the lender then there's even more risk.  They've already taken back the property once and incurred cost and they're setting themselves up to do it all over again.  The discount price can depend on a lot of factors.  Maybe it's a bad area and they need to get rid of it.  Maybe the appraisals for the area are low because of foreclosures and they know it will be hard for a Buyer to get a loan.  Lots of reasons as to what price they'd take. @Shawn:  Every deal has contingencies unless it's a foreclosure bought at auction.  Even if you are getting a steal from the bank in terms of price you're always going to have an inspection period.  If a Buyer doesn't need an inspection then he will just go to an auction and buy a property for an even cheaper price."}
{"text": "What is a formula for calculating equity accumulated while repaying car loan? By the sounds of things, you're not asking for a single formula but how to do the analysis... And for the record you're focusing on the wrong thing. You should be focusing on how much it costs to own your car during that time period, not your total equity.  Formulas:  I'm not sure how well you understand the nuts and bolts of the finance behind your question, (you may just be a pro and really want a consolidated equation to do this in one go.) So at the risk of over-specifying, I'll err on the side of starting at the very beginning. Any financial loan analysis is built on 5 items: (1) # of periods, (2) Present Value, (3) Future Value, (4) Payments, and (5) interest rate.  These are usually referred to in spreadsheet software as NPER, PV, FV, PMT, and Rate. Each one has its own Excel/google docs function where you can calculate one as a function of the other 4. I'll use those going forward and spare you the 'real math' equations.  Layout: If I were trying to solve your problem I would start by setting up the spreadsheet  up with column A as \"Period\". I would put this label in cell A2 and then starting from cell A3 as \"0\" and going to \"N\". 5 year loans will give you the highest purchase value w lowest payments, so n=60 months... but you also said 48 months so do whatever you want.  Then I would set up two tables side-by-side with 7 columns each. (Yes, seven.) Starting in C2, label the cells/columns as: \"Rate\", \"Car Value\", \"Loan Balance\", \"Payment\", \"Paid to Interest\", \"Principal\", and \"Accumulated Equity\". Then select and copy cells C2:I2 as the next set of column headers beginning in K2. (I usually skip a column to leave space because I'm OCD like that :) ) Numbers: Now you need to set up your initial set of numbers for each table. We'll do the older car in the left hand table and the newer one on the right. Let's say your rate is 5% APR. Put that in cell C1 (not C3). Then in cell C3 type =C$1/12. Car Value $12,000 in Cell D3. Then type \"Down Payment\" in cell E1 and put 10% in cell D1. And last, in cell E3 put the formula =D3*(1-D$1). This should leave you with a value for the first month in the Rate, Car Value, and Loan Balance columns. Now select C1:E3 and paste those to the right hand table. The only thing you will need to change is the \"Car Value\" to $20,000. As a check, you should have .0042 / 12,000 / 10,800 on the left and then .0042 / 20,000 / 18,000 on the right.  Formulas again: This is where spreadsheets become amazing. If we set up the right formulas, you can copy and paste them and do this very complicated analysis very quickly.  Payment The excel formula for Payment is =PMT(Rate, NPER, PV, FV). FV is usually zero. So in cell F3, type the formula =PMT(C3, 60, E3, 0). Obviously if you're really doing a 48 month (4 year) loan then you'll need to change the 60 to 48. You should be able to copy the result from cell F3 to N3 and the formula will update itself.  For the 60 months, I'm showing the 12K car/10.8K loan has a pmt of $203.81. The 20K/18K loan has a pmt of 339.68.  Interest The easiest way to calculate the interest is as =E3*C3. That's (Outstanding Loan Balance) x (Periodic Interest Rate). Put this in cell G4, since you don't actually owe any interest at Period 0.  Principal If you pay PMT each month and X goes to interest, then the amount to principal is \"PMT - X\". So in H4 type =-F3 - G3. The 'minus' in front of F3 is because excel's PMT function returns a negative amount. If you want to, feel free to type \"=-PMT(...)\" for the formula that's actually in F3. It's your call.  I get 159 for the amount to principal in period 1.  Accumulated Equity As I mentioned in the comment, your \"Equity\" comes from your initial Loan-to-Value and the accumulated principal payments. So the formula in this cell should reflect that. There are a variety of ways to do this... the easiest is just to compare your car's expected value to your loan balance every time. In cell I3, type =(D3-E3). That's your initial equity in the car before making any payments. Copy that cell and paste it to I4. You'll see it updates to =(D4-E3) automatically. (Right now that is zero... those cells are empty, but we're getting there) The important thing is that as JB King pointed out, your equity is a function of accumulated principal AND equity, which depreciates. This approach handles those both.  Finishing up the copy-and-paste formulas I know this is long, but we're almost done.  Rate // Period 1 In cell C4 type =C3.  Payment // Period 1 In cell F4 type =F3.  Loan Balance // Period 1 In cell E4 type =E3-H4. Your loan balance at the end of period is reduced by the principal you paid. I get 10,641.  Car Value // Period 1 This will vary depending on how you want to handle depreciation. If you ignore it, you're making a major error and it's not worth doing this entire analysis...  just buy the prettiest car and move on with life. But you also don't have to get it scientifically accurate. Go to someplace like edmunds.com and look up a ballpark. I'm using 4% depreciation per year for the old (12K) car and 7% for the newer car. However, I pulled those out of my ass so figure out what's a better ballpark.  In G1 type \"Depreciation\" and then put 4% in H1. In O1 type \"Depreciation\" and then 7% in P1. Now, in cell D4, put the formula =D3 * (1-(H$1/12)).  Paste formulas to flesh out table As a check, your row 4 should read 1 / .0042 / 11,960 / 10,641 / 203.81 / 45 / 159 / 1,319. If so, you're great. Copy cells C4:I4 and paste them into K4:Q4.  These will update to be .0042 / 19,883 / 17,735 / 339.68 / 75 / 265 / 2,148.  If you've got that, then copy C4:Q4 and paste it to C5:C63. You've built a full amortization table for your two hypothetical loans. Congratulations.  Making your decision I'm not going to tell you what to decide, but I'll give you a better idea of what to look at. I would personally make the decision based on total cost to own during that time period, plus a bit of \"x-factor\" for which car I really liked.  Look at Period 24, in columns I and Q. These are your 'equities' in each car. If you built the sheet using my made-up numbers, then you get \"Old Car Equity\" as 4,276. \"New Car Equity\" is 6,046. If you're only looking at most equity, you might make a poor financial decision.  The real value you should consider is the cost to own the car (not necessarily operate it) during that time... Total Cost = (Ending Equity) - (Payment x 24) - (Upfront Cash).  For your 'old' car, that's (4,276) - (203.81 * 24) - (1,200) = -1,815.75 For the 'new' car, that's (6,046) - (339.68 * 24) - (2,000) = -4,106.07.  Is one good or bad? Up to you to decide. There are excel formulas like \"CUMPRINC\" that can consolidate some of the table mechanics, but I assumed that if you're here asking you would have gotten stuck running some of those.  Here's the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah0weE0QX65vdHpCNVpwUzlfYjlTY2VrNllXOS1CWUE#gid=1"}
{"text": "F-1 Visa expired - Unable to repay private student loan. What to do? As an international student, the tuition is sky high. Typically, most students take loans for Education and start paying it back once they get a job. If you have exhausted your OPT period and have not got H1B, your options are either to go for further education(Hint: Phd), you can hope to cover living expense by part-time on campus job. This will give you additional time to look for a job and try for H1B again!"}
{"text": "I have a million dollars of disposable income. What should I do to best benefit the economy? At first, I thought this might be too broad.  There are of course thousands of things that you can do with your money to \"help the economy\".  But I think that there is room to discuss some broad strokes without trying to list a thousand details.   Regular investing (as you are now) helps the economy in that companies obtain money by selling their stock.  They can then use that money to fund expansion, etc.  These things can help the economy permanently.  Of course, they can also use the money to pay executive bonuses, which don't help the economy so much.   Similarly, just spending money does not normally help the economy.  Unless we are in a recession, it is mildly harmful to spend wastefully.  Money that could be going to support long term improvements in production instead is used to buy a luxury that doesn't terribly interest you.  I.e. if you don't want a bigger house or a more luxurious car don't buy it to \"stimulate\" the economy.   Many charitable donations have the same problem.  They help short term consumption somewhere.  And of course the charity starts asking you for more money.  Many charities waste most of a donation trying to get another one from the same person or family.   Sir John Maynard Keynes proposed that the best thing that people could do to help the economy is to invest in things that cause economic activity in turn.  He was mostly talking about things like roads, bridges, and dams that are out of the investing range of most people, so he wanted governments to do it, particularly during a recession.   So we are looking for ways to invest in durable improvements that will support economic activity in the future.  A million dollars is a small amount for many things, but there are some activities that work.  I'm going to list a few examples, but there are certainly others:   Fund microfinance.  Basically loan your million dollars to people who need a small amount of money.  These programs often allow you to determine the initial recipient and then that person determines the next recipient.  A million dollars can finance hundreds if not thousands of these loans.  They may be in the United States or in a developing country.   Set up a scholarship.  My recommendation would be to find an existing scholarship with a few recipients and ask them to add one a year for the million dollars.  A million dollars should typically produce about a scholarship a year in returns after inflation.  Of course, that's just regular inflation.  Education inflation is higher.   Solar prize.  Fund a program that gives out one solar installation every year or five to a family that owns a house, is struggling to pay utilities, and makes a compelling case.  Basically, whenever the investment grows enough to support it, make a new prize.   Buy something that will help other people make money.   This is just six ideas off the top of my head.  The goal here is to create something lasting that will promote economic activity.  So a program that loans money forward.  Or a scholarship or free textbook, particularly in a STEM field.  A small piece of infrastructure that helps people move around to work or spend their money.  Solar is a bit of a stretch here, but it can be justified if you believe that an investment now is an investment in moving towards the future.   The key thing here is to make your money do double duty.  By spending your money during a recession or investing during the rest of the business cycle, you can get some value for your money.  But even better is if that spending has a societal return as well.  Microfinance, scholarships, and infrastructure do that.  There is the immediate spending, plus there is the effect of the spending.  A business is established.  A mind is trained and working at a high income job.  People can move, work, and spend their own money."}
{"text": "Buying a home - brokerage fee That sounds like a particularly egregious version of exclusivity. However, the way that you could handle that is to include a \"contingency\" in your purchase agreement stating that your offer is contingent upon the seller paying the brokerage fee. The argument against this, and something your broker might use to encourage you not to do so, is that it makes your offer less attractive to the buyer. If they have two offers in hand for the same price, one with contingencies and one without, they will likely take the no-contingency offer. In my area, right now, house offers are being made without very common contingencies like a financing contingency (meaning you can back out if you can't finance the property) or an inspection contingency. So, if your market is really competitive, this may not work. One last thought is that you could also use this to negotiate with your broker. Simply say you're only sign this expecting that any offer would have such a contingency. If it's untenable in your current market, it will likely cause your broker to move on. Either way, I'd say you should push back and potentially talk to some other brokers. A good broker is worth their weight in gold, and a bad one will cost you a boat load. And if you're in Seattle, I'll introduce you to literally the best one in the world. :-)"}
{"text": "Why would a company with a bad balance sheet be paying dividends? While Ford and the other auto makers have a bad few years, some companies want to have a cash dividend. It appeals to certain investors. Others have tried to avoid dividends: Microsoft didn't start until ~2003; Apple only from mid 80's until mid 90's.; Google never has had a cash dividend. The desire to keep the dividend, or even to increase it, make some companies continue the practice; even when it doesn't make complete sense. Here is a list of stocks that have INCREASED their dividend for the last 25+ years: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/25-year-dividend-increasing-stocks.php Some have had good years, others bad years, in the last 25+ years."}
{"text": "I cosigned for a friend who is not paying the payment If the bank is calling your employer, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) limits where and when debt collectors can contact consumer debtors. In many cases, debt collectors that contact debtors at work are violating the FDCPA. http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/a-debt-collector-calling-me-work-is-allowed.html"}
{"text": "Where can I see the detailed historical data for a specified stock? Yahoo Finance's Historical Prices section allows you to look up  daily historical quotes for any given stock symbol, you don't have to hit a library for this information. Your can choose a desired time frame for your query, and the dataset will include High/Low/Close/Volume numbers. You can then download a CSV version of this report and perform additional analysis in a spreadsheet of your choice. Below is Twitter report from IPO through yesterday: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=TWTR&a=10&b=7&c=2013&d=08&e=23&f=2014&g=d"}
{"text": "Is there strategy to qualify stock options with near expiry date for long term capital gain tax? According to page 56 of the 2015 IRS Publication 550 on Investment Income and Expenses: Wash sales. Your holding period for substantially identical stock or securities you acquire in a wash sale includes the period you held the old stock or securities. It looks like the rule applies to stocks and other securities, including options. It seems like the key is \"substantially identical\". For your brokerage / trading platform to handle these periods correctly for reporting to IRS, it seems best to trade the same security instead of trying to use something substantially identical."}
{"text": "At what age should I start or stop saving money? As all said, the age limitation thing is nothing, and saving money not necessarily means to live poor nor Skimpy, spend your needs and try to get what you need instead of what you want, the 24 years old is a good start for saving money, the whole life still in front of you Good luck!"}
{"text": "My mother's name is on my car title, how can I protect my ownership of the car in the event of her death? It's her car.  Unlike what Ross said in the comments she can't sign it over to you--she doesn't own it yet.  The best you'll be able to do is have her leave it to you in her will--but beware that you very well might need to refinance the loan at that point."}
{"text": "I'm halfway through a 5-year purchase financing deal on my car. It's expensive. Can I sell it and get a cheaper car? You say \"it's expensive\".  I'm going to interpret this as \"the monthly payments are too high\". Basically, you need to get your old loan paid off, presumably by selling the car you have now.  This is the tough part.  If you sold the car now, how much would you get for it?  You can use Kelley Blue Book to figure out what the car is roughly worth.  That's not a guarantee that it will actually sell for that much.  Look in your local classifieds to see what similar cars are selling for.  (Keep in mind that you will usually get less for your old car if you trade it in versus sell it yourself.) Now, if you owe more than your car is worth, you're in a really tight spot.  If you don't get enough money when you sell it, you are still stuck with the remainder of the loan.  In that case, it is usually best to just stick with the car you have, and be more cautious about payments and loan length the next time you finance a car. Penalties:  Most car loans don't have any kind of early repayment penalty.  However, you should check your loan paperwork just to make sure."}
{"text": "What are some examples of unsecured loans Unsecured loan is any loan that you don't provide an asset as a collateral for. Auto loans are usually secured - by the auto. If you don't pay off the car, it will be repossessed. Credit cards are a good example, personal/business loans are also usually unsecured, and you've pretty much covered it. Majority of loans, especially for large amounts, are usually given for a specific purpose (usually purchase of a large asset) and are secured."}
{"text": "Should I purchase a whole life insurance policy? (I am close to retirement) I'll start by saying that if this is being explored to scratch a specific itch you have then great, if this was a cold call it's probably safe to ignore it. Certain whole life products (they vary in quality by carrier) can make sense for very high earners who are looking for additional tax preferred places to store money.  So after you IRA, 401(k), etc options are maxed out but you still have income you'd like to hide from taxes whole life can be a potential vehicle because gains and death benefit are generally exempt from income taxes.  Be on the look out for loads charged to your money as it comes in to the policy.  Life insurance in general is meant to keep your dependents going without having to sell off assets in the event of your death.  People may plan for things like school tuition, mortgage/property tax for your spouse.  If you own a business with a couple of partners it's somewhat common for the partners to buy policies on each other to buyout a spouse to avoid potential operating conflicts.  Sometimes there can be estate planning issues, if you're looking to transfer assets when you ultimately pass it can make sense to form a trust and load cash in to a whole life policy because death benefits can be shielded from income tax and the estate tax calculation; the current estate tax exemption is about $5.5 million today (judging from your numbers you might actually be close to that including the net value of the homes).  Obviously, though, the tax rules are subject to change and you need to be deliberate in your formation of the trust in order to effectively navigate estate tax issues.  You seem to have a very solid financial position from this perspective it looks like your spouse would be in good shape.   If you are specifically attempting to manage potential estate tax liability you should probably involve an financial planner with experience forming and managing trusts; and you should be very involved with the process because it will absolutely make your finances more complicated."}
{"text": "InteractiveBrokers: How to calculate overnight commissions for CFD? I have found a good explanation here: http://www.contracts-for-difference.com/Financing-charge.html Financing is calculated by taking the overall position size, and multiplying it by (LIBOR + say 2%) and then dividing by 365 x the amount of days the position is open. For instance, the interest rate applicable for overnight long positions may be 6% or 0.06. To calculate how much it would cost you to hold a long position for X number of days you would need to make this 'pro rata' meaning that you would need to divide the 0.06 by 365 and multiply it by X days and then multiply this by the trade size. So for example, for a trade size of $20,000, held for 30 days, the interest cost would be about $98.6. It is important to note that due to financing, long positions held for extended periods can reduce returns."}
{"text": "Why is tax loss harvesting helpful for passive investing? Your assertion that you will not be selling anything is at odds with the idea that you will be doing tax loss harvesting.  Tax loss harvesting always involves some selling (you sell stocks that have fallen in price and lock in the capital losses, which gives you a break on your taxes).  If you absolutely prohibit your advisor from selling, then you will not be able to do tax loss harvesting (in that case, why are you using an advisor at all?). Tax loss harvesting has nothing to do with your horizon nor the active/passive difference, really. As a practical matter, a good tax loss harvesting plan involves mechanically selling losers and immediately putting the money in another stock with more-or-less similar risk so your portfolio doesn't change much.  In this way you get a stable portfolio that performs just like a static portfolio but gives you a tax benefit each year.  The IRS officially prohibits this practice via the \"wash sale rule\" that says you can't buy a substantially identical asset within a short period of time.  However, though two stocks have similar risk, they are not generally substantially similar in a legal sense, so the IRS can't really beat you in court and they don't try.  Basically you can't just buy the same stock again. The roboadvisor is advertising that they will perform this service, keeping your portfolio pretty much static in terms of risk, in such a way that your tax benefit is maximized and you don't run afoul of the IRS."}
{"text": "What do these options trading terms mean? With stocks, you can buy or sell. If you sell first, that's called 'shorting.' As in \"I think linkedin is too high, I'm going to short it.\" With options, the terminology is different, the normal process is to buy to open/sell to close, but if you were shorting the option itself, you would first sell to open, i.e you are selling a position to start it, effectively selling it short. Eventually, you may close it out, by buying to close.  Options trading is not for the amateur. If you plan to trade, study first and be very cautious."}
{"text": "Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in? The answer depends on whether the company involved has 'limited liability'. Most, but not all public and listed companies and corporations have this, but not all so it is worth checking and understanding what you are getting involved with.   The expression 'limited liability' means that the owners (shareholders) of a company have a liability up to the amount of the face value of the shares they hold which they have not yet paid for. The difference is usually minor but basically it means that if you buy $10 of shares you have no liability, but if the company gives you $10 of shares, and you pay them (in cash or kind) $5, then you still have a liability of $5. If the company fails, the debtors can come after you for that liability.  An 'unlimited liability' company is a different animal altogether. Lloyds insurance is probably the most famous example. Lloyds worked by putting together consortiums to underwrite risk. If the risk doesn't happen, the consortium keeps the premiums, if it does, they cover the loss. Most of the time they are very profitable but not always. For example, the consortiums which covered asbestos caused the bankruptcies of a great many very wealthy people."}
{"text": "How much does it cost to build a subdivision of houses on a large plot of land? A bank may not like loaning money to you for this. That is one snag. You listed 500,000-600,000$ for a monster of a house (3000 sqft is over three times the average size of homes a hundred years ago). Add in the price of the land at 60K (600K divided ten ways). Where I live, there is a 15% VAT tax on new homes. I can't find out if California imposes a VAT tax on new homes. Anyway, returning back to the topic, because of the risk of loaning you 660K for a piece of land and construction, the bank may only let you borrow half or less of the final expected cost (not value). Another huge snag is that you say in a comment to quid \"I came up with this conclusion after talking to someone who had his property built in early 2000s in bay area for that average price\". Let's apply 3% inflation over 15 years to that number of 200$/sqft. That brings the range for construction costs to 780K-930K. Even at 2% inflation 670K-810K. Edit: OP later expanded the question making it an inquiry on why people don't collaborate to buy a plot of land and build their homes. \"Back in the day\" this wasn't all that atypical! For example, my pastor's parents did just this when he was a young lad. Apart from the individual issues mentioned above, there are sociological challenges that arrive. Examples: These are the easy questions."}
{"text": "Should I Use an Investment Professional? Ask yourself the same question for furniture making. Would you feel more comfortable sitting in a chair that you made yourself versus one that you bought from a furniture store?  How about one that you bought from IKEA and assembled? For an experienced, competent furniture maker, you might be able to make an equivalent chair for less money and be highly confident.  For a \"DIY\" builder, you might be less confident but be willing to take more of a risk with the possibility of making a good chair for less money (and gain experience on what not to do next time).   The same applies to investing - if you are highly confident in your own abilities, DIY investing may work better for you.  For the \"general population\", however, relying on experts to do the hard work (and paying a little more for their services) is probably a better option and gives you more confidence. As for the second quote, I'm note sure there's a causality there.  If anything, I think it's the other way around - people who have more money saved for retirement are more likely to use investment advisors."}
{"text": "Supply & Demand - How Price Changes, Buy Orders vs Sell Orders [duplicate] Yes for every order there is a buyer and seller. But overall there are multiple buyers and multiple sellers. So every trade is at a different price and this price is agreed by both buyer and seller. Related question will help you understand this better. How do exchanges match limit orders?"}
{"text": "Opportunity to buy Illinois bonds that can never default? If Illinois cannot go bankruptcy This is missing a few, very important words, \"...under current law.\"   The United States changed the law so as to allow Puerto Rico to go into a form of bankruptcy.  So you cannot rely on a lack of legal support for bankruptcy to protect any bond investments you might make in Illinois.  It is entirely possible for the federal government to add a law enabling a state to discharge its debts through a bankruptcy process.  That's why the bonds have been downgraded.  They are still fine now, but that could change at any time.   I don't want to dive too deep into the politics on this stack, but I could quite easily see a bargain between US President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress where he agreed to special privileges for pension debts owed to former employees in exchange for full discharge of all other debts.  That would lead to a complete loss of value for the bonds that you are considering.  There still seem to be other options now, but they seem to be getting closer and closer to that."}
{"text": "How do brokerage firms make money? Regarding \"Interest on idle cash\",  brokerage firms must maintain a segregated account on the brokerage firm's books to make sure that the client's money and the firm's money is not intermingled, and clients funds are not used for operational purposes. Source.   Thus, brokerage firms do not earn interest on cash that is held unused in client accounts. Regarding \"Exchanges pay firm for liquidity\", I am not aware of any circumstances under which an exchange will pay a brokerage any such fee.  In fact, the opposite is the case.  Exchanges charge participants to transact business. See : How the NYSE makes money Similarly, market makers do not pay a broker to transact business on their behalf.  They charge the broker a commission just like the broker charges their client a commission.  Of course, a large broker may also be acting as market maker or deal directly with the exchange, in which case no such commission will be incurred by the broker.  In any case, the broker will pay a commission to the clearing house."}
{"text": "What investments work for these goals? Assuming this will be a taxable account (since you want to pull income off of it, although this will lower wealth growth), you could open a brokerage account at some place like Vanguard (free on their ETFs) and look at tax efficient index fund ETFs (such as total stock market or their 500 fund), including  some international (foreign tax credit is nice in taxable) and muni funds for the (tax advantaged) income, although CDs are likely better for the income at this point."}
{"text": "Long(100%)-Short(-100%) investment explanation If you mean the percentages of long/short positions within a mutual fund or ETF, then it's a percentage of the total value of the fund portfolio. In that case, positions of 50% in X, -50% in Y are not the same as 100% in X, -100% in Y. If the long and short positions are both for the same asset, then, as D Stanley mentions, all that matters is the net position. If you're equally long and short X, then the net position is always 0%."}
{"text": "Do I have to pay the internet installation charges for my home's company internet? Of course you don't have to pay them - you just might not like the result. As a matter of law - given that I am not a lawyer - I am not aware of any requirement for a company to pay employees business-related expenses. An example might be having a cell phone, and according to this article companies aren't required to pay for you to have a cell phone even if they require you have one and use it as part of your employment. The primary areas where law does exist relates to company uniforms with a logo (in a very limited number of US states) and necessary personal safety equipment (in California and maybe only few other states). All other tool requirements for a job are not prohibited by law, so long as they are not illegally discriminatory (such as requiring people of a certain race or sex to buy something but no one else, etc). So a company can require all sorts of things, from having an internet connection to cell phone to laptop to specialty tools and equipment of all sorts, and they are even allowed to deduct the cost of some things from your pay - just so long as you still get paid minimum wage after the deductions. With all that said, the company's previous payments of fees and willingness to pay a monthly internet fee does not obligate them to pay other fees too, such as moving/installation/etc. They may even decide to no longer provide internet service at their expense and just require you to provide it as a condition of employment. You can insist on it with your employer, and if you don't have an employment contract that forbids it they can fire you or possibly even deduct it from your pay anyway (and this reason might not be one that allows you to collect unemployment insurance benefits - but you'd need to check with an expert on that). You can refuse to pay AT&T directly, and they can cancel the internet service - and your employer can then do the same as in the previous condition. Or you can choose to pay it - or ask your employer to split the cost over a few checks if it is rather high - and that's about it. Like the cost of anything else you have to pay  - from your own food to your computer, clothes, etc - it's best to just consider it your own \"cost of doing business\" and decide if it's still in your interest to keep working there, and for something to consider in future pay negotiations! You may also qualify for an itemized Employee Business Expense deduction from the IRS, but you'll need to read the requirements carefully and get/keep a receipt for such expenses."}
{"text": "How much of each stock do index funds hold? Yes, it depends on the fund it's trying to mirror.  The ETF for the S&P that's best known (in my opinion) is SPY and you see the breakdown of its holdings.  Clearly, it's not an equal weighted index."}
{"text": "Options liquidity and trading positions larger than the daily volume? You definitely cannot be guaranteed to get the bid or ask if you are selling more than are available/desired at those prices. What prices you do get depends on who is watching that contract and how willing they are to trade with you. This question is not much different from the question of whether you can easily get into or out of a large position in an illiquid small stock easily.  You can get out quickly if you are willing to take pennies on the dollar, or you may get a reasonable price if you take a long time to get out of (or into) your position.  You can't normally do both. In general taking large positions in illiquid assets is not something people want to do without lining up a buyer/seller beforehand.  Instead see if you can achieve your objective with liquid investments."}
{"text": "What US taxes are due for US stock bought via ESPP when I was in USA and sold after I returned to India? From an Indian Tax point of view, you can bring back all the assets acquired during the period you were NRI back to India tax free. Subject to a 7 years period. i.e. all the assets / funds / etc should be brought back to India within 7 years. It would still be treated as There are certain conditions / paperwork. Please consult a CA."}
{"text": "How much financial information should a buyer give an estate agent? My guess is they are fishing for business for their in-house finance person. In the UK, all the estate agency chains (and many of the smaller outfits) have financial advice firms they are affiliated with, often to the extent that a desk in each branch will be for 'the finance guy' (it's usually a guy). The moment you show any sign of not quite having the finances for a place you like, they will offer you a consultation with the finance guy, who \"will be able to get you a deal\". On commission, of course. What you need to say with regards to financing is (delete as applicable) \"I am a cash buyer\" / \"I have an Agreement In Principle\". And that's it. They do not 'need' to know any more, and they are under obligation to pass your offer on to the vendor."}
{"text": "What happens if a company I have stock in is bought out? I've seen many buyouts in my own portfolio, including the company I worked for.  There have been several different scenarios: The terms of the deal are subject to the deal -- frankly whatever makes sense to the buyer and that is accepted by the seller. So sometimes brokers charge reorganization fees.  check into those for your broker.  I've not seen one in a while, but my brokerage account is substantial, and often that's a perk they offer higher-value accounts. Also watch out for taxes.  The transaction where my employer was bought by another publicly traded company -- we got bit because the IRS treated it as a taxable transaction, and all our RSUs were effectively sold and then repurchased.  So we ended up with a big tax bill (capital gains) without any cash to offset the big tax bill.  I suspect its because my old employer was a US based company, whereas the new company is not."}
{"text": "Are Index Funds really as good as \u201cexperts\u201d claim? Simply put, you cannot deterministically beat the market. If by being informed and following all relevant news, you can arrive at the conclusion that company A will likely outperform company B in the future, then having A stocks should be better than having B stocks or any (e.g., index based) mix of them. But as the whole market has access to the very same information and will arrive at the same conclusion (provided it is logically sound), \"everybody\" will want A stocks, which thus become expensive to the point where the expected return is average again.  Your only options of winning this race are to be the very first to have the important information (insider trade), or to arrive at different logical conclusions than the rest of the world (which boils down do making decisions that are not logically sound - good luck with that - or assuming that almost everybody else is not logically sound - go figure)."}
{"text": "Wage earners of age \u2265 60 with dependents: What Life Insurance, if any, should they buy? The problem above is actually a pretty good list of the concerns around life insurance.  While there is no correct answer to the question as posed, this will vary among different WSCs, there is a simpler way to think about insurance in general that may make finding what is right answer for you easier. Buying life insurance, like almost all insurance, is on average a money losing purchase.  This is simply because the companies selling wouldn't offer it if they couldn't expect to make money on it.  Think about buying insurance (a warranty) on a new cell phone, maybe if you are particularly prone to damaging cell phones it can be in your favor, but for most of the people that buy it will lose money on average. People, of course, still buy insurance anyway to protect themselves from unlikely but very bad consequences.  The big reason to make this trade off is if the loss will have big lasting consequences.  To stay with our cell phone example having to replace a cell phone, at least for me, would be annoying but not a catastrophic event.  For myself, the protection is not worth the warranty cost, but that is not true for everyone. Life insurance is a pretty extreme case of this, but I find the best question to ask is \"if you (you and your spouse) were to die will your dependents lives become so much worse that you really dislike the idea of not being insured?\" For some working seniors, they already have enough saved to bridge their kids/spouse to adulthood/old-age that insurance makes no sense.  For some, their children/husband/wife would be destitute and insurance is an obvious choice and an easy price to pay even if it is very high.  The example you suggest seems on the border and good questions to ask are: Thinking about those questions may help you understand if the protection offers is worth the cost."}
{"text": "Does the IRS reprieve those who have to commute for work? No.  Regular W2 employees cannot deduct housing or transportation costs related to their employment.   However, in the US, many employers offer Parking and/or Transit FSA programs which are usually collectively referred to a Commuter Benefits FSA programs, this is particularly common among larger employers with locations in major metropolitan cities.  Under Commuter benefits FSAs employees can defer up to $255 per month from their gross pay, tax-free, for parking and/or transit expenses.  Eligible expenses include things like bus and train passes or parking at a train or bus station.  These are money-in/money-out arrangements so expenses can only be claimed against contributions that have been made, unlike a Health FSA.  Though, like a health FSA, contributions are subject to use-it or lose-it provisions. These programs must be sponsored by the employer for an employee to take advantage of them though.  Some jurisdictions mandate that employers above a certain threshold must offer commuter benefits."}
{"text": "Iraqi Dinars. Bad Investment, or Worst Investment? Iraq is a US vassal/puppet state. I'm not sure what 500 South Vietnamese Dong were worth in 1972, but today the paper currency is worth $10 in mint condition. I'd suggest blackjack or craps as an alternate \"investment\"."}
{"text": "What evidence exists for claiming that you cannot beat the market? Will the investor beat the benchmark for a given period will follow a Bernoulli distribution -- each period is a coin toss, and heads mean the investor beat the market for that period.   I can't prove the negative that there is no investor ever whose probability function p = 1, but you can statistically expect a number of individual investors with p ~ 0.5 to have a sequence of many heads in a row, as a function of the total population.   By example, my father explained investment scams and hot-hand theory to me this way when I was younger:  Imagine an investor newsletter which mails out to a mailing list of 1024 prospects (or alternately, a field of 1024 amateur investor bloggers in a challenge).  Half the letters or bloggers state AAPL will go up this week, half that AAPL will go down this week.  In the newsletter case, next week ignore the people we got wrong.  In the blogger case, they're losers, so we don't pay attention to them.  Next week, similar split: half newsletters or bloggers claim GOOG go up, half GOOG go down.  This continues for a 10 week cycle.   Now, in week 10: the newsletter has a prospect they have hit correct 10x in a row: how much will he pay for a subscription?  Or, one amateur investor blogger has been on a 10 week winning streak and wins the challenge, so of course let's give her a CNBC show after Jim Cramer.  No matter what, next week, this newsletter or investor is shooting 50-50.   How do you know this person is not the statistically expected instance backed up by a pyramid of 1023 Bernoulli distribution losers?  Alternately, if you think you're going to be the winner, you've got a 1/1024 shot."}
{"text": "How to have a small capital investment in US if I am out of the country? For $100 you better just hold it in Mexico.  The cost of opening an account could eat 10% or more of your capital easily, and that won't be able to buy enough shares of an ETF or similar investment to make it worthwhile."}
{"text": "Explanations on credit cards in Canada I think it's worth pointing out explicitly that the biggest difference between a credit card (US/Canada) and a debit card (like your French carte de cr\u00e9dit) is that with a credit card, it's entirely possible to not pay the bill or to pay only the \"minimum payment\" when asked. This results in you owing significantly more money due to interest, which can snowball into higher and higher levels of debt, and end up getting rapidly out of control. This is the reason why you should ALWAYS pay off the ENTIRE balance every month, as attested to in the other answers; it's not uncommon to find people in the US with thousands of dollars of debt they can't pay off from misuse of credit cards."}
{"text": "Do I need a business credit card? I would try to avoid mixing business expenditure with personal expenditure so a second credit card might be a good idea. That said, I did get a business credit card for my company in the UK as I didn't want to be personally liable for the money that was spent on the business card (even though I owned 100% of the business) in case things went horribly wrong. As I didn't fancy signing a personal guarantee, this meant that the limit was quite low but it was good enough in most cases."}
{"text": "Does a falling dollar mean doom for real estate? A falling $AUD would be beneficial to exporters, and thus overall good for the economy. If the economy improves and exporters start growing profits, that means they will start to employ more people and employment will increase - and with higher employment, employees will become more confident to make purchases, including purchasing property. I feel the falling $AUD will be beneficial for the economy and the housing market. However, what you should consider is that with an improving economy and a rising property market, it will only be a matter of time before interest rates start rising. With a lower $AUD the RBA will be more confident in starting to increase interest rates. And increasing interest rates will have a dampening effect on the housing market. You are looking to buy a property to live in - so how long do you intend to live in and hold the property? I would assume at least for the medium to long term. If this is your intention then why are you getting cold feet? What you should be concerned about is that you do not overstretch on your borrowings! Make sure you allow a buffer of 2% to 3% above current interest rates so that if rates do go up you can still afford the repayments. And if you get a fixed rate - then you should allow the buffer in case variable rates are higher when your fixed period is over. Regarding the doomsayers telling you that property prices are going to crash - well they were saying that in 2008, then again in 2010, then again in 2012. I don't know about you but I have seen no crash. Sure when interest rates have gone up property prices have levelled off and maybe gone down by 10% to 15% in some areas, but as soon as interest rates start falling again property prices start increasing again. It's all part of the property cycle.  I actually find it is a better time to buy when interest rates are higher and you can negotiate a better bargain and lower price. Then when interest rates start falling you benefit from lower repayments and increasing property prices. The only way there will be a property crash in Australia is if there was a dramatic economic downturn and unemployment rates rose to 10% or higher. But with good economic conditions, an increasing population and low supplies of newly build housing in Australia, I see no dramatic crashes in the foreseeable future. Yes we may get periods of weakness when interest rates increase, with falls up to 15% in some areas, but no crash of 40% plus. As I said above, these periods of weakness actually provide opportunities to buy properties at a bit of a discount. EDIT In your comments you say you intend to buy with a monthly mortgage repayment of $2500 in place of your current monthly rent of $1800. That means your loan amount would be somewhere around $550k to $600K. You also mention you would be taking on a 5 year fixed rate, and look to sell in about 2 years time if you can break even (I assume that is break even on the price you bought at). In 2 years you would have paid $16,800 more on your mortgage than you would have in rent. So here are the facts: A better strategy:"}
{"text": "Is gold really an investment or just a hedge against inflation? Over on Quantitative Finance Stack Exchange, I asked and answered a more technical and broader version of this question, Should the average investor hold commodities as part of a broadly diversified portfolio?  In short, I believe the answer to your question is that gold is neither an investment nor a hedge against inflation. Although many studies claim that commodities (such as gold) do offer some diversification benefit, the most credible academic study I have seen to date, Should Investors Include Commodities in Their Portfolios After All? New Evidence, shows that a mean-variance investor would not want to allocate any of their portfolio to commodities (this would include gold, presumably). Nevertheless, many asset managers, such as PIMCO, offer funds that are marketed as \"real return\" or \"inflation-managed\" and include commodities (including gold) in their portfolios.  PIMCO has also commissioned some research, Strategic Asset Allocation and Commodities, claiming that holding some commodities offers both diversification and inflation hedging benefits."}
{"text": "How do credit card banks detect fraudulent transactions without requiring a travel advisory? One bank is more willing to risk losses and customer hassle in exchange for lower processing costs than the other bank is. It's strictly a business decision. Regarding how they detect suspicious transactions: Patten detection based on your past usage history. I've gotten calls asking me to confirm that I just placed a large order with a company I'd never bought from before, or in a country that I haven't previously visited, or..."}
{"text": "How does a tax exemption for an action = penalty for inaction? What it means is that you can always come up with alternative framings where the difference between two options is stated as a gain or a loss, but the effect is the same in either case.  For instance, if I offer to sell a T-shirt for $10 and offer a cash discount of $1, you pay $10 if buying with a credit card or $9 if buying with cash.  If I instead offer the shirt for $9 with a $1 surcharge for credit card use, you still pay $10 if buying with a credit card or $9 if buying with cash.  The financial result is the same in either case, but psychologically people may perceive them differently and make different buying decisions. In a tax situation it may be more complicated since exemptions wouldn't directly reduce your tax, but only your taxable income.  However, you can still see that, in general, having to pay $X more in tax for not doing some action (e.g., not purchasing health insurance) is the same as being able to pay $X less in tax as a reward for doing the action.  Either way, doing the action results in you paying $X less than you would if you didn't do it; the only difference is in which behavior (doing it or not doing it) is framed as the \"default\" option.  Again, these framings may differentially influence people's behavior even when the net result is the same."}
{"text": "Where can publicly traded profits go but to shareholders via dividends? Apart from investing in their own infrastructure, profits can be spent purchasing other companies, (Mergers and Acquisitions) investing in other securities, and frankly whatever they please. The idea here is that publicly traded companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to make as much money as they can with the resources (including cash, but including so much more than that) available to the company. It happens that the majority of huge companies eventually stopped growing and figured out that they weren't good at making money outside their core discipline and started giving the money back through dividends, but that norm has been eroded by tech companies that have figured out how to keep growing and driving up share prices even after they become giants. Shareholders will pressure management to issue dividends if share prices don't keep going up, but until the growth slows down, most investors hang on and don't rock the boat."}
{"text": "Rental Application Fees Slightly abbreviated version of the guidance from NOLO.com California state law limits credit check or application screening fees landlords  can charge prospective tenants and specifies what landlords must do when accepting these types of fees. (Cal. Civ. Code \u00a7\u202f1950.6.)  Here are key provisions: I am not a lawyer, but it would seem you have two options if you catch a landlord violating these rules. An idea to avoid the whole problem in the first place: Get a copy of your credit report yourself and take a copy with you to meet the landlord. If they want an application fee, ask why they need it making it clear you know the above law. If they say for a credit report offer to give them a copy in lieu of the fee."}
{"text": "Did my salesman damage my credit? What can I do? At one point in my life I sold cars and from what I saw, three things stick out.  Unless the other dealership was in the same network, eg ABC Ford of City A, and ABC Ford of City B, they never had possession of that truck. So, no REAL application for a loan could be sent in to a bank, just a letter of intent, if one was sent at all. With a letter of intent, a soft pull is done, most likely by the dealership, where they then attached that score to the LOI that the bank has an automated program send back an automatic decline, an officer review reply, or a tentative approval (eg tier 0,1,2...8). The tentative approval is just that, Tentative. Sometime after a lender has a loan officer look at the full application, something prompts them to change their offer. They have internal guidelines, but lets say an app is right at the line for 2-3 of the things they look at, they chose to lower the credit tier or decline the app. The dealership then goes back and looks at what other offers they had. Let's say they had a Chase offer at 3.25% and a CapOne for 5.25% they would say you're approved at 3.5%, they make their money on the .25%. But after Chase looks into the app and sees that, let's say you have been on the job for actually 11 months and not 1 year, and you said you made $50,000, but your 1040 shows $48,200, and you have moved 6 times in the last 5 years. They comeback and say no he is not a tier 2 but a tier 3 @ 5.5%. They switch to CapOne and say your rate has in fact gone up to 5.5%. Ultimately you never had a loan to start with - only a letter of intent. The other thing could be that the dealership finance manager looked at your credit score and guessed they would offer 3.5%, when they sent in the LOI it came back higher than he thought. Or he was BSing you, so if you price shopped while they looked for a truck you wouldn't get far. They didn't find that Truck, or it was not what they thought it would be. If a dealership sees a truck in inventory at another dealer they call and ask if it's available, if they have it, and it's not being used as a demo for a sales manager, they agree to send them something else for the trade, a car, or truck or whatever. A transfer driver of some sort hops in that trade, drives the 30 minutes - 6 hours away and comes back so you can sign the Real Application, TODAY! while you're excited about your new truck and willing to do whatever you need to do to get it. Because they said it would take 2-5 days to \"Ship\" it tells me it wasn't available. Time Kills Deals, and dealerships know this: they want to sign you TODAY! Some dealerships want \"honest\" money or a deposit to go get the truck, but reality is that that is a trick to test you to make sure you are going to follow through after they spend the gas and add mileage to a car. But if it takes 2 days+, The truck isn't out there, or the dealer doesn't have a vehicle the other dealership wants back, or no other dealership likes dealing with them. The only way it would take that long is if you were looking for something very rare, an odd color in an unusual configuration.  Like a top end model in a low selling color, or configuration you had to have that wouldn't sell well - like you wanted all the options on a car except a cigarette lighter, you get the idea. 99.99% of the time a good enough truck is available. Deposits are BS. They don't setup any kind of real contract, notice most of the time they want a check. Because holding on to a check is about as binding as making you wear a chicken suit to get a rebate. All it is, is a test to see if you will go through with signing the deal. As an example of why you don't let time pass on a car deal is shown in this. One time we had a couple want us to find a Cadillac Escalade Hybrid in red with every available option. Total cost was about $85-90k. Only two new Red Escalade hybrids were for sale in the country at the time, one was in New York, and the other was in San Fransisco, and our dealership is in Texas, and neither was wanting to trade with us, so we ended up having to buy the SUV from one of the other dealerships inventory. That is a very rare thing to do by the way. We took a 25% down payment, around $20,000, in a check. We flew a driver to wherever the SUV was and then drove it back to Texas about 4 days later. The couple came back and hated the color, they would not take the SUV. The General Manager was pissed, he spent around $1000 just to bring the thing to Texas, not to mention he had to buy the thing. The couple walked and there was nothing the sales manager, GM, or salesman could do. We had not been able to deliver the car, and ultimately the dealership ate the loss, but it shows that deposits are useless. You can't sell something you don't own, and dealerships know it.  Long story short, you can't claim a damage you never experienced. Not having something happen that you wanted to have happen is not a damage because you can't show a real economic loss. One other thing, When you sign the paperwork that you thought was an application, it was an authorization for them to pull your credit and the fine print at the bottom is boiler plate defense against getting sued for everything imaginable. Ours took up about half of one page and all of the back of the second page. I know dealing with car dealerships is hard, working at them is just as hard, and I'm sorry that you had to deal with it, however the simplest and smoothest car deals are the ones where you pay full price."}
{"text": "Stocks: do Good Till Cancelled orders get executed during after hours? You typically need to specify that you want the GTC order to be working during the Extended hours session. I trade on TD Ameritrade's Thinkorswim platform, and you can select DAY, GTC, EXT or GTC_EXT. So in your case, you would select GTC_EXT."}
{"text": "Shared groceries expenses between roommates to be divided as per specific consumption ratio and attendance Bren's comment is right on the mark.  The typical solution is to divide all bills by 5, and for special items, the person buying it just marks his name that it's not community food.  Your attempt at a granularity level this detailed is admirable, but produces false results. What happens when I claim to be a zero percent milk drinker but when someone gives me cookies, I have a glass of milk?  The effort to get true accuracy will cost far more in time spent than the results are worth."}
{"text": "Found an old un-cashed paycheck. How long is it good for? What to do if it's expired? The two banks involved may have different policies about honoring the check. It might not be written on the check.  Your bank may decide that the stale check has to be treated differently and will withhold funds for a longer period of time before giving you access to the money. They will give time for the first bank to refuse to honor the check. They may be concerned about insufficient funds, the age of the check, and the fact that the original account could have been closed. If you are concerned about the age of the check. You could go to your bank in person, instead of using deposit by ATM, scanner, or smart phone. This allows you to talk to a knowledgeable person. And if they are going to treat the check differently or reject the check, they can let you know right away. The audit may not have been concerned about the fact that the check hadn't been cashed because when they did the audit the check was still considered fresh. Some companies will contact you eventually to reissue the check so you they can get the liability off their books.  If the bank does refuse the check contact the company to see how you can get a replacement check issued. They may want proof the check can't be cashed so they don't have to worry about paying you twice."}
{"text": "How to share income after marriage and kids? Now I have been trying to figure out how to split the money that we both earn. From what I can see there are several concepts but none of them really seems ideal to me. There is nothing fair or unfair in such arrangements. It is what you both agree. You can try and make this as scientific as possible. But then there is no golden rule.  For example, your girlfriend makes 2200 now and due to child, she is making 1100. The child is both of your responsibility; so you need to compensate half of her salary loss. 550 and she takes the other half. If you hire a nanny to look after you kinds, it would say cost you 500. But your girlfriend is doing that job, so she should get additional 500 from common pot. Plus due to loss of few years in looking after the children, she has a lost opportunity in career growth. i.e. she may indefinitely make less money than she can... So one gets into all kinds of theories and analysis and any arrangements will have some or the other gaps.  So my suggestion, don't get too scientific about it. Just talk it out as to what you both feel how this should be and arrive it. It is something every individual has to agree. It also make sense to have the large assets [or assets that matter], like house, car etc in clear title and who gets what in case you decide to separate. Other should be incidental."}
{"text": "Ballpark salary equivalent today of \u201chealthcare benefits\u201d in the US? As others have said, it depends entirely on what benefits are provided, and how much of the cost of those benefits is paid by the employer and how much is paid by the employee, and compare that to what it would cost to obtain the necessary/equivalent coverage without employer assistance. In my case, my employer pays more than $10,000 per year toward the cost of medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance for myself and my family. That's almost 20% of the average total household income in my state, so it is not an insignificant amount at all."}
{"text": "Moving Coin Collection to Stapled Coin Pockets I would be wary of having coins in containers with cardboard. Ideally you want the coins to be in an airtight envelope made of plastic to minimize any chance of oxidation or reaction with chemicals in the air. Cheap, retail coins like you would find in a Whitman collection are not generally going to hold value well. Sometimes you can sell a collection and break even if you have a nice complete set, but in general  VF coins with common dates will not appreciate at all. Investment coins usually are high-priced items that sell for thousands each, not the sort thing you find in Whitman folders. In general, collectibles are bad investments in the US because IRS rules tax gains as ordinary income. So, unless you sell them under the table or have really low income, you lose a lot of your profit. If you enjoy collecting, focus on the fun of it, worrying about investment in coin collections is a joy killer. A Parting Anecdote... When I was a kid I painstakingly assembled a lot of BU rolls, because that was the hot thing back then. I wrote on them \"DO NOT OPEN FOR 10 YEARS\". You know how much a 1980 BU roll of Lincoln cents is worth now, 40 years later? $2.00 on eBay. Some days I spend more on lunch than the worth of my entire Lincoln cent collection."}
{"text": "What are the advantages of a Swiss bank account? Here are some reasons why it is advantageous to hold a portion of your savings in other countries: However, it should be noted that there are some drawbacks to holding funds in foreign banks: Don't worry; I haven't forgotten about the elephant in the room.  What about tax evasion and money laundering? In general, simply transferring funds to a foreign jurisdiction will do nothing to help you evade taxes or hide evidence of a crime.  Pretty much any method you can think of to transfer money is easily traceable, and any method that is difficult to trace is either illegal or heavily-regulated, with stiff penalties if you get caught. There are a few jurisdictions that have very strict banking privacy laws (the Philippines, for example).  If you can somehow get the money into a bank account in one of these countries, you might be OK... at least, until that country's government decides (or is pressured) to change its banking privacy laws. But, what would you actually do with that money?  Unless you want to go live in that country, you're going to have to transfer the funds out to spend them, and now you're right back on the radar \u2014 except now it's even worse, because the fact that the funds come from a suspicious jurisdiction will automatically cause your transfer to get flagged for investigation! This is where money laundering comes into play.  There are lots of ways to go about this (exceptionally illegal) activity, many of which do not involve banks at all (at least, not directly).  How money laundering works is outside the scope of this question, but in case you are curious, here are a couple of articles about the \"dark side\" of finance: In short, if you want to break the law, opening a foreign bank account isn't going to help much.  In fact, the real crime is that offshore banking has such a criminal reputation in the first place! That said, it is possible to create legal distance between yourself and your money by using a corporate structure, and there are legitimate reasons why you might want to do this.  Depending on which jurisdiction(s) you are a tax resident of, you can use this method to: Exactly how to do this is outside the scope of this question, but it's worth thinking about, especially if you have an interest in geopolitically diversifying your financial assets. If you're interested in learning more, I came across a pretty comprehensive article about Offshore Basics that covers how and why to set up offshore legal structures. (and yes, that makes now 4 links from the same site in one post! I promise it's just a coincidence; see disclaimer below) I am a US citizen with bank accounts in several countries (but not Switzerland; there are far better options out there right now). I have no affiliation with the website linked in this answer; while I was doing research for this answer, I found some really good supporting content, and it all just happened to be from the same source."}
{"text": "Why does Charles Schwab have a Mandatory Settlement Period after selling stocks? It's important to understand that, in general, security transactions involve you and a relatively unknown entity with your broker standing in the middle.  When you sell through Schwab, Schwab needs to receive the funds from the other side of the transaction.  If Schwab gave you access to the funds immediately, it would essentially be a loan until the transaction settles after funds and securities change hands.   If Schwab made funds available to you as soon as they were received, it might still be two days until the money is received; because the other side also has three days. Guaranteed one day settlement would have to include receipt of funds from the buyer in one day and Schwab can't control that. You need to remember this transaction likely includes at least one party in addition to you and Schwab.  Here's the SEC page related to the three day settlement period,  About Settling Trades in Three Days:  T+3"}
{"text": "Bank will not accept loose change. Is this legal? The bank certainly doesn't have to take it for a deposit; that's not a debt.  There have been several cases where disgruntled debtors have attempted deliberately annoying ways to pay their debts; the apocryphal example being pennies.  Courts are not likely to support such efforts since it's obvious that a) the action is malicious and (relevant to you) b) it's really on you to maintain your money in a wieldy form.  If you allow your money to become unwieldy, nobody owes you anything.   I wonder about the meta-meaning of that.  And whether, in that light it really makes sense to worry about 5% or rolling.  As far as getting rid of it, when I bought out a girlfriend's piggybank at par, I just made sure to walk out of the house with $5 in change in my pocket and unload $2-3 at every retailer, none ever objected and some appreciated.  Quarters were traded to coin laundry users. When going on transit I brought a bunch, the machines never grumbled.  I burned through the cache much faster than expected."}
{"text": "Advice on money transfer business As soon as I see the word \"friends\" along with money transfer I think scam. But ignoring that red flag.... You will have American companies reporting to the IRS that you are a Canadian Vendor they have hired. Then you are transferring money to people in Bangladesh.  Assuming also that you fill out all the regulatory paperwork to establish this Money transfer business  you may still face annual reporting requirements to 3 national taxing authorities. In the United states there are situations where the US Government hires a large company to complete a project. As part of that contract they require the large company to hire small businesses to complete some of the tasks. In a situation where the large company is imply serving as a conduit for the money between the government and the sub-contractor; and the large company has no other responsibilities; the usual fee for providing that function is 8% of the funds. This pays for their expenses for their accounting functions plus profit and the taxes that will trigger. Yet you said \"At the end of the day, I will not earn much, but the transactions will just burden my tax returns.\"  The 8 percent fee doesn't include doesn't include having to file paperwork with 3 nations.  Adding this to all the other risks associated with being an international bank, plus the legal costs of making sure you are following all the regulations...No thanks."}
{"text": "When the market crashes, should I sell bonds and buy equities for the inevitable recovery? When the market moves significantly, you should rebalance your investments to maintain the diversification ratios you have selected. That means if bonds go up and stocks go down, you sell bonds and buy stocks (to some degree), and vice versa. Sell high to buy low, and remember that over the long run most things regress to the mean."}
{"text": "Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains? The technical term for it is \"timing the market\" and if you can pull it off correctly, you will do quite well. The problem is that it is almost impossible to consistently do well. If it were that easy there would be a lot of billionaires walking around. Even Wall street experts haven't been able to predict the market that well. This idea is almost universally considered a bad idea. Consider this: When has the stock dropped low enough that you are \"buying low\" and let's say you do buy low and it doubles in a month. When do you get out? What if you are wrong and it doubles again? Or if it drops 10% do you keep waiting? This strategy is rife with problems."}
{"text": "Why diversify stocks/investments? Diversifying is the first advice given to beginner in order to avoid big loss. For example in 2014 the company Theranos was really appealing before it fail in 2016. So a beginner could have invest ALL his money and lose it. But if he has deverified he wouldn't lost everything. As an investor goes from beginner to experience some still Diversify and other concentrate. Mostly it depends how much confident you are about an investement. If you have 20 years of experience, now everything about the company and you are sure there will be profit you can concentrate. If you are not 100% sure there will be a profit, it is better to Diversify. Diversifying can also be profitating when you loose money: because you will pay tax when you earn money, if you diversify you can choose to loose money in some stock (usually in december) and in this way cut your taxes."}
{"text": "How an ETF pays dividend to shareholders if a holding company issues dividend The amount, reliability and frequency of dividends paid by an ETF other than a stock, such as an index or mutual fund, is a function of the agreement under which the ETF was established by the managing or issuing company (or companies), and the \"basket\" of investments that a share in the fund represents.  Let's say you invest in a DJIA-based index fund, for instance Dow Diamonds (DIA), which is traded on several exchanges including NASDAQ and AMEX. One share of this fund is currently worth $163.45 (Jan 22 2014 14:11 CDT) while the DJIA itself is $16,381.38 as of the same time, so one share of the ETF represents approximately 1% of the index it tracks. The ETF tracks the index by buying and selling shares of the blue chips proportional to total invested value of the fund, to maintain the same weighted percentages of the same stocks that make up the index. McDonald's, for instance, has an applied weight that makes the share price of MCD stock roughly 5% of the total DJIA value, and therefore roughly 5% of the price of 100 shares of DIA. Now, let's say MCD issued a dividend to shareholders of, say, $.20 per share. By buying 100 shares of DIA, you own, through the fund, approximately five MCD shares, and would theoretically be entitled to $1 in dividends. However, keep in mind that you do not own these shares directly, as you would if you spent $16k buying the correct percentage of all the shares directly off the exchange. You instead own shares in the DIA fund, basically giving you an interest in some investment bank that maintains a pool of blue-chips to back the fund shares. Whether the fund pays dividends or not depends on the rules under which that fund was set up. The investment bank may keep all the dividends itself, to cover the expenses inherent in managing the fund (paying fund management personnel and floor traders, covering losses versus the listed price based on bid-ask parity, etc), or it may pay some percentage of total dividends received from stock holdings. However, it will virtually never transparently cut you a check in the amount of your proportional holding of an indexed investment as if you held those stocks directly. In the case of the DIA, the fund pays dividends monthly, at a yield of 2.08%, virtually identical to the actual weighted DJIA yield (2.09%) but lower than the per-share mean yield of the \"DJI 30\" (2.78%). Differences between index yields and ETF yields can be reflected in the share price of the ETF versus the actual index; 100 shares of DIA would cost $16,345 versus the actual index price of 16,381.38, a delta of $(36.38) or -0.2% from the actual index price. That difference can be attributed to many things, but fundamentally it's because owning the DIA is not the exact same thing as owning the correct proportion of shares making up the DJIA. However, because of what index funds represent, this difference is very small because investors expect to get the price for the ETF that is inherent in the real-time index."}
{"text": "Is it wise to invest small amounts of money short-term? This is slightly opinion based. Is it appropriate to invest small amounts for short periods of time?  At your age and the time period, I would say NO. This is because although the index fund do return 6-7% on average, there are several times it blips and goes negative as well. Stock Markets in short periods like 6 months can be unpredictable. At times a downturn will remain stagnant for periods of 2-3 years before suddenly zoom ahead. If you are not to particular about the time when you need the changes done; i.e. the changes can in worst case wait for few years; then yes investing in Index fund would make sense.  Else you are well off keeping this in savings. Try CD's if they can offer better rates for such durations."}
{"text": "If I donate depreciated stock to charity, can I deduct both the market value and the capital loss? No, it doesn't work like this. Your charitable contribution is limited to the FMV. In your scenario your charitable contribution is limited by the FMV, i.e.: you can only deduct the worth of the stocks. It would be to your advantage to sell the stocks and donate cash. Had your stock appreciated, you may be required to either deduct the appreciation amount from the donation deduction or pay capital gains tax (increasing your basis to the FMV), depending on the nature of your donation. In many cases - you may be able to deduct the whole value of the appreciated stock without paying capital gains. Read the link below for more details and exceptions. In this scenario, it is probably more beneficial to donate the stock (even if required to pay the capital gains tax), instead of selling and donating cash (which will always trigger the capital gains tax). Exceptions.   However, in certain situations, you must reduce the fair   market value by any amount that would have been long-term capital gain   if you had sold the property for its fair market value. Generally,   this means reducing the fair market value to the property's cost or   other basis. You must do this if: The property (other than qualified appreciated stock) is contributed to certain private nonoperating foundations, You choose the 50% limit instead of the special 30% limit for capital gain property, discussed later, The contributed property is intellectual property (as defined earlier under Patents and Other Intellectual Property ), The contributed property is certain taxidermy property as explained earlier, or The contributed property is tangible personal property (defined earlier) that: Is put to an unrelated use (defined later) by the charity, or Has a claimed value of more than $5,000 and is sold, traded, or otherwise disposed of by the qualified organization during the year   in which you made the contribution, and the qualified organization has   not made the required certification of exempt use (such as on Form   8282, Donee Information Return, Part IV). See also Recapture if no   exempt use , later. See more here."}
{"text": "Why does a stock price drop as soon an I purchase several thousand shares at market price? Any time a large order it placed for Buy, the sell side starts increasing as the demand of Buy has gone up. [Vice Versa is also true]. Once this orders gets fulfilled, the demand drops and hence the Sell price should also lower. Depending on how much was the demand / supply without your order, the price fluctuation would vary. For examply if before your order, for this particular share the normal volume is around 100's of shares then you order would spike things up quite a bit. However if for other share the normal volume is around 100000's then your order would not have much impact."}
{"text": "Should market based health insurance premiums be factored into 6 months emergency fund savings? The guideline for the size of an emergency fund is just a guideline.  I've usually heard it expressed as \"3 to 6 months,\" but everyone has a different idea of exactly how big it should be. The purpose of the fund is to give you enough cash to be able to pay for unexpected expenses that have come up that you have not budgeted for without you having to borrow money to pay for them. To figure out how big this fund should be, we look at the worst case scenario.  Suppose that you lost your job tomorrow.  What would you do? Cut your expenses.  You'd probably be much more careful how you spend money. Secure health insurance.  This would be done by either continuing your employer's policy with COBRA, or by purchasing your own insurance, likely through the Obamacare/ACA market.  Keep in mind that most likely your employer is paying for a portion of your insurance now, so this expense will go up quite a bit no matter which option you choose. Look for another job.  You'd probably begin your search for a new job immediately. The size of your emergency fund determines how long you will be able to go without income before you need to start a new job. Regarding cutting your expenses, it is up to you how much you would cut.  There are things that are easy to cut temporarily (or permanently), such as restaurants, entertainment expenses, vacations, etc.  You would probably stop retirement investing until you have income again.  The more you cut, the longer your emergency fund would last.  Things you don't want to cut are necessities, like housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, etc.  I would also include health insurance in this list.  Certainly, if you have a pre-existing condition, you do not want to let your health insurance coverage lapse. Your employability is also a factor.  If you believe that you would have an easy time finding similar employment to what you have now, your emergency fund might not need to be quite as big as someone who believes they would have a harder time finding another job."}
{"text": "Online tutorials for calculating DCF (Discounted Cash Flow)? Here's a link to an online calculator employing the Discounted Cash Flow method:  Discounted Cash Flows Calculator.  Description: This calculator finds the fair value   of a stock investment the   theoretically correct way, as the   present value of future earnings. You   can find company earnings via the box   below.   [...] They also provide a link to the following relevant article:  Investment Valuation: A Little Theory.  Excerpt: A company is valuable to stockholders   for the same reason that a bond is   valuable to bondholders: both are   expected to generate cash for years   into the future. Company profits are   more volatile than bond coupons, but   as an investor your task is the same   in both cases: make a reasonable   prediction about future earnings, and   then \"discount\" them by calculating   how much they are worth today. (And   then you don't buy unless you can get   a purchase price that's less than the   sum of these present values, to make   sure ownership will be worth the   headache.)   [...]"}
{"text": "Is Investments by Bodie just an expanded version of Essentials of Investments? Reading the descriptions on Amazon.com it appears Investments is a graduate text and Elements of Investments is the undergraduate version of the text."}
{"text": "Can't the account information on my checks be easily used for fraud? Yes, those numbers are all that is needed to withdraw funds, or at least set online payment of bills which you don't owe. Donald Knuth also faced this problem, leading him to cease sending checks as payment for finding errors in his writings."}
{"text": "How does a brokerage firm work? The brokerage executes the transactions you tell them to make on your behalf. Other than acting as your agent for those, and maintaining your account, and charging a fee for the service, they have no involvement -- they do not attempt to predict optimal anything, or hold any assets themselves."}
{"text": "Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? I am reminded of a dozen year old dialog. I asked my 6 year old, \"If we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?\" She replied, \"Four, you can call it anything you want, but the dog still has four legs.\"  Early on in my marriage, my wife was heading out to the mall, and remarked that she was \"going to invest in a new pair of shoes.\" I explained to her that while I was happy she would have new shoes to wear, words have meaning, and unless she was going to buy the ruby red slippers Dorothy wore in the Wizard of Oz, or Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes, her's were not expected to rise in value and weren't an investment. Some discussion followed, and we agreed even the treadmill, which is now 20 years old, was not an 'investment' despite the fact that it saved us more than its cost in a combined 40 years of gym memberships we did not buy.  In the end, no one who is financially savvy calls a lottery ticket an investment, and few who buy them acknowledge that it's simply throwing money away."}
{"text": "Cash out 401k for house downpayment Absolutely never.Even in a hot market, it's like picking up dimes in front of a bulldozer.  It's just plain stupid. If you can't afford a 20% down payment and a 15 year mortgage, just rent."}
{"text": "Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period? Among the other fine answers, you might also consider that owning a vehicle outright will free you from the requirement to carry insurance on the vehicle (you must still carry insurance on yourself in most states)."}
{"text": "Do I even need credit cards? Eventually you are going to need some sort of real credit history.  It is possible that you will be able to evade this if you never buy a house, or if you pay cash for any house/condo/car/boat/etc that you buy.  Even employers check credit history these days.  I wouldn't be surprised if some medical professionals such as surgeons check it also.  Obviously if you have a mortgage and car loan this doesn't apply, but I'd be curious how you acquired those unless you have substantial income and/or assets. Combine this with the fact that certain things like renting a car essentially require a credit card (because they need to put a hold on more money than they are actually going to take out of your card, so they can take that money if you don't bring the car back), and I think you should have a credit card unless you and your wife are individuals with zero impulse control, which sounds highly improbable. If your concern is the financial liability of the credit line, just keep the credit line low."}
{"text": "Will I always be able to get a zero-interest credit card? No.  There is no guarantee that credit card issuing banks will always use 0% introductory rates to entice anyone."}
{"text": "Ongoing things to do and read to improve knowledge of finance? Good luck!"}
{"text": "Using stable short-term, tax-free municipal bond funds to beat the bank? Banks' savings interest is ridiculous, has always been, compared to other investment options. But there's a reason for that: its safe. You will get your money back, and the interest on it, as long as you're within the FDIC insurance limits. If you want to get more returns - you've got to take more risks. For example, that a locality you're borrowing money to will default. Has happened before, a whole county defaulted. But if you understand the risks - your calculations are correct."}
{"text": "Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random? It seems to be that your main point is this: No matter what, my chances cannot be worse than random and if my trading system has an edge that is greater than the percentage of the transaction that is transaction cost, then I am probabilistically likely to make a profit? In general, yes, that is true, but... Consider this very bad strategy: Buy one share of stock and sell it one minute later, and repeat this every minute of the day. Obviously you would bleed your account dry with fees. However, even this horrible strategy still meets your criteria because: if this bad strategy had an edge beyond the transaction fees you would likely still make a profit. In other words, your conclusion reduces to an uninteresting statement: If there were no transactions fees, then if your trading system has an edge then you will likely make a profit. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but IMHO, that statement, and others made in the question are just obvious things stated in convoluted ways. I don't want to discourage you from thinking about these things though. I personally really enjoy these type of thought experiments. I just feel you missed the mark on this one..."}
{"text": "How can I find a list of self-select stocks & shares ISA providers? Try fool.co.uk for getting more information about ISAs:  Everything You Need To Know About ISAs"}
{"text": "How can I find a high-risk, high-reward investment that is not strongly correlated with the U.S. economy? These days almost all risky assets move together, so the most difficult criterion to match from your 4 will be \"not strongly correlated to the U.S. economy.\"  However, depending on how you define \"strongly,\" you may want to consider the following: Be careful, you are sort of asking for the impossible here, so these will all be caveat emptor type assets. EDIT: A recent WSJ article talks about what some professional investors are doing to find uncorrelated bets. Alfredo Viegas, an emerging-markets strategist for boutique brokerage Knight Capital Group, is encouraging clients to bet against Israeli bonds. His theory: Investors are so focused on Europe that they are misjudging risks in the Middle East, such as a flare-up in relations between Israel and Iran, or greater conflict in Egypt and Syria. Once they wake up to those risks, Israeli bonds are likely to tumble, Mr. Viegas reasons. In the meantime, the investment isn't likely to be pushed one way or another by the European crisis, he says."}
{"text": "If I have a home loan preapproval letter for x, can the seller know this without me explicitely telling them? I will preface saying that I only have personal experience to go on (purchased home in KS earlier this year, and have purchased/sold a home in AR). You do not give the seller the document stating the amount you have been approved for. Your real estate agent (I recommend having one if you don't) will want to see it to make sure you will actually be able to purchase a house though. But the contract that is sent to the Seller states the total purchase price you are willing to pay and how much of that will be financed. Link to blank KS real estate contract shows what would be listed. Looks like it is from 2012 - it is similar to the one I had back in March, but not exactly the same format."}
{"text": "Sales Tax: Rounded Then Totaled or Totaled Then Rounded? Tax is often calculated per item.  Especially in the days of the internet, some items are taxable and some aren't, depending on the item and your nexus.  I would recommend calculating and storing tax with each item, to account for these subtle differences. EDIT: Not sure why this was downvoted, if you don't believe me, you can always check with Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_468512_calculated?nodeId=468512#calculated I think they know what they're talking about. FINAL UPDATE: Now, if someone goes to your site, and buys something from your business (in California) and the shipping address for the product is Nevada, then taxes do not have to be collected.  If they have a billing address in California, and a shipping address in Nevada, and the goods are shipping to Nevada, you do not have to declare tax. If you have a mixture of tangible (computer, mouse, keyboard) and intangible assets (warranty) in a cart, and the shipping address is in California, you charge tax on the tangible assets, but NOT on the intangible assets. Yes, you can charge tax on the whole order.  Yes for most businesses that's \"Good enough\", but I'm not trying to provide the \"good enough\" solution, I'm simply telling you how very large businesses run and operate.  As I've mentioned, I've done several tax integrations using software called Sabrix (Google if you've not heard of it), and have done those integrations for companies like the BBC and Corbis (owned and operated by Bill Gates). Take it or leave it, but the correct way to charge taxes, especially given the complex tax laws of the US and internationally, is to charge per item.  If you just need the \"good enough\" approach, feel free to calculate it by total. Some additional reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_of_Digital_Goods Another possible federal limitation on Internet taxation is the United States Supreme Court case, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992),[6] which held that under the dormant commerce clause, goods purchased through mail order cannot be subject to a state\u2019s sales tax unless the vendor has a substantial nexus with the state levying the tax.  In 1997, the federal government decided to limit taxation of Internet activity for a period of time. The Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) prohibits taxes on Internet access, which is defined as a service that allows users access to content, information, email or other services offered over the Internet and may include access to proprietary content, information, and other services as part of a package offered to customers. The Act has exceptions for taxes levied before the statute was written and for sales taxes on online purchases of physical goods."}
{"text": "Why would someone want to sell call options? I have an example of a trade I made some time ago.  By entering the position as a covered call, I was out of pocket $5.10, and if the stock traded flat, i.e. closed at the same $7.10 16 months hence, I was up 39% or nearly 30%/yr. As compared to the stock holder, if the stock fell 28%, I'd still break even, vs his loss of 28%. Last, if the stock shot up, I'd get 7.50/5.10 or a 47% return, vs the shareholder who would need a price of $10.44 to reflect that return. Of course, a huge jump in the shares, say to $15, would benefit the option buyer, and I would have left money on the table. But this didn't happen. The stock was at $8 at expiration, and I got my 47% return. The option buyer got 50 cents for his $2 bet.  Note, the $2 option price reflected a very high implied volatility."}
{"text": "What risks are there acting as a broker between PayPal and electronic bank transfers? This is definitely a scam. I had a friend sign up for a very similar offer and what they did was send a fake check and then asked to transfer the same amount to them. So now you just send them a couple grand and you're holding a fake check."}
{"text": "Does it make sense to refinance a 30 year mortgage to 15 years? There's several different trade-offs wrapped up in your question. In general, refinancing a mortgage to a lower interest rate makes sense if you are certain you'll be living in the house for N years.  N depends on your closing costs and points.  Basically you need to calculate the break-even point for when the savings from the reduced interest rate exceeds the cost of the re-fi.  When I refinanced, the broker did the calculations for me for a range of options, maybe yours could as well. The trade off in selecting 30-year vs. 15-year is between monthly payment and total outlay.  A 15-year mortgage will have a higher monthly payment, but the total money that is paid out the bank (rather than to your equity) will be less. Using the Heloc to do the down payment seems sketchy; plus then you have two loan payments you're making each month.  Why not keep it simple and look for a $250k loan with 5% down?  Presumably with the current mortgage you already put in a good down payment, and have built some equity up."}
{"text": "Could the loan officer deny me even if I have the money as a first time home buyer? There are loan options for those in your situation.  It is very common.  I am a licensed loan officer nmls 1301324 and have done many loans just like this.  Your schooling is counted as your work history Contrary to popular belief.  We want to write loans and guidelines are easing.  Banks are a different story and their loan officers aren't licensed.  If you talk to a bank you aren't getting an educated loan officer.  They also have what are called overlays that make guidelines stricter."}
{"text": "Can you beat the market by investing in double long ETFs? [duplicate] NO. All the leveraged ETFs are designed to multiply the performance of the underlying asset FOR THAT DAY, read the prospectus. Their price is adjusted at the end of the day to reflect what is called a NAV unit. Basically, they know that their price is subject to fluctuations due to supply and demand throughout the day - simply because they trade in a quote driven system. But the price is automatically corrected at the end of the day regardless. In practice though, all sorts of crazy things happen with leveraged ETFs that will simply make them more and more unfavorable to hold long term, the longer you look at it."}
{"text": "Taxes for citizen of EU country #1 living in EU country #2 and working from home for non-EU country #3? You will almost certainly be paying taxes in Czech Republic, short of being American of Eritrean, citizenship has little to no bearing on tax. If you are working from home, you will probably be a contractor. In Romania you would work through either an SRL or you would set up a PFA. Essentially a limited company or a sole trader. You will need to find the Czech equivalents. I would advise finding a small business accountant. They will be able to advise what is the most cost effective solution, in some countries (like my one) you can save considerable amounts of tax by working through a company. There is a link with some information."}
{"text": "Should I exclude bonds from our retirement investment portfolio if our time horizon is still long enough? This is always a judgement call based on your own tolerance for risk.  Yes, you have a fairly long time horizon and that does mean you can accept more risk/more volatility than someone closer to starting to draw upon those savings, but you're old enough and have enough existing savings that you want to start thinking about reducing the risk a notch. So most folks in your position would not put 100% in stocks, though exactly how much should be moved to bonds is debatable. One traditional rule of thumb for a moderately conservative position is to subtract your age from 100 and keep that percentage of your investments in stock. Websearch for \"stock bond age\" will find lots of debate about whether and how to modify this rule. I have gone more aggressive myself, and haven't demonstrably hurt myself, but \"past results are no guarantee of future performance\". A paid financial planning advisor can interview you about your risk tolerance, run some computer models, and recommend a strategy, with some estimate of expected performance and volatility. If you are looking for a semi-rational approach, that may be worth considering, at least as a starting point."}
{"text": "Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? Even if the price of your home did match inflation or better \u2014 and that's a question I'll let the other answers address \u2014 I propose that owning a home, by itself, is not a sufficient hedge against inflation. Consider: Inflation will inflate your living expenses. If you're lucky, they'll inflate at the average. If you're unlucky, a change in your spending patterns (perhaps age-related) could result in your expenses rising faster than inflation. (Look at the sub-indexes of the CPI.) Without income also rising with inflation (or better), how will you cope with rising living expenses? Each passing year, advancing living expenses risk eclipsing a static income. Your home is an illiquid asset. Generally speaking, it neither generates income for you, nor can you sell only a portion. At best, owning your principal residence helps you avoid a rent expense and inflation in rents \u2014 but rent is only one of many living expenses. Some consider a reverse-mortgage an option to tap home equity, but it has a high cost. In other words: If you don't want to be forced to liquidate [sell] your home, you'll also need to look at ways to ensure your income sources rise with inflation. i.e. look at your cash flow, not just your net worth. Hence: investing in housing, as in your own principal residence, is not an adequate hedge against inflation. If you owned additional properties to generate rental income, and you retained pricing power so you could increase the rent charged at least in line with inflation, your situation would be somewhat improved \u2014 except you would, perhaps, be adopting another problem: Too high a concentration in a single asset class. Consequently, I would look at ways other than housing to hedge against inflation. Consider other kinds of investments. \"Safe as houses\" may be a clich\u00e9, but it is no guarantee."}
{"text": "Deposit a cheque in an alternative name into a personal bank account (Australia) You don't have much choice other than to open an account in your business name, then do a money transfer, as @DJClayworth says.  You will not  without providing your name and street address and possibly other information that you may consider to be of a private nature. This is due to laws about fraud, money laundering and consumer protection. I'm not saying that's what you have in mind! But without accountability of the sort provided by names and street addresses, banks would be facilitating crimes of many sorts, which is why regulatory agencies enforce disclosure requirements."}
{"text": "Are cashiers required to check a credit card for a signature in the U.S.? I'm not sure if they're required to do so, but I have been neglecting to sign my cards for some time now.  If they do check, that triggers an ID check, where they'll find my signature.  I know of at least one person that writes \"see ID\" instead of signing their cards.  He began that practice over 10 years ago."}
{"text": "Options strategy - When stocks go opposite of your purchase? If you buy a call, that's because you expect that the stock will go up. If it does not go up, then forget about buying more calls as your initial idea seems to be wrong. And I don't think that buying a put to make up for the loss will work either, the only thing that is sure is that you will pay another premium (on a stock that could stay where it is). Even if you are 100% sure that the stock will go up again, don't do anything, as John Maynard Keynes stated: \"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent\". My idea is: wait until the expiration date. The good things about options is that you won't lose more than the premium that you paid for it and that until it reaches its maturity you can still make money if the market turns around. More generally, when you are purely speculating, adding to a position when it goes against you is called \"averaging down\". I sincerely discourage you to do that : If the stocks goes in the wrong direction, that means that your   initial idea was wrong in the first place (or you were not right at   the right moment). In my opinion, adding up to a wrong idea is not the   right thing to do. When you are losing, just take your loss and don't   add up to your position based on your emotions. On the other hand, adding to your position more when the stock goes in   your direction is called \"pyramiding\" and is, in my opinion, a better   way of doing things (you bought, you were right, let's buy more). But   at some point you will have to take your profits. There are plenty of other stocks on which you can try to invest and the market will still be here tomorrow, there will be other opportunities to make profits. Rushing things by constantly trying to have a position is not a good idea. Not doing anything is also a strategy."}
{"text": "How are investment funding valued when invested in a company before it goes public? This is a question of how does someone value a business.   Typically, it is some function of how much the company owns, how much the company owes, how risky is the company's business, and how much the company makes in profit. For example if a company (or investment) make $100/year, every year no matter what, how much would you pay for that?   If you pay $1,000 you'll make 10% each year on your investment.  Is that a good enough return?   If you think the risk of the company requires a 20% payoff, you shouldn't pay more than $500 for the company."}
{"text": "Should market based health insurance premiums be factored into 6 months emergency fund savings? Yes, it should be. As, where one has insurance, its an expense one would expect one to continue to incur in a normal budgetary emergency, even drop in the extreme."}
{"text": "Why are prices in EUR for consumer items often the same number as original USD price, but the GBP price applies the actual exchange rate? It's mostly VAT (value added tax or sales tax). For example an US IPad is $499 without tax, and a German IPad is EUR 499 including 17% VAT. The base price is actually only EUR 417.  In addition to that, cost of business is a little higher in Europe because of tax structures and because smaller countries cause higher overheads."}
{"text": "Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him? At this point the cost of borrowing money is very low.  For the sake of argument, say it is 1% per year for a large institution. I can either go out and find a client to invest 100,000$ and split profit and loss with them. Or, I could borrow 50,000$, pay 500$/year in interest, and get the same return and loss, while moving the market half as much (which would let me double my position!) In both cases the company is responsible for covering all fixed costs, like paying for traders, trades, office space, branding, management, regulatory compliance, etc. For your system to work, the cost to gather clients and interact with them has to be significantly less than 1% of the capital they provide you per year. At the 50% level, that might actually be worth it for the company in question.  Except at the 50% level you'd have really horrible returns even when the market went up.  So suppose a more reasonable level is the client keeps 75% of the returns (which compares to existing companies which offer larger investors an 80% cut on profits, but no coverage on losses). Now the cost to gather and interact with clients has to be lower than 2500$ per million dollars provided to beat out a simple loan arrangement.  A single sales employee with 100% overhead (office, all marketing, support, benefits) earning 40,000$/year has to bring in 32 million dollar-years worth of investment every year to break even. Cash is cheap.  Investment houses sell cash management, and charge for it.  They don't sell shared investment risk (at least not to retail investors), because it would take a lot of cash for it to be worth their bother. More explicitly, for this to be viable, they'd basically have to constantly arrange large hedges against the market going down to cover any losses.  That is the kind of thing that some margin loans may require.  That would all by itself lower their profits significantly, and they would be exposed to counter-party risk on top of that. It is much harder to come up with a pile of cash when the markets go down significantly.  If you are large enough to be worthwhile, finding a safe counterparty may be nearly impossible."}
{"text": "Tax exemption on personal loan interest component in India Am I eligible for the tax exemption if yes then under which section.  Generally Personal loans are not eligible for tax exemption. Only housing loans from qualified institutions are eligible for tax deduction. As per the income tax act; The house should be in your name. The home loans taken from recognised institutions are fully qualified under section 24B and 80C. This means you can claim Interest exemption under 24B and Principal repayment under 80C. The Act also specifies that loan can be taken from friends/relatives for construction of property and will be eligible for Interest exemption under 24B only. The principal will not be eligible for exemption under 80C. Read the FAQ from Income Tax India. There has to be certificate showing how much interest was paid on the said loan. Further there should be records/receipts on how the money was spent. There is difference of opinion amongst CA. It is best you take a professional advise."}
{"text": "Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest? Speaking from personal experience: I have had a credit card canceled for exactly this reason. It's happened to me three times, with two different providers (NatWest and Nationwide). After the third instance I stopped bothering to even carry a credit card. It's worth noting that all three were \"free\" cards in the sense that I paid no flat fee or subscription to get the cards. The only way the issuer could make a profit on them was through interest. I was also not a frequent user, carrying the card for convenience more than anything else, although I did make purchases on all three. So it's certainly a possibility. But I live in the UK and I'm guessing most of your other respondents do not. It may be a practice that's more common here than in the US. That might even explain the origin of the rumour."}
{"text": "static data for mutual funds/hedge funds It's not really my field, but I believe it's all the information that doesn't change (i.e. isn't \"real-time\") about the business of hedge funds.  For example, this site quotes: The product maintains comprehensive static data records including assets,       depositories, accounts, settlement instructions and a wide range of       supporting data..."}
{"text": "How can I save on closing costs when buying a home? Do I need to pay for an inspection, or am I likely to save enough money from skipping it to cover potential problems that they would have caught?  A home inspection costs hundreds of dollars.  The average is $315.  Inspections regularly catch things that cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix, e.g. a new roof or a cracked foundation.   You also might find that a home inspection is required for your mortgage.   do I need a realtor, or can I do their job myself? Unless you are a licensed realtor or you buy directly from a seller without a realtor, the fee (charged to the seller) will be the same regardless of whether you have a realtor.  The seller's realtor will share the fee with your realtor if you have one.  So you can do the work yourself (perhaps not as well), but you won't save money by doing so.   If you have a lot of flexibility in when you purchase, you could look for especially cheap properties with motivated sellers.  Arrange financing ahead of time (before you find a house), so you can close quickly.  Some sellers will give you a discounted price to finish the sale quickly.  Even small savings on the price of a house will outweigh most savings on closing costs."}
{"text": "How to invest in a specific market without investing in a specific company? You need to hope that a fund exists targeting the particular market segment you are interested in. For example, searching for \"cloud computing ETF\" throws up one result. You'd then need to read all the details of how it invests to figure out if that really matches up with what you want - there'll always be various trade-offs the fund manager has to make. For example, with this fund, one warning is that this ETF makes allocations to larger firms that are involved in the   cloud computing space but derive the majority of their revenues from   other operations Bear in mind that today's stock prices might have already priced in a lot of future growth in the sector. So you might only make money if the sector exceeds that predicted growth level (and vice versa, if it grows, but not that fast, you could lose money). If the sector grows exactly as predicted, stock prices might stay flat, though you'd still make a bit of money if they pay dividends. Also, note that the expense ratios for specialist funds like this are often quite a bit higher than for \"general market\" funds. They are also likely to be traded less frequently, which will increase the \"bid-ask\" spread - i.e. the cost of buying into and getting out of these funds will be higher."}
{"text": "When is an IPO considered failure? Just skimming through the Wikipedia article on airberlin, I notice there is more to the story than simply \"airberlin's IPO failed, so they postponed it and did it anyways.\" 3 points to keep in mind about IPOs:  1) An IPO is the mechanism for taking a private company and setting it up for shares to be owned by \"the public\".  2) The process of selling shares to the public often allows original owners and/or early investors to \"cash out\". Most countries (including member nations of the EU) limit some transactions like pre-IPO companies to \"accredited investors\".  3) Selling shares to the public also can allow the company to access more funds for growth. This is particularly important in a capital-intensive business like an airline; new B737-MAX costs >$110M. New A320neo costs >$105M USD.  Ultimately, the question of a successful IPO depends on how you define success. Initially, there was a lot of concern that the IPO was set up with too much focus on goal #2... allowing the management & owners to cash out.  It looks like the first approach was not meeting good opinions in the market during 2006. A major concern was that the initial approach focused on management only cashing out its shares and no money actually going to the company to support its future.  The investment bankers restructured the IPO, including the issuance of more new shares so that more $ could end up in the company's accounts, not just in the accounts of the management.  If anything, it's still a pretty successful IPO given that the shares were successfully listed, the company collected the money it needed to invest and grow, and the management still cashed out."}
{"text": "Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire? I have done something similar to this myself.  What you are suggesting is a sound theory and it works.  The issues are (which is why it's the reason not everyone does it) : The initial cost is great, many people in their 20s or 30s cannot afford their own home, let alone buy second properties.  The time to build up a portfolio is very long term and is best for a pension investment.  it's often not best for diversification - you've heard not putting all your eggs in one basket? With property deposits, you need to put a lot of eggs in to make it work and this can leave you vulnerable. there can be lots of work involved. Renovating is a huge pain and cost and you've already mentioned tennants not paying!  unlike a bank account or bonds/shares etc.  You cannot get to your savings/investments quickly if you need to (or find an opportunity)  But after considering these and deciding the plunge is worth it, I would say go for it, be a good landlord, with good quality property and you'll have a great nest egg.  If you try just one and see how it goes, with population increase, in a safe (respectable) location, the value of the investment should continue to rise (which it doesn't in a bank) and you can expect a 5%+ rental return (very hard to find in cash account!)  Hope it goes well!"}
{"text": "What happens if a Financial Services Company/Stockbroker goes into administration in the UK? Although I posted this question more than a year ago, I subsequently read information which may be of use as an answer, specifically regarding Pritchard Stockbrokers in the UK several years ago, in which the FSCS stepped in to compensate investors, as detailed in the following: http://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/questions-and-answers/qas-about-pritchard-stock-6n940n01k/ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/89957c56-21e4-11e3-9b55-00144feab7de.html#axzz3crZYbGZ9 For reference, in case the links above are at some point in future taken offline, the FSCS FAQ states:"}
{"text": "I had \u201cdeposited\u201d money with Pritchard so can I expect \u00a385,000 compensation from FSCS? No. Pritchard was not a deposit-taker so the money held does not qualify under regulatory rules as a deposit. The money will be treated as an investment, which carries maximum FSCS compensation of \u00a350,000 per person. FSCS has no discretion to pay any more."}
{"text": "What happens if my losses are over the FSCS maximum of \u00a350,000 and I accept the FSCS\u2019s compensation? If you choose to accept compensation from FSCS, you will be required to assign (or legally transfer) to FSCS all of your rights to claim in the Administration. FSCS will then claim in the Administration standing \u201cin your shoes\u201d and will claim for the whole of your loss, even if it was over \u00a350,000. When FSCS receives the dividends in your place it will then pay to you any amounts recovered to ensure that you do not suffer a disadvantage for having accepted FSCS compensation first. Example 1: Loss = \u00a380,000 FSCS compensation = \u00a350,000 Dividend of 50p/\u00a3 received by FSCS = \u00a340,000 FSCS pays \u00a330,000 to claimant so he is fully compensated (total \u00a380,000), and retains \u00a310,000 recovery for itself Example 2: Loss = \u00a3100,000 FSCS compensation = \u00a350,000 Dividend of 50p/\u00a3 received by FSCS = \u00a350,000 FSCS pays \u00a350,000 to claimant so he is fully compensated (total \u00a3100,000), and retains nothing for itself FSCS does not have to have make a full recovery of its \u00a350,000 before it starts paying its dividend recovery on to claimants. Claimants are not compelled to claim from FSCS, or to accept the FSCS offer of compensation. If a person does not want to transfer his legal rights to claim in the Administration to FSCS in return for accepting the payment of compensation, then s/he can decline our compensation and continue his claim in the Administration. After s/he has received the dividend(s), s/he can then return to FSCS to claim for any remaining shortfall. Therefore, the answer provided by @DumbCoder was correct, but in circumstances where fraudulent activity would mean otherwise, the FSCS was willing to intervene on the behalf of investors."}
{"text": "Are there any statistics that support the need for Title Insurance? I'm really surprised at the answers here. Claims/year per region isn't a statistic that is meaningful here... you need to think about the risk factors and the purpose of the insurance. First, what does title insurance do? It protects you against defects in the deed -- defects that may crop up and mean that your mortgage is no longer valid. This is different from most forms of insurance -- the events that render your title invalid are events that may have happened years, decades or even centuries ago. A big part of the insurance policy and its cost is conducting research to assess the validity of a deed. The whole point of the insurance is to reduce claims by improving data associated with the \"chain of custody\" of the property. So how do you evaluate the risk of finding out about something that happened a long time ago, that nobody appears to know about? IMO, you have to think about risk factors that increase the probability that things were screwed up in the past: You need to have an informed discussion with your attorney and figure out if it makes sense for you. Don't dismiss it out of hand."}
{"text": "Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career? This is a tough question, because it is something very specific to your situation and finances. I personally started at a young age (17), with US$1,000 in Scottrade. I tried the \"stock market games\" at first, but in retrospect they did nothing for me and turned out to be a waste of time. I really started when I actually opened my brokerage account, so step one would be to choose your discount broker. For example, Scottrade, Ameritrade (my current broker), E-Trade, Charles Schwab, etc. Don't worry about researching them too much as they all offer what you need to start out. You can always switch later (but this can be a little of a hassle). For me, once I opened my brokerage account I became that much more motivated to find a stock to invest in. So the next step and the most important is research! There are many good resources on the Internet (there can also be some pretty bad ones). Here's a few I found useful: Investopedia - They offer many useful, easy-to-understand explanations and definitions. I found myself visiting this site a lot. CNBC - That was my choice for business news. I found them to be the most watchable while being very informative. Fox Business, seems to be more political and just annoying to watch. Bloomberg News was just ZzzzZzzzzz (boring). On CNBC, Jim Cramer was a pretty useful resource. His show Mad Money is entertaining and really does teach you to think like an investor. I want to note though, I don't recommend buying the stocks he recommends, specially the next day after he talks about them. Instead, really pay attention to the reasons he gives for his recommendation. It will teach you to think more like an investor and give you examples of what you should be looking for when you do research. You can also use many online news organizations like MarketWatch, The Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance (has some pretty good resources), and TheStreet. Read editorial (opinions) articles with a grain of salt, but again in each editorial they explain why they think the way they think."}
{"text": "UK university student finance - should I use my sponsorship money to pay the debt? Let me run some simplistic numbers, ignoring inflation. You have the opportunity to borrow up to 51K. What matters (and varies) is your postgraduation salary. Case 1 - you make 22K after graduation. You pay back 90 a year for 30 years, paying off at most 2700 of the loan. In this case, whether you borrow 2,800 or 28,000 makes no difference to the paying-off. You would do best to borrow as much as you possibly can, treating it as a grant. Case 2 - you make 100K after graduation. You pay back over 7K a year. If you borrowed the full 51, after 7 or 8 years it would be paid off (yeah, yeah, inflation, interest, but maybe that might make it 9 years.) In this case, the more you borrow the more you have to pay back, but you can easily pay it back, so you don't care. Invest your sponsorships and savings into something long term since you know you won't be needing to draw on them. Case 3 - you make 30K after graduation. Here, the payments you have to make actually impact how much disposable income you have. You pay back 810 a year, and over 30 years that's about 25K of principal. It will be less if you account for some (even most) of the payment going to interest, not principal. Anything you borrow above 25K (or the lower, more accurate amount) is \"free\". If you borrow substantially less than that (by using your sponsorship, savings, and summer job) you may be able to stop paying sooner than 30 years. But even if you borrow only 12K (or half the more accurate number), it will still be 15 years of payments. Running slightly more realistic versions of these calculations where your salary goes up, and you take interest into account, I think you will discover, for each possible salary path, a number that represents how much of your loan is really loan: everything above that is actually a grant you do not pay back. The less you are likely to make, the more of it is really grant. On top of that, it seems to me that no matter the loan/grant ratio,  \"borrow as much as you can from this rather bizarre source\" appears to be the correct answer. In the cases where it's all loan, you have a lot of income and don't care much about this loan payment. Borrowing the whole 51K lets you invest all the money you get while you're a student, and you can use the returns on those investments to make the loan payments."}
{"text": "How can I stop a merchant from charging a credit card processing fee? It may seem very simple on its face but you don't know the merchant's agreement.  You don't know who is providing the processing equipment.  You don't know a lot of things.  You know that Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex and others have network requirements and agreements.  You know that laws have been changed to allow merchant surcharges (previously it was contracts that prohibited surcharges, not laws).   That gas station, or that pizza parlor, or any other merchant doesn't have a direct relationship with Visa or Mastercard; it has an agreement with a bank or other processing entity.  The issue here, is whom do you even call?  And what would you gain?  Find out what bank is contracted for that particular equipment and file a complaint that the merchant charged you $0.35?  Maybe the merchant agreement allows surcharges up to state and local maximums?  You don't know the terms of their agreement.  Calling around to figure out what parties are involved to understand the terms of their agreement is a waste of time, like you said you can just go across the street if it's so offensive to you.  Or just carry a little cash.   If that's not the answer you're looking for, here's one for you: There is no practical recourse."}
{"text": "Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority? Math says invest in the Market (But paying off your mortgage early is a valid option if you are very risk averse.) You are going to get a better return by investing in the stock market.  In the US in 2015/2016, mortgages are 3%-4%, and give you a tax break.  The rate of return on the stock market is ~10%, (closer to 6% after you subtract out inflation, taxes, fees, etc.) Since 10 > 3, (or 6% > 4%, to use the pessimistic numbers)  investing in the market is the better deal. But... The market has risk, and your mortgage does not.  If you are very risk averse paying off the mortgage may make sense. As an example:  Family A has a single \"breadwinner\", who works a low skilled job. Family B has 2 working spouses, both in high skill white collar positions.   These two families are going to have wildly different risk tolerances.  It may make sense for family A to \"invest\" its extra money in paying off the mortgage, after they have tackled high interest debt, built an emergency fund, maxed the 401k, etc. Personally I would not: in the US you cannot recoup pre-payments if you lose your job.  If I was very risk averse, I would keep my extra money as cash, so I could pay my mortgage after I lost my job.  It is never going to make sense for family B to pay the mortgage early.  At that point, any decision to pre-pay is going to be based on emotion and not logic."}
{"text": "Is unrealized gain part of asset? Stocks, as an asset, represent the sum of the current market value of all of your holdings. If your portfolio is showing unrealized gains and losses, then that net amount is inherently reflected in the current market value of your holdings.  That's not to say cost basis is not important. Any closed trades, realized gains or losses, will of course have an impact on your taxable income. So, it couldn't hurt to keep track of your cost basis from a tax standpoint, but understand that the term \"asset\" refers to the current market values and does not consider base amounts. Taxes do. Perhaps consider making separate cells for cost basis, but also bear in mind that most if not all of the major online discount brokers will provide transferring of cost basis information electronically to the major online tax service providers."}
{"text": "How good is Wall Street Survivor for learning about investing? I find this site to be really poor for the virtual play portion, especially the options league.  After you place a trade, you can't tell what you actually traded.  The columns for Exp and type are blank.  I have had better luck with OptionsXpress virtual trader.  Although they have recently changed their criteria for a non funded accounts and will only keep them active for 90 days.  I know the cboe has a paper trading platform but I haven't tried it out yet."}
{"text": "Sell or keep rental Property? How is the current mortgage payment broken out? I have a mortgage on a rental property with a payment of $775, but $600 is principal. If I were at breakeven on a sale or a bit underwater, I'd be better off just holding still, the tenant paying the loan down over $7000/year.  You question is a good one, but a good answer would require more details. A bank may not agree to a short sale on an investment property, especially since there's a second property to go after. I'm not making a judgement, just saying, it's not a slam-dunk to just short sell it."}
{"text": "Deductions greater than Income : Traditional IRA to Roth Conversion? Answering for just the US part, yes, you should be able to do this and it's a good strategy. The only additional gotcha I can think of is that if you've made after-tax contributions to your traditional IRA, you need to prorate the conversion, you can't just convert all the pre-tax or all the after-tax. I'm not familiar with Oregon personal income tax so there may be additional gotchas there."}
{"text": "Is there extra risk in owning an ADR vs. the underlying stock? Yes, the ADR will trade on a separate exchange from the underlying one, and can (and does) see fluctuations in price that do not match the (exchange corrected) fluctuations that occur in the original market. You are probably exposing yourself to additional risk that is related to:"}
{"text": "What choices should I consider for investing money that I will need in two years? If you ever need the money in three years, imagine that today is 2006 and you need the money in 2009.  Keep it in savings accounts, money-markets, or CDs maturing at the right time."}
{"text": "Portfolio Diversity : invest $4000 into one account or $1000 into 4 accounts? You spread money/investment across different accounts for different reasons: All this is in addition to diversification reasons. Investing all your money into one stock, bond, Mutual fund, ETF is risky if that one segment of the economy/market suffers.  There is a drawback to diversification of accounts. Some have minimum amounts and fee structures. In the original question you asked about 1,000 per account. That may mean that some accounts may be closed to you. In other cases they will charge a higher percentage for fees for small accounts. Those issues would disappear long before you hit the 1,000,000 per account you mentioned in your comment. One problem can occur with having too much diversification. Having dozens of funds could mean that the overlap between the funds might result in over investing in a segment because you didn't realize that one stock segment appeared in 1/3 of the funds."}
{"text": "Can LLC legally lend money to a friend? One thing I would add to TTT's answer: One of the benefits of using an LLC for your business is right there in the name - \"limited liability\". It provides a level of protection for your personal assets should your business go bankrupt, get sued, and so forth. However, if someone can show that there's no real separation between your LLC's activities and your personal activities, then they can \"pierce the corporate veil\" and go after your personal assets. If this loan is really purely personal and not related to your business activities, you may create a paper trail that can later be used in this way. My advice would be to just avoid the whole thing and make the loan from personal funds. I don't see any upside to doing this out of the LLC funds."}
{"text": "Ask FBI permission to withdraw large sums from your checking or savings? Is it true you have to file papers with the government in the US to   withdraw large sums of cash at your local bank branch? It's true that a currency transaction report (CTR) gets filed with FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) when you make a cash transaction in excess of $10,000. Banks have systems that do this automatically, so you don't have to really do anything other than provide some tax info if not already on file with the bank. The teller can flag your CTR if they think the transaction is suspicious, but there shouldn't be a delay on the withdrawal unless the bank has to make arrangements to have enough cash on hand. Some people don't like the idea of CTR's being filed and therefore make multiple smaller withdrawals, but that can be considered illegal structuring, and can result in confiscated money."}
{"text": "Where can I buy preferred stocks as opposed to common stocks? Preferred stock is traded on the market, so you can just buy it like any other. The symbol for a preferred stock is the ticker symbol followed by a dash and a letter for each class of preferred stock. Examples: Generally speaking, you should buy Preferred stock with the intention of holding onto it for at least a  couple of years. Often preferred shares are lightly traded and have wide spreads that made it difficult to make money in the short term."}
{"text": "Can dividends be exploited? Yes, somebody could buy the shares, receive the dividend, and then sell the shares back. However, the price he would get when he sells the shares back is, ignoring other reasons for the price to change, exactly the amount he paid minus the dividend."}
{"text": "What is a negotiable security and how are they related to derivatives? The price for securities is negotiable.  You totally have a right to make a lower offer when buying or ask for a higher price when selling.    Securities don't trade at a fixed price, the price goes up and down throughout the day based on the price offers made by buyers and sellers and where they find agreement. If a stock last traded for $10, someone can put out an offer to buy the stock at $9.50, if they find someone who wants to sell and will accept that price, then a deal is made. unless something is falling rapidly in price however, an offer that far below the last price is not terribly likely to be accepted. Now if you want to be assured of making a sale or purchase, you generally trade 'at the market' and for small time players that is very much encouraged as it makes it easier for everyone."}
{"text": "Will prices really be different for cash and cards? I think the question relates to the discussion here: http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2010/10/05/19449/ It was always the case that merchants could discount purchases made with cash.  What wasn't allowed is allowing the merchant to charge extra for credit card transactions (presumably to cover the fees the merchants pay).  These fees usually carry a flat fee per transaction, plus around 2% of the purchase price.  What also wasn't allowed was them to refuse any credit transactions.  People could charge a pack of gum, even if the fees put that transaction in the red. What's allowed according to this new development is different levels of discounting for different credit cards. Somewhat related to this discussion is another development that happened this summer: merchants now have the ability to refuse credit card transactions of less than $10. Here's my feeling on all of this.  I think we'll see merchants imposing minimum credit transaction amounts before we see them monkeying at the 1-2% level on pricing for different types of credit cards.  My feeling is that they'd be wise not to change anything, even though they can.  Refusing transactions (or charging more for others) is going to come as a unpleasant shock to enough people that they may take their business elsewhere."}
{"text": "Multiple hard inquiry for a single loan from car dealer? (I'm a bit surprised that nobody talked about the impact of multiple inquiries on a loan, since OP is concerned with credit building. Probably an answer as opposed to a comment is justified.) Yes. In fact when you shop for auto loan you are expected to have your credit score/report be pulled by different banks, credit unions, and/or the financing arm of the car manufacturer or the dealership, so that you can hopefully get the best rate possible. This is especially true if the dealer is requesting quotes on rates on your behalf, as they would probably use a batch process to send out applications to multiple financial institutions all at once. Yes, and a bit unusual - CALVERT TOYO (your dealer) pulled your report twice on the same day. Presumably they are not getting any new information on the second pull. Maybe a fat finger? Regardless, you should not worry about this too much (to be explained below). I would say \"don't bother\". The idea behind hard inquiries lowering credit score is that lenders see the number of hard inquiries as your desire for credit. Too high a number is often viewed as either \"desperate for credit\" or \"unable to qualify for credit\".  But as explained above, it is very common for a person to request quotes for multiple financial institutions and thus to have multiple hard inquiries in a short period of time when shopping for loans. To account for that, the credit bureau's model would usually combine hard inquiries for a same type of loan (auto, mortgage, etc.) within 30 days. Hence a person sending quote request to 3 banks won't be rated higher for credit than if he were to request quotes from 5 banks.  Therefore in your case your credit profile is not going to be different if you had been pulled just once. my credit score goes down for 15 points I'm assuming you are talking about the credit score provided by Credit Karma. The score CK provided is FAKO. The score lenders care about is FICO. They are well correlated but still different. Google these two terms and you should be able to figure out the difference quickly. You can also refer to my answer to a different question here: Equifax credit score discrepancy in 1 month, why?"}
{"text": "Will progressively investing with moderate-to-high risk help secure a future? There are a few flaws in your reasoning: I know my portfolio will always keep going up, No, it won't.  You'll have periods of losses.  You are starting your investing in a bull market.  Do NOT be fooled into believing that your successes now will continue indefinitely. The more risky your portfolio, the bigger the losses.  The upside of a risky portfolio is that the gains generally outweigh the losses, but there will be periods of losses. I honestly don't believe that it's possible for me to end up losing in the long term, regardless of risk. I think you vastly underestimate the risk of your strategy and/or the consequences of that risk.   There's nothing wrong with investing in risky assets, since over time you'll get higher-than-average returns, but unless you diversify you are exposing yourself to catastrophic losses as well."}
{"text": "How are startup shares worth more than the total investment funding? He is worth $17.5 billion today Note that he is worth that dollar figure, but he doesn't have that many dollars. That's the worth of his stake in the company (number of shares he owns times the assumed value per share), i.e. assuming its total value being several hundreds of billions, as pundits assume. However, it is not a publicly traded company, so we don't really know much about its financials."}
{"text": "Will my wife's business losses offset my income on a joint tax return? First, filing status. If you and your wife are legally married, you should be filing your tax returns as married, either jointly or separately. In the US, \"head of household\" has a specific meaning and is for unmarried people who are supporting one or more relatives, per the IRS. If you are working full-time and your wife is not, then likely you will file a joint return, including all your income and all the expenses for your wife's business. So yes, the losses in her business will offset your income. Depending on how complex things are, you may want to hire a professional to help with your taxes. The rules for what can and cannot be deducted as a business expense can be opaque."}
{"text": "Is it better to buy a computer on my credit card, or on credit from the computer store? Since you have a credit card, I recommend you use it for the purchase. It gets you two things at the very least: Gets the purchases reported as credit utilization. If you handle that correctly, you can improve your score Most card vendors give free extended warranty and return policies that a retailer or manufacturer does not without extra fees. I buy all my electronics using my cards and not only does that optimize my scores but I have been able to enjoy painless/better RMAs for defective products just because my AmEx card would have refunded me the money anyways and the retailers knew it (AmEx would have recovered it from them in the end so it was in their interest to resolve the matter within 30 days)"}
{"text": "What is today's price of 15 000 Euro given 15 years ago? There's often a legal basis to answer this question. For instance, Austria (guessing from your profile) currently uses a 4% Statutory interest rate. You'll need to dig up not just the actual but also the historical rates. Note that you'll want the non-commercial interest rate - some countries differentiate between loans to businesses and loans to individuals."}
{"text": "How does shorting ETFs work? What are the costs and tax implications? No, the expense ratio would be something you wouldn't be charged. If you bought shares of the ETF long, then the dividends are usually reduced by the expense ratio if you wanted to know where to find that charge in general. You would have to make up for any dividends the underlying stocks as part of general shorting since the idea is that once you buy to put back the shares, it has to appear as if they weren't missing in the first place. No, the authorized participant would handle changes to the underlying structure if needed."}
{"text": "ADR listed in PINK Pink Sheets is not a stock exchange per se, and securities traded through it are not as \"safe\" as the ones on a stock exchange regulated by SEC. Many companies are traded there because they failed to comply with the SEC regulations, or are bankrupt or don't want the level of reporting to the public that the SEC regulations require. Since you're talking about an ADR of a company traded on LSE, it might be much safer that other, \"regular\", securities, but still it means that you're buying an unregulated security (even if it is of a company regulated elsewhere). Notice the volume of trades: mere thousands of dollars per day (in a good day, in some days there are no trades at all). It makes it harder to sell the security when needed. Why not buying at LSE?"}
{"text": "Can a single-member LLC have a fiscal year not as the calendar year? I'm no tax expert by any means. I do know that a disreagarded entity is considered a sole proprietor for federal tax purposes. My understanding is that this means your personal tax year and your business tax year must be one and the same. Nevertheless, it is technically possible to have a non-calendar fiscal year as an individual. This is so rare that I'm unable to find a an IRS reference to this. The best reference I could find was this article written by two CPAs. If you really want to persue this, you basically need to talk with an accountant, since this is complicated, and required keeping propper accounting records for your personal life, in addition to your business. A ledger creqated after-the-fact by an accountant has been ruled insufficent. You really need to live by the fiscal year you choose."}
{"text": "What is the PEG ratio? How is the PEG ratio calculated? How is the PEG ratio useful for stock investing? PEG is Price to Earnings Growth.  I've forgotten how it's calculated, I just remember that a PEG ratio of 1-2 is attractive by Graham & Dodd standards."}
{"text": "Should I pay my Education Loan or Put it in the Stock Market? The fact that you are planning to sell the property does not make paying down the mortgage a bad idea. Reducing the principal immediately reduces the amount of interest you are paying every month. Run the numbers to see how much money that actually saves you over the time you expect to hold the loan."}
{"text": "How to decide on split between large/mid/small cap on 401(k) and how often rebalance There many asset allocation strategies to chose from that beat lifestyle funds. For example: Relative Strength Asset Allocation keeps your money in Stocks when stocks perform well, bonds when they outperform stocks, and cash when both bonds and stocks are under-performing.   The re-allocation happens on a monthly basis."}
{"text": "The best credit card for people who pay their balance off every month I'm not going to recommend a specific card.  New card offers pop up all the time.  My answer would be out of date in a month! As a general rule, if you pay off your balance every month, you should be looking at a cash-back or a rewards card. Cash-back cards will give you some money (say 1%) of every dollar you spend.  Some will give you larger amounts of cash-back for certain types of spending (e.g. groceries). With a Rewards card, you usually get \"points\" or \"airline miles\", which can be redeemed for merchandise, flights around the wold, concert tickets, etc. With these types of cards, it makes sense to do as much of your spending as possible with the cards, so you can maximize the benefits. Which specific card is best will depend on your shopping habits, and which bank is offering the best deal that week.  I recommend you start at http://www.creditcards.com to compare card offerings.  For cash-back cards, you can also go to http://www.creditcardtuneup.com, enter some details of your spending, and see which one will give you the most cash back."}
{"text": "Do I need to pay Income Tax if i am running a escrow service in India This may be closed as not quite PF, but really \"startup\" as it's a business question.  In general, you should talk to a professional if you have this type of question, specifics like this regarding your tax code. I would expect that as a business, you will use a proper paper trail to show that money, say 1000 units of currency, came in and 900 went out. This is a service, no goods involved. The transaction nets you 100, and you track all of this. In the end you have the gross profit, and then business expenses. The gross amount, 1000, should not be the amount taxed, only the final profit."}
{"text": "Are bond ETF capital gains taxed similar to stock or stock funds if held for more than 1 year? Appreciation of a Capital Asset is a Capital Gain.   In the United States, Capital Gains get favorable tax treatment after being held for 12 months. From the IRS newsroom: Capital gains and losses are   classified as long-term or short-term,   depending on how long you hold the   property before you sell it. If you   hold it more than one year, your   capital gain or loss is long-term. If   you hold it one year or less, your   capital gain or loss is short-term. The tax rates that apply to net   capital gain are generally lower than   the tax rates that apply to other   income. For 2009, the maximum capital   gains rate for most people is15%. For   lower-income individuals, the rate may   be 0% on some or all of the net   capital gain. Special types of net   capital gain can be taxed at 25% or   28%. The IRS defines a Capital Asset as \"most property you own\" with a list of exclusions found in Schedule D Instructions.  None of the exclusions listed relate to Bond ETFs."}
{"text": "Medical Bill Consolidation There are definitely ways to retroactively consolidate medical bills -- there's an entire industry of companies offering debt consolidation (many of which are scummy/predatory, be careful! See https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0150-coping-debt and some decent articles at http://blog.readyforzero.com/are-there-legitimate-debt-consolidation-loans and http://blog.readyforzero.com/how-to-find-a-reputable-debt-consolidation-company). In general, what you are looking to do is take out a loan, possibly at a better interest rate than whatever you are being charged currently, and pay off the medical bills. If you are not paying interest on the medical bills and are just being allowed to spread out the payments, you are already golden and should just put up with the ups and downs. If you have any equity in a home, take out a home equity loan or line of credit, pay off your medical bills. Rates are still great right now. Even if you have no home equity to tap, if you have a steady job you might be able to get a nice small loan from a local bank or peer-to-peer lending site. Do your homework and only work with reputable companies, especially if doing things online."}
{"text": "Are Index Funds really as good as \u201cexperts\u201d claim? A lot of it boils down to these key points:"}
{"text": "Algorithmic trading in linux using python You can have a look at betabrokers. It's an simulated stock trading platform which is entirely email-based. You start with 10 000$ and you make transactions with commands in the subject line of the email (e.g. \"buy 250$ AAPL\" or \"cover 20 shares of AAPL\"). It should be straightforward to add an email interface to your python script."}
{"text": "Primerica: All it claims to be? I was a Primerica representative, left to be on my own, and then returned. Insurance is one matter that depends on the individual. Some do not need it.  For example, when I was an independent agent with an independent marketing organization (IMO) (oh yes! multi-level is everywhere, dont kid yourself) I had an upline as well. We were pushed to sell final expense [burial insurance].  As an ethical agent, I believe this is a bad business practice.  Primerica does not sell unneeded insurance to old people. How can you justify selling the elderly, insurance to cover them for $10,000, at almost 100 to 150 a month? I told my elderly potential clients, after seeing they live on a tight budget,  that they were better off purchasing a cremation policy or funeral package than burial insurances as it would save them money in the long run. Primerica is right in saying they are the only ones out there catering to the Working Class and Middle-America. Where else can you start an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) with $25 a month?  Nowhere! All the other insurance producers want more money. They don't want to spend their time with what they call \"losers\".  I love showing Poor people how the Rich get richer.  Poor people should know the truth."}
{"text": "Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed? I am very late to this forum and post - but will just respond that I am a sole proprietor, who was just audited by the IRS for 2009, and this is one of the items that they disallowed.  My husband lost his job in 2008, I was unable to get health insurance on my own due to pre-existing ( not) conditions and so we had to stay on the Cobra system.  None of the cost was funded by the employer and so I took it as a SE HI deduction on Line 29.  It was disallowed and unfortunately, due to AGI limits, I get nothing by taking it on Sch. A.  The auditor made it very clear that if the plan was not in my name, or the company's name, I could not take the deduction above the line.  In his words, \"it's not fair, but it is the law!\""}
{"text": "Who can truly afford luxury cars? How can people afford luxury cars? The same way they can afford anything: by finding it cheaply, saving for it, or adjusting their priorities. Company cars - either paid for by the company, or as part of a bonus/compensation/salary sacrifice scheme. I have friends who drive luxury cars, but they pay \u00a3200/month - not much more than, for example, finance on a used Honda People who have paid off their mortgage. There are people who spend a decade pouring every cent they have into a mortgage. Once paid off, they have \u00a3500-1500 a month \"spare\" People who have different priorities to you. I'm not bothered about big houses and holidays, but I love cars: I'd rather spend an extra \u00a3100/month on my car and have a holiday every 2 years, not every year People who only run one car in the family: if you're running two cars at \u00a3200/month, then discover one of you can work from home, you could have one \u00a3400 car and still be saving money on running costs. People who don't have (or want) children. Children are expensive, if they aren't part of your plans then you can save a lot of money for luxuries."}
{"text": "What is the correct way to report a tender offer fee on my taxes? Using a different cost basis than your broker's reporting is NOT a problem. You need to keep your own records to account for this difference. Among the other many legitimate reasons to adjust your cost basis, the most popular is when you have two brokerage accounts and sell an asset in one then buy in another. This is called a Wash Sale and is not a taxable event for you. However from the perspective of each broker with their limited information you are making a transaction with tax implications and their reported 1099 will show as such. Links:  https://www.firstinvestors.com/docs/pdf/news/tax-qa-2012.pdf"}
{"text": "When is Cash Value Life Insurance a good or bad idea? Buy term and invest the difference is certainly the standard recommendation, and for good reason. When you start looking at some sample numbers the \"buy term and invest the difference\" strategy starts to look very good. Here are the rates I found (27 yr old in Texas with good health, non-smoker, etc): $200k term life: $21/month $200k whole life: $177/month If you were to invest the difference in a retirement account for 40 years, assuming a 7% rate of return (many retirement planning estimates use 10%) you would have $411,859 at the end of that period. (If you use 10% that figure jumps to over $994k.) Needless to say, $400k in a retirement account is better than a $200k death benefit. Especially since you can't get the death benefit AND the cash value. Certainly one big difficulty is making sure you invest that difference. The best way to handle that is to set up a direct deposit that goes straight from your paycheck to the retirement account before it even touches your bank account. The next best thing would be an automatic transfer from your bank account. You may wonder 'What if I can no longer afford to invest that money?' First off, take a second and third look at your finances before you start eating into that. But if financial crisis comes and you truly can't afford to fund your own life insurance / retirement account then perhaps it will be a good thing you're not locked into a life insurance policy that forces you to pay those premiums. That extra freedom is another benefit of the \"buy term and invest the difference\" strategy. It is great that you are asking this question now while you are young. Because it is much easier to put this strategy into play now while you are young.  As far as using a cash value policy to help diversify your portfolio: I am no expert in how to allocate long term investments after maxing out my IRA and 401k. (My IRA maxes out at $5k/year, another $5k for my wife's, another $16.5k for my 401k.) Before I maxed that out I would have my house paid for and kid's education saved for. And by then it would make sense to pay a financial adviser to help you manage all those investments. They would be the one to ask about using a cash value policy similar to @lux lux's description.  I believe you should NEVER PUT YOUR MONEY INTO SOMETHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. Cash value policies are complex and I don't fully understand them. I should add that of course my calculations are subject to the standard disclaimer that those investment returns aren't guaranteed. As with any financial decision you must be willing to accept some level of risk and the question is not whether to accept risk, but how much is acceptable. That's why I used 7% in my calculation instead of just 10%. I wanted to demonstrate that you could still beat out whole life if you wanted to reduce your risk and/or if the stock market performs poorly."}
{"text": "Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it? If the government prints money recklessly and causes inflation, people will come to expect inflation, and the value of the currency will plummet, and you'll end up like Zimbabwe where a trillion dollars won't buy a loaf of bread.  If the government actually pays people for the money they borrow, they don't have this problem - and as it turns out, the US government can get pretty good rates on borrowing in general, in part because they're extraordinarily good about paying them back. (Also, inflation expectations are low, so people will accept 1-2% interest rates. If you expected inflation of 10%, you'd see people demanding something more like 12% interest rates.) (The downside of too much of this sort of borrowing is that it \"crowds out\" other borrowing, which may harm the economy. Who would lend money to / invest in a small business, if the government is paying good money and there's almost no risk at all?) Now, inflation can come into play afterward, if the Fed decides it needs to maintain \"easy money\" policies to stimulate the economy (because taxes are too high because we're paying off the debt, or because we've crowded out smaller borrowers, or something). -- In general, you can count on the the principle that if you, as the government, try to play too many games with people's money... well, people aren't stupid; they will eventually catch on, and adjust their behavior to compensate, and then you're right back where you started, but with less trust."}
{"text": "What's the point of Ford loosening financing requirements? The article states their reasons pretty clearly, and indicates that some people won't qualify under the new requirements that would have previously, they're not courting people with bad credit, they're just looking beyond credit score at other factors. They aren't opening floodgates for anyone with a pulse to get a car loan, just shifting things a bit to cast a slightly wider net. This is not new in the world of secured debt, the FHA has methodology for establishing a non-traditional credit report based on things like rental history, utility payments, auto-insurance payments, a person can't be declined an FHA loan for lack for lack of traditional credit history. I look beyond credit score as a landlord, a tenant with poor credit but a stellar rental history is more appealing than someone with great credit but a bad rental history. Vehicles and housing are very important to people, so they are likely to prioritize them above credit card payments or hospital bills. Time will tell, but it seems like a solid move in my view, they can refine their model over time and likely find a solid customer base among those who wouldn't qualify on credit score alone."}
{"text": "Returning to the UK after working in Switzerland, What to do with my Swiss Francs? A general principle in finance is that you shouldn't stick with an investment or situation just because it's how you're currently invested. You can ask yourself the following question to help you think it through: If, instead, I had enough GBP to buy 20000 CHF, would I think it was a good idea to do so? (I'm guessing the answer is probably \"no.\") This way of thinking assumes you can actually make the exchange without giving someone too big of a cut. With that much money on the line, be sure to shop around for a good exchange rate."}
{"text": "Gap in domestic Health Insurance coverage, expect higher premiums? I bought Health Insurance for myself after a period without it, and my premiums were not terrible. I was a 27 year old man, living in California, no preexisting conditions, and I paid approximately 90$ a month. This was for a standard Health Insurance plan.  However, when I moved back to NY a little while later, insurance companies wanted almost $500/month for catastrophic coverage.  So, from personal experience, my answer is that price varies widely by state. Different states have different regulations as to what Health Insurance Companies need to cover and at what price. In NY, Health Insurance companies can't charge different rates according to age. Also, in NY, there is a price spiral, where the price is so high, few people buy it, so they have to raise the price because not enough well people are in the pool, so fewer people buy it.... To test it out, go to an online insurance broker, like ehealthinsurace, and put in your proposed information, including that you haven't been covered for a period. This way you will know."}
{"text": "Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer I can ONLY WISH this would happen to me.  Get every scrap of information that you can. DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT..and then get a nice sleazy lawyer to sue the collector AND your employer if they leaked anything... Plain and simple,  it's illegal and there are very nice protections in place for such."}
{"text": "What happens to an ETF if one of the companies in the ETF gets aquired? There are a number of ways this can result. In a broad ETF, such as SPY, the S&P 500 spider, the S&P index will have 500 stocks no matter what, so a buyout would simply result in a re-shuffling of the index makeup. No buyout will happen so quickly that there's no time to choose the next stock to join the index. In your case, if the fund manager (per the terms of the prospectus) wishes to simply reallocate the index to remove the taken-over stock that's probably how he handle it.  Unless of course, the prospectus dictates otherwise. In which case, a cash dividend is a possible alternative."}
{"text": "What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland? Some of the advantages of Switzerland: Not everything is about money."}
{"text": "How to find a good third-party, 401k management/advice service? The vanilla advice is investing your age in bonds and the rest in stocks (index funds, of course). So if you're 25, have 75% in stock index fund and 25% in bond index. Of course, your 401k is tax sheltered, so you want keep bonds there, assuming you have taxable investments. When comparing specific funds, you need to pay attention to expense ratios. For example, Vanguard's SP 500 index has an expense ratio of .17%. Many mutual funds charge around 1.5%. That means every year, 1.5% of the fund total goes to the fund manager(s). And that is regardless of up or down market. Since you're young, I would start studying up on personal finance as much as possible. Everyone has their favorite books and websites. For sane, no-nonsense investment advise I would start at bogleheads.org. I also recommend two books -  This is assuming you want to set up a strategy and not fuss with it daily/weekly/monthly. The problem with so many financial strategies is they 1) don't work, i.e. try to time the market or 2) are so overly complex the gains are not worth the effort. I've gotten a LOT of help at the boglehead forums in terms of asset allocation and investment strategy. Good luck!"}
{"text": "Does dollar cost averaging really work? If you define dollar cost cost averaging as investing a specific dollar amount over a certain fixed time frame then it does not work statistically better than any other strategy for getting that money in the market.  (IE Aunt Ruth wants to invest $60,000 in the stock market and does it $5000 a month for a year.) It will work better on some markets and worse on others, but on average it won't be any better. Dollar cost averaging of this form is effectively a bet that gains will occur at the end of the time period rather than the beginning, sometimes this bet will pay off, other times it won't. A regular investment contribution of what you can afford over an indefinite time period (IE 401k contribution) is NOT Dollar Cost Averaging but it is an effective investment strategy."}
{"text": "How to check the paypal's current exchange rate? The Paypal 'classic' site option has now been removed and you will not know what you will be charged UNTIL YOU COMMIT TO BUY.  Paypal told  me today ( brexit day 24th ) that their site is NOT connected to the Ebay site so when Ebay tells me '$77.00 approximately \u00a352.43' for an item I would in fact pay \u00a359.62.   You will Not be aware of this UNTIL you commit to by. Paypal informs me there are no plans to restore the 'classic' option Paypal site."}
{"text": "Using pivot points to trade in the short term Pivots Points are significant levels technical analysts can use to determine directional movement, support and resistance. Pivot Points use the prior period's high, low and close to formulate future support and resistance. In this regard, Pivot Points are predictive or leading indicators. There are at least five different versions of Pivot Points. I will focus on Standard Pivot Points here as they are the simplest. If you are looking to trade off daily charts you would work out your Pivot Points from the prior month's data. For example, Pivot Points for first trading day of February would be based on the high, low and close for January. They remain the same for the entire month of February. New Pivot Points would then be calculated on the first trading day of March using the high, low and close for February. To work out the Standard Pivot Points you use the High, Low and Close from the previous period (i.e. for daily charts it would be from the previous month) in the following formulas: You will now have 5 horizontal lines: P, R1, R2, S1 and S2 which will set the general tone for price action over the next month. A move above the Pivot Point P suggests strength with a target to the first resistance R1. A break above first resistance shows even more strength with a target to the second resistance level R2. The converse is true on the downside. A move below the Pivot Point P suggests weakness with a target to the first support level S1. A break below the first support level shows even more weakness with a target to the second support level S2. The second resistance and support levels (R2 & S2) can also be used to identify potentially overbought and oversold situations. A move above the second resistance level R2 would show strength, but it would also indicate an overbought situation that could give way to a pullback. Similarly, a move below the second support level S2 would show weakness, but would also suggest a short-term oversold condition that could give way to a bounce. This could be used together with a momentum indicator such as RSI or Stochastic to confirm overbought or oversold conditions.  Pivot Points offer a methodology to determine price direction and then set support and resistance levels, however, it is important to confirm Pivot Point signals with other technical analysis indicators, such as candle stick reversal patterns, stochastic and general Support and Resistance Levels in the price action. These pivot points can be handy but I actually haven\u2019t used them for trade setups and entries myself. I prefer to use candle sticks together with stochastic to determine potential turning points and then take out trades based on these. You can then use the Pivot Points Resistance and Support levels to help you estimate profit targets or areas to start becoming cautious and start tightening your stops. Say, for example, you have gone long from a signal you got a few days ago, you are now in profit and the price is now approaching R2 whilst the Stochastic is approaching overbought, you might want to start tightening your stop loss as you might expect some weakness in the price in the near future. If prices continue up you keep increasing your profits, if prices do reverse then you keep the majority of your existing profits. This would become part of your trade management. If you are after finding potential market turning points and take out trades based on these, then I would suggest using candlestick charting reversal patterns for your trade setups. The patterns I like to use most in my trading can be described as either the Hammer or One White Soldier for Bullish reversals and Shooting Star or One Black Crow for Bearish reversals. Below are diagrams of where to place your entries and exits on both Bullish and Bearish reversal patterns. Bullish Reversal Pattern   So after some period of weakness in the price you would look for a bullish day where the price closes above the previous day\u2019s high, you place your buy order here just before market close and place your initial stop just below the low of the day. You would apply this either for an uptrending stock where the price has retracted from or near the trendline or Moving Average, or a ranging stock where price is bouncing off the support line. The trade is reinforced if the Stochastic is in or near the oversold and crossing back upwards, volume on the up day is higher than volume on the down days, and the market as a whole is moving up as well. The benefit with this entry is that you are in early so you capture any bullish move up at the open of the next day, such as gaps. The drawbacks are that you need to be in front of your screen before market close to get your price close to the market close and you may get whipsawed if prices reverse at the open of the next day, thus being stopped out with a small loss. As the price moves up you would move your stop loss to just below the low of each day. Alternative Bullish Reversal Entry  An alternative, entry would be to wait for after market close and then start your analysis (easier to do after market close than whilst the market is open and less emotions involved). Place a stop buy order to buy at the open of next trading day just above the high of the bullish green candle. Your stop is placed exactly the same, just below the low of the green bullish candle. The benefits of this alternative entry include you avoid the trade if the price reverses at the open of next day, thus avoiding a potential small loss (in other words you wait for further confirmation on the next trading day), and you avoid trading during market open hours where your emotions can get the better of you. I prefer to do my trading after market close so prefer this alternative. The drawback with this alternative is that you may miss out on bullish news prior to and at the next open, so miss out on some potential profits if prices do gap up at the open. This may also increase your loss on the trade if the prices gaps up then reverses and hits your stop on the same day. However, if you choose this method, then you will just need to incorporate this into your trading plan as potential slippage. Bearish Reversal Pattern   So after some short period of strength in the price you would look for a bearish day where the price closes below the previous day\u2019s low, you place your sell short order here just before market close and place your initial stop just above the high of the day. You would apply this either for an downtrending stock where the price has retracted from or near the trendline or Moving Average, or a ranging stock where price is bouncing off the resistance line. The trade is reinforced if the Stochastic is in or near the overbought and crossing back downwards, volume on the up day is higher than volume on the up days, and the market as a whole is moving down as well. The benefit with this entry is that you are in early so you capture any bearish move down at the open of the next day, such as gaps. The drawbacks are that you need to be in front of your screen before market close to get your price close to the market close and you may get whipsawed if prices reverse at the open of the next day, thus being stopped out with a small loss. As the price moves down you would move your stop loss to just above the high of each day. Alternative Bearish Reversal Entry   An alternative, entry would be to wait for after market close and then start your analysis (easier to do after market close than whilst the market is open and less emotions involved). Place a stop sell short order to sell at the open of next trading day just below the low of the bearish red candle. Your stop is placed exactly the same, just above the high of the red bearish candle. The benefits of this alternative entry include you avoid the trade if the price reverses at the open of next day, thus avoiding a potential small loss (in other words you wait for further confirmation on the next trading day), and you avoid trading during market open hours where your emotions can get the better of you. I prefer to do my trading after market close so prefer this alternative. The drawback with this alternative is that you may miss out on bearish news prior to and at the next open, so miss out on some potential profits if prices do gap down at the open. This may also increase your loss on the trade if the prices gaps down then reverses and hits your stop on the same day. However, if you choose this method, then you will just need to incorporate this into your trading plan as potential slippage. You could also trade other candle stick patterns is similar ways. And with the long entries you can also use them to get into the market with longer term trend following strategies, you would usually just use a larger stop for longer term trading. To determine the size of your order you would use the price difference between your entry and your stop. You should not be risking more than 1% of your trading capital on any one trade. So if your trading capital is $20,000 your risk per trade should be $200. If you were looking to place your buy at 5.00 and had your initial stop at $4.60, you would divide $200 by $0.40 to get 500 stocks to buy. Using this form of money management you keep your losses down to a maximum of $200 (some trades may be a bit higher due to some slippage which you should allow for in your trading plan), which becomes your R-multiple. Your aim is to have your average win at 3R or higher (3 x your average loss), which will give you a positive expectancy even with a win ratio under 50%. Once you have written down your trading rules you can search stock charts for potential setups. When you find one you can backtest the chart for similar setup over the past few years. For each setup in the past jot down the prices you would have entered at, where you would have set your stop, work out your R, and go day by day, moving your stop as you go, and see where you would have been stopped out. Work out your profit or loss in terms of R for each setup and then add them up. If you get a positive R multiple, then this may be a good stock to trade on this setup. If you get a negative R multiple, then maybe give this stock a miss and look for the next setup. You can setup watch-lists of stocks that perform well for both long setups and short setups, and then trade these stocks when you get a new signal. It can take some time starting off, but once you have got your watch-lists for a particular setup, you just need to keep monitoring those stocks. You can create other watch-lists for other type of setups you have backtested as well."}
{"text": "Are there any credit cards with a statement period longer than 1 month? Most credit cards will allow you to pick the closing date. In fact almost every bill with the exception of utilities that collected usage by reading a meter at the house will either let you pick the closing date each month, or at least have several to pick from. They won't let you pick the length, but they will let you pick the day of the month. When I worked a job that paid once a month. I wanted all my bills due early in the month: get paid, pay bill, know how much I have left. When I went back to every other week spreading them out made more sense. No credit card had a problem with this. The transitional cycle was not the correct length, but after that it was fine. As Dheer pointed out extending the cycle to 90 days would involve them extending credit for much longer than they would be comfortable. Also the goal of keeping utilization under 30% would be very difficult, you would have to keep your spending per month to less than 10% of your credit limit. Some people have trouble not falling behind on credit card bills, having to set aside the money to pay the bill every 90 day may be way to tough for many people."}
{"text": "Putting borrowed money into an SIPP You're creating more liabilities for yourself in the future, although yes this could definitely be a profitable move for you. However, some small mistakes you made, from what I can see using the tools at Hargreaves Lansdown. The first, is that the government relief would only be 20%, not 60%. The second is that the tax relief goes directly into the SIPP, it's not something you get given back to you in cash. In order for this to be worthwhile, you need to be sure that you can make a post-tax gain of more than 3.4% on this money per year - which should be very feasible. It sounds like you have enough security that you could afford to take this risk."}
{"text": "Double-entry bookkeeping: How to account for non-monetary taxable benefits received from employer? I can say that I got X dollars from an account like \"Income:Benefits\"... but where do I credit that money to? \"Expenses:Groceries\" Yes doesn't feel right, since I never actually spent that money on food,  You did, didn't you? You got food. I'm guessing there's an established convention for this already?  Doubt it. Established conventions in accounting are for businesses, and more specifically - public companies. So you can find a GAAP, or IFRS guidelines on how to book benefits (hint: salary expense), but it is not something you may find useful in your own household accounting. Do what is most convenient for you. Since it is a double-booking system - you need to have an account on the other side. Expenses:Groceries doesn't feel right? Add Expenses:Groceries:Benefits or Expenses:Benefits or whatever. When you do your expense and cash-flow reports - you can exclude both the income and the expense benefits accounts if you track them separately, so that they don't affect your tracking of the \"real\" expenses."}
{"text": "How to account for startup costs for an LLC from personal money? You don't even need to formally loan the LLC any money. You pay for the setup costs out of pocket, and then once the LLC is formed, you reimburse yourself (just like with an expense report). Essentially you submit an expense report to the LLC for the startup costs, and the LLC pays out a check to you, categorized for the startup expenses."}
{"text": "What is the difference between \u201cgood debt\u201d vs. \u201cbad debt\u201d? 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\u2014vacations, shopping, spa days\u2014is bad debt."}
{"text": "Does Degiro charge per order or per transaction? An order is not a transaction.  It is a request to make a transaction.  If the transaction never occurs (e.g. because you cancel the order), then no fees should be charged. will I get the stamp duty back (the 0.5% tax I paid on the shares purchase) when I sell the shares? I'm not a UK tax expert, but accorging to this page is seems like you only pay stamp tax when you buy shares, and don't get it back when you sell (but may be responsible for capital gains taxes).  That makes sense, because there's always a buyer and a seller, so if you got the tax back when you sold, the tax would effectively be transferred from the buyer to the seller, and the government would never collect anything."}
{"text": "How can I determine if my rate of return is \u201cgood\u201d for the market I am in? A good way to measure the performance of your investments is over the long term. 25-30% returns are easy to get! It's not going to be 25-30% in a single year, though. You shouldn't expect more than about 4% real (inflation-adjusted) return per year, on average, over the long term, unless you have reason to believe that you're doing a better job of predicting the market than the intellectual and investment might of Wall Street - which is possible, but hard. (Pro tip: It's actually quite easy to outdo the market at large over the short term just by getting lucky or investing in risky askets in a good year. Earning this sort of return consistently over many years, though, is stupidly hard. Usually you'll wipe out your gains several years into the process, instead.) The stock market fluctuates like crazy, which is why they tell you not to invest any money you're likely to need sooner than about 5 years out and you switch your portfolio from stocks to bonds as you approach and enter retirement. The traditional benchmark for comparison, as others have mentioned, is the rate of return (including dividends) from the Standard and Poors 500 Index. These are large stable companies which make up the core of larger United States business. (Most people supplement these with some smaller companies and overseas companies as a part of the portfolio.)"}
{"text": "Non US-resident, need to file 83b election TODAY with the IRS - I have an SSN but it says \u201cvalid for work only with DHS auth\u201d - is this OK? Google that \"valid for work...\" phrase. You'll find that you have a SSN;  it is valid for many purposes;  it is valid for obtaining work, only when accompanied by DHS authorization. Doesn't anyone know how to use commas anymore?"}
{"text": "I'm self-employed with my own LLC. How should I pay myself, given my situation? You're conflating LLC with Corporation. They're different animals. LLC does not have \"S\" or \"C\" designations, those are just for corporations. I think what you're thinking about is electing pass through status with the IRS. This is the easiest way to go. The company can pay you at irregular intervals in irregular amounts. The IRS doesn't care about these payments. The company will show profit or loss at the end of the year (those payments to you aren't expenses and don't reduce your profit). You report this on your schedule C and pay tax on that amount. (Your state tax authority will have its own rules about how this works.) Alternatively you can elect to have the LLC taxed as a corporation. I don't know of a good reason why someone in your situation would do this, but I'm not an accountant so there may be reasons out there. My recommendation is to get an accountant to prepare your taxes. At least once -- if your situation is the same next year you can use the previous year's forms to figure out what you need to fill in. The investment of a couple hundred dollars is worthwhile. On the question of buying a home in the next couple of years... yes, it does affect things. (Pass through status? Probably doesn't affect much.) If all of your income is coming from self-employment, be prepared for hassles when you are shopping for a mortgage. You can ask around, maybe you have a friendly loan officer at your credit union who knows your history. But in general they will want to see at least two years of self-employment tax returns. You can plan for this in advance: talk to a couple of loan officers now to see what the requirements will be. That way you can plan to be ready when the time comes."}
{"text": "Investment property refinance following a low appraisal? If I was you I would not borrow from my 401K and shred the credit card offer.  Both are very risky ventures, and you are already in a situation that is risky.  Doing either will increase your risk significantly. I'd also consider selling the rental house.  You seem to be cutting very close on the numbers if you can't raise 17K in cash to refi the house.  What happens if you need a roof on the rental, and an HVAC in your current home?   My assumption is that you will not sell the home, okay I get it.  I would recommend either giving your tenant a better deal then the have now, or something very similar.  Having a good tenant is an asset."}
{"text": "Can I participate in trading Facebook shares on their IPO day from any brokerage? Yes. The real question is whether you should. You should consider your investment options, and take into the account that there's much more hype than value in many companies."}
{"text": "Can a company block a specific person from buying its stock? In the UK, this is the very definition of a Public Limited Company.    A Limited Company can restrict how its stock is trades and who can buy and sell and when, a Public Limited Company cannot. Most stock exchanges will only allow Public Limited Company stock to be traded. Therefore a company can control who its stock holders are or be traded on a Stock Exchange."}
{"text": "What is the most effective saving money method? In a word: budgeting. In order to have money left over at the end of the month, you need to be intentional about how you spend it. That is all a budget is: a plan for spending your money.  Few people have the discipline and abundance of income necessary to just wing it and not overspend. By making a plan at home ahead of time, you can decide how much you will spend on food, entertainment, etc, and ensure you have enough money left over for things like rent/mortgage and utility bills, and still have enough for longer-term savings goals like a car purchase or retirement.  If you don't have a plan, it's simply not reasonable to expect yourself to know if you have enough money for a Venti cup as you drive past the Starbucks. A good plan will allow you to spend on things that are important to you while ensuring that you have enough to meet your obligations and long-term goals.  Another thing a budget will do for you is highlight where your problem is. If your problem is that you are spending too much money on luxuries, the budget will show you that. It might also reveal to you that your rent is too high, or your energy consumption is too great. On the other hand, you might realize after budgeting that your spending is reasonable, but your income is too low. In that case, you should focus on spending more of your time working or looking for a better paying job."}
{"text": "Finance, Social Capital IPOA.U (See also the question How many stocks I can exercise per stock warrant? and my comments there). Clearly, at the prices you quote, it does not seem sensible to exercise your warrants at the moment, since you can still by \"units\" (1 stock + 1/3 warrant) and bare stock at below the $11.50 it would cost you to exercise your warrant.  So when would exercising a warrant become \"a sensible thing to do\"? Obviously, if the price of the bare stock (which you say is currently $10.12) were to sufficiently exceed $11.50, then it would clearly be worth exercising a warrant and immediately selling the stock you receive (\"sufficiently exceed\" to account for any dealing costs in selling the newly-acquired stock). However, looking more closely, $11.50 isn't the correct \"cut-off\" price. Consider three of the units you bought at $10.26 each. For $30.78 you received three shares of stock and one warrant. For an additional $11.50 ($42.28 in total) you can have a total of four shares of stock (at the equivalent of $10.57 each). So, if the price of the bare stock rises above $10.57, then it could become sensible to exercise one warrant and sell four shares of stock (again allowing a margin for the cost of selling the stock). The trading price of the original unit (1 stock + 1/3 warrant) shouldn't (I believe) directly affect your decision to exercise warrants, although it would be a factor in deciding whether to resell the units you've already got. As you say, if they are now trading at $10.72, then having bought them at $10.26 you would make a profit if sold. Curiously, unless I'm missing something, or the figures you quote are incorrect, the current price of the \"unit\" (1 stock + 1/3 warrant; $10.72) seems overpriced compared to the price of the bare stock ($10.12). Reversing the above calculation, if bare stock is trading at $10.12, then four shares would cost $40.48. Deducting the $11.50 cost-of-exercising, this would value three \"combined units\" at $28.98, or $9.66 each, which is considerably below the market price you quote. One reason the \"unit\" (1 stock + 1/3 warrant) is trading at $10.72 instead of $9.66 could be that the market believes the price of the bare share (currently $10.12) will eventually move towards or above $11.50. If that happens, the option of exercising warrants at $11.50 becomes more and more attractive. The premium presumably reflects this potential future benefit. Finally, \"Surely I am misunderstand the stock IPO's intent.\": presumably, the main intent of Social Capital was to raise as much money as possible through this IPO to fund their future activities. The \"positive view\" is that they expect this future activity to be profitable, and therefore the price of ordinary stock to go up (at least as far as, ideally way beyond) the $11.50 exercise price, and the offering of warrants will be seen as a \"thank you\" to those investors who took the risk of taking part in the IPO. A completely cynical view would be that they don't really care what happens to the stock price, but that \"offering free stuff\" (or what looks like \"free stuff\") will simply attract more \"punters\" to the IPO. In reality, the truth is probably somewhere between those two extremes."}
{"text": "When paying estimated quarterly taxes, can I prorate the amount based on the irregular payment due dates? Varying the amount to reflect income during the quarter is entirely legitimate -- consider someone like a salesman whose income is partly driven by commissions, and who therefore can't predict the total. The payments are quarterly precisely so you can base them on actual results. Having said that,  I suspect that as long as you show Good Intent they won't quibble if your estimate is off by a few percent. And they'll never complain if you overpay. So it may not be worth the effort to change the payment amount for that last quarter unless the income is very different."}
{"text": "Fractional Reserve Banking and Insolvency Your question points out how most fractional reserve banks are only a couple of defaults away from insolvency. The problem arises because of the terms around the depositors' money.  When a customer deposits money into a bank they are loaning their money to the bank (and the bank takes ownership of the money).  Deposit and savings account are considered \"on-demand\" accounts where the customer is told they can retrieve their money at any time.  This is a strange type of loan, is it not?  No other loan works this way.  There are always terms around loans - how often the borrower will make payments, when will the borrower pay back the loan, what is the total time frame of the loan, etc..  The bank runs into problems because the time frame on the money they borrowed (i.e. deposits) does not match the time frame on the money they are lending."}
{"text": "Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed? There are 3 options (option 2 may not be available to you) When you invest 18,000 in a Traditional 401k, you don't pay taxes on the 18k the year you invest, but you pay taxes as you withdraw.  There's a Required Minimum Distribution required after age 70.  If your income is low enough, you won't pay taxes on your withdrawals.  Otherwise, you pay as if it is income.  However, you don't pay payroll tax (Social Security / Medicare) on the withdrawals.  You pay no tax until you withdraw. When you invest 18,000 in a Roth 401k, you pay income tax on the 18,000 in the year it's invested, but you pay nothing after that. When you invest 18,000 in a taxable investment account, you pay income tax on that 18,000 in the year it's invested, you pay tax on dividends (even if they're re-invested), and then you pay capital gains tax when you withdraw. But remember, tax rules and tax rates are only good so long as Congress doesn't change the applicable laws."}
{"text": "How do I know when I am financially stable/ready to move out on my own? One major concern with moving out on your own is can you afford rent each month, be it an apartment or a house payment. You'll hear people say that anywhere from 25% to 40% of your monthly after-tax income should go to housing. 40% seems very high to me and quite risky. I'd go for closer to 30% of your monthly after-tax income and not any higher, but that's just my opinion.  I had a friend that moved out of his parents house about the same time that I did. He bought himself a house, and then he immediately started looking for roommates to help pay for his house. It really was a good idea, and I wish that I'd been in a position to do the same, because I'm sure that it saved him a lot of money for the first couple of years. Apart from that, my only advise would be to get a house if you can afford it. 1) Interest rates are very low right now, and 2) if you're paying rent to someone (for an apartment or whatever) then you're just throwing your hard-earned money away. Good luck!"}
{"text": "Fees aside, what factors could account for performance differences between U.S. large-cap index ETFs? The \"ideal world\" index fund of any asset class is a perfect percentage holding of all underlying assets with immediate rebalancing that aligns to every change in the index weighting while trading in a fully liquid market with zero transaction costs. One finance text book that describes this is Introduction to Finance: Markets, Investments, and Financial Management, see chapter 11.  Practically, the transaction costs and liquidity make this unworkable. There are several deviations between what the \"ideal world algorithm\" (\"the algorithm\") says you should do and what is actually done. Each of these items addresses a real-world solution to various costs of managing a passive index fund. (And they are good solutions.) However, any deviation from the ideal index fund will have a risk. An investor evaluating their choices is left to pick the lowest fees with the least deviation from the ideal index fund. (It is customary to ignore whether the results are in excess or deficit to the ideal). So your formula is: This is also described in the above book."}
{"text": "How do amortization schedules work and when are they used? Simply put, for a mortgage, interest is charged only on the balance as well. Think of it this way - on a $100K 6% loan, on day one, 1/2% is $500, and the payment is just under $600, so barely $100 goes to principal. But the last payment of $600 is nearly all principal.  By the way, you are welcome to make extra principal payments along with the payment due each month. An extra $244 in this example, paid each and every month, will drop the term to just 15 years. Think about that, 40% higher payment, all attacking the principal, and you cut the term by 1/2 the time."}
{"text": "Mortgage or not? In addition to the other answers, I think you would also need to account for the increased utility and maintenance costs on the more expensive house. Typically it is recommended to budget 1% to 4% the cost of the home per year for routine maintenance. While it likely won't cost that much every year, you will have those expensive items come up (e.g. roof, HVAC) that come up periodically. The larger house will also cost more to heat/cool. Depending on where you live could also have increased property taxes."}
{"text": "Any reason to keep IRAs separate? Can't see why would you need to track the sources of the original funds. Can't think of a reason not to consolidate, if at all it will only make the management of your IRA more convenient, and may be even cheaper (if the fees depend on the account value...)."}
{"text": "Term loan overpayment options: applied to principal, or\u2026? It may have been the standard practice for a long time, and indeed it still is the common practice for my credit union to apply all excess payment directly to the principal. At the risk of sounding a little cynical, I will suggest that there is a profit motive in the move to not applying excess payments to principal unless directly instructed to do so. Interest accrued isn't reduced until the principal is reduced, so it benefits the creditor to both have the money in advance and to not apply it to the principal. You should probably move forward with the expectation that all of your creditors are adversarial even if only in a passive-aggressive manner."}
{"text": "Cash flow implications of converting primary mortgaged residence to rental The rental income is indeed taxable income, but you reduce the taxable portion of it by deducting expenses (including mortgage interest, maintenance, insurance, HOA, real estate tax, and of course depreciation). Due to the depreciation, you may end up breaking even, or having very little taxable income. Note that when you sell the property, your basis is reduced by the depreciation you were allowed to deduct (even if you haven't deducted it for whatever reason), and also the personal residence exclusion might no longer be applicable - i.e.: you'll have to pay capital gains tax. You will not be able to deduct a loss though if you sell now, so it may be better to depreciate it as a rental, rather then sell at a loss that won't affect your taxes. Also, consider the fact that the basis for the depreciation is not the basis you currently have in the property (because you're under water). You have to remember that when calculating the taxes. This is not a tax advice, and you should seek a professional help."}
{"text": "How should my brother and I structure our real estate purchase? We\u2019re buying the home right over $200,000 so that means he will only need to put down (as a \u2018gift\u2019) roughly $7000. I'm with the others, don't call this a gift unless it is a gift.   I'd have him check with the bank that previously refused him a mortgage if putting both of you on a mortgage would allay their concerns.  Your cash flow would be paying the mortgage payment and if you failed to do so, then they could fall back on his.  That may make more sense to them, even if they would deny each of you a loan on your own.  This works for them because either of you is responsible for the whole loan.  It works for him because he was already willing to be responsible for the whole loan.  And your alternative plan makes you responsible for the whole loan, so this is just as good for you.   At what percentage would you suggest splitting ownership and future expenses? Typically a cash/financing partnership would be 50/50, but since it\u2019s only a 3.5% down-payment instead of 20% is that still fair? Surprisingly enough, a 3.5% down-payment that accumulates is about half the equity of a 20% down-payment.  So your suggestion of a 25%-75% split makes sense if 20% would give a 50%-50% split.   I expected it to be considerably lower.  The way that I calculated it was to have his share increase by his equity share of the \"rent\" which I set to the principal plus interest payment for a thirty year loan.  With a 20% down-payment, this would give him 84% equity.  With 3.5%, about 40% equity.  I'm not sure why 84% equity should be the equivalent of a 50% share, but it may be a side effect of other expenses.  Perhaps taking property taxes out would reduce the equity share.   Note that if you increase the down-payment to 20%, your mortgage payment will drop substantially.  The difference in interest between 3.5% and 20% equity is a couple hundred dollars.  Also, you'll be able to eliminate any PMI payment at 20%.   It could be argued that if he pays a third of the monthly mortgage payment, that that would give him the same 50% equity stake on a 3.5% down-payment as he would get with a 20% down-payment.  The problem there is that then he is effectively subsidizing your monthly payment.  If he were to stop doing that for some reason, you'd have what is effectively a 50% increase in your rent.  It would be safer for you to handle the monthly payment while he handles the down-payment.   If you couldn't pay the mortgage, it sounds like he is in a position to buy out your equity, rent the property, and take over the mortgage payment.  If he stopped being able to pay his third of the mortgage, it's not evident that you'd be able to pick up the slack from him much less buy him out.  And it's unlikely that you'd find someone else willing to replace him under those terms.  But your brother could construct things such that in the face of tragedy, you'd inherit his equity in the house.  If you're making the entire mortgage payment, that's a stable situation.   He's not at risk because he could take over the mortgage if necessary.  You're not at risk because you inherit his equity share and can afford the monthly payment.  So even in the face of tragedy, things can go on.  And that's important, as otherwise you could lose your equity in the house."}
{"text": "Looking for suggestions for relatively safe instruments if another crash were to happen One approach is to invest in \"allocation\" mutual funds that use various methods to vary their asset allocation. Some examples (these are not recommendations; just to show you what I am talking about): A good way to identify a useful allocation fund is to look at the \"R-squared\" (correlation) with indexes on Morningstar. If the allocation fund has a 90-plus R-squared with any index, it probably isn't doing a lot. If it's relatively uncorrelated, then the manager is not index-hugging, but is making decisions to give you different risks from the index. If you put 10% of your portfolio in a fund that varies allocation to stocks from 25% to 75%, then your allocation to stocks created by that 10% would be between 2.5% to 7.5% depending on the views of the fund manager. You can use that type of calculation to invest enough in allocation funds to allow your overall allocation to vary within a desired range, and then you could put the rest of your money in index funds or whatever you normally use. You can think of this as diversifying across investment discipline in addition to across asset class. Another approach is to simply rely on your already balanced portfolio and enjoy any downturns in stocks as an opportunity to rebalance and buy some stocks at a lower price. Then enjoy any run-up as an opportunity to rebalance and sell some stocks at a high price.  The difficulty of course is going through with the rebalance. This is one advantage of all-in-one funds (target date, \"lifecycle,\" balanced, they have many names), they will always go through with the rebalance for you - and you can't \"see\" each bucket in order to get stressed about it. i.e. it's important to think of your portfolio as a whole, not look at the loss in the stocks portion. An all-in-one fund keeps you from seeing the stocks-by-themselves loss number, which is a good way to trick yourself into behaving sensibly. If you want to rebalance \"more aggressively\" then look at value averaging (search for \"value averaging\" on this site for example). A questionable approach is flat-out market-timing, where you try to get out and back in at the right times; a variation on this would be to buy put options at certain times; the problem is that it's just too hard. I think it makes more sense to buy an allocation fund that does this for you. If you do market time, you want to go in and out gradually, and value averaging is one way to do that."}
{"text": "What mix of credit lines and loans is optimal for my credit score? Please do not conflate number of credit cards with amount of debt. Consider two scenarios, The latter scenario yields much better credit scoring. Many recommendation sources suggest the following, Although your credit score seems very important, it is only important when you have financial interactions (such as applying for credit or services) where the other party makes decisions based upon the score. You should only obtain loans and credit when you want and it makes sense based upon your needs; choosing to live your life to serve credit scoring agencies may not be your happy place."}
{"text": "Can a CEO short his own company? (yes, this should probably be a comment, not an answer ... but it's a bit long). I don't know what the laws are specifically about this, but my grandfather used to be on the board of a company that he helped to found ... and back in the 1980s, there was a period when the stock price suddenly quadrupled One of the officers in the company, knowing that the stock was over-valued, sold around a third of his shares ... and he got investigated for insider trading.  I don't recall if he was ever charged with anything, but there were some false rumors spreading about the company at the time (one was that they had something that you could sprinkle on meat to reduce the cholesterol).  I don't know where the rumors came from, but I've always assumed it was some sort of pump-and-dump stock manipulation, as this was decades before they were on the S&P 500 small cap. After that, the company had a policy where officers had to announce they were selling stock, and that it wouldn't execute for some time (1? 2 weeks? something like that).  I don't know if that was the SEC's doing, or something that the company came up with on their own."}
{"text": "Lost credit card replaced with new card and new numbers. Credit score affected? The true answer is it depends because  it is up to the credit card issuer to follow the right path when issuing a replacement credit card. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/will-replacement-card-hurt-my-score.aspx Typically, issuers will transfer the account history to the new trade line, says Barry Paperno, the consumer operations manager at FICO, the creator of the FICO scoring formula. The new account should have the old open date, so you should retain your payment history, he says. The credit limit and balance should also stay the same. http://blog.credit.com/2014/02/lost-or-stolen-credit-card-hurt-your-credit-scores-76724/ How Issuers Report Replacement Cards We asked the major card issuers how they report replacement cards to credit reporting agencies: American Express: The new card has the same open date and \u201cMember Since\u201d year as the previous card. The balance on the old account number is transferred to the new account number. All payment history transfers over. Bank of America: All transactions and account history are transferred to the new account number when there is a card replacement or renewal. Capital One: The new account number with all the original account data (original open date, etc.) is reported along with a notification to the bureaus that the new account number is replacing the old.  The two tradelines can then be \u2018merged\u2019 into one, so that all the applicable payment history, balance, etc. is now under the new account number. Chase: The original tradeline does not change. The history on the account remains, just the account number field is updated with the new account number. There is no \u201cnew\u201d tradeline in this scenario."}
{"text": "What should I be aware of as a young investor? Just don't buy any kind of paper and you will be fine :-) And don't forget most of these 'blue-chip companies' sell marketing garbage which have no real market.  Finally, make all decissions slooooowly and after extensive research."}
{"text": "What does this statement regarding put options mean? The trader has purchased 1095 options, each of which is a contract which entitles him to sell 100 shares of Cisco stock for $16 a share. He paid $71 for each contract (71 cents a share x 100) which is roughly $78k total. He will get $109,500 for each dollar below $16 Cisco's stock is when he exercises it (he can buy the stock for the going rate and then sell it for $16 immediately), or he can sell the option itself to someone else for a similar gain (usually a little more, especially if the option has a long time until it expires). If the option expires when the stock is over $16/share, he gets nothing; i.e. the original $78k is lost. For reference, Cisco's stock was trading at $17.14/share as of market close on March 18, 2010. The share price had recently been boosted by the recent news that they would be paying a quarterly dividend. It has been heading mostly downward since February 9, after they announced that they're not expecting profits to be as good as the analysts thought they would be: they claim that people aren't buying too much networking equipment just now, and they're also facing mounting competition from the likes of HP and Juniper for switches, and Aruba / HP / Motorola for wireless devices. They may lose market share or need to cut prices, hurting profits. Either way, there's certainly a real possibility of their stock going below $16 in the next few months, so people are willing to pay for those options. (Disclosure: I work for Aruba, who competes with Cisco. I also own shares of Aruba, possess assorted stock options and similar equity grants, and participate in the employee stock purchase program.  I also own shares in Cisco indirectly through various mutual funds and ETFs.)"}
{"text": "Pay down on second mortage when underwater? There are programs out there which will let you refinance even when underwater, under the Government's HARP program. You are overpaying by nearly $7,000 per year compared to a refinance to 4.5%. A classic example of how the bubble hurt people who overextended themselves a bit as housing shot up.  The bank risks a $50K loss if you default or short sell this property. I'd go in and sit down with a branch manager and ask what they can do to recast the loan to a lower rate as you are ready, wiling and able to keep the house and make your payments. Good luck."}
{"text": "Where to start with personal finance? The Money Girl (Quick and Dirty Tips for a richer life) Podcast is a pretty good source for this type of information. Some Recent Topics:"}
{"text": "Can my rent to own equity be used as a downpayment? The home owner will knock 20% off the price of the house. If the house is worth $297K, then 20% is just a discount your landlord is offering.  So your actual purchase price is $237K, and therefore a bank would have to lend you $237K. Since the house is worth more than the loan, you have equity.  20% to be more accurate.  Another way to say is, the bank only wants to loan you 80% of the value of the item securing the loan. If you default on day one, they can sell the house to somebody else for $296K and get a 20% return on their loan. So this 20% you are worried about isn't actually money that anybody gives anybody else, it is just a concept."}
{"text": "What are the opportunities/implications of having a designated clearing bank in my home country? For an individual there will not be much impact immediately. This arrangement will help Corporates and Banks settle payments more easily. - It would typically help companies dealing with Yuan [Buying or selling to China or Countries that accept Yuan as payment] to make payments at a cheaper cost & in less time. - In the near future it would make it easier for companies to invest more into China financial markets - It would also open up / create new market for derivatives and other allied products - It would also make Singapore a market place for Yuan outside China [and Hong Kong] resulting in more money and related product. In a related move this would make it easy for Singapore Central Bank to invest in China.   Once the markets matures more, there could be some products for Individuals."}
{"text": "How to incentivize a real-estate broker to find me a cheap house Having just gone through this process as a buyer via broker in Israel, here are my thoughts: Tl;dr: An incentive such as you are suggesting would not be particularly helpful. In this case, your best option is to spend your efforts shopping for a broker that you can trust. The rest: Your main concern is that the broker will find you a place at the top of your budget and will not negotiate aggressively. The main person responsible for negotiation is YOU. You are paying for the property, and you are putting in bids: not your agent. The agent should advise you, but in the end should pass along your bids directly. The real problem is that you, as the buyer, generally do not have as close a feel for the pulse of the market as the broker, who should be quite aware of recent closings in the neighborhood. Therefore, there are a few things that you can do to help arm yourself: At the end of the day, if you have decided to use a broker, you are making a large financial commitment to hire someone to find you the best place, and therefore it may be more important at this point to spend your efforts shopping around for the best broker, rather than trying to figure out how to outsmart her. You are correct: buyers' agents DO have incentives to sell you on places that may not be right or good for you. For example: Although your scheme may help a bit with the first concern, it will not help at all with the other two, which I assume to be much more likely problems in any event. Instead, find recommendations for brokers from others. Have the broker show you a few properties and put in some low bids to get a feel for how she handles them. Discuss the properties together and try to assess if they really have your interests in mind. You are paying a lot for their service, and you should make sure, as much as possible, that they really are working honestly and in your best interest. A good broker who knows his market and is trying to help you can be a great asset in the opaque, cutthroat real estate market. \u05d4\u05d1\u05dc \u05d4\u05d1\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd, \u05d4\u05db\u05dc \u05d4\u05d1\u05dc. \u05e1\u05d5\u05e3 \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8 \u05d4\u05db\u05dc \u05e0\u05e9\u05de\u05e2, \u05d0\u05ea \u05d4\u05d0\u05dc\u05d5\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd \u05d9\u05d9\u05e8\u05d0 \u05d5\u05d0\u05ea \u05de\u05e6\u05d5\u05d5\u05ea\u05d9\u05d5 \u05e9\u05de\u05d5\u05e8 \u05db\u05d9 \u05d6\u05d4 \u05db\u05dc \u05d4\u05d0\u05d3\u05dd. Good luck!"}
{"text": "Is it better to buy a computer on my credit card, or on credit from the computer store? As far as the money goes, it all comes down to the terms.  What is going to cost you the least?  Look for hidden fees and costs with the store credit.  You will need to read the fine print of the credit agreement some automatically sign you up for a service that will cost you extra money every month.   Compare what the costs are going to be over the term you will pay it off.  A good calculator to help you figure this out is http://www.amortization-calc.com/ It is designed with larger loans but works for smaller loans too.   Realize that you will have to add fees and finance charges into the total loan amount to get a good comparison. ** Unless you NEED a computer you should wait until you can afford to pay for it.  Charging these types of expenses tends to lead down to a pit of debt that is hard to get out of.  Wanting a computer really bad is not the same as a need."}
{"text": "What is the meaning of \u201cClosed Short\u201d ,\u201cOpened Long\u201d ,\u201cScaled Out\u201d and \u201cScaled In\u201d? Opened Long - is when you open a long position. Long means that you buy to open the position, so you are trying to profit as the price rises. So if you were closing a long position you would sell it. Closed Short - is when you close out a short position. Short means that you sell to open and buy back to close. With a short position you are trying to profit as the price falls. Scaled Out - means you get out of a position in increments as the price climbs (for long positions). Scaled In - means you set a target price and then invest in increments as the stock falls below that price (for long positions)."}
{"text": "Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply? Put options are contracts to sell. You pay me a fee for the right to put the stock (or other underlying security) in my hands if you want to. That happens on a specific date (the strike date) and a specified price (the strike price). You can decide not to exercise that right, but I must follow through and let you sell it to me if you want to. Put options can be used by the purchaser to cap losses. For example: You purchase a PUT option for GE Oct19 13.00 from me. On October 19th, you can make me let you sell your GE stock to me for $13.00 a share. If the price for GE has fallen to $12.00, that would be a good idea. If its now at $15.00 a share, you will probably keep the GE or sell it at the current market price. Call options are contracts to buy. The same idea only in the other direction: You pay me a fee for the right to call the stock away from me. Calls also have a strike date and strike price. Like a put, you can choose not to exercises it. You can choose to buy the stock from me (on the strike date for the strike price), but I have to let you buy it from me if you want to.  For example: You purchase a CALL option for GE Oct19 16.00 option from me. On October 19th, you can buy my GE stock from me for $16.00 a share. If the current price is $17.50, you should make me let you buy if from me for $16.00. If its less than $16.00, you could by it at the current market price for less. Commonly, options are for a block of 100 shares of the underlying security. Note: this is a general description. Options can be very complicated. The fee you pay for the option and the transaction fees associated with the shares affects whether or not exercising is financially beneficial. Options can be VERY RISKY. You can loose all your money as there is no innate value in the option, only how it relates to the underlying security. Before your brokerage will let you trade, there are disclosures you must read and affirm that you understand the risk."}
{"text": "Where is my dividend? Your dividend should show up in one of a few methods: (1) Cash in your trading account (2) A check mailed to you (3) A deposit to a linked bank account (4) As additional new shares in the stock, as the result of a DRIP setup."}
{"text": "Outstanding car bill, and I am primary but have not driven it for 2 years What can you do?  Pay the loan or face the debt collectors. The finance company don't care who now keeps the car, or who drives it.  There's money outstanding on the loan, and your signature on the loan form. That's why co-signing a loan for someone else so often ends in tears."}
{"text": "Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money? House prices do not go up.  Land prices in countries with growing economies tend to go up.  The price of the house on the land generally depreciates as it wears out. Houses require money; they are called money pits for a reason.  You have to replace HVAC periodically, roofs, repairs, rot, foundation problems, leaks, electrical repair; and all of that just reduces the rate at which the house (not the land) loses value. To maintain value (of the house proper), you need to regularly rebuild parts of the house.  People expect different things in Kitchens, bathrooms, dining rooms, doors, bedrooms today than they do in the past, and wear on flooring and fixtures accumulate over time. The price of land and is going to be highly determined by the current interest rates.  Interest rates are currently near zero; if they go up by even a few percent, we can expect land prices to stop growing and start shrinking, even if the economy continues to grow.  So the assumption that land+house prices go up is predicated on the last 35 years of constant rigorous economic growth mixed with interest rate decreases.  This is a common illusion, that people assume the recent economic past is somehow the way things are \"naturally\".  But we cannot decrease interest rates further, and rigorous economic growth is far from guaranteed. This is because people price land based on their carrying cost; the cost you have to spend out of your income to have ownership of it.  And that is a function of interest rates.  Throw in no longer expecting land values to constantly grow and second-order effects that boost land value also go away. Depending on the juristiction, a mortgage is a hugely leveraged investment.  It is akin to taking 10,000$, borrowing 40,000$ and buying stock.  If the stock goes up, you make almost 5x as much money; if it goes down, you lose 5x as much.  And you owe a constant stream of money to service the debt on top of that. If you want to be risk free, work out how you'd deal with the value of your house dropping by 50% together with losing your job, getting a job paying half as much after a period of 6 months unemployment.  The new job requires a 1.5 hour commute from your house.  Interest rates going up to 12% and your mortgage is up for renewal (in 15 years - they climbed gradually over the time, say), optionally. That is a medium-bad situation (not a great depression scale problem), but is a realistic \"bad luck\" event that could happen to you.  Not likely, but possible. Can you weather it?  If so, the risk is within your bounds.  Note that going bankrupt may be a reasonable plan to such a bit of bad luck.  However, note that had you not purchased the house, you wouldn't be bankrupt in that situation. It is reasonably likely that house prices will, after you spend ~3% of the construction cost of the house per year, pay the mortgage on the land+house, grow at a rate sufficient to offset the cost of renting and generate an economically reasonable level of profit.  It is not a risk-free investment. If someone tries to sell you a risk-free investment, they are almost certainly wrong."}
{"text": "Where can one find intraday prices for mutual funds? Look at morningstar holdings.It will list the top 25 holdings and their current price.This will give you a good idea of the intra-day price of the fund."}
{"text": "What questions should I ask a mortgage broker when refinancing a condo in Wisconsin? Its a huuuuuuuuuuuge topic, and to answer your question in full will require a book, with a small booklet of legal advice attached to it. I'm not going to write it here, but I'll give you some very specific points to start your research with: ARM/Baloon - big NO NO. Don't touch that. Get rid of those you have any way you can, and then never ever do it again. That's the kind of crap that got us into the housing bubble mess to begin with. Especially with the rates as low as now, the only future with ARM/Baloon is that you're going to pay more, way more, than your initial period payments. Rates - the rates now are very low. They were even lower 12-24 months ago, but are still extremely low. Make sure you get a fixed rate loan, in order to lock these rates in for the remainder of the loan. Any ARM loan will have higher rates in the future. So go with FIXED RATE. Period - fixed rate loans are given for periods up to 30 years. The shorter the period, the lower the rate. However, at the level they're now, you're practically getting money for free (the APR is comparable to the inflation) even for 30 yr/fixed loans. PMI - private mortgage insurance - since you don't have much equity, the lender is likely to require you paying PMI. This is a significant amount of money you pay until you have at least 20% equity. It changes from lender to lender, so shop around and compare. Government assistance - that's what the broker was referring to. There were programs allowing people refinance even under-water mortgages. Check what programs are still available in your area. Some banks will not refinance with less than 20% equity, but some government assistance programs may help you get a loan even if you don't have enough equity. Closing fees and points - that's the money out of your pocket. Shop around, these vary wildly. Generally, Credit Unions, being non-profits, are cheaper on this item specifically, while comparable to big banks on everything else."}
{"text": "Wife sent to collections for ticket she paid ten years ago The first thing you should do is write a letter to the collection company telling them that you dispute all charges and demand, per section 809 of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, that they immediately validate and confirm any and all debts they allege you owe. You should further request that that they only communicate with you by mail. Section 809 requires them to examine the legal documents showing you allegedly owe a debt and they are required to send this to you. This all creates a useful paper trail. When you send the letter, be sure to send it as certified mail with a return receipt. From your description, it doesn't sound like this will do anything, but it's important you do it within 30 days of them contacting you. This is because the law allows them to assume the debt is valid if you don't do it within 30 days of their initial contact. I recommend you speak with an attorney. Most states have a statute of limitation on debt of about 4 or 5 years. I don't know if that applies to courts though. Whatever you do, be very careful of the language you use when speaking with them. Always refer to it as \"the alleged debt,\" or \"the debt you allege I owe.\" You don't want them misconstruing your words later on. As far as proving you paid it, I would look through every scrap of paper I'd ever touched looking for it. If that proves fruitless, try going to the courthouse and looking through their records. If they're saying you didn't pay, that's a long shot, but still worth a try. You could also try bank records from that time, like if you have a Visa statement showing $276.17 paid to the Nevada Court or something like that. If all else fails, the law allows you to send the collector a letter saying that you refuse to pay the debt. The collection company then legally must stop contacting you unless it's to tell you they are suing you or to tell you they won't contact you again. I strongly advise against this though. Your best bet is going to be speaking with a qualified attorney. Edit: You should also pull your credit reports to make sure this isn't being reported there. Federal law gives you the right to have a free copy of each of your credit reports once every year. If it is being reported, send a certified letter with return receipt to each bureau which is reporting it telling them you dispute the information. They then are required to confirm the information. If they can't confirm it, they must remove it. If they do confirm it, you are legally entitled to put a statement disputing the information next to it on your credit report. I am not an attorney. This is not legal advise. You should consult an attorney who is licensed to practice law in your particular jurisdiction."}
{"text": "Is refinancing my auto loan just to avoid dealing with the lender that issued it a crazy idea? I\u2019d say No, it\u2019s not crazy. I did that even for a mortgage, because the bank tended to lose my checks or let them sit for some days, and then claim I paid late. They were known on the internet for their poor processing department, so I decided to avoid that monthly hassle with calling and arguing, and refinanced. Compare the pain with the cost for refinancing, and if you think it\u2019s worth it, change. You might even get a cheaper credit, and save on it."}
{"text": "Does the USA have a Gold reserve? The US does have a gold reserve. The main reserves are held at Fort Knox but there is even more gold, mostly owned by other countries, stored in the basement of the New York Federal Reserve Bank (Think Die Hard 3). The United States Bullion Depository, often known as Fort Knox, is a fortified vault building located adjacent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, used to store a large portion of United States official gold reserves and occasionally other precious items belonging or entrusted to the federal government. The United States Bullion Depository holds 4,578 metric tons (5046 tons) of gold bullion (147.2 million oz. troy). This is roughly 2.5% of all the gold ever refined throughout human history. Even so, the depository is second in the United States to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's underground vault in Manhattan, which holds 7,000 metric tons (7716 tons) of gold bullion (225.1 million oz. troy), some of it in trust for foreign nations, central banks and official international organizations. Source: Wikipedia"}
{"text": "Accounting Entry for Selling a Covered Call Option contracts typically each represent 100 shares. So the 1 call contract you sold to open (wrote) grants the buyer of that option the right to purchase your 100 shares for $80.00 per share any time before the option expiration date. You were paid a gross amount of $100 (100 shares times $1.00 premium per share) for taking on the obligation to deliver should the option holder choose to exercise. You received credit in your account of $89.22, which ought to be the $100 less any trading commission (~$10?) and miscellaneous fees (regulatory, exchange, etc.) per contract. You did capture premium. However, your covered call write represents an open short position that, until either (a) the option expires worthless, or (b) is exercised, or (c) is bought back to close the position, will continue to show on your account as a liability. Until the open position is somehow closed, the value of both the short option contract and long stock will continue to fluctuate. This is normal."}
{"text": "What does inflation mean to me? Inflation as defined in the general, has many impacts at a personal level. For example, you say that the reduction in the price of oil has no impact on you.  That's absolutely not true, unless you're a hermit living off of the land.  Every box or can or jar of food you buy off the shelf of the grocery store has the price of oil baked into it, because it had to get there somehow.  High fuel costs for trucks mean increased costs to put food on shelves, which mean increased prices for that food. Even tobacco prices can affect you, because they affect what other people are spending.  Demand is always a significant factor in prices, particularly retail prices, and if people are spending more money on tobacco, they're probably spending less on other things - either buying less snacks, for example, or buying cheaper brands of those snacks.  So the price of Doritos may drop a bit (or not rise), for example. General inflation also tends to drive raises, particularly in industries with relatively small performance ties to raises.  If inflation is 3%, wages need to raise 3% or so in order to keep up, on average; even if your personal cost-of-living went up 0%, or 5%, or 10%, the default wage inflation will be closer to that of the national average.  Any raise less than national average is effectively a pay cut (which is one reason why inflation is needed in a healthy economy).  So your company probably has a cost-of-living raise everyone gets that's a bit less than inflation, and then good performers get a bump up to a bit more than inflation.  You can read more on this topic for a more in-depth explanation. Finally, inflation rates tend to be major factors in stock market movement.  Inflation that is too high, or too low, can lead to higher volatility; inflation that is \"right\" can lead to higher stability.  An economy that has consistently \"right\" inflation (around 2-3% typically) will tend to have more stable stock market in general, and thus more reliable returns from that market.  There are many other factors that lead to stock markets rising and falling, but inflation is one very relevant one, particularly if it's not in the \"right\" zone."}
{"text": "Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments with Monthly Income I think we are mixing this up. If you invest using loan, and are paying the loan out of your pocket and leaving the loan in investment, then there is no way you are making more money. Had you directly invested the same money in market instead of EMI, you would end up gaining more. Take a Loan of 100000, Year Int say 5.00%. Total Interest Paid in 2 Yrs comes out to 5291   The Rate of Interest your investments need to make is 2.58%. Sounds to good to be true. But yes when you look at it other way round, this is right.  Now if you can indeed make 2.58% from your investments, check what happens if you were to invest the EMI directly and don't take the loan.  You make 7937"}
{"text": "Does a US LLC need to file taxes if owned by a foreign citizen? There is no such thing as double taxation. If you pay tax in the US, you CAN claim tax credits from India tax authority.  For example, if you pay 100 tax in USA and your tax liability in India is 200, then you will only pay 100 (200 India tax liability minus 100 tax credits on foreign tax paid in the USA).  This is always true and not depending on any treaty. If there is a treaty, the tax rate in the United States is set on the treaty and you CAN claim that final tax rate based upon that treaty.  If you operate an LLC, and the income is NOT derived from United States and you have no ties with the US and that LLC is register to a foreign person (not company but a real human) then you will not have to submit tax return in the US... I advice you to read this: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98277,00.html"}
{"text": "How to correctly track a covered call write (sell to open) in double-entry accounting? I think the issue you are having is that the option value is not a \"flow\" but rather a liability that changes value over time. It is best to illustrate with a balance sheet. The $33 dollars would be the premium net of expense that you would receive from your brokerage for having shorted the options. This would be your asset. The liability is the right for the option owner (the person you sold it to) to exercise and purchase stock at a fixed price. At the moment you sold it, the \"Marked To Market\" (MTM) value of that option is $40. Hence you are at a net account value of $33-$40= $-7 which is the commission. Over time, as the price of that option changes the value of your account is simply $33 - 2*(option price)*(100) since each option contract is for 100 shares. In your example above, this implies that the option price is 20 cents. So if I were to redo the chart it would look like this If the next day the option value goes to 21 cents, your liability would now be 2*(0.21)*(100) = $42 dollars. In a sense, 2 dollars have been \"debited\" from your account to cover your potential liability. Since you also own the stock there will be a credit from that line item (not shown). At the expiry of your option, since you are selling covered calls, if you were to be exercised on, the loss on the option and the gain on the shares you own will net off. The final cost basis of the shares you sold will be adjusted by the premium you've received. You will simply be selling your shares at strike + premium per share (0.20 cents in this example)"}
{"text": "Can anyone else make an online payment for me? Your relative in the US could buy a pre-paid Visa (aka Visa gift card) and give you the numbers on that to pay.  They're available for purchase at many grocery/convenience stores.  In most (all??) cases there'll be a fee of a several dollars charged in addition to the face value of the card. The biggest headache I can think of would be that pre-paid cards are generally only available in $25/50/100 increments; unless the current SAT price matches one of the standard increments they'll have to buy the next card size up and then get the remaining money off it in a separate transaction.  A grocery store would be one of the easier places for your relative to do this because cashiers there are used to splitting transactions across multiple payment sources (something not true at most other types of business) due to regularly processing transactions partially paid for via welfare benefits."}
{"text": "Started new job. Rollover previous employer 401k to new 401k, IRA or Roth IRA? You should never roll a 401(k) to a Roth IRA. If the intention is to do so, you are better off rolling to a traditional IRA, and then converting. (Per the comment below, I should add - if the 401(k) contained post tax money, this portion rolls to a Roth, not a Tradition IRA. You then have the exercise of converting/recharacterizing just the TIRA money, as the Roth stands aside) This preserves the ability to recharacterize back to a traditional IRA. You might wish to do this if: The answers so far are great, but I'll add what I see missing -"}
{"text": "What's the fuss about Credit Score / History? Credit Unions have long advocated their services based on the fact that they consider your \"character.\"  Unfortunately, they are then at a loss to explain how they determine the value of your character, other than to say that you're buddies & play pool together so they'll give you a loan. Your Credit History / Score is as accurate a representation of your character in business dealings as can be meaningfully quantified.  It tracks your ability to effectively use and manage debt, and your propensity to pay it back responsibly or default on obligations.  While it isn't perfect, it is certainly one of the best means currently available for determining someone's trustworthiness when it comes to financial matters."}
{"text": "Latest China devaluation (24/08/2015) and the affect on house prices in UK No. There is no indication that the recent decline will have an impact on the house market in the UK. The reason(s) for the downward move these last few weeks are mainly due to: The last two points caused the Chinese government to decide to devaluate the Yuan. This in turn triggered an unforeseen panic attack among investors and speculators around the globe starting with the Chinese that are trading on borrowed money (not only on margin but also by using loans). The UK house prices are not influenced by the above factors, not even indirectly. The most important factors for house prices are in general: If you keep the above points in mind you should be able to decide whether now is the right time to buy a house in your area. Given that a lot of central banks (incl. BoE) are maintaining a low interest rate policy (except fed soon), now is a good time to take a mortgage. Sources used: I know interest rates are determined by the BoE which looks at the global picture to determine these rates but the main directive of a central bank is to maintain an inflation close to but not exactly 2 % as to spur on economic growth.  As such, the value of a company as valuated on the stock market is not or barely taken into account. The negligible impact is the reason why I stated that the crash in the summer of 2015 doesn't even have an indirect impact.  Also such a crash is very short lived. It's more the underlying reason for the fears that could cause issues if they drag on."}
{"text": "Who can truly afford luxury cars? Partly I suspect this is selection bias. You say you see so many luxury cars go by. But if you're looking for them, you're going to notice them. Have you calculated the actual percentage? Do they make up 50% of the cars that pass a specific point in a specific period of time? Or just 10% if you really counted? You say you live in Baltimore county, Maryland. That's a relatively wealthy area, so I'd expect the percentage of luxury cars to be higher than the national average. You'd likely see considerably fewer in the backwoods of Mississippi. That said, some people who own luxury cars can't really afford them. I'm reminded of a wonderful TV commercial I saw recently where a man is showing off all his material goods, he talks about his big house, and his swimming pool, and his fancy car, with a big smile on his face, standing tall, and generally looking proud and happy. And then he says, \"How do I do it?\" And suddenly his expression changes to complete despair, he slumps down, and says, \"I'm in debt up to my eyeballs.\" It turns out to be a commercial for a debt-counseling service. Some people put very high value on owning a fancy car and are willing to sacrifice on other things. If having a big fancy car is more important to you then, say, having a nice house or the latest computer or a big screen TV or dining out more often or going on more expensive vacations or whatever you have to give up to get the car, well, that's your decision. Personally I don't care much about a fancy car, I just want something that gets me where I want to go. And I've always figured that with an expensive car, you have to constantly worry about getting in an accident and damaging or destroying it. If you put your money into a big fancy house, at least houses rarely collide with each other. Personally, I make a nice income too. And I have a $500/month mortgage and zero car payment because I drive a 2003 pickup that I bought with cash. But I have two kids in college and I'm trying to get them through with no debt, that's where all my money is going."}
{"text": "How do I use investments to lower my taxes [US]? Probably the biggest tax-deferment available to US workers is through employee-sponsored investment plans like the 401k.  If you meet the income limits, you could also use a Traditional IRA if you do not have a 401k at work.  But keep in mind that you are really just deferring taxes here.  The US Government will eventually get their due. :) One way which you may find interesting is by using 529 plans, or other college investment plans, to save for your child's (or your) college expenses.  Generally, contributions up to a certain amount are deductible on your state taxes, and are exempt from Federal and State taxes when used for qualifying education expenses.  The state deduction can lower your taxes and help you save for college for your children, if that is a desire of yours."}
{"text": "I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment? Basically, your question boils down to this: Where and how do I squeeze the stock market so that within time period X, it will make me Y dollars. (Where I'm emotionally attached to the Y figure because I recently lost it, and X is \"as soon as possible\".) To make money on the stock market (in a quasi-guaranteed way), you have to adjust X and Y so that they are realistic. For instance, let X be twenty-five years, and Y be \"7% annual return\". Small values of X are risky, unless X is on the order of milliseconds and you have a computer program working for you. To mitigate some of the risk of short term trading, you have to treat trading seriously and study like mad: study the stock market in general, and not only that, but carefully research the companies whose stocks you are buying. Work actively to discover stocks which are under-valued relative to the performance of their corporation, and which might correct upward relative to the performance of similar stocks. Always have an exit strategy for every position and stick to it. Use instruments like \"trailing stops\": automatic tracking which follows a price in one direction, and then produces an order to close the position when the price reverses by a certain amount."}
{"text": "What is the benefit of investing in retirement plan versus investing directly in stocks yourself? Because retirement account usually are tax effective vehicles - meaning you will pay less tax on any profits from your investments in a retirement account than you would outside. For example, in my country Australia, for someone on say $60,000 per annum, if you make $10,000 profits on your investments that year you will end up paying 34.5% tax (or $3,450) on that $10,000 profits. If you made the same profits in a retirement account (superannuation fund) you would have only paid 15% tax (or $1,500) on the $10,000 profit. That's less than half the tax. And if you are on a higher income the savings would be even greater. The reason why you can't take the money out of a retirement account is purely because the aim is to build up the funds for your retirement, and not take it out at any time you want. You are given the incentive to pay less tax on any investment profits in order for you to save and grow your funds so that you might have a more comfortable retirement (a time when you might not be able to work any more for your money)."}
{"text": "How does the purchase of shares on the secondary market benefit the issuing company? First, the stock does represent a share of ownership and if you have a different interpretation I'd like to see proof of that. Secondly, when the IPO or secondary offering happened that put those shares into the market int he first place, the company did receive proceeds from selling those shares. While others may profit afterward, it is worth noting that more than a few companies will have secondary offerings, convertible debt, incentive stock options and restricted stock that may be used down the road that are all dependent upon the current trading share price in terms of how useful these can be used to fund operations, pay executives and so forth. Third, if someone buys up enough shares of the company then they gain control of the company which while you aren't mentioning this case, it is something to note as some individuals buy stock so that they can take over the company which happens. Usually this has more of an overall plan but the idea here is that getting that 50%+1 control of the company's voting shares are an important piece to things here."}
{"text": "How can home buying be considered a sound investment with all of that interest that needs to be paid? The flaw in your reasoning is that you are assuming that renting a house is easy and automatic. Who is going to manage the property? Your parents? What are you going to do if the tenants burn the place down, start having drug parties there, or secretly have 6 cats who piss everywhere so noone will ever want to rent it again? What are you going to do when the house goes unrented for a year and you have to pay a year's worth of mortgage payments with no rental income? What are you going to do when some deadbeat decides to stop paying the rent, but won't move out, and when you try to evict him, he goes to court to stop you? You going to fly to NJ to make the court appearances? Unless you sell your existing house, or your parents buy you out, then you need to stay. You should not attempt to own two houses at once with one of the houses located not where you are at. That will not turn out well. Also, just as an aside, 30-year mortgages are not an \"investment\"; they are a way to lose money. Usually people get them because they want a big beautiful house that they cannot afford, so they borrow the money. That is not \"investing\", that is wasting money to live in luxurious circumstances. If you want to become wealthy, buy a property you can afford, not something that you have to string out payments for 30 years."}
{"text": "How can one protect oneself from a dividend stock with decreasing price? An alternative options strategy to minimize loss of investment capital is to buy a put, near the money around your original buy price, with a premium less than the total dividend. The value of the put will increase if the stock price falls quickly. Likely, a large portion of your dividend will go towards paying the option premium, this will however ensure that your capital doesn't drop much lower than your buy price. Continued dividend distributions will continue to pay to buy future put options. Risks here are if the stock does not have a very large up or down movement from your original buy price causing most of the dividend to be spent on insuring your position. It may take a few cycles, but once the stock has appreciated in value say 10% above buying price, you can consider either skipping the put insurance so you can pocket the dividend, or you can bu ythe put with a higher strike price for additional insurance against a loss of gains. Again, this sacrifices much of the dividend in favor of price loss, and still is open to a risk of neutral price movement over time."}
{"text": "Are leverage/ko products the only reasonable way to trade stocks? There's no free lunch. Here are some positions that should be economically equivalent (same risk and reward) in a theoretically-pure universe with no regulations or transaction costs: You're proposing to buy the call. If you look at the equivalent, stock plus protective put, you can quickly see the \"catch\"; the protective put is expensive. That same expense is embedded in the call option. See put-call parity on Wikipedia for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Put%E2%80%93call_parity You could easily pay 10% a year or more for the protection, which could easily eat up most of your returns, if you consider that average returns on a stock index might be about 10% (nominal, not real). Another way to look at it is that buying the long call and selling a put, which is a synthetic long position in the stock, would give you the put premium. So by not selling the put, you should be worse off than owning the stock - worse than the synthetic long - by about the value of the put premium. Or yet another way to look at it is that you're repeatedly paying time value on the long call option as you roll it. In practical world instead of theory world, I think you'd probably get a noticeable hit to returns just from bid-ask and commissions, even without the cost of the protection. Options cost more. Digressing a bit, some practical complications of equivalency between different combinations of options and underlying are: Anyway, roughly speaking, any position without the \"downside risk\" is going to have an annual loss built in due to the cost of the protection. Occasionally the options market can do something weird due to supply/demand or liquidity issues but mostly the parity relationships hold, or hold closely enough that you can't profit once expenses are considered. Update: one note, I'm talking about \"vanilla\" options as traded in the US here, I guess there are some somewhat different products elsewhere; I'm not sure exactly which derivatives you mean. All derivatives have a cost though or nobody would take the other side of the trade."}
{"text": "Do money markets fluctuate during market crashes? Wikipedia has a solid article on Money Market Funds which includes a section on \"Breaking the Buck\" when the money market fund fails to return its full dollar.  Money market funds smoothing out the daily (generally small) fluctuations of investing in short-term treasuries directly but have similar risk over longer periods.  Some funds can and have lost money in market crashes, though even the worst performers still returned 95+ cents on the dollar. While few investments are guaranteed and likely none in your retirement account,  money-market funds are likely the choice you have with the least fluctuation and similar minimal risk to short term treasuries. However, a second important risk to consider is inflation.  Money market funds generally have returns similar or less than the inflation rate.  While money markets funds help you avoid the fluctuations of the stock market the value of your retirement account falls behind the cost of goods over time.  Unless the investor is fairly old most financial professionals would recommend only a small portion of a retirement account be in money market instruments.  Vanguard also has a set of target retirement investment funds that are close to what many professionals would recommend.  Consulting a financial professional to discuss your particular needs is a good option as well."}
{"text": "When should I walk away from my mortgage? This is a very personal situation of course, but if you can afford the repayments then I recommend keeping the house!. A house is a long term investment and one has to live somewhere. You probably didn't buy the house planning to sell it in 5 years so while in the short term you could suffer a loss on paper chances are things will pick up, they have to eventually. For each boom there is a bust, one for one."}
{"text": "Are stores that offer military discounts compensated by the government? This story is about military grocery stores - i.e.: grocery stores for military personnel on military bases. There are no discounts for military personnel in a regular grocery store. But they may have subsidised prices in grocery stores located inside a military installation, and these are those stores that the story is talking about."}
{"text": "What are the marks of poor investment advice? My \"bad advice detector\" gets tingled by the following:"}
{"text": "Is there a country that uses the term \u201cdollar\u201d for currency without also using \u201ccents\u201d as fractional monetary units? Going through the list of economies that currently use the dollar, all of them list cents as a fractional unit. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, the 1/100 fractional unit is still called a cent, but it's no longer in circulation in coin form and only finds use in financial markets or electronic payments.  In countries like Malaysia, the word \"sen\" is used as the translation of the word \"cent\", even though the word for the actual currency, \"ringgit\", isn't a translation of the word \"dollar\".  A similar situation occurs in Panama. The local currency is called the balboa, and it's priced on par (1:1) with the US dollar. US banknotes are also accepted as legal tender, and Panamanians sometimes use the terms balboa/dollar interchangeably. The 1/100 subdivision of the balboa is the cent\u00e9simo, which is merely a translation of cent. Like Malaysia, the fractional unit is called \"cent\" (or a translation) but the main unit isn't merely a translation of the word \"dollar.\" On a historical note, the Spanish Dollar was subdivided into 8 reales in order to match the German thaler (the word that forms the basis for the English word \"dollar\")."}
{"text": "Is there a difference between managerial accounting and financial accounting? From Wikipedia: Managerial accounting is used primarily by those within a company or   organization. Reports can be generated for any period of time such as   daily, weekly or monthly. Reports are considered to be \"future   looking\" and have forecasting value to those within the company.** Financial accounting is used primarily by those outside of a company   or organization. Financial reports are usually created for a set   period of time, such as a fiscal year or period. Financial reports are   historically factual and have predictive value to those who wish to   make financial decisions or investments in a company.  At my university, managerial accounting focused more on the details of how costs were managed in the company, the future of the business, etc. while the courses that were considered financial accounting were more from the point of view of a financial analyst or investor, like you said. The financial accountancy material covered analysis of financial statements and the associated investment decisions, among other things.  These areas overlapped in areas like the production of financial statements, since the company also needs to consider how analysts will interpret these statements, and dividend policy, corporate tax accounting, etc. The Wikipedia articles on managerial accounting and financial accounting may provide helpful information as well.  Disclaimer: I took an introductory accounting course in university and nothing more, so my knowledge of the course structures, even at my alma mater, is secondhand recollection at best. I'm sure there are more similarities and differences of which I'm unaware, and I would assume that forensic accountants, auditors, etc. dabble in both these areas and others."}
{"text": "What types of ETFs are taxed differently by the IRS? Investopedia laid out the general information of tax treatment on the ETF fund structures as well as their underlying asset classes: http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0213/how-tax-treatments-of-etfs-work.aspx"}
{"text": "Hearing much about Dave Ramsey. Which of his works is best in describing his \u201cphilosophy\u201d about money? His books: The Total Money Makeover - This is a very step by step approach to what he teaches about how to handle money. Financial Peace - This is a more philosophical approach to the same topics.  More idea and less application based. You can catch his radio show online for free - or an hour podcast each day in the itunes store - this is free. You can watch his TV show on Hulu."}
{"text": "Dad paying for my new home in cash. How can I buy the house from him? You have four basic options."}
{"text": "Options price vs implied volatility - who drives who? Currently, when \"implied volatility\" is spoken, the Black-Scholes-Merton model is implied.  This model has been shown to be deficient, thus the Variance Gamma Model should be used. However, as nearly no one uses VG, it can be assumed that BS is still being implied. The BS formula has multiple variables.  Some are external to the underlying in question.  The rest are internal. When all but one variable is known or assumed, the last variable can be calculated, so if one has the price of the underlying and all else except the volatility, the volatility can be calculated thus implied. If one selects an implied volatility, and all variables except the underlying price is known, the underlying price can be calculated. For the present, one uses the current price of the underlying to calculate the implied volatility.  For future option prices, one assumes an implied volatility at a later date to calculate a possible price. For prices not at the money, the BS model is extremely imprecise.  The VG model can better determine a potential future price."}
{"text": "Mortgage company withholding insurance proceeds Fire insurance, as you have discovered, is a complete ripoff. Most people pay fire insurance all their lives with no benefit whatsoever, and those such as yourself who are lucky enough to get a payout find that it is completely insufficient to replace their loss. I once computed the actual beneficial net present financial value of my fire insurance policy and it came out to $40 per month. The cost was $800 per month. That is typical. Homeowners pay $500 to $800 per year for something that is worth $30 to $50 per year. Ironically banks would actually make more money from mortgages if they did not require mortgagees to buy insurance, but nevertheless they insist on it. It is not about logic, but about fear and irrationality. When I paid off my mortgage and gained ownership of my home the first thing I did was cancel my fire insurance. I now invest the money I would have wasted on insurance, making money instead of losing it. Being compelled to throw money down the toilet on fire insurance is one of the hidden costs of a homeowners mortgage in the United States. In your situation, the main option is to borrow the money to rebuild the house using the land as collateral, if the land is valuable enough. Of course, you still owe the money for your original mortgage on your now (non-existent) home. So, to get a home, you will have to have the income to service two mortgages. A loan officer at a reputable bank can tell you whether you have the income necessary to support two mortgages. If you were maxed out on your original mortgage, then you may not have enough income and you are screwed. In that case you will have to go back to renting and gradually paying off your old mortgage. (If it were me, I would sue the insurance company pro se as a way to get the necessary money to rebuild the home, because insurance companies roll over like a $20 hooker when they get sued. Juries hate insurance companies. But I am unusual in that I love courtrooms and suing people. Most people are terrified of courtrooms though, so it may not be an option for you.)"}
{"text": "What industries soar when oil prices go up? You can look at it from a fundamental perspective to see who benefits from rising oil prices. That's a high level analysis and the devil is in the details - higher oil prices may favour electric car producers for example or discount clothes retailers vs. branded clothes manufacturers. Another approach it to use a statistical analysis. I have run a quick and dirty correlation of the various S&P sector indices against the oil prices (Crude). Based on the the results below, you would conclude that materials and energy stocks should perform well with rising oil prices. There again, it is a behaviour you would expect at the group level but it may not translate to each individual company within those groups (in particular in the materials sector where some would benefit and some would be detrimentally affected). You could get exposure to those sectors using ETFs, such as XLB and XLE in the US. Or you could run the same analysis for each stock within the S&P 500 (or whatever index you are looking at) and create a portfolio with the stocks that are the most correlated with oil prices. This is calculated over 10 years of monthly returns after removing the market component from the individual sectors. The two important columns are:"}
{"text": "How could USA defaulting on its public debt influence the stock/bond market? Regarding the Summer of 2011 Crisis: There is NO reason that the United States cannot continue borrowing like it is just based on a particular ratio:  Debt to GDP. The Debt to GDP ratio right now is around 100%, or 1:1. This means the US GDP is around $14 Trillion and its debt is also around $14 trillion.  Other countries have higher debt:gdp ratios Japan - for instance - has a debt:gdp ratio of 220% Regarding a selloff of stocks, dollars and bonds: you have to realize that selling pressure on the dollar will make THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING increase. So commodities and stocks will skyrocket proportionally. The stockmarket can selloff faster than the dollar though. And both markets have circuit breakers that can attempt to curb quick selloffs. Effectiveness pending."}
{"text": "Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) It seems the age restriction for the Capital One MONEY account has been removed; I just read the entire terms and conditions and there's no minimum age requirement. I just finished opening Capital One MONEY accounts for a child who is <5 and a child <8. Both now have activated debit cards and online access. Their accounts are accessible via their card, but also appear under my online banking login, as they are joint accounts. It is possible to deposit cheques, but no cheques are issued for writing. Debit card access is provided for ATM withdrawals and purchases. And the design on the card is really nice; my son said it looks like the $100 bill."}
{"text": "Understanding the Nasdaq insider trading information Usually insiders are in a better position than you to understand their business, but that doesn't mean they will know the future with perfect accuracy. Sometimes they are wrong, sometimes life events force them to liquidate an otherwise promising investment, sometimes their minds change. So while it is indeed valuable information, as everything in fundamental analysis it must be taken with a grain of salt. Automatic Sell I think these refer to how the sell occurred. Often the employees don't get actual shares but options or warrants that can be converted to shares. Or there may be special predetermined arrangements regarding when and how the shares may be traded. Since the decision to sell here has nothing to do with the prospects of the business, but has to do with the personal situation of the employee, it's not quite the same as outright selling due to market concerns. Some people, for instance, are not interested in holding stock. Part of their compensation is given in stock, so they immediately sell the stock to avoid the headache of watching an investment. This obviously doesn't indicate that they expect the company will go south. I think automatic sell refers to these sorts of situations, but your broker should provide a more detailed definition. Disposition (Non Open Market) These days people trade through a broker, but there's nothing stopping you from taking the physical shares and giving them to someone in exchange for say a stack of cash. With a broker, you only \"sell\" without considering who is buying. The broker then finds buyers for you according to their own system. If selling without a broker you can also be choosy with who is buying, and it's not like anybody can just call up the CEO and ask to buy some stock, so it's a non-open market. Ultimately though it's still the insider selling. Just on a different exchange. So I would treat this as any insider sell - if they are selling, they may be expecting the stock to become less valuable. indirect ownership I think this refers to owning an entity that in turn owns the asset. For instance CEO of XYZ owns stock in ACME, but ACME holds shares of XYZ. This is a somewhat complicated situation, it comes down to whether you think they sold ACME because of the exposure to XYZ or because of some other risk that applies only to ACME and not XYZ. Generally speaking, I don't think you would find a rule like \"if insider transactions of so and so kinds > X then buy\" that provides guaranteed success. If such a rule was possible it would have been exploited already by the professionals. The more sensible option is to consider all data available to you and try to make a holistic evaluation. All of these insider activities can be bullish or bearish depending on many other factors."}
{"text": "Good book-keeping software? Xero and WaveAccounting can make things easy, but they also have their limitations. I've used both for short periods of time but found both of them to be lacking. While the \"ease\" is appealing, the ability to drill into the details and get good reports is the downfall of both of these accounting systems. QuickBooks may seem like the easy answer here, but it really is the best for getting the power you want without getting too complicated."}
{"text": "From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well? @Joe.E, I disagree with your logic. The IPO clearly didn't go well--not relative to other IPOs.  Were it not for the stocks underwriters stepping in late in the trading day, Facebook would likely have closed below their opening price. This story and others indicate that institution investors were given negative information by an analyst for the underwriters that other investors didn't have.  This inside knowledge is certainly contributing to the drop in the stock.  It's fair to argue that many individual investors were suckered into buying the stock at the IPO price because of this incomplete disclosure. It wouldn't surprise if what's happens has a negative impact on future trading volume, and creates reluctance to invest in the firm--which would certainly be an additional negative outcome beyond the dropping stock price. Edit: Dilip mentioned a lawsuit.  Here's a link to an article about it."}
{"text": "How to map stock ticker symbols to ISIN (International Securities Identification Number)? There is no simple way to convert an ISIN into a stock ticker symbol. The only way to even attempt to do so is to map the ISIN to a CUSIP or SEDOL or other national identifier and then map that identifier to a stock ticker symbol."}
{"text": "Do post-IPO 'insider' stock lockup periods still apply if you separate from the company There are quite a few regulations on \"Insider Trading\". Blackouts are one of the means companies adopt to comply with \"Insider Trading\" regulations, mandating employees to refrain from selling/buying during the notified period. Once you leave the employment: So unless there is an urgent need for you to sell/buy the options, wait for some time and then indulge in trade."}
{"text": "How to reconcile a credit card that has an ongoing billing dispute? What I would prefer is top open a new category charges under dispute and park the amount there. It can be made as an account as well in place of a income or expenses category. This way your account will reconcile and also you will be able to track the disputes."}
{"text": "Saving/ Investing a lump sum 5 years is very short term, and since you are sure you'll need the money, investing it into the markets should probably not be done. You can toss it in Ally bank for 1% or consider a 5 yr raise your rate CD A decent write-up on time horizons: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110813/using-time-horizons-investing.asp If you want to go the stock/bond route you can assess the benefits of using something like a vanguard target date fund, or a roboadvisor such as wealthfront or betterment. You need to assess whether you think you may move up your time horizon, say you want to buy a house in 4 years, or, if it is 5 years, are you ok with it being 6.5-7 if there is a market downturn."}
{"text": "Making your first million\u2026 is easy! (??) I realize that \"a million dollars\" is   a completely arbitrary figure, but   it's one people fixate on. Perhaps   folks just meant it's getting easier   because inflation has made it a far   less lofty sum than when the word   \"millionaire\" was coined. Your point is correct - it' relatively easier as the 1 million dollar nowadays is no where as valuable as compared in the old days after the inflation adjustment. However the way to achieve that is easier said than done: The most possible way is to run your own business (assuming you will make profit). For most of the people running a job to earn a living - the job income is the biggest factor. Being extremely frugal wouldn't help much if you don't maximize your income potential. Earning a million dollar through investment? How much capitals are you able to invest in? 5k? 50k? 500k? I see no way to earn 1 million with 5k from investment, I wouldn't call it easy. This again depends on your income. With better income of course you could dedicate a larger portion to investment, without exposing too much risk and having to affect your way of life. (3) Invest some part of your income   over a long period of time and let the   stock market do the work I'd say this is more geared towards beating the inflation and earn a few extra bucks instead of getting very rich (this is being very relative).  Just a word of cautions, the mindset of investment being the shortcut to wealth is very dangerous and often leads to speculative behavior."}
{"text": "When's the best time to sell the stock of a company that is being acquired/sold? What's your basis? If you have just made a 50% gain, maybe you should cash out a portion and hold the rest. Don't be greedy, but don't pass up an opportunity either."}
{"text": "Why is a stock dividend considered a dividend? What makes it different from a stock split? The key difference I've found between a stock split and a stock dividend \u2013 of the exact same stock and class, as opposed to a spin-off \u2013 seems to be from the company's own accounting perspective.  There doesn't appear to be any actual transfer of value to the shareholder with either kind of transaction; i.e. in theory, each transaction would be immaterial to the value of your holdings. With respect to the company's accounting, a stock split affects the par value of the shares, whereas a stock dividend reduces the retained earnings account in order to increase paid-in or contributed capital. I found a good online source which explains the history behind this accounting difference: McGraw-Hill - Intermediate Accounting eBook, 6/e - Chapter 18 - Stock Dividends and Splits. Small quote: [...]   Besides being based on fallacious reasoning, accounting for stock   dividends by artificially reclassifying \u201cearned\u201d capital as \u201cinvested\u201d   capital conflicts with the reporting objective of reporting   shareholders' equity by source. Despite these limitations, this   outdated accounting standard still applies. Since neither the corporation nor its shareholders apparently benefits   from stock dividends, why do companies declare them?23 Occasionally, a   company tries to give shareholders the illusion that they are   receiving a real dividend. Another reason is merely to enable the corporation to take advantage   of the accepted accounting practice of capitalizing retained earnings.   Specifically, a company might wish to reduce an existing balance in   retained earnings\u2014otherwise available for cash dividends\u2014so it can   reinvest the earned assets represented by that balance without   carrying a large balance in retained earnings. [...] There's a lot more on that page, before and after, worth reading. From another book: Google Books - Comparative Income Taxation, a Structural Analysis - page 314 - Stock Dividends. Small quote: The distribution of dividends in the form of stock or \"bonus\" shares   to existing shareholders typically involves a transfer for corporate   law purposes of retained earnings into stated capital.   It can been [sic] viewed as a deemed distribution of a cash   dividend to the shareholders followed by a corresponding contribution   to capital or as solely as an event at the corporate level which has   no effect on the shareholders whose economic interest in the   corporation is unchanged by the receipt of additional shares. The   systems have taken varied approaches to the stock dividend problem.    The treatment is in part a function of the rules dealing with   distributions of stated capital. [emphases above are mine] [... continues w/descriptions of different countries' tax treatments of the kinds of stock dividends. Includes U.S., Sweden, Japan,   Netherlands, Canada, Australia, U.K., France, Germany. ...] As far as why a corporation might want to capitalize earnings and reduce the equity otherwise available for dividends, I can only imagine that, ignoring taxes for a moment, that it may have something to do with capital ratios that need to be maintained for financing or regulatory purposes?  Yet, I remain curious. If I discover more on this then I'll update my answer. Additional resources:"}
{"text": "Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out? If you can generate a higher ROI by renting than by cashing out and investing, then you should rent it out. Please consider your risk tolerance as well. It's always a personal decision whether to assume higher risk for a higher return."}
{"text": "Where to find turnover / average amount of time investors & mutual funds held stocks they purchased? You can make a rough calculation of the annual turnover rate of stocks by calculating the institutional investors holding of that stock. Institutional investors are the only firms that are required to provide such data. The good this is they usually make the lion share of trading activity. On the other hand, this task might proof arduous   A different ratio that could be used as a substitute Share Turnover which is calculated as:  Share Turnover gives the number of shares traded as a fraction of the number of shares outstanding. For example, if you compare the results of stock turnover for three companies and the results came as follows:  Company A-share turnover: 1.5 Times Company B share turnover: 3 times Company C share turnover: 0.3 times From the results, we can conclude that for a particular period, company C had the least activity and the number of shares traded for that period was only a small fraction of the shares outstanding while other traders of company C hold most shares and never trade them. If you make a cross sectional analysis of a list of businesses you intend to invest in, you could figure which one has the least number of rapidity in the shares traded."}
{"text": "Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? At least with US tax law where you only pay taxes at the higher rate for the income above the minimum for that tax bracket, you will always wind up ahead taking the raise if you are simply concerned with after tax (FICA) income.  For example, assume you were making $8,350 (the top end of the 10% bracket in the US), and got a $100 raise, you would be taxed roughly as follows: After Tax Income Before Raise: $8,350 x (100% - 10%) After Tax Income After Raise: $8,350 x (100%-10%) +  $100 x (100%-15%) You can easily see that the second number is always higher than the first as long as the raise is a positive amount (obviously)."}
{"text": "Can my spouse be the primary signer on my car's loan? Go to your local bank or credit union before talking to a dealership. Ask them if putting both names on the loan makes a difference regarding rates and maximum loan you qualify for. Ask them to run the loan application both ways. Having both names on the loan helps build the credit of the spouse that has a lower score.    You may find that both incomes are needed for a car loan if the couple has a mortgage or other joint obligations. The lender will treat the entire mortgage payment or rent payment as a liability against the person applying for the loan, they won't split the housing payment in half if only one name will be on the car loan. Therefore sometimes the 2nd persons income is needed even if their credit is not as good. That additional income without a significant increase in liabilities can make a huge difference regarding the loan they can qualify for. Once the car is in your possession, it doesn't matter who drives it. In general the insurance company will put both spouses as authorized drivers. Note: it is almost always better to ask your bank or credit union about a car loan before going to the dealership. That gives you a solid data point regarding a loan, and removes a major complexity to the negotiations at the dealership."}
{"text": "Should a high-school student invest their (relative meager) savings? If you're not rich, investing money will produce very small return, and is a waste of your resources. If you want to save until you die, then go for it (that's what investment companies want you to do). I suggest invest your money in building a network of friends who will be future asset for you. A group of friends helping each other have a much higher prospect of success. It has been proven that approximately 70% of jobs have been obtained through networking. Either through family, or friends, this is the vast majority. I will reiterate, invest on friends and family, not on strangers who want to tie down your money so they can have fun for the moment, while you wait to have fun when you're almost dead. Added source for those who are questioning the most well known fact within organizations, I'm baffled by the level of ignorance. Linkedin Recruitment Blog ...companies want to hire from within first; only when there are no   appropriate internal candidates will they rely on referrals from   employees (who get a bonus for a successful  hire) and people who will   approach them through informational meetings. The latter category of   jobseekers (you) have the benefit of getting known before the job is   \"officially posted.\" For those who believe loaning money to friends and family is a way of losing money -> this is a risk well worth taking -> and the risk is much lower than loaning your money to strangers -> and the reward is much higher than loaning your money to strangers."}
{"text": "Cons of withdrawing money from an Roth IRA account? In a year with no income, the best advice is to convert existing IRA money to Roth. This lets you take advantage of the 'zero' bracket, the combination of your exemption and standard deduction. This adds to $10,300 for a single person.  Other than that, if you are determined to take the money out, just do it. There would be a 10% penalty of the growth, but the original deposit comes out tax free anyway.  Edit - There's a rule that if you sell your entire Roth account (i.e. all Roth accounts, you can't pick one of a few) and have a loss, you can take that loss. (Per Dilip's comment, this strategy is pretty moot, it's not a loss taken against other income as a stock loss would potentially be))"}
{"text": "Should I buy ~$2200 of a hot stock or invest elsewhere? Forget investing, you need to focus on managing your debt. I would keep the 6k in a checking or savings account because you need that money in case of an emergency. If you save up more than 10k, use the excess to pay down the principal on your debt. Worry about investing when you have a positive net worth."}
{"text": "Pay off credit cards in one lump sum, or spread over a few months? I have heard that it is better for your credit score to pay them down over time. Will it make much of a difference? I have never heard that, however, the financial institutions (who are charging you an amount of interest which was at one time in the not so distant past classified and punishable in state criminal codes) really enjoy you thinking that way. You are clearly capable of doing the math yourself. While I don't know the exact numbers, I am totally confident that you will find in about 5 or 10 minutes (if that long) that eliminating debt of any kind in your life will pay an immediate return that beats the great majority of other investments in terms of risk/reward. After the immediate financial return, there is a quieter, subtler, and even greater long term benefit. Basic principle: Highest Rates First Perhaps this decision could be considered slightly less important than deciding not to smoke during your youth; but I would put it as a close second. You are already in a position where you can see the damage that your prior decisions (about financial debt) have produced. Run the clock back to the time in your life when you were debt free. Now, pay off that debt with the big check, and start from zero. Now, turn on your psychic powers and predict the same amount of time, in the future, with the same amount of money (don't even try to adjust for inflation; just use flat dollars) WITHOUT losing the money which you have given to the financial institutions during this previous part of your life. Do you now see why the financial institutions want you to think about slowly paying them off instead of waking up tomorrow without owing them anything ?"}
{"text": "Credit report - Not able to establish identity It looks like from their response, they would like you to send a copy of your social security card. Your drivers license or passport will not help verify your social security number. Another option you could try is to get your credit report from one of the other credit bureaus. You should be able to choose from Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax all on annualcreditreport.gov"}
{"text": "Avoiding sin stock: does it make a difference? Yes, it does matter. You are right that lower demand for a stock will drive its price down. Lower stock prices can hurt the company. Take a look at Fixee's answer to this question: a declining share price will make it hard to secure credit, attract further investors, build partnerships, etc. Also, employees are often holding options or in a stock purchase plan, so a declining share price can severely dampen morale. In an extreme case, if share prices plummet too far, the company can be pressured to reverse-split the shares, and (eventually) take the company private. This recently happened to Playboy. If you do not want to support a company, for whatever reason, then it is wise to avoid their stock."}
{"text": "Best Time to buy a stock in a day The best time to buy a stock is the time of day when the stock price is lowest! Obviously you learned nothing from that sentence, but unfortunately you won't get a much better answer than that. Here's a question that is very similar to yours: \"Is it better to have a picnic for lunch or for dinner to minimize the chance of getting rained out?\" Every day is different..."}
{"text": "Are underlying assets supposed to be sold/bought immediately after being bought/sold in call/put option? In the first case, if you wish to own the stock, you just exercise the option, and buy it for the strike price. Else, you can sell the option just before expiration, it will be priced very close to its in-the-money value."}
{"text": "Investment / Savings advice in uncertain economy $23,000 Student Loans at 4% This represents guaranteed loss. Paying this off quickly is a conservative move, while your other investments may easily surpass 4% return, they are not guaranteed.  Should I just keep my money in my savings account since I want to keep   my money available? Or are there other options I have that are not   necessarily long term may provide better returns? This all depends on your plans, if you're just trying to keep cash in anticipation of the next big dip, you might strike gold, but you could just as easily miss out on significant market gains while waiting. People have a poor track record of predicting market down-turns. If you are concerned about how exposed to market risk you are in your current positions, then you may be more comfortable with a larger cash position. Savings/CDs are low-interest, but much lower risk. If you currently have no savings (you titled the section savings, but they all look like retirement/investment accounts), then I would recommend focusing on that first, getting a healthy emergency fund saved up, and budgeting for your car/house purchases.  There's no way to know if you'd be better off investing everything or piling up cash in the short-term. You have to decide how much risk you are comfortable with and act accordingly."}
{"text": "Over the long term, why invest in bonds? Many folks use bonds to diversify their portfolio since bonds rise and fall in value at different times and for different reasons than stocks. Bonds pay interest on a regular basis (usually monthly or quarterly) and so some people invest in bonds in order to match the interest payments to some regular expense they might have. The interest payment does not change (fixed income).  For individual bonds, there is a maturity date at which you can expect to receive the face value of the bond (the issuer's creditworthiness is important here). You can make a little money on a bond by buying it when its value is lower than its face value and either selling later for a higher value, or waiting for it to mature.  Often the minimum investment for a single bond is high, so if you don't have a large enough amount, you can still get the performance of bonds through a bond fund. These do not mature, so you don't have a guarantee of a return of your investment. However, they have access to more bonds than retail investors, so the funds can keep your money more fully invested. If you don't need the income, you can reinvest the dividends and have a little extra capital growth this way."}
{"text": "What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? 2 things:"}
{"text": "How to evaluate an annuity Annuities are usually not good deals. Commissions to the salesman can be as high as 9% of the initial premium. They're not scams, just not the best deals for most circumstances. Basically, these things are a combination of an investment vehicle and multiple insurance policies, including permanent insurance. The 8.2% \"return\" is the total cash value of the account, which your heirs get if you die."}
{"text": "Do brokers execute every trade on the exchange? There are two terms that are related, but separate here: Broker and Market Maker.  The former is who goes and finds a buyer/seller to buy/sell shares from/to you.   The latter (Market Maker) is a company which will agree to partner with you to complete the sale at a set price (typically the market price, often by definition as the market maker often is the one who determines the market price in a relatively low volumne listing).  A market maker will have as you say a 'pool' of relatively common stock (and even relatively uncommon, up to a point) for this purpose. A broker can be a market maker (or work for one), also, in which case he would sell you directly the shares from the market maker reservoir.  This may be a bad idea for you - the broker (while obligated to act in your interest, in theory) may push you towards stocks that the brokerage acts as a market maker for."}
{"text": "Are there any banks in Europe that I can have an account without being in that country? It can be done, but I believe it would be impractical for most people - i.e., it would likely be cheaper to fly to Europe from other side of the world to handle it in person if you can.  It also depends on where you live. You should take a look if there are any branches or subsidiaries of foreign banks in your country - the large multinational banks most likely can open you an account in their sister-bank in another country for, say, a couple hundred euro in fees."}
{"text": "How to calculate the rate of return on selling a stock? You probably want the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rate_of_return which is the compound interest rate that would produce your return. You can compute it in a spreadsheet with XIRR(), I made an example: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AvuTW2HtDQfYdEsxVlM0RFdrRk1QS1hoNURxZkVFN3c&hl=en You can also use a financial calculator, or there are probably lots of web-based calculators such as the ones people have mentioned."}
{"text": "Live in California but work for Illinois-based company California and New York are very aggressive when it comes to revenue and taxes. As such, mere having an employee in these States creates a nexus and tax/filing liability for the company. @Adam Wood mentioned sales tax - that is correct. Having an employee in the State of California will require collecting sales tax for CA, and if until now your employer didn't have to - that would be a good enough reason to refuse your request. In addition to sales taxes, there's also the issue of corporate filings (they will now have to file paperwork in CA and pay CA franchise taxes just because of you) and payroll taxes (which are pretty high in CA and NY). It will also subject the to CA/NY/WA labor laws, which are more liberal than in most of the other States. Washington doesn't have personal income tax, but does have corporate income tax and sales tax, so I'm guessing the reasons to exclude this State are the same."}
{"text": "Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk? I have been a landlord in Texas for just over 3 years now. I still feel like a novice, but I will give you the benefit of my experience. If you are relying on rental properties for current income versus a long term return you are going to have to do a good job at shopping for bargains to get monthly cash flow versus equity growth that is locked up in the property until you sell it.  If you want to pull a lot of cash out of a property on a regular basis you probably are going to have to get into flipping them, which is decidedly not passive investing. Also, it is easy to underestimate the expenses associated with rental properties. Texas is pretty landlord friendly legally, however it does have higher than usual property taxes, which will eat into your return. Also, you need to factor in maintenance, vacancy, tenant turnover costs, etc. It can add up to a lot more than you would expect. If you are handy and can do a lot of repairs yourself you can increase your return, but that makes it less of a passive investment. The two most common rules I have heard for initially evaluating whether an investment property is likely to be cash flow positive are the 1% and 50% rules. The 1% rule says the expected monthly rent needs to be 1% or greater of the purchase price of the house. So your hypothetical $150K/$10K scenario doesn't pass that test. Some people say this rule is 2% for new landlords, but in my experience you'd have to get lucky in Texas to find a house priced that competitively that didn't need a lot of work to get rents that high. The 50% rule says that the rent needs to be double your mortgage payment to account for expenses. You also have to factor in the hassle of dealing with tenants, the following are not going to happen when you own a mutual fund, but are almost inevitable if you are a landlord long enough: For whatever reason you have to go to court and evict a tenant. A tenant that probably lost their job, or had major medical issues. The nicest tenant you ever met with the cutest kids in the world that you are threatening to make homeless. Every fiber of your being wants to cut them some slack, but you have a mortgage to pay and can't set an expectation that paying the rent on time is a suggestion not a rule. or the tenant, who seemed nice at first, but now considers you \"the man\" decides to fight the eviction and won't move out. You have to go through a court process, then eventually get the Sheriff to come out and forcibly remove them from the property, which they are treating like crap because they are mad at you. All the while not paying rent or letting you re-let the place. The tenant isn't maintaining the lawn and the HOA is getting on your butt about it. Do you pay someone to mow the grass for them and then try to squeeze the money out of the tenant who \"never agreed to pay for that\"?  You rent to a college kid who has never lived on their own and has adopted you as their new parent figure. \"The light in the closet went out, can you come replace the bulb?\" Tenants flat out lying to your face. \"Of course I don't have any pets that I didn't pay the deposit for!\" (Pics all over facebook of their kids playing with a dog in the \"pet-free\" house)"}
{"text": "Cash flow implications of converting primary mortgaged residence to rental You are assuming 100% occupancy and 100% rent collection.  This is unrealistic.  You could get lucky and find that long term tenant with great credit that always pays their bills... but in reality that person usually buys a home they do not rent long term.  So you will need to be prepared for periods of no renters and periods of non payment.  The expenses here I would expect could wipe out more than you can make in \"profit\" based on your numbers. Have you checked to find out what the insurance on a rental property is?  I am guessing it will go up probably 200-500 a year possibly more depending on coverage.  You will need a different type of insurance for rental property. Have you checked with your mortgage provider to make sure that you can convert to a rental property?   Some mortgages (mine is one) restrict the use of the home from being a rental property.  You may be required to refinance your home which could cost you more, in addition if you are under water it will be hard to find a new financier willing to write that mortgage with anything like reasonable terms. You are correct you would be taking on a new expense in rental.  It is non deductible, and the IRS knows this well.   As Littleadv's answer stated you can deduct some expenses from your rental property. I am not sure that you will have a net wash or loss when you add those expenses.  If you do then you have a problem since you have a business losing money.  This does not even address the headaches that come with being a landlord. By my quick calculations if you want to break even your rental property should be about 2175/Month. This accounts for 80% occupancy and 80% rental payment.  If you get better than that you should make a bit of a profit... dont worry im sure the house will find a way to reclaim it."}
{"text": "What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? I wish I had learned my lesson from the dot com bubble before I took a piece of the housing bubble."}
{"text": "Good book-keeping software? The short answer is that there are no great personal finance programs out there any more. In the past, I found Microsoft Money to be slick and feature rich but unfortunately it has been discontinued a few years ago.  Your choices now are Quicken and Mint along with the several open-source programs that have been listed by others. In the past, I found the open source programs to be both clunky and not feature-complete for my every day use. It's possible they have improved significantly since I had last looked at them. The biggest limitation I saw with them is weakness of integration with financial service providers (banks, credit card companies, brokerage accounts, etc.) Let's start with Mint. Mint is a web-based tool (owned by the same company as Quicken) whose main feature is its ability to connect to nearly every financial institution you're likely to use. Mint aggregates that data for you and presents it on the homepage. This makes it very easy to see your net worth and changes to it over time, spending trends, track your progress on budgets and long-term goals, etc. Mint allows you to do all of this with little or no data entry. It has support for your investments but does not allow for deep analysis of them. Quicken is a desktop program. It is extremely feature rich in terms of supporting different types of accounts, transactions, reports, reconciliation, etc. One could use Quicken to do everything that I just described about Mint, but the power of Quicken is in its more manual features. For example, while Mint is centred on showing you your status, Quicken allows you to enter transactions in real-time (as you're writing a check, initiating a transfer, etc) and later reconciles them with data from your financial institutions. Link Mint, Quicken has good integration with financial companies so you can generally get away with as little or as much data entry as you want. For example, you can manually enter large checks and transfers (and later match to automatically-downloaded data) but allow small entries like credit card purchases to download automatically.  Bottom line, if you're just looking to keep track of where you are at, try Mint. It's very simple and free. If you need more power and want to manage your finances on a more transactional level, try Quicken (though I believe they do not have a trial version, I don't understand why). The learning curve is steep although probably gentler than that of GnuCash. Last note on why Mint.com is free: it's the usual ad-supported model, plus Mint sells aggregated consumer behaviour reports to other institutions (since Mint has everyone's transactions, it can identify consumer trends). If you're not comfortable with that, or with the idea of giving a website passwords to all your financial accounts, you will find Quicken easier to accept. Hope this helps."}
{"text": "Tax intricacies of MLP in a Roth IRA You seem to have it right.  Unless you have a big position, having MLP shares in your IRA will not cause you any tax hassles.  Your IRA will get a Schedule K from the MPL (which may be mailed to you), but you won't need to do anything with that unless you're over the UBI limit.  Last I checked, that was $1000, and you probably won't exceed that. UBI in principle needs to be evaluated every year, so it's not necessarily a \"one-time\" event.  If your IRA does go over the UBI limit, your IRA (not you) needs to file a return.  In that case, contact your custodian and tell them about the Schedule K that you got. See also my answer here: Tax consequences of commodity ETF The question is about commodity ETFs in IRAs, but the part of my answer about UBI applies equally well."}
{"text": "Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in? In an open corporation scenario a stock holder may well be found liable. It's a very narrow and uncommon bunch of scenarios but it's well worth sharing. See the paragraph on open corporations in the following document: http://nationalparalegal.edu/public_documents/courseware_asp_files/businessLaw/RightsOfShareholders/LiabilityOfShareholders.asp"}
{"text": "What are some examples of unsecured loans Some other unsecured loans that are common:"}
{"text": "Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage? the mortgage interest deduction alone couldn't make this work, but if you realize less income by living off the mortgage funds, then it could definitely reduce your taxes by much more than the cost of the mortgage interest.  particularly, if you are waiting for some future cut-off date (e.g. turning 59.5 and getting access to roth funds, turning 70 and getting social security, simply doing a roth conversion with strategic recharacterization at age 40 and waiting 5 years to get the money out penalty-free, etc.).  and that future date could be quite far off if you only use a small fraction of the total mortgage each year. plus, it is fairly reasonable to assume that equity market returns will outpace mortgage rates, especially if you are \"rich\" and don't need to worry about living on the street even if the market hits unprecedented lows.  while i find most financial advisers to be incompetent (most people really...), i wouldn't write this guy off, just because he left out the specific details that made the strategy work for one particular client."}
{"text": "What do the terms par value, purchase price, call price, call date, and coupon rate mean in the context of bonds? Bonds are valued based on all of this, using the concept of the \"time value of money\". Simply stated, money now is worth more than money later, because of what you can do with money between now and later. Case in point: let's say the par value of a bond is $100, and will mature 10 years from this date (these are common terms for most bonds, though the U.S. Treasury has a variety of bonds with varying par values and maturation periods), with a 0% coupon rate (nothing's paid out prior to maturity). If the company or government issuing the bonds needs one million dollars, and the people buying the bonds are expecting a 5% rate of return on their investment, then each bond would only sell for about $62, and the bond issuer would have to sell a par value of $1.62 million in bonds to get its $1m now. These numbers are based on equations that calculate the \"future value\" of an investment made now, and conversely the \"present value\" of a future return. Back to that time value of money concept, money now (that you're paying to buy the bond) is worth more than money later (that you'll get back at maturity), so you will expect to be returned more than you invested to account for this time difference. The percentage of rate of return is known as the \"yield\" or the \"discount rate\" depending on what you're calculating, what else you take into consideration when defining the rate (like inflation), and whom you talk to. Now, that $1.62m in par value may be hard for the bond issuer to swallow. The issuer is effectively paying interest on interest over the lifetime of the bond. Instead, many issuers choose to issue \"coupon bonds\", which have a \"coupon rate\" determining the amount of a \"coupon payment\". This can be equated pretty closely with you making interest-only payments on a credit card balance; each period in which interest is compounded, you pay the amount of interest that has accrued, to avoid this compounding effect.  From an accounting standpoint, the coupon rate lowers the amount of real monies paid; the same $1m in bonds, maturing in 10 years with a 5% expected rate of return, but with a 5% coupon rate, now only requires payments totalling $1.5m, and that half-million in interest is paid $50k at a time annually (or $25k semi-annually). But, from a finance standpoint, because the payments made in the first few years are worth more than the payments made closer to and at maturity, the present value of all these coupon payments (plus the maturity payout) is higher than if the full payout happened at maturity, and so the future value of the total investment is higher.  Coupon rates on bonds thus allow a bond issuer to plan a bond package in less complicated terms. If you as a small business need $1m for a project, which you will repay in 10 years, and during that time you are willing to tolerate a 5% interest rate on the outstanding money, then that's exactly how you issue the bonds; $1 million worth, to mature in 10 years and a 5% coupon rate. Now, whether the market is willing to accept that rate is up to the market. Right now, they'd be over the moon with that rate, and would be willing to buy the bonds for more than their face value, because the present value would then match the yield they're willing to accept (as in any market system, you as the seller will sell to the highest bidder to get the best price available). If however, they think you are a bad bet, they'll want an even higher rate of return, and so the present value of all coupon and maturity payments will be less than the par value, and so will the purchase price."}
{"text": "How does the Pension system work in Poland? littleadv's answer gives a concise summary of the system as it stands now, but much more changed than just the portion of the mandatory contribution that was diverted to the private plan. In broad terms, the balances of your accounts and your future benefit won't change. It's only the source of these benefits that's changing. The Bloomberg article describes the changes this way: The state will take over the amount of bonds that pension funds held as of end of Sept. 3 and turn them into pension liabilities in the state-run social security system... The state will assume control of 51.5 percent of pension-fund assets, including bonds guaranteed by the government and \u201cother non-stock assets\u201d After the change, Polish workers that held bonds in the private portion of their retirement portfolios will instead have more payments from the state-run pension system. The balances of your retirement portfolio and your future benefits shouldn't change, but the reality may depend on how the state pension system is managed and any future changes the government implements. The effect this change will have on future benefits isn't clear, because the change may simply delay the problem of high levels of outstanding sovereign debt, not solve it. The government stated that because increasing numbers of workers invested their money in private pension funds, less money went into the government's fund, which forced them to issue sovereign debt in order to cover the shortfall in their current pension liabilities.  The government's recent cancellation of government bonds in the hands of private pensions will decrease their overall outstanding debt, but in exchange, the government is increasing its future pension liabilities. Years down the road, the government may find that they need to issue more sovereign debt to cover the increased pension liabilities they're taking on today. In other words, they may find themselves back in the same situation years down the road, and it's difficult to predict what changes they might make at that time."}
{"text": "Finding out actual items bought via credit card issuer and not the store receipt? As a merchant I can tell you that the only thing the bank gets from me.  Is the total amount and a category for my business.  No detail, not ever."}
{"text": "Does dollar cost averaging really work? Dollar cost averaging works if the stuff you're buying goes up within your time horizon.  It won't protect you from losing money if it doesn't. Also consider that the person (or company, or industry) that suggests dollar-cost averaging might want you to start up a regular investment program and put it on auto-pilot, which subsequently increases the chance that you won't give due attention to the fact that you're sending them money every paycheck to buy an investment that make them money regardless of whether you make money or not."}
{"text": "What is market capitalization? [duplicate] Market Capitalization is the product of the current share price (the last time someone sold a share of the stock, how much?) times the number of outstanding shares of stock, summed up over all of the stock categories. Assuming the efficient market hypothesis and a liquid market, this gives the current total value of the companies' assets (both tangible and intangible). Both the EMH and perfect liquidity may not hold at all times. Beyond those theoretical problems, in practice, someone trying to buy or sell the company at that price is going to be in for a surprise; the fact that someone wants to sell that many stocks, or buy that many stocks, will move the price of the company stock."}
{"text": "Evaluating stocks useless? Is evaluating stocks just a loss of time if the stock is traded very much? Not at all! Making sound investment decisions based on fundamental analysis of companies will help you to do decide whether a given company is right for you and your risk appetite. Investing is not a zero-sum game, and you can achieve a positive long-term (or short-term, depending on what you're after) outcome for yourself without compromising your ability to sleep at night if you take the time to become acquainted with the companies that you are investing in. How can you ensure that your evaluation is more precise than the   market ones which consists of the evaluation of thousands of people   and professionals? For the average individual, the answer is often simply \"you probably cannot\". But you don't have to set the bar that high - what you can do is ensure that your evaluation gives you a better understanding of your investment and allows you to better align it with your investment objectives. You don't have to beat the professionals, you just have to lose less money than you would by paying them to make the decision for you."}
{"text": "If I invest in securities denominated in a foreign currency, should I hedge my currency risk? No.  This is too much for most individuals, even some small to medium businesses.  When you sell that investment, and take the cheque into the foreign bank and wire it back to the USA in US dollars, you will definitely obtain the final value of the investment, converted to US$. Thats what you wanted, right?  You'll get that.  If you also hedge, unless you have a situation where it is a perfect hedge, then you are gambling on what the currencies will do. A perfect hedge is unusual for what most individuals are involved in. It looks something like this:  you know ForeignCorp is going to pay you 10 million quatloos on Dec 31.  So you go to a bank (probably a foreign bank, I've found they have lower limits for this kind of transaction and more customizable than what you might create trading futures contracts), and tell them, \"I have this contract for a 10 million quatloo receivable on Dec 31, I'd like to arrange a FX forward contract and lock in a rate for this in US$/quatloo.\"  They may have a credit check or a deposit for such an arrangement, because as the rates change either the bank will owe you money or you will owe the bank money. If they quote you 0.05 US$/quatloo, then you know that when you hand the cheque over to the bank your contract payment will be worth US$500,000.  The forward rate may differ from the current rate, thats how the bank accounts for risk and includes a profit. Even with a perfect hedge, you should be able to see the potential for trouble.  If the bank doesnt quite trust you, and hey, banks arent known for trust, then as the quatloo strengthens relative to the US$, they may suspect that you will walk away from the deal.  This risk can be reduced by including terms in the contract requiring you to pay the bank some quatloos as that happens.  If the quatloo falls you would get this money credited back to your account.  This is also how futures contracts work; there it is called \"mark to market accounting\".  Trouble lurks here.  Some people, seeing how they are down money on the hedge, cancel it.  It is a classic mistake because it undoes the protection that one was trying to achieve.  Often the rate will move back, and the hedger is left with less money than they would have had doing nothing, even though they bought a perfect hedge."}
{"text": "How can I avoid international wire fees or currency transfer fees? I faced something similar for travel or work reasons, and as for me I preferred wire transfer over credit card withdrawals because my bank has huge fees. My thoughts so far are: the fee can vary a lot for credit card. As for me, I can expect 5% fees on foreign withdrawals. But I considered changing bank and I think a Gold (or premium) card might be a good idea as well. The idea is you pay a big subscription (100 euros or so) but have no fee. The total of withdrawal fees could easily (if you stay long abroad) reach this amount. There are also banks like HSBC that offer low fees on withdrawals abroad, you can ask them. The problem is that you cannot really withdraw huge amounts to lower the fee (since you carry this cash in the street). for wire transfers the total fee is usually $50 or more (I had a fee from distant bank, a fee for change and a fee in my home bank). But the amount is unlimited (or high enough to be of little matter) and I needed to do this once per year or so. So I guess it could be interesting if you have enough savings to only transfer money every couple of months or so. I think Western Union is also involved this profitable business. I never used it because the fees are pretty high, but maybe it is useful for not too big amounts frequently transfered. Actually, have you considered a loan? It's a very random idea but maybe you can use a loan as a swap and then transfer money when you have enough to reimburse it all. But the question is very interesting, I think the business is pretty huge due to globalization. It is expensive because some people can make a lot of money out of it."}
{"text": "Choosing which ESPP stocks to sell? the difference would be taxes...  Lets say you have two lots, one with a 10 dollar gain, and one with a 20 dollar gain.  And lets say you decide to sell one lot this year, and the other lot in 10 years.  AND, lets say that it turns out the stock price is exactly the same in ten years as it is when you sell the first lot. In all likelyhood, you'll have more income, and therefore you are likely to be in a different marginal tax rate.  If you believe that you're more likely to pay more taxes in 10 years, then sell the lot with the higher gain now.  If you believe you're more likely to pay more taxes now, then sell the lot with the lower gain now."}
{"text": "Gold futures' margin The initial and overnight margin requirements are set by the exchanges (who calculate them using the Standard Portfolio of Analysis of Risk, or 'SPAN' system), and positions are market to market according to these at the end of the trading session. To find these margin requirements you will need to consult the website of the exchange on which the contract you are trading is issued (i.e. if you're trading on the London Metal Exchange it's no good looking at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's margin requirements as a previous answer suggests!). However, for positions entered and exited within the same day, the daytrade margin rate will apply. This is set by your broker rather than the exchange, and can be as little as 10% of the exchange requirement. You can find a useful comparison of different margin types and requirements in the article I have published here: Understanding Margin for Futures Trading."}
{"text": "Should I learn to do my own tax? I would advise against \"pencil and paper\" approach for the following reasons: You should e-file instead of paper filing. Although the IRS provides an option of \"Fillable Forms\", there's no additional benefit there. Software ensures correctness of the calculations. It is easy to make math errors, lookup the wrong table It is easy to forget to fill a line or to click a checkbox (one particular checkbox on Schedule B cost many people thousands of dollars). Software ask you questions in a \"interview\" manner, and makes it harder to miss. Software can provide soft copies that you can retrieve later or reuse for amendments and carry-overs to the next year, making the task next time easier and quicker. You may not always know about all the available deductions and credits. Instead of researching the tax changes every year, just flow with the interview process of the software, and they'll suggest what may be available for you (lifetime learners credit? Who knows). Software provides some kind of liability protection (for example, if there's something wrong because the software had a bug - you can have them fix it for you and pay your penalties, if any). It's free. So why not use it? As to professional help later in life - depending on your needs. I'm fully capable of filling my own tax returns, for example, but I prefer to have a professional do it since I'm not always aware about all the intricacies of taxation of my transactions and prefer to have a professional counsel (who also provides some liability coverage if she counsels me wrong...). Some things may become very complex and many people are not aware of that (I've shared the things I learned here on this forum, but there are many things I'm not aware of and the tax professional should know)."}
{"text": "Buying a car - advice needed I would actually disagree with MrChrister on this. You can afford yourself the car in this price range paid cash. I don't know how exactly you spend your income, but from my experience, in expensive California, saving $20K a year from $70K income with $800/mo rent is feasible. Having a loan on your credit report which is paid on time and in full will definitely help you rebuilding your credit. Your calculations re the costs of the loan are based on the assumption that you're going to keep the loan for the whole period. Don't do that. See #1 - you can repay this loan much quicker than the 3 years it should originally have been. 6 months of the loan which is then paid off will do marvels to your credit report and credit score. Yes, it is going to cost you some, but in your particular case I would argue that its worth it. You're an adult now, you need credit cards, you'll need a mortgage at some point, you need to rent a place to live - all these require a good credit report. Just waiting, as MrChrister suggests, will help, but much much slower.  Having said that, a seller that \"cannot discuss the terms over the phone\" is most likely a dishonest person. Once you're there and in front of him it is harder for you to verify information, resist signing papers, and negotiating."}
{"text": "What tax laws apply to Meetup group income? In the United States tax law, a group of people who are neither an individual nor an incorporated entity is called \"partnership\".  Here's the IRS page on partnerships. Income derived by such a \"meetup.com\" group is essentially a partnership income with the group members being the partners. However, as you can see from the questions in the comments, the situation can become significantly more complex if this partnership is not managed properly."}
{"text": "If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything? You are missing the fact that the company can buy back its own shares. For simplicity, imagine the case that you own ALL of the shares of XYZ corporation.  XYZ is very profitable, and it makes $1M per year.  There are two ways to return $1M to you, the shareholder: 1)  The company could buy back some fraction of your shares for $1M, or  2)  The company could pay you a $1M dividend. After (1) you'd own ALL of the shares and have $1M. After (2) you'd own ALL of the shares and have $1M. After (1) the total number of shares would be fewer, but saying you owned less of XYZ would be like complaining that you are shorter when your height is measured in inches than in centimeters. So indeed, a buyback is an alternative to a dividend. Furthermore, buybacks have a number of tax advantages over dividends to taxable shareholders (see my answer in Can I get a dividend \"free lunch\" by buying a stock just before the ex-dividend date and selling it immediately after?).  That said, it is important to recognize the shareholders who are less savvy about knowing when to accept the buyback (by correctly valuing the company) can get burned at the profit of the savvy shareholders.  A strategy to avoid being burned if you aren't price savvy is simply to sell a fraction in order to get your pro rata share of the buyback, in many respects simulating a dividend but still reaping some (but not all) of the tax advantages of a buyback."}
{"text": "Indie Software Developers - How do I handle taxes? The \"hire a pro\" is quite correct, if you are truly making this kind of money. That said, I believe in a certain amount of self-education so you don't follow a pro's advice blindly. First, I wrote an article that discussed Marginal Tax Rates, and it's worth understanding. It simply means that as your income rises past certain thresholds, the tax rate also will change a bit. You are on track to be in the top rate, 33%.  Next, Solo 401(k). You didn't ask about retirement accounts, but the combined situations of making this sum of money and just setting it aside, leads me to suggest this. Since you are both employer and employee, the Solo 401(k) limit is a combined $66,500. Seems like a lot, but if you are really on track to make $500K this year, that's just over 10% saved.   Then, whatever the pro recommends for your status, you'll still have some kind of Social Security obligation, as both employer and employee, so that's another 15% or so for the first $110K.  Last, some of the answers seemed to imply that you'll settle in April. Not quite. You are required to pay your tax through the year and if you wait until April to pay the tax along with your return, you will have a very unpleasant tax bill. (I mean it will have penalties for underpayment through the year.) This is to be avoided.  I offer this because often a pro will have a specialty and not go outside that focus. It's possible to find the guy that knows everything about setting you up as an LLC or Sole Proprietorship, yet doesn't have the 401(k) conversation.  Good luck, please let us know here how the Pro discussion goes for you."}
{"text": "Impact of RMD on credit worthiness I feel like this has nothing to do with income, and as such RMDs will not really help or harm you. After a person passes, credit card companies are unlikely to collect any outstanding balance.  Debts cannot be inherited, however, assets can be made to stand for debts.  Many assets pass to heirs without the probate process and in some cases all of them pass this way.  This leaves creditors with nothing and having to write off the balance. Even if assets do pass through probate heirs may dispute the creditors.  In that case credit card balances may not be high enough justify hiring a lawyer to fight for payment; or, if they do the judge may be unsympathetic and offer nothing or pennies on the dollar.    The bottom line is that they probably see you, or your demographic, as a poor credit risk and reduced their exposure by lowering your limit.  While that is not what they told you, they probably have to carefully structure what they say to avoid any discrimination claims."}
{"text": "Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? I would go see a Lawyer no matter what. It's a form of a scam your parents are doing. Make sure it's YOUR name only on the title of the building if it is, then you have a MAJOR case against them. This is a form of Equity scam, in where you aren't really going to make hardly any money. Once you pay them that money towards the loan legally their stake needs to decrease according to what you said. ABSOLUTELY CONSULT A LAWYER!"}
{"text": "Is a stock's trade size history publicly available? You can buy the data and process it on your own.  http://www.nyxdata.com/Data-Products/Daily-TAQ"}
{"text": "Does financing a portfolio on margin affect the variance of a portfolio? Variance of a single asset is defined as follows: \u03c32 = \u03a3i(Xi - \u03bc)2 where Xi's represent all the possible final market values of your asset and \u03bc represents the mean of all such market values.  The portfolio's variance is defined as \u03c3p2 = \u03a3iwi2\u03c3i2 where, \u03c3p is the portfolio's variance, and wi stands for the weight of the ith asset.  Now, if you include the borrowing in your portfolio, that would classify as technically shorting at the borrowing rate. Thus, this weight would (by the virtue of being negative) increase all other weights. Moreover, the variance of this is likely to be zero (assuming fixed borrowing rates). Thus, weights of risky assets rise and the investor's portfolio's variance will go up. Also see, CML at wikipedia."}
{"text": "How can I buy shares of oil? I'm told it's done through ETFs. How's that related to oil prices per barrel? While we're not supposed to make direct recommendations, and I am in no way advising anything, USO an ETF that buys light sweet crude oil futures with the intention of mirroring the price movements of oil."}
{"text": "Funding an ira or roth ira And on the last sentence, it doesn't matter when or where the money was earned (money is fungible, so there's generally not even any way to tell), but you do have to have sufficient earned income (that's basically money you earn from working, not from dividends and interest or selling stock and the like) in the contribution year to cover the IRA contribution."}
{"text": "ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan) Funds on Mortgage Loan Application The problem is that you don't have the money now; so they can't know with 100% certainty that you will have it on settlement day.  What happens if you don't file the paperwork in time? or you change your mind because you think the company stock is going to go through the roof next quarter? They would have to pull the funding for the loan. The seller would be upset, and could even file for damages if the deal falls through.  It could even snowball because if they delay the sale then they can't buy the new place, which impacts another closing... Frequently lenders want to see the money for the down payment long before settlement.  They want to know the money is there, and it isn't a hidden loan. While you can point to the money in the ESPP, they would still like to see the money in a regular bank account. Even if you do convince them to delay their evaluation you can count on being asked to prove the existence of the funds in the days before closing, or they will delay giving the loan."}
{"text": "How do I calculate ownership percentage for shared home ownership? It may clarify your thinking if you look at this as two transactions: I am an Australian so I cannot comment on US tax laws but this is how the Australian Tax Office would view the transaction. By thinking this way you can allocate the risks correctly, Partnership Tenancy Two things should be clear - you will need a good accountant and a good lawyer - each."}
{"text": "Why do stock or commodity prices sometimes rise suddenly just before market close? This is often the case where traders are closing out short positions they don't want to hold overnight, for a variety of reasons that matter to them.  Most frequently, this is from day traders or high-frequency traders settling their accounts before the markets close."}
{"text": "Someone asks you to co-sign a loan. How to reject & say \u201cno\u201d nicely or politely? I'll take an alternate route: honesty + humor. Say something like this with a smile and a laugh, like you know they're crazy, but they maybe don't know it yet. \"Are you crazy? Co-signing a loan can put us both in a lot of potential danger. First, you shouldn't get a loan that you can't afford/attain on your own, and second, I'd be crazy to agree to be liable for a loan that someone else can't get on their own. You want something bad enough, you get your credit rating in order, or you save up the money - that's how I bought (my car/house/trip to Geneva). I'd be happy to point you in the right direction if you want to put a plan together.\" You're offering help, but not the kind that puts you in danger. Declining to co-sign a loan can't damage your relationship with this person as much as failure to pay will."}
{"text": "Can saving/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire? The article links to William Bernstein\u2019s plan that he outlined for Business Insider, which says: Modelling this investment strategy Picking three funds from Google and running some numbers. The international stock index only goes back to April 29th 1996, so a run of 21 years was modelled.  Based on 15% of a salary of $550 per month with various annual raises: Broadly speaking, this investment doubles the value of the contributions over two decades. Note:  Rebalancing fees are not included in the simulation. Below is the code used to run the simulation.  If you have Mathematica you can try with different funds.    Notice above how the bond index (VBMFX) preserves value during the 2008 crash.  This illustrates the rationale for diversifying across different fund types."}
{"text": "Is house swapping possible? Another possibility that you might consider is to find a renter for your current place and move to your destination. If you have a lease for your renter, your mortgage company can consider that as income for approving the purchase of a new house. I did something similar when I purchased my current home, but I was also able to get approved without selling or renting the old place. There's no reason that someone couldn't create a house swapping site for longer-term than a week. It may not initially have as much demand as a 1 week swap, but there are no such existing services that I am aware of."}
{"text": "Strategies for paying off my Student loans Considering I'm in a nearly identical situation, I'll speak to my personal strategy and maybe there's some value for you as well.   You have ~$22k in loans, which you say you could pay off today.  So, what I read is that you're sitting there with a $22k investment and want to know which investment to make: pay down debt, invest in yourself/start up, or some variation between those options.  Any investor worth his salt will ask a couple of questions: what is my risk, and what is my gain? Paying off your student loans offers no financial risk at the cost of opportunity risk, and gains you returns of 3.4%, 6.8%, 3.4%, 4.5%, and 6.8%.  Those percentage gains are guaranteed and the opportunity risk is unknown. Investing in a startup is inherently risky, with the potential for big payoffs. But with this investment, you are accepting a lot of risk for potentially some gain (it could be the next Apple, it could also fail).  So, with your situation (like mine), I'd say it's best to accept the easy investment for now and fully vet out your tech start up idea in the meantime."}
{"text": "What happened to Home Depot's Stock in 1988? So a major problem with looking at historical stock data on these graphs is that they set the stock price based off of current market volumn. If I was to say look at Majesco Entertainment (COOL) in june of 2016. It would say that the stock as trading between $5-6. In reality it was between .50-$1.  But in august there was a 6:1 reverse split. So June's value based on todays current share count would be about $5-6 per one share. 1988 for home depot must have been a really bad year for them, and because of all the splits they've had over the years already screws that estimate of what one share is worth. There's a lot of variance in 1988, but you have to be looking at only 1988. 87 and 89 really screws the the chart's scale."}
{"text": "Filing a corporation tax return online? When in doubt, you should always seek the advice of a professional tax preparer or your accountant. (Many agents/accountants will gladly review your tax preparations to ensure you haven't missed something. That's quicker and cheaper than paying them to do it all.) Having said that... This Illinois resource has detailed information about S-corps:  Of relevance to your situation:"}
{"text": "Why does gold have value? Gold has very useful physical properties for some engineering applications.  Even tiny amounts of gold can substantially improve products, so it can be worthwhile to pay high prices per ounce for gold.  For example: Gold can be \"beaten\" or electroplated to produce very thin shiny coatings.  Entire roofs (of famous buildings) have been covered with \"gold leaf\", at a cost that was small compared to the supporting structure. A very thin layer of electroplated gold provides better protection against corrosion than a much thicker layer of electroplated nickel.  Even if gold costs thousands of times more per ounce than nickel, it is cheaper to use gold as an anti-corrosion layer than nickel (for use in military-grade naval electronics). A thin layer of electroplated gold greatly increases the electrical current-carrying capacity of a thin copper wire."}
{"text": "Why can Robin Hood offer trading without commissions? They make money off you by increasing the spread you buy and sell your stocks through them.  So for example, if the normal spread for a stock was $10.00 for a buy and $10.02 for a sell, they might have a spread of $9.98 for the buy and $10.02 for the sell. So for an order of 1000 shares (approx. $10000) they would make $0.02 per share which would equal $20.00."}
{"text": "How do you calculate the rate of return (ROR) when buying and selling put options? RoR for options you bought is fairly easy: (Current Value-Initial Cost)/Initial Cost gives you the actual return. If you want the rate of return, you need to annualize that number: You divide the return you got above by the number of days the investment was in place, and then multiply that number by the number of days in a year. (365 if you're using calendar days, about 255 if you're using trading days.) RoR for options you sold is much more complex: The problem is that RoR is basically calculating the size of your return relative to the capital it tied up to earn it.   That's simple when you bought something; the capital tied up is the money you put up.   It's more complex on a position like a short option, where the specific transaction in question generates cash when it's put on.    The correct way to deal with this is to A) Bundle your strategy (options, stock and collateral) into one RoR where appropriate, and B) include any needed collateral to support the short option in the calculation. So, if you sell a \"cash-secured\" put, where you have to post the money that you'd need to take delivery of the shares if they were put to you, the initial cost is the total amount you'd need to put the trade on:   in this case, it's the cash amount, less the premium you collected for selling the put.  That's just one example.    But the approach holds more broadly:  if you're using covered calls, your original cost is the cost of the stock less the premium generated by the sale of the call."}
{"text": "How can this stock have an intra-day range of more than 90% on 24Aug2015? EDIT: It was System Disruption or Malfunctions August 24, 2015 2:12 PM EDT   Pursuant to Rule 11890(b) NASDAQ, on its own motion, in conjunction   with BATS, and FINRA has determined to cancel all trades in security   Blackrock Capital Investment. (Nasdaq: BKCC) at or below $5.86 that   were executed in NASDAQ between 09:38:00 and 09:46:00 ET. This   decision cannot be appealed. NASDAQ will be canceling trades on the   participants behalf. A person on Reddit claimed that he was the buyer. He used Robinhood, a $0 commission broker and start-up.  The canceled trades are reflected on CTA/UTP and the current charts will differ from the one posted below.  It is an undesired effect of the 5-minute Trading Halt.  It is not \"within 1 hour of opening, BKCC traded between $0.97 and $9.5\".  Those trades only occurred for a few seconds on two occasions.  One possible reason is that when the trading halt ended, there was a lot of Market Order to sell accumulated.  Refer to the following chart, where each candle represents a 10 second period. As you can see, the low prices did not \"sustain\" for hours.   And the published halts."}
{"text": "Debit card funds on preauthorization hold to paypal: can it be used for another transaction? Imagine the following scenario: You have a credit limit of $1000 and you want to by a tablet from a store. It costs $600. You then walk next door and buy a TV for $600. You would expect that you would go over your limit and the second transaction will be rejected. As long as that hold is in place, you don't have access to those blocked funds. That makes sure that you can't promise to pay more than you have funds on the card. Holds can get in the way if you are close to your credit limit. People run into this problem if they reserve a hotel room, rent a car, or purchase gasoline. The hold is set at a specific level to make sure you have enough funds for the typical transaction. This distance between vendors is not relevant. The bank is blocking funds based on a request from a vendor. They have to block the funds because you might use the multiple times in the same store. It is possible that the card company might release the hold based on the request by the vendor, but they generally don't.  If this is a debit card linked to a bank account, the bank can have access to the overdraft system or a linked savings account. If is is a credit card they can decide to to increase your credit limit, and offer you what is essentially a loan. Plus they can hit you with fees. But if the card is a prepaid debit card or gift card they don't want to allow you to go beyond your limit.  If this is a card that you plan on recharging, you could put extra funds on the card to allow both the old hold and the new hold to co-exist."}
{"text": "How safe is a checking account? US checking accounts are not really secure, though many people use them. One form of check fraud has been highlighted by Prof. Donald Knuth and carried out by Frank Abagnale, as portrayed in the film Catch Me If You Can. Basically, anyone can write a check that would draw from your account merely by knowing your account number and your bank's ABA routing number.  With those two pieces of information (which are revealed on every check that you write), anyone can print a working check, either using a laser printer with MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) toner, or by placing an order with a check-printing company.  The only other missing element is a signature, which is a pretty weak form of authentication. When presented with such a check, your bank would probably honor it before finding out, too late, that it is fraudulent. A variant of this vulnerability is ACH funds transfers.  This is the mechanism through which you could have, say, your utility company automatically withdraw money from your account to pay your bill.  Unfortunately, the transfer is initiated by the recipient, and the system relies largely on trust with some statistical monitoring for suspicious patterns. Basically, the whole US checking system is built with convenience rather than security in mind, since other institutions are able to initiate withdrawal transactions by knowing just the ABA number and account number.  In practice, it works well enough for most people, but if you are paranoid about security, as you seem to be, you don't want to be using checks. The European system, which has largely eliminated checks in favor of payer-initiated push transactions, is safer by design."}
{"text": "Why are U.S. Treasury interest rates are so low vs. other nearly risk-free rates? As I'm sure you are reading in Hull's classic, the basic valuation of bonds depends on the chance of entity defaulting on those bonds.  Let's start with just looking at the US.  The United States has a big advantage over corporations in issuing debt as it also prints the same currency that the debt is denominated in.  This makes it much easier not to default on your debt as you can always print more money to pay it.  Printing too much currency would cause inflation lowering the value of debt, but this would also lower the value of US corporate debt as well.  So you can think of even the highest rated corporate bonds as having the same rate as government debt plus a little extra due to the additional default risk of the corporation. The situation with other AA rated governments is more complicated.  Most of those governments have debt denominated in their local currency as well so it may seem like they should all have similar rates.  However, some governments have higher and some actually have lower rates than the United States.  Now, as above, some of the difference is due to the possible need of printing too much currency to cover the debt in crisis and now that we have more than one country to invest in the extra risk of international money flowing out of the country's bonds. However, the bigger difference between AA governments rates depends more on money flow, central banks and regulation.  Bonds are still mostly freely traded instruments that respond to supply and demand, but this supply and demand is heavily influenced by governments.  Central banks buy up large portions of the debt raising demand and lowering rates.  Regulators force banks to hold a certain amount of treasuries perhaps inflating demand. Finally, to answer your question the United States has some interesting advantages partially just due to its long history of stability, controlled inflation and large economy making treasuries valuable as one of the lowest risk investments.  So its rates are generally on the low end, but government manipulation can still mean that it is not necessarily the lowest."}
{"text": "How should residents of smaller economies allocate their portfolio between domestic and foreign assets? We face the same issue here in Switzerland. My background: Institutional investment management, currency risk management. My thoughs are: Home Bias is the core concept of your quesiton. You will find many research papers on this topic. The main problems with a high home bias is that the investment universe in your small local investment market is usually geared toward your coutries large corporations. Lack of diversification: In your case: the ASX top 4 are all financials, actually banks, making up almost 25% of the index. I would expect the bond market to be similarly concentrated but I dont know. In a portfolio context, this is certainly a negative. Liquidity: A smaller economy obviously has less large corporations when compared globally (check wikipedia / List_of_public_corporations_by_market_capitalization) thereby offering lower liquidity and a smaller investment universe. Currency Risk: I like your point on not taking a stance on FX. This simplifies the task to find a hedge ratio that minimises portfolio volatility when investing internationally and dealing with currencies. For equities, you would usually find that a hedge ratio anywhere from 0-30% is effective and for bonds one that ranges from 80-100%. The reason is that in an equity portfolio, currency risk contributes less to overall volatility than in a bond portfolio. Therefore you will need to hedge less to achieve the lowest possible risk. Interestingly, from a global perspective, we find, that the AUD is a special case whereby, if you hedge the AUD you actually increase total portfolio risk. Maybe it has to do with the AUD being used in carry trades a lot, but that is a wild guess. Hedged share classes: You could buy the currency hedged shared classes of investment funds to invest globally without taking currency risks. Be careful to read exactly what and how the share class implements its currency hedging though."}
{"text": "What should I be doing to protect myself from identity theft? Every 90 days add an Initial Fraud Alert to each of the 3 major credit bureaus."}
{"text": "Monthly money transfers from US to Puerto Rico Puerto Rico: Last I checked, the Puerto Rico banking system wasn't materially different than working within the US - though some Continental US banks exclude US Territories like Guam and Puerto Rico or charge more when dealing with them. I'm not certain as to why. However, most banks don't see them any differently than a regular US bank.  Regarding Wire Transfers (WT): $35 for an ad-hoc WT within the US and Puerto Rico is for the most part average. Wires cost money for the convenience of quick clearing and guaranteed funds. If you have a business/commercial account where you are doing this regularly and paying a monthly fee for a WT service, $10 - $15 each may be expected. I had a business account with US Bank where I paid $15 a month for a WT transfer service and reoccurring template (always went to the same account - AMEX in this case) and the transfers were only $15 each. But, a WT as a general rule, especially when it's only a once a month thing from a personal account, will cost around $25 - $35 in the US and Puerto Rico. As others have said, you can simply mail a personal check just as you would in the US. Many people choose to use Money Orders for Puerto Rico as they can be cashed at the post office (I believe there is an amount limit though). ACH: If you want even easier, I would use ACH. Banks in Puerto Rico use this ACH (Automatic Clearing House) system as we do in the Continental US. It will take a little longer than WT, but as you said - this is fine. Not all US Banks offer free ACH, but a number of them do. Last I checked, Citibank and USAA where among them. Banks like, BAC charges a small fee. Much smaller than a WT! This post may be useful to you: What's the difference between wire transfer and ACH?"}
{"text": "What is a subsidy? A subsidy is a payment made by a group (usually the state) to individuals or corporations in order to shift the balance if the rational economic decision for the individual would be detrimental to the group as a whole otherwise. For example, if there are different quality kinds of crops that can be planted, for example a GM maize that brings in high yields but can only be processed to High Fructose Corn Syrup or a naturally bred corn that brings lower yields but tastes well enough for direct consumption, then if demand for both exceeds supply, the economic choice for the individual farmer is to plant the former. If the claims that HFCS contribute to obesity are founded, then it is in the public interest to produce less of it, and more alternative foods. Given that a market rather than a planned economy is desired, this cannot be achieved by decree, but rather money is used as an incentive. In the long term, this investment may very well pay off through reduced health care costs, so it is a rational economic decision from the state's point of view. In a world where all actors make decisions that are fully in their self interest, in principle subsidies would not be needed as consumers would demand healthy rather than cheap foods, and market mechanisms would provide these."}
{"text": "Do I need a business credit card? I would suggest at least getting a personal card that you only use for business expenses, even if you don't opt for a business card.  It makes it very clear that expenses on that card are business expenses, and is just more professional.  The same goes for a checking account, if you have one of those.  It makes it easier to defend if you are ever audited, and if you use an accountant or tax preparer."}
{"text": "Should I sell when my stocks are growing? I reread your question. You are not asking about the validity of selling a particular stock after a bit of an increase but a group of stocks. We don't know how many.  This is the S&P for the past 12 months. Trading at 1025-1200 or so means that 80-100 points is an 8% move. I count 4 such moves during this time.  The philosophy of \"you can't go wrong taking a gain\" is tough for me to grasp as it offers no advice on when to get (back) in. Studies by firms such as Dalbar (you can google for some of their public material) show data that supports the fact that average investors lag the market by a huge amount. 20 years ending 12/31/08 the S&P returned 8.35%, investor equity returns showed 1.87%. I can only conclude that this is a result of buying high and selling low, not staying the course.  The data also leads me to believe the best advice one can give to people we meet in these circumstances is to invest in index funds, keeping your expenses low as you can. I've said this since read Jack Bogle decades ago, and this advice would have yielded about 8.25% over the 20 years, beating the average investor by far, by guaranteeing lagging the average by 10 basis points or so.  A summary of the more extensive report citing the numbers I referenced is available for down load - QAIB 2015 - Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior. It's quite an eye-opener and a worthy read. (The original report was dated 2009, but the link broke, so I've updated to the latest report, 2015)"}
{"text": "Can I profit from anticipating a drop in value? To summarize, there are three basic ways: (3) is the truly dangerous one. If there is a lot of short interest in a stock, but for some reason the stock goes up, suddenly a lot of people will be scrambling to buy that stock to cover their short position -- which will drive the price up even further, making the problem worse.  Pretty soon, a bunch of smart rich guys will be poor guys who are suddenly very aware that they aren't as smart as they thought they were.  Eight years ago, such a \"short squeeze\", as it's called, made the price of VW quadruple in two days.  You could hear the Heinies howl from Hamburg to Haldenwanger. There are ways to protect yourself, of course.  You can go short but also buy a call at a much higher price, thereby limiting your exposure, a strategy called a \"straddle\", but you also reduce your profit if you guessed right. It comes down to, as it always does, do you want to eat well, or to sleep well?"}
{"text": "A debt collector will not allow me to pay a debt, what steps should I take? Send a well-documented payment to the original creditor.  Do it in such a way that you would have the ability to prove that you sent a payment if they reject it.  Should they reject it, demonstrate that to the credit reporting bureaus."}
{"text": "What are the pros and cons of investing in a closed-end fund? One advantage not pointed out yet is that closed-end funds typically trade on stock exchanges, whereas mutual funds do not.  This makes closed-end funds more accessible to some investors. I'm a Canadian, and this particular distinction matters to me.  With my regular brokerage account, I can buy U.S. closed-end funds that trade on a stock exchange, but I cannot buy U.S. mutual funds, at least not without the added difficulty of somehow opening a brokerage account outside of my country."}
{"text": "Why is the breakdown of a loan repayment into principal and interest of any importance? It's important because it shows that the amount you owe does not decrease linearly with each payment, and you gain equity as a correspondingly slower rate at the beginning of the loan and faster at the end. This has to be figured in when considering refinancing, or when you sell the place and pay off the mortgage. It also shows why making extra payments toward principal (if your loan permits doing so) is so advantageous -- unlike a normal payment that lowers the whole curve by a notch, reducing the length of time over which interest is due and thus saving you money in the long run. (Modulo possible lost-opportnity costs, of course.)"}
{"text": "How do I get bill collectors who call about people I know to stop calling me? If they really won't stop calling you, just waste their time. Usually the best thing I do to telemarketers (the ones that constantly call even through I've told them to stop) is to say \"oh yes, I'm interested I'll just get a pen\" - put them on hold and keep them on hold.  Do it every time they call and soon they'll get the idea that you're a waste of time."}
{"text": "How to diversify IRA portfolio given fund minimum investments and IRA contribution limits? There are fund of funds,e.g. life cycle funds or target retirement funds, that could cover a lot of these with an initial investment that one could invest into for a few years and then after building up a balance large enough, then it may make sense to switch to having more control."}
{"text": "US Taxes - Handling Capital Losses from previous years with current capital gains No one can advise you on whether to hold this stock or sell it. Your carried losses can offset short or long term gains, but the long term losses have to be applied to offset long term gains before any remaining losses can offset short term gains. Your question doesn't indicate how long you have to hold before the short term gains become long term gains. Obviously the longer the holding period, the greater the risk. You also must avoid a wash sale (selling to lock in the gains/reset your basis then repurchasing within a month). All of those decisions hold risks that you have to weigh. If you see further upside in holding it longer, keep the investment. Don't sell just to try to maximize tax benefits."}
{"text": "Is the \u201cBank on Yourself\u201d a legitimate investment strategy, or a scam? I haven't read the book and have no intention of reading it. This definitely looks like a forced savings plan with \"Whole Life Insurance\" as the theme \u2013 which is pretty bad for someone who is able to take care of his finances. It would be good for someone who is not very good with his finances and wants to be forced into savings, but then even for those people it would only help a little; there are enough clauses that would make things more bad for him. i.e. one can choose to take a loan, pay only interest etc. No book is going to help you build a savings habit. One has to realize and spend what is essential (it means not buying or doing tons of things) and putting quite a bit away for a rainy day. After this, comes investing wisely..."}
{"text": "If I sell a stock that I don't have, am I required to buy it before a certain amount of time? I don't actually have any of this stock. Apparently, it's quite common strategy This is called naked short selling. It's not illegal per se, but there can be some major penalties so you should call your broker and ask them these questions. Intentionally naked short selling is not looked upon favorably. They'll probably try to recommend you a safer shorting system by which:"}
{"text": "Is the \u201cBank on Yourself\u201d a legitimate investment strategy, or a scam? Technically, this doesn't seem like a scam, but I don't think the system is beneficial.  They use a lot of half-truths to convince you that their product is right for you. Some of the arguments presented and my thoughts. Don't buy term and invest the rest because you can't predict how much you'll earn from the \"rest\"   Also Don't invest in a 401k because you can't predict how much you'll earn They are correct that you won't know exactly how much you'll have due to stock market, but that doesn't mean the stock market is a bad place to put your money.  Investing in a 401k is risky because of the harsh 401k withdrawal rules  Yes, 401ks have withdrawal rules (can't typically start before 59.5, must start by 70.5) but those rules don't hamper my investing style in any way.    Most Term Life Insurance policies don't pay out  They are correct again, but their conclusions are wrong. Yes, most people don't die while you have a term insurance policy which is why Term life insurance is relatively cheap.   But they aren't arguing you don't need insurance, just that you need their insurance which is \"better\" You need the Guaranteed growth they offer  The chart used to illustrate their guaranteed growth includes non-guaranteed dividends.   They invest $10,000 per year for 36 years and end up with $1,000,000.   That's a 5% return!  I use 10% for my estimate of stock market performance, but let's say it's only 8%.   The same $10,000 per year results in over $2 Million dollars.  Using 10.5% (average return of the S&P 500 over it's lifetime) the result is a staggering $3.7 MILLION.   So if I'm looking at $3.7M vs. $1M, It costs me $2.7 Million dollars to give me the same coverage as my term life policy. That's one expensive Term Life Insurance policy. My personal favorite: Blindly following the advice of Wall Street and financial \u201cgurus\u201d such as Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman got you where you are. Are you happy with the state of your finances? Do you still believe their fairytale, \u201cBuy Term (insurance) and Invest the Difference\u201d?  Yes, I sure do believe that fairytale and I'm prospering quite well thank you. :) While I don't think this is a scam, it's outrageously expensive and not a good financial choice."}
{"text": "Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? There is no \"should\", but I am strongly of the view that if you have savings of several months' salary or more, they should not only be in a separate account, but with a separate financial institution, or even split between two others. A fraction of a percent of extra interest is scant reward for massively increased personal risk.  The reason for this is buried in the T&Cs. There is almost always a \"right of set off\": if one account is overdrawn, the bank reserves the right to take money from your other accounts. Which sounds fair enough, until you consider the imbalance of power. Maybe your salary account gets hacked? Maybe that's the bank's fault? Maybe the bank has made an accounting error? Maybe the bank has gone bust? Maybe you need to employ a lawyer to act on your behalf? Oh dear, you no longer have any savings. (*) This cannot happen if your savings are with a completely separate institution. Then, the only way that the salary account bank can touch your savings is by winning in the courts. If you split the savings two ways, you have also given yourself the reassurance that in the worst case only half your savings have been affected. \"Don't put all your eggs in one basket\" is proverbial. And there's a folk song that's lodged in my memory...  \"As through this world I wander, I've met all kinds of funny men. Some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen. Yet as far as I have wandered, as far as I have roamed, I've never seen an outlaw drive a family from their home\".  I've never been in this sort of trouble and the UK's laws tend to favour the banks' customers. I don't even hate bankers. Yet even so, why take this risk when it can so easily be reduced? (*) If this sounds far-fetched, read the news, for example https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/hbos-manager-and-other-city-financiers-jailed-over-245m-loans-scam"}
{"text": "How do I get into investing in stocks? Start by paying down any high interest debt you may have, like credit cards.  Reason being that they ultimately eat into any (positive) returns you may have from investing.  Another good reason is to build up some discipline.  You will need discipline to be a successful investor. Educate yourself about investing. The Motley Fool is probably still a good place to start.  I would also suggest getting into the habit of reading the Wall Street Journal or at the very least the business section of the New York Times.  You'll be overwhelmed with the terminology at first, but stick with it.  It is certainly worth it, if you want to be an investor.  The Investor's Business Daily is another good resource for information, though you will be lost in the deep end of the pool with that publication for sure.  (That is not a reason to avoid getting familiar with it.  Though at first, it may very well be overkill.) Save some money to open a brokerage account or even an IRA.  (You'll learn that there are some restrictions on what you can do in an IRA account.  Though they shouldn't necessarily be shunned as a result.  Money placed in an IRA is tax deductible, up to certain limits.) ????? Profit! Note: In case you are not familiar with the joke, steps 4 & 5 are supposed to be humorous.  Which provides a good time to bring up another point, if you are not having fun investing, then get out.  Put your money in something like an S&P 500 index fund and enjoy your life. There are a lot more things to say on this subject, though that could take up a book.  Come back with more questions as you learn about investing. Edit: I forgot to mention DRIPs and Investment Clubs.  Both ideas are suggested by The Motley Fool."}
{"text": "I'm in the U.S.  What are vehicles to invest in international stocks? Interactive Brokers offers many foreign markets (19 countries) for US based investors. You can trade all these local markets within one universal account which is very convenient in my view. IB offering"}
{"text": "Is U.S estate tax applicable to joint brokerage account of non-US citizens if one party dies? If the brokerage account holds US assets, such as the stock of US companies, then it may be taxable under some conditions. The rules are complex and depend on the nationality of the individuals, because the results may be affected by tax treaties between the United States and whatever country the person is from."}
{"text": "Relocating and buying a house simultaneously - How to handle pre-approval on fluctuating yearly income? Assuming the numbers you gave are forecasted 2013 annual income, you should really use an average and give the lender 1 number, as long as you can provide documentation to back it up. Lenders aren't as sophisticated as considering your monthly income fluctuations into their underwriting algorithm.  If you're not tied down to your existing lender, I highly recommend you to shop around. There isn't an \"universal lending requirement\". You'll be surprised at how flexible they are. Not as a recommendation to get around the rules, but just finding a lender that'll work with your situation. Try personal finance forums such as FatWallet or Slickdeal to find low-cost lenders: http://goo.gl/vIojT"}
{"text": "Vanguard Mutual Funds \u2014 Diversification vs Share Class There's really no right or wrong answer here because you'll be fine either way. If you've investing amounts in the low 5 figures you're likely just getting started, and if your asset allocation is not optimal it's not that big a deal because you have a long time horizon to adjust it, and the expense ratio differences here won't add up to that much. A third option is Vanguard ETFs, which have the expense ratio of Admiral Shares but have lower minimums (i.e. the cost of a single share, typically on the order of $100). However, they are a bit more advanced than mutual funds in that they trade on the market and require you to place orders rather than just specifying the amount you want to buy. A downside here is you might end up with a small amount of cash that you can't invest, since you can initially only buy whole numbers of ETFs shares. So what I'd recommend is buying roughly the correct number of ETFs shares you want except for your largest allocation, then use the rest of your cash on Admiral Shares of that (if possible). For example, let's say you have $15k to invest and you want to be 2/3 U.S. stock, 1/6 international stock, and 1/6 U.S. bond. I would buy as many shares of VXUS (international stock ETF) and BND (U.S. bond ETF) as you can get for $2500 each, then whatever is left over (~$10k) put into VTSAX (U.S. stock Admiral Shares mutual fund)."}
{"text": "Why is gold not a good investment? I think what the person meant to say is that Gold is not a one stop solution. There's nothing wrong with having Gold in an otherwise diversified portfolio but you need to be aware about the potential downsides: The problem with gold is that its value nowadays depends mainly on investor confidence, or the lack of it (actual demand for gold cannot explain the rise in value gold had after the crisis). If people are afraid the world and currencies with it will go to hell, the gold price will go up. Why? Because if currencies seize to exist, Gold will still be accepted. It can replace currencies. What many people tend to forget: let's consider the extreme example and currencies really cease to exist and all hell breaks lose. What good are gold bars at the bank, or even at home, for that matter? You'll be better off with gold coins to use in barter and to pay off marauders. But that's not about investing anymore, that's survivalism."}
{"text": "In India, what is the difference between Dividend and Growth mutual fund types? After searching a bit and talking to some investment advisors in India I got below information. So thought of posting it so that others can get benefited. This is specific to indian mutual funds, not sure whether this is same for other markets. Even currency used for examples is also indian rupee. A mutual fund generally offers two schemes: dividend and growth. The dividend option does not re-invest the profits made by the fund though its investments. Instead, it is given to the investor from time to time. In the growth scheme, all profits made by the fund are ploughed back into the scheme. This causes the NAV to rise over time. The impact on the NAV The NAV of the growth option will always be higher than that of the dividend option because money is going back into the scheme and not given to investors.  How does this impact us? We don't gain or lose per se by selecting any one scheme. Either we make the choice to get the money regularly (dividend) or at one go (growth). If we choose the growth option, we can make money by selling the units at a high NAV at a later date. If we choose the dividend option, we will get the money time and again as well as avail of a higher NAV (though the NAV here is not as high as that of a growth option). Say there is a fund with an NAV of Rs 18. It declares a dividend of 20%. This means it will pay 20% of the face value. The face value of a mutual fund unit is 10 (its NAV in this case is 18). So it will give us Rs 2 per unit. If we own 1,000 units of the fund, we will get Rs 2,000. Since it has paid Rs 2 per unit, the NAV will fall from Rs 18 to Rs 16. If we invest in the growth option, we can sell the units for Rs 18. If we invest in the dividend option, we can sell the units for Rs 16, since we already made a profit of Rs 2 per unit earlier. What we must know about dividends The dividend is not guaranteed. If a fund declared dividends twice last year, it does not mean it will do so again this year. We could get a dividend just once or we might not even get it this year. Remember, though, declaring a dividend is solely at the fund's discretion; the periodicity is not certain nor is the amount fixed."}
{"text": "How do you invest in real estate without using money? There is (almost) always money involved somewhere, but it doesn't have to come from you.  It can be investors, credit cards, or even seller-financing (I've done all 3). Examples: If you can find partners with the money to make the deals happen, then your job is to put the deal together.  Find the properties, negotiate the price, even get the property under contract (all without any obligation or cost on your part... yes it absolutely can be done).  Then your partners will fund the deal if it's good enough and their terms are met, etc. In some areas you can put a property on a credit card.  If you find a house say for $25,000 that will rent for $300/month, and you can put it on a credit card (especially at zero percent for a year or something similar), then you can generate cashflow as a landlord without putting up any cash of your own on the purchase.  Of course there are many risks associated with landlording and i could tell you horror stories... but we're not addressing that here. You can negotiate a sale with an owner who agrees to finance the entire purchase for you.  I once purchased 3 properties at once this way from a seller who financed the entire sale, all closing costs, everything, this way.  Of course they needed a lot of repair and such so I had to fund that another way, but at least the purchase itself cost me no money out of pocket. So these infomercials/courses are not inherently scams in the sense that what they are teaching is (usually... I'm sure there are exceptions) true.  However they generally give you enough information to get into trouble, and not out.  But that's what true learning is... it's getting into trouble and finding a way out that doesn't kill you.  =)  That's called experience, and you can't buy that for any price."}
{"text": "How to help a financially self destructive person? You can't help people that don't want help, period. It just doesn't work, and you will waste your time and energy while making the other person mad. Both sides end up in the same place they started except now they are frustrated with each other. In a normal situation I would advise to stop enabling her by giving her money, but the court has already decided that part.  There is no reason that she can't provide for her children on US$50k per year. In all honesty it sounds like she has a mental health problem and needs to see a professional. You, as the ex-husband, are probably not the right person to tell her that, though. If you really want to help her and are still on good terms with some friends or family members she trusts you could ask them to help her get help. They probably see the same mess that you and your kids do, but might need a little encouragement to act. The other option is if you sued for custody, based on living conditions, the possibility of losing her children and the child support might provide a much needed incentive to clean up her act. You probably won't win over a couple of incidents of the power being turned off and you will be putting your kids in the uncomfortable situation of telling on their mother though."}
{"text": "From ACH direct debit to Prepaid card? This would be exactly the sort of product that a thief would want, if they had got ahold of some account numbers and wanted to steal the money from those accounts, in a way that would let them spend it as conveniently as possible. That should explain why I think it's unlikely that any such product exists."}
{"text": "Is it worth it to reconcile my checking/savings accounts every month? While it's wise, easier and safer to check your transactions online a few times a month, I opt to receive and file paper statements as a hard copy back up of account history. Any reconciliation I perform is a quick glance to make sure the numbers sound right. It's probably a small waste of time and space, but it settles some of my paranoia (due to my training as a computer engineer)  about failure of electronic banking systems. If someone tampers with bank records or a SAN explodes and wipes out a bunch of account data, then I will have years worth of paper statements to back up my numbers.  Having years worth of statements printed on the banks stationary will have better credibility in court than a .pdf or printout thereof that could have been doctored, in case I ever needed to take my bank to court. A little piece of mind for the price of a letter opener, a square foot file box and a couple of minutes a month."}
{"text": "how does one start an investing club (as a company)? As for the letting the \"wise\" people only make the decisions, I guess that would be a bit odd in the long run. Especially when you get more experienced or when you don't agree with their decision. What you could do, is make an agreement that always 3/4 (+/-) of the partners must agree with an investment. This promotes your involvement in the investments and it will also make the debate about where to invest more alive, fun and educational). As for the taxes I can't give you any good advice as I don't know how tax / business stuff works in the US. Here in The Netherlands we have several business forms that each have their own tax savings. The savings mostly depend on the amount of money that is involved. Some forms are better for small earnings (80k or less), other forms only get interesting with large amounts of money (100k or more). Apart from the tax savings, there could also be some legal / technical reasons to choose a specific form. Again, I don't know the situation in your country, so maybe some other folks can help. A final tip if your also doing this for fun, try to use this investment company to learn from. This might come in handy later."}
{"text": "Is it normal for brokers to ask whether I am a beginner? In many places there are legal requirements to do so, essentially made to prevent brokers from selling high-risk products as if they were deposits with guaranteed safety of your funds. There also may be prohibitions on offering high-risk/high-return products to beginner customers, e.g. requiring accredited investor status claiming that yes, you really know how this works and are informed of the involved risks or you're not allowed to invest in that product.  Making untrue claims of being not a beginner may limit your options if your broker does cheat you in some manner, as it gives them a solid argument that you confirmed that you understand how their pump-and-dump scheme works and are yourself responsible for losing your money to them."}
{"text": "Deciding between Employee Stock Option and Restricted Stock There's no best strategy. Options are just pieces of paper, and if the stock price goes below the strike price - they're worthless. Stocks are actual ownership share, whatever the price is - that's what they're worth. So unless you expect the company stock prices to sky-rocket soon, RSU will probably provide better value. You need to do some math and decide whether in your opinion the stock growth in the next few years justifies betting on ESOP. You didn't say what country you're from, but keep in mind that stock options and RSUs are taxed differently and that can affect your end result as well."}
{"text": "What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate? The big one is to keep you from refinancing it with someone else to get a better rate. There may also be some funny-money reasons having to do with being able to count this as a new sale."}
{"text": "How to share income after marriage and kids? I think you have succumbed to a category error. The rational course forward is to classify all property as either his, hers, or family's. Each contributes a portion of wages to the family. Each logs hours spent performing familial duties and is \"paid\" in virtual dollars into their family account at market rates for that service. At any point actual plus virtual dollars are summed to assess the value of the family and percentages are allocated to each party on this basis. Put this into a pre-nuptual agreement.  At the time of the inevitable divorce you leave with yours, she leaves with hers, family's assets are divided as described, and division of children should be as King Solomon suggested. Or you could do what I did: Put all your property (and debts) into one pot. Make sure each partner can competently manage bookkeeping and investments. Accumulate a family net worth sufficient to divide in two and each have financial independence. (I'm working on this last step.)"}
{"text": "I want to invest in Gold. Where do I go and buy it? I do not know anything about retail investing in India, since I am in the US. However, there are a couple of general things to keep in mind about gold that should be largely independent of country. First, gold is not an investment. Aside from a few industrial uses, it has no productive value. It is, at best, a hedge against inflation, since many people feel more comfortable with what they consider \"real\" money that is not subject to what seems to be arbitrary creation by central banks. Second, buying tiny amounts of gold as coin or bullion from a retail dealer will always involve a fairly significant spread from the commodity spot price. The spot price only applies to large transactions. Retail dealers have costs of doing business that necessitate these fees in order for them to make a profit. You must also consider the costs of storing your gold in a way that mitigates the risk of theft. (The comment by NL7 is on this point. It appeared while I was typing this answer.) You might find this Planet Money piece instructive on the process, costs, and risks of buying gold bullion (in the US). If you feel that you must own gold as an inflation hedge, and it is possible for residents of India, you would be best off with some kind of gold fund that tracks the price of bullion."}
{"text": "Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent? It's doable, but there's a fair amount of risk involved. The biggest issue is that your roommates could move out. It's possible that they could have a falling out, get a job in a different city, or just move on. How difficult would it be to find another roommate? How many roommates can you lose and still afford to pay the mortgage, insurance, taxes, and all the rest of your living expenses? Even if you you retain all of your roommates until the mortgage is paid off, there's still some risk involved. If you were to lose your job, could you continue to make mortgage payments? Worst case scenario is that you could become unemployed for a time while home values in your State/City/neighborhood are crashing. Last, the position on landlord has the potential to be lucrative, but also comes with a fair amount of responsibility. It will be a drain on your time to maintain the house and to make sure you always have tenants. I know you said that your roommates are good about paying on time, but are you willing to evict a friend because they won't/can't pay rent? It's easier to ask the landlord for an extension on rent when you're friends. All that being said, I think that this idea is worth considering. My recommendation is that you consider every aspect of it, and proceed cautiously if you choose to do so."}
{"text": "\u201cIn-the-Money\u201d vs \u201cOut-of-the-Money\u201d Call Options First, welcome to Money.SE.  The selected page is awful. I don't know the value in listing different expirations at the same strike. Usually, all the strikes are grouped by month, so I'd be looking at Jan '15 across all strikes.  \"In the money\" means the price of a stock is trading above the strike price, if a call, or below it, if a put.  On 10/20 of some year, Intel was trading at $23.34. The January $25 call strike was just $0.70, and April's was $1.82. These were out of the money. The $25 puts were \"in the money\" by $1.66 so you could have paid $1.90 for the Jan $25 put, with $.24 of time premium.  By November, the price rose and the put fell, to $.85, all time premium.  As with stocks, the key thing is to only buy calls of stock that are going to go up. If a stock will fall, buy puts. Curious, what was the class discussion just before the teacher gave you this image?"}
{"text": "When people say 'Interest rates are at all time low!\" \u2026 Which interest rate are they actually referring to? As Sean pointed out they usually mean LIBOR or the FFR (or for other countries the equivalent risk free rate of interest). I will just like to add on to what everyone has said here and will like to explain how various interest rates you mentioned work out when the risk free rate moves: For brevity, let's denote the risk free rate by Rf, the savings account interest rate as Rs, a mortgage interest rate as Rmort, and a term deposit rate with the bank as Rterm. Savings account interest rate: When a central bank revises the overnight lending rate (or the prime rate, repo rate etc.), in some countries banks are not obliged to increase the savings account interest rate. Usually a downward revision will force them to lower it (because they net they will be paying out = Rf - Rs). On the other hand, if Rf goes up and if one of the banks increases the Rs then other banks may be forced to do so too under competitive pressure. In some countries the central bank has the authority to revise Rs without revising the overnight lending rate. Term deposits with the bank (or certificates of deposit): Usually movements in these rates are more in sync with Rf than Rs is. The chief difference is that savings account offer more liquidity than term deposits and hence banks can offer lower rates and still get deposits under them --consider the higher interest rate offered by the term deposit as a liquidity risk premium. Generally, interest rates paid by instruments of similar risk profile that offer similar liquidity will move in parallel (otherwise there can be arbitrage). Sometimes these rates can move to anticipate a future change in Rf. Mortgage loan rates or other interests that you pay to the bank: If the risk free rate goes up, banks will increase these rates to keep the net interest they earn over risk free (= \u0394r = Rmort - Rf) the same. If Rf drops and if banks are not obliged to decrease loan rates then they will only do so if one of the banks does it first. P.S:- Wherever I have said they will do so when one of the banks does it first, I am not referring to a recursion but merely to the competitive market theory. Under such a theory, the first one to cut down the profit margin usually has a strong business incentive to do so (e.g., gain market share, or eliminate competition by lowering profit margins etc.). Others are forced to follow the trend."}
{"text": "Free/open source Unix software that pulls info from all my banks/brokers/credit cards? As far as I can tell there are no \"out-of-the-box\" solutions for this.  Nor will Moneydance or GnuCash give you the full solution you are looking for.  I imaging people don't write a well-known, open-source, tool that will do this for fear of the negative uses it could have, and the resulting liability.  You can roll-you-own using the following obscure tools that approximate a solution: First download the bank's CSV information: http://baruch.ev-en.org/proj/gnucash.html That guy did it with a perl script that you can modify. Then convert the result to OFX for use elsewhere: http://allmybrain.com/2009/02/04/converting-financial-csv-data-to-ofx-or-qif-import-files/"}
{"text": "If something is coming into my account will it be debit or credit in my account? It sounds like you're mixing a simple checkbook register with double-entry bookkeeping. Do you need a double-entry level of rigor? Otherwise, why not have two columns, one for income (like a paycheck) and one for expenses (like paying a cable bill)?  Then add up both columns and then take the difference of the sums to get your increase or decrease for the time period. If you want to break up income and expenses further, then you can do that too."}
{"text": "In what circumstances will a bank waive the annual credit card fee? See if the bank has other credit cards they offer. Many banks have multiple ones: some cards have great benefits, others do not; some cards have high rates, some do not; some cards are secured, some do not.  If they have a card that you like ask them to switch you to the card you want. They should be able to do so very easily. Your card number will change, but they will treat it is a replacement so that your credit score will not take a hit during the switch. It may be possible to get them to waive the annual fee, but most won't because each card type they offer are separate products so they only allow you to pick one of their options. If they don't have a card to your liking apply for a card from anther bank that has the benefits and annual fees (zero) that you are looking for. It may be that the new card will start with a lower limit, but it will increase over time, especially as you shift more of your business to the new card. When you cancel the old card before the next year rolls around you will take a small short hit to your credit score, but that is ok."}
{"text": "Why can Robin Hood offer trading without commissions? It isn't the first initiative (see link below) and maybe this one will stick around.  Time will be a good test.   Here is an article on it.... http://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/020515/how-robinhood-makes-money.asp  They plan to make money off unused balances - so they hope to get the masses signed up using the 0$ fees.  Also, no type of advanced trading, just limit and market orders.   Think of it this way - even if someone puts in 100$ and buys a stock at 88$...that 12$ sits there.  Multiply that by say....200,000 accounts and then do a basic 3% return on that.   Also, they plan for margin accounts in the future.   Time will tell....  sort of like I use Acorn right now (but it charges a fee to invest - a slightly higher than normal one). I signed up for fun and am just letting it ride."}
{"text": "Ways to trade the Euro debt crisis Short the Pound and other English financial items.  Because the English economy is tied to the EU, it will be hit as well.  You might prefer this over Euro denominated investments, since it's not exactly clear who your counterpart is if the Euro really crashes hard.  Meaning suppose you have a short position Euro's versus dollars, but the clearing house is taken down by the crash."}
{"text": "What's the difference when asked for \u201cdebit or credit\u201d by a store when using credit and debit cards? When using a debit card in a \"credit\" way, you don't need to enter your PIN, which protects you from skimmers and similar nastiness. Also, assuming it's a Visa or Mastercard debit card, you now have access to all of the fraud protection and other things that you would get with a credit card. The downside for the merchant is that credit card transaction fees are typically higher than debit card transaction fees. I'm less familiar with using a credit card in a \"debit\" way, so don't have anything to offer on that part of your question."}
{"text": "Can I deduct the full value of illiquid stock donation out of ordinary income if I put it into a private foundation? Contributions of restricted stock to a donor-advised fund or other public charity may be deductible at fair market value on the date of contribution, but valuation discounts can apply if restrictions are not lifted prior to gifting. A qualified appraisal may be required to substantiate the fair market value."}
{"text": "Is SIPC coverage on cash as strong as FDIC? For cash, SIPC insurance is similar to FDIC insurance. Your losses are not covered, but you're covered in case of fraud. Since your cash is supposed to be in a trust account and not commingled with brokerage's funds, in case of bankruptcy you would still have your cash unless there was fraud."}
{"text": "401K - shift from agressive investment to Money Market I can understand your fears, and there is nothing wrong with taking action to protect yourself from them. How much income do you need in retirement?  For arguments sake, lets say you need to pull 36K per year from your 401K or 3K per month.  Lets also assume that you current contribute (with any match) 1,000 per month.  Please adjust to your actual numbers accordingly. One option would be to pull out 48K right now and put it in a money market.  With your contributions, I would then put half into the money market and half into more aggressive investments.  In 10 years, you would have about 110K in your money market account.  You could live off of that for three years.  If the market does crash, this should give you plenty of time to recover. Taking this option opens you to another risk, which is being beat up by inflation or lack of growth on a nice pile of cash.  My time frame is not that different then yours (I am about 12 years away), but am still all in stocks.  Having 48K and more with not opportunity for growth frightens me more than any temporary stock market crash. Having said that I think it would be a horrible mistake to get completely out of stocks.  Many of those destroyed in 2008 also missed 2012 through 2014 which were awesome years.  So do some.  Set aside a year or three of income in something nice and safe.  Maybe one year of income in money market, one in bonds and preferred stocks, and one in blue chips."}
{"text": "Taxes and withholding on unpaid salary As others have said, make sure you can and do file your taxes on a cash basis (not accrual). It sounds like it's very unlikely the company is going to issue you a 1099 for invoices they never paid you. So you just file last year's taxes based on your income, which is the money you actually received. If they do pay you later, in the new year, you'll include that income on next year's tax return, and you would expect a 1099 at that time. Side note: not getting paid is unfortunately common for consultants and contractors. Take the first unpaid invoice and sue them in small claims court. After you win (and collect!), tell them you'll sue them for each unpaid invoice in turn until they pay you in full. (You might need to break up the lawsuits like that to remain under the small claims limit.)"}
{"text": "In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive? The cost of the popcorn is simply the hidden extension of the price the consumer pays for the movie ticket. Similar to the tips in the restaurant. And movie theaters do not compete by lowering the unit price. Instead to maintain the revenue per customer they try to offer more value - bigger screen, better sound, more comfortable seats, etc. That is why the price of the popcorn just like the price of the ticket itself does not go down in the competitive market."}
{"text": "Is it bad practice to invest in stocks that fluctuate by single points throughout the day? Yes. There are several downsides to this strategy: You aren't taking into account commissions. If you pay $5 each time you buy or sell a stock, you may greatly reduce or even eliminate any possible gains you would make from trading such small amounts. This next point sounds obvious, but remember that you pay a commission on every trade regardless of profit, so every trade you make that you make at a loss also costs you commissions. Even if you make trades that are profitable more often than not, if you make quite a few trades with small amounts like this, your commissions may eat away all of your profits. Commissions represent a fixed cost, so their effect on your gains decreases proportionally with the amount of money you place at risk in each trade. Since you're in the US, you're required to follow the SEC rules on pattern day trading. From that link, \"FINRA rules define a \u201cpattern day trader\u201d as any customer who executes four or more \u201cday trades\u201d within five business days, provided that the number of day trades represents more than six percent of the customer\u2019s total trades in the margin account for that same five business day period.\" If you trip this rule, you'll be required to maintain $25,000 in a margin brokerage account. If you can't maintain the balance, your account will be locked. Don't forget about capital gains taxes. Since you're holding these securities for less than a year, your gains will be taxed at your ordinary income tax rates. You can deduct your capital losses too (assuming you don't repurchase the same security within 30 days, because in that case, the wash sale rule prevents you from deducting the loss), but it's important to think about gains and losses in real terms, not nominal terms. The story is different if you make these trades in a tax-sheltered account like an IRA, but the other problems still apply. You're implicitly assuming that the stock's prices are skewed in the positive direction. Remember that you have limit orders placed at the upper and lower bounds of the range, so if the stock price decreases before it increases, your limit order at the lower bound will be triggered and you'll trade at a loss. If you're hoping to make a profit through buying low and selling high, you want a stock that hits its upper bound before hitting the lower bound the majority of the time. Unless you have data analysis (not just your intuition or a pattern you've talked yourself into from looking at a chart) to back this up, you're essentially gambling that more often than not, the stock price will increase before it decreases. It's dangerous to use any strategy that you haven't backtested extensively. Find several months or years of historical data, either intra-day or daily data, depending on the time frame you're using to trade, and simulate your strategy exactly. This helps you determine the potential profitability of your strategy, and it also forces you to decide on a plan for precisely when you want to invest. Do you invest as soon as the stock trades in a range (which algorithms can determine far better than intuition)? It also helps you figure out how to manage your risk and how much loss you're willing to accept. For risk management, using limit orders is a start, but see my point above about positively skewed prices. Limit orders aren't enough. In general, if an active investment strategy seems like a \"no-brainer\" or too good to be true, it's probably not viable. In general, as a retail investor, it's foolish to assume that no one else has thought of your simple active strategy to make easy money. I can promise you that someone has thought of it. Trading firms have quantitative researchers that are paid to think of and implement trading strategies all the time.  If it's viable at any scale, they'll probably already have utilized it and arbitraged away the potential for small traders to make significant gains. Trust me, you're not the first person who thought of using limit orders to make \"easy money\" off volatile stocks. The fact that you're asking here and doing research before implementing this strategy, however, means that you're on the right track. It's always wise to research a strategy extensively before deploying it in the wild. To answer the question in your title, since it could be interpreted a little differently than the body of the question: No, there's nothing wrong with investing in volatile stocks, indexes, etc. I certainly do, and I'm sure many others on this site do as well. It's not the investing that gets you into trouble and costs you a lot of money; it's the rapid buying and selling and attempting to time the market that proves costly, which is what you're doing when you implicitly bet that the distribution of the stock's prices is positively skewed. To address the commission fee problem, assuming a fee of $8 per trade ... and a minimum of $100 profit per sale Commissions aren't your only problem, and counting on $100 profit per sale is a significant assumption. Look at point #4 above. Through your use of limit orders, you're making the implicit assumption that, more often than not, the price will trigger your upper limit order before your lower limit order. Here's a simple example; let's assume you have limit orders placed at +2 and -2 of your purchase price, and that triggering the limit order at +2 earns you $100 profit, while triggering the limit order at -2 incurs a loss of $100. Assume your commission is $5 on each trade.  If your upper limit order is triggered, you earn a profit of 100 - 10 = 90, then set up the same set of limit orders again. If your lower limit order is triggered this time, you incur a loss of 100 + 10 = 110, so your net gain is 90 - 110 = -20. This is a perfect example of why, when taking into account transaction costs, even strategies that at first glance seem profitable mathematically can actually fail.  If you set up the same situation again and incur a loss again (100 + 10 = 110), you're now down -20 - 110 = -130. To make a profit, you need to make two profitable trades, without incurring further losses.  This is why point #4 is so important. Whenever you trade, it's critical to completely understand the risk you're taking and the bet you're actually making, not just the bet you think you're making. Also, according to my \"algorithm\" a sale only takes place once the stock rises by 1 or 2 points; otherwise the stock is held until it does. Does this mean you've removed the lower limit order? If yes, then you expose yourself to downside risk. What if the stock has traded within a range, then suddenly starts declining because of bad earnings reports or systemic risks (to name a few)? If you haven't removed the lower limit order, then point #4 still stands.  However, I never specified that the trades have to be done within the same day.  Let the investor open up 5 brokerage accounts at 5 different firms (for safeguarding against being labeled a \"Pattern Day Trader\"). Each account may only hold 1 security at any time, for the span of 1 business week. How do you control how long the security is held? You're using limit orders, which will be triggered when the stock price hits a certain level, regardless of when that happens. Maybe that will happen within a week, or maybe it will happen within the same day. Once again, the bet you're actually making is different from the bet you think you're making. Can you provide some algorithms or methods that do work for generating some extra cash on the side, aside from purchasing S&P 500 type index funds and waiting? When I purchase index funds, it's not to generate extra liquid cash on the side. I don't invest nearly enough to be able to purchase an index fund and earn substantial dividends. I don't want to get into any specific strategies because I'm not in the business of making investment recommendations, and I don't want to start. Furthermore, I don't think explicit investment recommendations are welcome here (unless it's describing why something is a bad idea), and I agree with that policy. I will make a couple of points, however. Understand your goals. Are you investing for retirement or a shorter horizon, e.g. some side income? You seem to know this already, but I include it for future readers.  If a strategy seems too good to be true, it probably is. Educate yourself before designing a strategy. Research fundamental analysis, different types of orders (e.g., so you fully understand that you don't have control over when limit orders are executed), different sectors of the market if that's where your interests lie, etc. Personally, I find some sectors fascinating, so researching them thoroughly allows me to make informed investment decisions as well as learn about something that interests me. Understand your limits. How much money are you willing to risk and possibly lose? Do you have a risk management strategy in place to prevent unexpected losses? What are the costs of the risk management itself? Backtest, backtest, backtest. Ideally your backtesting and simulating should be identical to actual market conditions and incorporate all transaction costs and a wide range of historical data. Get other opinions. Evaluate those opinions with the same critical eye as I and others have evaluated your proposed strategy."}
{"text": "What are some tips for a successful job interview? - Research the company and learn as much as you can about the role and the industry.\n- Prepare for common job interview questions and have answers to questions related to your experience and qualifications.\n- Dress professionally and in clean, neat clothing.\n- Arrive at the interview on time.\n- Demonstrate confidence and positive body language.\n- Ask the interviewer questions about the job, the company, and their expectations.\n- Show you are excited to be there and express gratitude for the interviewer's time.\n- Thank the interviewer and follow up with a thank you note after the interview."}
{"text": "Propose an idea for a social media campaign. A campaign centered around the concept of \"strong is beautiful\". The campaign would emphasize the strength, power, and beauty of women, encouraging them to lead an active lifestyle. The campaign would feature inspiring images and videos of women leading an active lifestyle, with captions that emphasize the message of strength and beauty. The campaign would also feature stories of successful women and how they stay fit and healthy. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness about women's health and inspire other women to lead an active lifestyle."}
{"text": "Create a sentence that illustrates parallel structure. I love to read books, watch movies, and to listen to music."}
{"text": "Describe the effects of sound on humans. Sound has a profound effect on humans, from influencing our emotions to helping regulate our biological processes. Sound affects us both physically and mentally, with higher frequencies often causing us to feel alert and energized, while lower frequencies can act as a sedative and reduce anxiety. In addition, sound travels in waves which, when heard by humans, cause the auditory system to vibrate, leading to sounds being interpreted as speech or music."}
{"text": "Generate an opinion article talking about the pros and cons of online classes. Online classes have a number of advantages, such as the convenience and flexibility they provide students. With online classes, students can access lectures and assignments anywhere they have internet and can focus on their studies without the burden of travel. Online classes also enable students to access a variety of course material and to connect with a wider community of students and faculty. However, there are challenges associated with online classes as well. Without the benefit of physical presence, it is difficult to cultivate meaningful relationships with peers, and to have open dialogue with professors. Technical challenges are also common, from technical glitches to limited access to technology or internet in certain regions. Ultimately, online classes provide a convenient learning environment for those who have the appropriate resources and time to dedicate to their studies, although there are still challenges that must be addressed."}
{"text": "Compare and contrast the leadership styles of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos demonstrate different leadership styles. Gates is highly analytical and data-driven, while Bezos is more visionary and inspiring. Gates prefers to make decisions based on data and metrics, while Bezos emphasizes the importance of gut-instincts and pushes his team to take risks and think innovatively. Gates is focused on regulatory compliance and risk management, while Bezos encourages experimentation and learning from mistakes. Both share the same goal \u2014 to build profitable and successful businesses \u2014 but their different approaches to leading best reflect the unique talents and personalities of each individual."}
{"text": "Write a JavaScript function for changing the background color of a website. function changeBackgroundColor(color) {\n    document.body.style.backgroundColor = color;\n}"}
{"text": "Create a sequence of instructions for setting up a home studio. 1. Choose a room in your home to serve as the studio.\n2. Evaluate the acoustics of the room and consider soundproofing if necessary.\n3. Buy the necessary equipment to set up the studio, such as microphones, audio interfaces, speakers and an audio workstation.\n4. Set up the studio in the chosen room, connecting all the equipment as needed.\n5. Test the equipment to ensure everything is working properly.\n6. Record, mix and master audio using the studio set-up."}
{"text": "Make a list of the five most common types of investments. 1. Stocks \n2. Bonds \n3. Mutual funds \n4. Exchange-traded funds \n5. Real estate investment trusts"}
{"text": "Explain the impact of Big Data on the healthcare industry. Big Data has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry, from improving patient outcomes to reducing medical costs. Through the use of data-driven analytics and machine learning, physicians can access a vast amount of data that can help guide decisions, predict patient outcomes and provide personalized treatments. By using large amounts of data, hospitals and clinics can identify potential illnesses and diseases earlier, helping to avoid costly delays in treatment. Additionally, Big Data can be used to reduce administrative costs, improve research and development, and increase the efficiency of clinical trials."}
{"text": "Create sample data to describe a student's performance in a Math class. John Smith is an eighth-grade student in Mrs. Sarah's Math class. He consistently earns As and Bs on his tests and homework assignments. He volunteers to answer questions during lessons, and participates in class discussions. His schoolwork shows he understands the material and has a good grasp of logical reasoning and problem-solving. He independently completes projects, and often brings in extra resources to further explain concepts. Despite his strong performance in Math, John feels some frustration when his work is compared to his classmates, who often have higher test scores. He is motivated to do better and is working on honing his math skills with the help of his parents."}
{"text": "Make up two example sentences that use the word \u2018frantic\u2019. The wind was so strong it blew the air around in a frantic motion.\nThe cats raced around the room in a frantic frenzy."}
{"text": "Generate a list of countries that have embraced the use of green energy in the past 20 years. In the past 20 years, a number of countries around the world have embraced the use of green energy. These countries include Germany, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica, France, the Scandinavian countries, India, South Korea, Japan, China, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. All of these countries have launched ambitious green energy projects to reduce their carbon emissions and combat climate change. Many of them have achieved impressive results, such as Germany which generates almost 40% of its energy from renewable sources."}
{"text": "It is said that money cannot buy happiness. Why? Money itself does not bring lasting happiness because it can't buy things like strong relationships, good health, meaning, purpose, and internal peace of mind. Money is a tool and can be used to buy some comforts and conveniences, but it is not a source of fulfilment or lasting joy. The joy and happiness we seek lies in the moments we can spend with loved ones, the experiences we have with the people that matter to us, the activities we enjoy, and in the feelings of contentment, accomplishment, and satisfaction that come from pursuing our passions and purpose."}
{"text": "Describe how Machine Learning algorithms can lead to better decision making. Machine learning algorithms can help to lead to better decision making by providing a more efficient and accurate understanding of data. By analyzing data and extracting patterns, machine learning algorithms can provide more accurate insights and predictions than traditional techniques. This means that decisions can be made more quickly and precisely, leading to improved accuracy and efficiency. Machine learning algorithms can also help to provide more accurate risk analysis and future opportunities, helping businesses to determine the best strategies for success. With the increasing availability of data, machine learning algorithms are becoming more essential for successful decision making and can be used to identify new insights and opportunities to drive a company's success."}
{"text": "Think of a creative way to explain a concept from a math class. To explain fractions in a math class, you could have students design their own pizza. Have them divide their pizza into halves, thirds, fourths, and so on. Ask them to count the number of slices they now have and then explain how each is a fraction of the original pizza. This creative exercise can help make learning fractions more enjoyable and interactive."}
{"text": "Come up with five words to describe a robot. Mechanical, robotic, programmed, automated, sophisticated."}
{"text": "Summarize the main points of the article \"Harnessing The Power of Social Media\" This article outlines the importance and potential of using social media for marketing purposes. It covers the need for businesses to have an effective social media presence, the importance of engaging with customers and followers, and how to maintain a consistent brand identity online. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for businesses to focus on creating quality content that can be shared across multiple platforms and to track metrics to measure success. Finally, the article covers the potential benefits of using social media for targeting specific audiences and expanding reach."}
{"text": "Generate a list of questions that could be used to survey a customer\u2019s satisfaction level. - How satisfied are you with our product/service?\n- How likely are you to recommend our product/service to your family and friends?\n- How would you rate the overall quality of our product/service?\n- Was our product/service delivered on time? \n- Was our customer service helpful and friendly?\n- Was the purchasing process easy and convenient?\n- What features of our product/service do you like the most? \n- How can we improve our product/service?"}
{"text": "Compose a short summary about the following article. Leonardo Da Vinci was a celebrated figure during the Italian Renaissance, credited with numerous works of art, engineering, and science. He is best remembered for his painting of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. His work has had a lasting legacy on the art world and science that still persists today."}
{"text": "Write an algorithm for bubble sorting. def BubbleSort(list): \n    for i in range(len(list)-1): \n        for j in range(0, len(list)-1-i): \n            if list[j] > list[j+1]: \n                list[j], list[j+1] = list[j+1], list[j] \n    return list"}
{"text": "Provide a statistical analysis of this dataset. The mean of column A is 5.7, and the mean of column B is 7.7. The standard deviation of column A is 1.6, and the standard deviation of column B is 2.9."}
{"text": "Suggest a retail strategy to increase customer loyalty. A retail strategy to increase customer loyalty could include offering special rewards or discounts to loyal customers, creating personalized experiences, leveraging customer feedback to improve the customer experience, and introducing loyalty programs."}
{"text": "In the passage below, identify the main topic. The main topic of the passage is the uses of mobile phones."}
{"text": "Reorder the words in the sentence to make a statement. Can you read it?"}
{"text": "Edit the following sentence so the meaning of the sentence remain unchanged. The professor gave the students assignments easy to do."}
{"text": "Explain how an augmented reality application works. An augmented reality application is an interactive system that uses a real-world environment and combines it with virtual images, videos and sounds. It uses virtual objects, such as 3D models, text and audio, to improve the user's experience in the real-world. Augmented reality typically uses cameras, sensors, and technologies such as machine learning, robotic process automation, and natural language processing to detect objects in the real-world and deliver an interactive virtual experience. By capturing the user's environment, the application can generate a simulated environment to enable real-time interactions with the user. The system then responds to the user's input and updates the content accordingly, creating a truly immersive and interactive experience."}
{"text": "Write the method for finding the area of a circle. def area_of_circle(radius): \n    \"\"\" Computes the area of a circle with given radius. \n      \n    Args: \n        radius (float): The radius of the circle \n      \n    Returns: \n        float: The calculated area of the circle \n    \"\"\"\n    area = 3.14 * (radius**2) \n    return area"}
{"text": "Generate at least two example sentences using the verb \"incite\". The politician sought to incite the crowd with her inflammatory speech. \\\\\nThe protesters were incited to march to the city hall by the speech."}
{"text": "Identify the correct grammatical tense for the sentence \"She is a singer.\" Present simple."}
{"text": "Create a function, \"factorial_of(),\" that takes in an integer and returns its factorial. def factorial_of(n):\n    \"\"\"This function takes in a integer 'n' and returns its factorial.\n    \n    Args: \n        n (int): The number to calculate the factorial of\n      \n    Returns: \n        int: The calculated factorial of 'n'\n    \"\"\"\n    if n == 0:\n        return 1\n    else:\n        return n * factorial_of(n-1)"}
{"text": "Name two benefits of using a computer to create a program. One benefit is that computers are able to process large amounts of data quickly and accurately. Another benefit is that computers are programmable, making it easier for developers to create robust and reliable software."}
{"text": "Classify the painting as either abstract or landscape. Abstract."}
{"text": "Name the best-known web browser. Google Chrome."}
{"text": "Generate a regular expression for a string of 10 digit numbers. ^\\d{10}$"}
{"text": "Write a formal apology letter that is 250 words long. Dear [Name], \n\nI am writing to apologize for the way I have behaved recently. I am deeply sorry for my actions. I understand now that my words and actions have caused you pain and hurt. For that, I am deeply sorry and want to apologize for my mistakes and wrongdoings.\n\nI want you to know that I am genuinely sorry for what I have done and I feel really bad about how I handled the situation. I regret my words and my behavior and want to make sure that I will never hurt someone like that again.\n\nI understand that my behavior was not acceptable and it doesn't reflect who I am. I want to take this opportunity to better myself, to be a more respectful person, and to make sure that I will never hurt someone the way I did.\n\nI don't expect you to forgive me, but I hope that you will in time. Again, I am truly sorry for causing you hurt and distress. \n\nSincerely,\n[Your Name]"}
{"text": "Using the provided data, predict the probability of an event occurring within the next 30 days. The probability of an event occurring within the next 30 days based on the given data is approximately 18%."}
{"text": "Construct a function that sorts a given array of numbers in descending order. def descending_sort(arr):\n    arr.sort(reverse = True)\n    return arr"}
{"text": "Construct a query to find all the records in a given database that match a certain criteria. SELECT * FROM users WHERE status = 'active';"}
{"text": "Explain the differences between a machine learning model and a deep learning model. A machine learning model is a computer program that uses data to learn from experience and make predictions. It can take input from different sources, such as databases and data scientists, to generate models that can be applied to new data for various tasks. A deep learning model, on the other hand, builds upon the basic concepts of machine learning, but with an emphasis on large volumes of data. Deep learning models use networks of neural nodes and layers to learn from large sets of data and then output better predictions than traditional machine learning models. Deep learning models are more powerful because they can learn from recognizing patterns and correlations instead of merely identifying individual features."}
{"text": "Delete the third sentence of a given text. The hotel was a chic, modern design. The lobby was filled with grand furniture."}
{"text": "How many words are in the sentence: \"Today I went to the store.\" The sentence \"Today I went to the store\" contains 6 words."}
{"text": "Write a brief review of the following movie: The Devil Wears Prada The Devil Wears Prada is an entertaining, light-hearted comedy that follows the story of Andy Sachs as she navigates her way through the intimidating and often ridiculous corporate world of fashion. Starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, the movie follows Andy's journey as she starts off an inexperienced and naive intern and grows into a confident, competent professional. The movie follows the usual tropes of workplace comedies, but with a modern twist that makes it fresh and entertaining. It is a must-watch movie that will make you laugh while making you appreciate the power of hard work and perseverance."}
{"text": "Construct a program to predict the stock trend of a given company over the next 12 months. def stock_trend_prediction(company):\n  # code to collect company data  \n  # code for feature engineering \n  # code for machine-learning algorithm\n  \n  prediction = algorithm.predict(company_data)\n  return prediction"}
{"text": "Classify the following statement as true or false: \"The moon is larger than the sun.\" The statement \"The moon is larger than the sun\" is false. The sun is much larger than the moon."}
{"text": "Name 5 books that have been converted into movies. 1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien\n2. 1984 by George Orwell\n3. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling\n4. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell\n5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee"}
{"text": "What is the meaning of the phrase \"in the doldrums\"? The phrase \"in the doldrums\" is used to describe a period of inactivity, stagnation, or depression. It can be used to describe an individual or a situation, and it is often related to feelings of being stuck or frustrated. It is also used to describe an extreme lack of motivation or progress. The phrase has its origins in maritime terminology, where it referred to a region of the ocean near the equator with scarce wind which caused boats to become trapped and be unable to progress."}
{"text": "Identify the 5 major themes of Romeo and Juliet and provide an example of each. 1. Love: Romeo and Juliet\u2019s passionate love for each other, even in the face of the hostility between their two families, is one of the play\u2019s major themes. An example of this can be seen in Act II, Scene 2 when Romeo says, \u201cMy bounty is as boundless as the sea,/My love as deep; the more I give to thee,/The more I have, for both are infinite.\u201d\n2. Fate: Fate plays a huge role in the play, pretending to be a driving force throughout the tragic storyline. One example is when Friar Lawrence says to Juliet, \u201cThings have reach\u2019d the point,/Where the change of fortune may be seen,/But not revok'd.\u201d\n3. Family Honor: Family honor is visible in the extreme hatred between the Montagues and Capulets, and in the actions and words of both families. An example of this is when Tybalt tells Benvolio, \u201cBenefit as on, I will not endure it.\u201d\n4. Impulsiveness: Romeo and Juliet\u2019s impulsive decisions contribute to the eventual tragedy, especially in terms of their marriage. An example of this is when Romeo, despite Friar Lawrence's warnings, decides to marry Juliet after knowing her for only a day.\n5. Miscommunication: Miscommunication is a major factor in the play, leading the characters to unknowingly take actions that are harmful. An example of this is when the Friar\u2019s message to Romeo is not delivered, resulting in Romeo believing Juliet is dead and taking his own life."}
{"text": "Explain how the ancient philosopher Plato's philosophy should be applied in the context of modern times. Plato's philosophy can be applied to modern times in a variety of ways. One of the key elements of his philosophy is the idea of justice, which suggests that the world should be organized in such a way that those with the skills, resources, and interests necessary to benefit society can do so, for the good of all. This ideal can still be seen in many places today, where those with the skills and knowledge necessary to benefit society are encouraged to become leaders, innovators, and thinkers. In addition, Plato's notion of the \"Forms\" is still applicable today, where things like beauty, courage, and love can exist beyond physical boundaries and be found in people's souls. Finally, Plato's idea of knowledge being a collection of ideas that have been uncovered but never fully understood can be seen in modern times, as we continue to strive to uncover the mysteries of the universe."}
{"text": "Design an interactive interface that can help a child get familiar with the U.S. states The design of the interactive interface should be intuitive and engaging. It should feature an interactive map of the United States with each state's name and flag highlighted. When the user hovers the cursor over a state, the name of the state should be displayed on the screen. Additionally, when the user clicks on a state, a slide-out box should be displayed that contains facts such as its capital, population, landmarks, and other interesting facts about the state. In another section, the user should be able to take quizzes on the state's history, geography, and culture. There should also be a rewards system for completing tasks, in order to keep the user engaged and motivated."}
{"text": "Create an explanation of how a computer can recognize human faces. Computer vision algorithms are used to detect and recognize human faces. A computer system looks for patterns in the pixels of an image or video, comparing them to a database of known faces. If a match is found, the computer can accurately identify the face. The most common computer vision algorithms used for facial recognition are deep learning models. These models employ a set of convolutional neural networks to analyze pixel patterns, facial features, and even head position. Once a face is detected, the computer system will then extract features that are unique to that person, such as the shape and size of the facial features, and use them to match the face with the corresponding person in its database."}
{"text": "You are given an English paragraph and you need to translate it into French. La chose la plus importante pour une entreprise r\u00e9ussie est un bon service \u00e0 la client\u00e8le."}
{"text": "Rewrite the following sentence: \" The consequence of failure was punishment for not doing the job correctly\" Failing to do the job correctly resulted in punishment."}
{"text": "Name and describe three tools used to measure the success of a website. Three tools used to measure the success of a website are web analytics, A/B testing, and surveys. Web analytics is a tool that provides detailed insights into a website\u2019s traffic, pageviews, bounce rate, and visitor engagement. This can help determine the effectiveness of branding and marketing activities. A/B testing allows website owners to test variations in page design, content, and other variables to see which yields a better user experience. Surveys can be used to ask website visitors their opinion on the website\u2019s features, design, and usability. This can help website owners identify elements of the website that can be improved or removed to provide a better experience for visitors."}
{"text": "Analyze the following statement: \"Information is power.\" The statement \"information is power\" is often attributed to the philosopher Francis Bacon. It suggests that knowledge and information are the precursors of power and success. In today's digital age, knowledge can be collected and shared more quickly and easily than ever before, and having access to the right information can give one an edge over the competition. Knowledge gives us the power to make better decisions and understand issues more deeply. It can also serve as a springboard for creative ideas, giving us the ability to shape the world around us."}
{"text": "Create a preliminary budget for a small business. Preliminary Budget\n\nStartup Costs: \n-Legal and administrative fees: $200\n-Equipment/software: $400\n-Office space/supplies: $400\n\nMonthly Operating Expenses:\n-Rent: $1000\n-Payroll: $1000\n-Utilities (electricity, phone, internet): $500\n-Marketing: $200\n-Insurance: $200"}
{"text": "Create a user guide for an online course. User Guide\n\nWelcome to the Web Development Fundamentals Course! This course is designed to help you learn the basics of web development, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.\n\nThis 10-week course consists of video lessons, interactive demonstrations and forums, and quizzes to help you master the material. \n\nTo get the full benefits of this course, you should plan to spend two to three hours a week watching video lessons, working on coding challenges, and participating in discussion forums. \n\nThis course also includes a personalized study plan to help you stay on track and achieve your learning goals.\n\nAt the end of the course, you\u2019ll be able to demonstrate your understanding of web development fundamentals and be ready to start your journey as a web developer.\n\nWe\u2019re excited to have you in the course and look forward to your success!"}
{"text": "Calculate the area of a triangle with length 15 and width 30. The area of the triangle is 225 square units."}
{"text": "Create a title for a story about a farmer and his struggles. The Farmer's Bitter Battle."}
{"text": "Generate an appropriate input sentence for the instruction \u201cDetermine if the sentence contains a simile\u201d. The sky was as blue as a summer's day."}
{"text": "Given some numbers, categorize the numbers into odd or even. Odd, Odd, Even, Odd"}
{"text": "Construct a sentence of at least 16 words that brings to light the beauty of spring. The beauty of spring emanates all around, with the fresh morning dew, the vibrant colors of the flowers, and the fragrant scent of the blooming trees."}
{"text": "Put the items in order from most important to least important. Sleep, Eat, Exercise"}
{"text": "Reword the following question so that it can be answered with a \"Yes\" or \"No\" Do you want to play chess?"}
{"text": "Create five original multiple choice options given the following statement. A) Neutralization \nB) Combustion \nC) Hydration \nD) Decomposition \nE) Synthesis"}
{"text": "Create a new sentence using the words \"furious\" and \"outdated\". I was furious when I found the software was outdated."}
{"text": "Give 3 reasons why would someone want to use AI in their business. 1. AI can automate processes and tasks to save time, money and resources.\n2. AI can quickly analyse large amounts of data to discover trends and patterns that might otherwise be missed.\n3. AI can help in predicting customer behaviour and recommend services, products and offers that customers might like."}
{"text": "Create a reward system for employees that shows appreciation but also encourages productivity. A reward system that motivates employees to work hard and improve productivity can include recognition for individual accomplishments, compliments to boost morale and financial rewards such as bonuses and raises. To show appreciation, managers can give out rewards such as gift cards, meals or tickets to events. Additionally, providing flexible working hours, offering paid vacation time and providing ongoing professional development opportunities can help to increase employee satisfaction."}
{"text": "Create a scenario where AI helps the user to save money. AI can help users save money by, for example, analyzing user spending and suggesting ways to reduce costs. AI can detect spending trends, recommend alternate options that may be cheaper, and identify potential savings opportunities. AI can also be used to help track user's bank account and other investments, alerting them to any fraudulent activities or discrepancies in their accounts."}
{"text": "Give an example of how natural language processing (NLP) is used in everyday life. NLP is used in everyday life for tasks such as text recognition, unpacking conversations, understanding customer service queries and recognizing voice commands. For example, voice activated assistants like Siri and Alexa use NLP to understand and respond to spoken requests."}
{"text": "Find an example of a potential use of generative adversarial networks (GANs). GANs can be used to generate realistic images and videos. For example, GANs can generate convincing images of people who don't actually exist, as well as realistic videos and animations. GANs can also be used to generate data that can be used in various fields to train other algorithms."}
{"text": "Create a sentence that starts with the words \"When it comes to\". When it comes to technology, it's important to stay up to date with the latest trends and innovations."}
{"text": "Create an algorithm that divides a given array of numbers into two sets such that the sum of the elements in each set is the same. Set 1: [5, 15] \nSet 2: [10, 20] \nAlgorithm:\n1. Create two empty sets, set1 and set2. \n2. Add the first number in the list to set1. \n3. Calculate the sum of the numbers in set1 and set2. \n4. If sum of set1 is less than the sum of set2, add the next number to set 1. If the sum of set1 is greater than the sum of set2, add the next number to set2. \n5. Repeat step 4 until all numbers in the list have been added to one of the sets."}
{"text": "Find the meaning of theword \"epiphany\". Epiphany is a sudden, dramatic, and powerful realization or insight. It can be an idea, a connection, an explanation, or a solution to a problem. It can also be understood as a personal moment of clarity."}
{"text": "Give an example of how to solve this equation. To solve this equation, we can first subtract 5 from both sides to get 2x = 8. Then we can divide both sides by 2 to get x = 4. Therefore, the solution is x = 4."}
{"text": "Create a list of 10 creative ways to use a hammer. 1. Hang a picture or mirror.\n2. Hammer in a nail to repair or build furniture.\n3. Hammer in tent stakes.\n4. Play Whac-A-Mole.\n5. Use to crack nuts.\n6. Tenderize meat.\n7. Use the handle of the hammer to drive the blade of an axe.\n8. Break up a hard surface.\n9. Use the claw to remove nails.\n10. Hammer rivets onto metal."}
{"text": "Come up with an encryption method that encrypts the following message. We can use a substitution cipher to encrypt the message. For example, each letter in the message can be substituted with the letter that is three places further down the alphabet. In this case, the encrypted message would be: \"Pb odcb nb Lqpl\"."}
{"text": "Suggest a use of machine learning for a retail store. A retail store could use machine learning to analyze customer buying patterns. By understanding customer preferences, the store can make better marketing and inventory decisions, such as determining the best items to stock and where they should be placed in the store, as well as determining the best times to run discounts and promotions to increase profits."}
{"text": "Create a story about a brave lion who conquers a land. Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a brave lion named Simba. Simba was determined to become the ruler of the entire land and so he set out on a journey to conquer it. He faced many challenges on his way, but he never gave up. After a long and difficult journey, Simba finally reached the heart of the land and with strength and courage he defeated all of the other animals and proclaimed himself the king. He was then known as Simba the Great, King of the land."}
{"text": "Design a game where the goal is to find the missing item. The game is called \"The Missing Item\". The goal of the game is to find a missing item from a list of items. The game board consists of a grid with different items placed randomly. The player has to search for the missing item among the items placed on the board. The player has a limited amount of time to find the item. When the item is found, the player wins the game."}
{"text": "Describe the melody of a love song. The melody of the love song is gentle and romantic, featuring soft, melodic chords that create a warm, inviting atmosphere. Strings provide a delicate yet passionate accompaniment while a soft piano provides the perfect backdrop for tender lyrics."}
{"text": "Name 5 features that are important in a gaming laptop. - Fast processor\n- Dedicated GPU\n- Plenty of RAM\n- High-res display\n- Good cooling system"}
{"text": "Create five alternative titles for the story. - The Last of its Kind \n- Wolf in Isolation \n- Alone in the Woods \n- A Wolf's Tale \n- Solitary Wolf"}
{"text": "Replicate the following pattern of numbers. One possible pattern could be numbers n such that sigma(n-1) is a prime. In the context of number theory, \"sigma(n)\" represents the sum of divisors of a positive integer \"n\". If we use this pattern, than we can simply continue it: 3, 5, 10, 17, 26, 65, 290, 730"}
{"text": "Write four questions that someone might ask about the topic. - What are the advantages of using solar energy?\n- What are the disadvantages of solar energy?\n- What type of technology is used for solar energy?\n- What are some of the ways solar energy can be used?"}
{"text": "Select three websites to research a topic. Wikipedia, BBC, and The New York Times are three good sources for researching any topic."}
{"text": "Generate an essay discussing the benefits of online education compared to traditional education. Online education has become increasingly popular in the current digital age, offering an alternative to traditional education. The advantages that online education offers over traditional education often come in the form of lower costs, more flexibility, and convenience. For instance, online education is generally more affordable than traditional education as it involves fewer overhead costs such as travel and accommodation expenses as students typically take online classes online at their own pace from the comfort of their own home. Online classes also provide greater flexibility as students can tailor the course content to their personal interests or circumstances. Furthermore, online courses are often offered on a shorter timeframe allowing students to complete the courses within a shorter period of time. Finally, the convenience that online courses offer can be beneficial as students can pursue their coursework while maintaining their daily commitments such as work or family obligations. \n\nIn conclusion, online education offers many unique advantages compared to traditional education, such as reduced costs, greater flexibility, and the convenience of doing the coursework online. These advantages make online education an attractive option for students of varying backgrounds."}
{"text": "Create a questionnaire for data collection for product feedback. 1. What is your gender?\n2. How satisfied are you with our product?\n3. How likely are you to recommend our product to someone else?\n4. What features of the product do you like the most?\n5. What features of the product do you like the least?\n6. On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest, how would you rate the ease of use of the product?\n7. Are there any features you would like to see added to the product?\n8. How would you rate the overall user experience of the product?\n9. Are there any areas where the product needs improvement?\n10. Do you have any other comments or suggestions about the product?"}
{"text": "Compose a blog article on the importance of exercise. Exercise is essential to living a healthy and active lifestyle. Regular exercise helps to improve physical strength and endurance, increase energy levels, improve cardiovascular health and lower risk of certain diseases. In addition, studies have also shown that exercise releases endorphins which can help to reduce stress and anxiety. Exercise can also help to build mental resilience, concentration, and focus.\n\nGetting started with an exercise routine does not have to be daunting. It can be as simple as a 10-minute walk or jog around the block and gradually increasing the intensity and duration as you get more comfortable with exercise. Regular physical activity can also be fun and your exercise routine can be tailored to your own personal interests. Whether it\u2019s going for a swim, running, biking, playing basketball or weight training, there is something for everyone.\n\nExercise is an important part of living a healthy and happy life, and it can have a great impact on both physical and mental wellbeing. So make sure to make time for regular physical activity to stay healthy and happy!"}
{"text": "Resolve this complicated math equation below: 17"}
{"text": "Sort the ingredients below in order of importance in a recipe. Butter, Sugar, Eggs, Vanilla"}
{"text": "Generate a list of five activities that a family could do together. 1. Have a backyard picnic \n2. Go camping in a nearby state park \n3. Take a bike ride together \n4. Have a game night \n5. Visit a local museum or zoo"}
{"text": "Organize these steps in a logical order to play a board game. Set up board, gather pieces, roll dice, move pieces"}
{"text": "Write two different dialogue lines for a character. 1. \"It looks like this will be a difficult task, but I'm ready to take it on!\"\n2. \"Let's get started and see how far we can get!\""}
{"text": "Edit the story below to be more descriptive. It was a frigid winter morning when Sarah stepped onto the chilly bus, hurrying to make it on time. She took a seat just as the engine roared to life, the downtown streets visible through the steamed-up windows."}
{"text": "Name 3 diseases found early in a baby's life. Congenital disorders/diseases that can be found in babies include: congenital heart defects, Down Syndrome, spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, congenital deafness, and hydrocephalus."}
{"text": "Arrange three colors in a way that visually suggests a desert oasis. A visually pleasing combination of colors might include sandy yellow, turquoise blue, and forest green to represent the colors of a desert oasis."}
{"text": "How can I save money on my next grocery shopping? There are several ways to save money when grocery shopping, such as planning out your meals in advance and creating a grocery list, using store coupons, and looking for sales and discounts. Additionally, comparison shopping can help you find the best deals. You may also want to look online to find coupons and discounts. Buying store brands can also help you save money while still getting quality products."}
{"text": "Design a creative logo for an organization focused on conservation. A creative logo for an organization focused on conservation could include an illustration of a tree, forest, or lake and the organization name in a bold, clean font. Other ideas for a logo could include a globe or an animal. Colors could reflect the natural environment, such as blues and greens, with bold accent colors."}
{"text": "Describe five benefits of using natural lighting. Using natural lighting has numerous benefits, such as:\n1. Increased energy efficiency since sun-powered light can reduce the need for electricity\n2. Assisting in the regulation of circadian rhythms, allowing people to sleep better and wake up feeling more refreshed\n3. Enhancing mood, concentration, and focus due to the body's positive reaction to sunlight\n4. Brightening up living spaces, making them warm and inviting\n5. Saving money on energy bills since natural light does not require electricity to generate."}
{"text": "Write a query to get the average purchase price from the table \"orders\" SELECT AVG(price) FROM orders;"}
{"text": "What types of products can be made with 3D printing? 3D printing is a versatile technology that can be used to manufacture a wide range of products, including prosthetics, aircraft parts, medical devices, jewelry, toys, and artwork. 3D printing can also be used for personalized products such as baby gifts, phone cases, clothing, and mugs."}
{"text": "Make a list of indoor activities to keep kids entertained. Indoor activities to keep kids entertained include: \n-Board games \n-Jigsaw puzzles \n-Playing dress-up \n-Indoor camping \n-Making crafts \n-Building a fort \n-Playing charades \n-Indoor scavenger hunt \n-Cooking and baking \n-Creating an obstacle course \n-Making a movie \n-Have a dance party \n-Playing pretend \n-Reading books"}
{"text": "Create an online safety guide for children. An online safety guide for children should include the following: \n-Remind children to think before they post or send anything online.\n-Help children create strong passwords that they don't share with anyone. \n-Advise children to be aware of the information they are posting online and set appropriate privacy settings\n-Inform children about the risks of cyberbullying, to only use reputable websites, and to not talk to strangers online\n-Discuss with children the importance of reporting any inappropriate conduct or messages, and blocking anyone who makes them feel uncomfortable \n-Advise your children not to download or open unknown links or suspicious files."}
{"text": "Identify two benefits of cycling for a healthy lifestyle. Cycling is an excellent way to improve physical health. It is a low-impact exercise that can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen muscles, and reduce body fat. Additionally, cycling is good for mental health as it helps reduce levels of stress and can even lead to improved concentration."}
{"text": "Create an outline for a presentation on the benefits of exercise. I. Introduction \nA. Definition of exercise\nB. Benefits of exercise  \n\nII. Physical Benefits \nA. Improved physical strength and endurance \nB. Enhanced cardiovascular health \n\nIII. Mental Benefits \nA. Improved cognitive performance \nB. Reduced stress and anxiety \n\nIV. Social Benefits \nA. Improved communication skills \nB. Enhanced social connections \n\nV. Conclusion \nA. Summary of the benefits of exercise \nB. Suggested next steps for readers"}
{"text": "List 5 websites for collecting data. 1. Kaggle \n2. Data.World \n3. Google Dataset Search \n4. Open Data Network \n5. Data.gov"}
{"text": "Create a 5-step to-do list for tomorrow. 1. Wake up at 8am\n2. Start the day with a 30-minute walk\n3. Have breakfast \n4. Work on the project for three hours\n5. Have a healthy lunch \n6. Take a break \n7. Work on the project for two hours \n8. Spend time with family \n9. Have a healthy dinner \n10. Wind down for the evening"}
{"text": "Rewrite the given text in fewer than 50 words. Create an interesting essay by setting a clear topic, crafting a strong thesis statement, adding evidence, and following guidelines."}
{"text": "Describe what would happen if the moon were two times bigger. If the moon were two times bigger, its gravitational pull on Earth would increase significantly. This would cause higher tides, greater ocean currents, and increased seismic activity. On the bright side, the extra moonlight would likely result in larger and brighter displays of the Aurora Borealis."}
{"text": "Speculate how the world would be different if computers were never invented. Without computers, the pace of progress would undoubtedly be far slower.  Computers have revolutionized many aspects of life - from communication to medicine, transportation, and so much more. We would be relying on older, more analogue technology to process data, meaning tasks would take much longer to complete. People may have more free time, but overall quality of life would be impacted due in large part to technology not being able to progress as quickly."}
{"text": "Construct a simple fashion design given the following description and sketch. The dress should be sleeveless and have a rounded scoop neckline. The A-line silhouette should be followed, with the length being slightly above the knee. Further details may include pleats around the waistline, a belt, or lace trimmings."}
{"text": "Identify the significant figures in the given decimal number. Significant figures in the given decimal number are three."}
{"text": "Create a script for a customer service representative that deals with a complaint from a customer. Hello, thank you for calling [Company Name] Customer Service! How can I help you? \n\nI am sorry to hear about your complaint, I will do my best to help. Can you please tell me what happened? \n\nAfter listening to the customer's complaint, nod and reassure the customer that you will do your best to solve their issue. Ask the customer to provide further information and take notes on the details of their complaint.\n\nOnce all the necessary information has been gathered, thank the customer for their time and let them know that their complaint will be addressed as soon as possible. Provide a timeline if possible and thank them for their patience. \n\nIs there anything else I can do for you?"}
{"text": "Translate the following sentence into French:\n\n\"I have three cats.\" J'ai trois chats."}
{"text": "Describe the route for a backpacking trip for two weeks through the Yosemite National Park Start in Yosemite Valley and head toward Half Dome via the Mist Trail. Hike to the summit and then back down to Little Yosemite Valley. Continue hiking past Nevada Fall and head up to the summit of Clouds Rest. From there, traverse the Sunrise Lakes Trail before taking the Yosemite Valley Loop past Mirror Lake and Vernal Falls. Finally, walk along the John Muir Trail to Mt Hoffman and finish the trip at the Tuolumne Meadows."}
{"text": "Generate a mathematical equation to calculate a person's BMI BMI = weight (kg) / height (m)^2"}
{"text": "Arrange a series of meetings to introduce a person to a new team. Arrange a one-on-one meeting with John and each member of the team. Ask each team member to answer two questions about themselves to create a quick introduction for John. During the meeting, discuss John\u2019s experience, expertise, and ideas for the team. Finally, organizes a team meeting with John to let the team get to know him."}
{"text": "Design a data science project plan for analysing customer behaviour Start by outlining the project requirements and objectives. Define a timeline and resources available to complete the project. Gather data on customer behaviour and create a data architecture to manage the collected data. Develop data cleaning scripts to process the data and create relevant statistical models. Create visualizations to analyse and interpret the data. Establish benchmarks and evaluate the performance of different models. Generate insights based on the data and develop a report based on the findings."}
{"text": "Create a movie suggestion list for a person with romance genre. - Crazy Rich Asians\n- The Proposal\n- You've Got Mail\n- To All The Boys I\u2019ve Loved Before\n- Notting Hill\n- 50 First Dates\n- The Holiday\n- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days\n- The Notebook\n- 10 Things I Hate About You"}
{"text": "Generate a resume for a marketing role. John Smith\n(xxx)xxx-xxxx | jsmith@example.com\n\nSummary\n\nDynamic and motivated marketing specialist with comprehensive experience in strategy execution, digital marketing and analytics. Skilled in building strong relationships while successfully creating and delivering marketing campaigns. Open to new challenges and eager to learn and use new technologies.\n\nExperience \n\nMarketing Specialist\nABC Company, Seattle, WA\nJune 2016- June 2019\n\n- Developed and implemented marketing campaigns to promote products and services.\n- Analyzed competitor data to modify and improve existing campaigns.\n- Collaborated with design and programming teams to create promotional materials.\n- Monitored performance of campaigns and prepared reports for management.\n- Generated leads and created customer loyalty programs."}
{"text": "Analyze large datasets for trends and patterns Identify the type of data and the trends or patterns of interest and develop algorithms and models to analyze the data. Create visualisations to display data visually. Assess and clean data, filling any missing values or outliers. Apply descriptive and inferential statistics to uncover significant patterns. Implement machine learning techniques to build predictive models. Conduct experiments to measure the accuracy of the models. Create reports with the evaluation metrics obtained from the results."}
{"text": "Brainstorm five possible solutions to an environmental challenge 1. Increase public education and awareness of environmental issues.\n2. Implement more stringent regulations around resource use.\n3. Use technology and innovation to create more efficient solutions.\n4. Promote sustainable practices in both business and everyday life.\n5. Establish environmental projects and initiatives to reduce waste."}
{"text": "Design a phone user interface for a travel planning app Create an intuitive user interface that includes an interactive map view for finding travel destinations, a search bar for keyword searches, filter options for sorting search results, a profile page for saving favorite destinations, and an information view for displaying information about destinations. Create personalized feeds for users to get updates about relevant travel deals. Incorporate user feedback and ratings to improve the app experience."}
{"text": "Make recommendations for budgeting for a couple vacationing in Hawaii Set realistic budget goals and allocate funds accordingly. Research destinations and activities to create an understanding of costs. Set a daily allowance per person so couples can estimate their spending. Consider discounted tickets and group packages to save money. Choose accommodations that fit the budget and style of vacationing. Calculate the total cost of the whole trip including flights, rental car, and activities. Set an emergency fund for unexpected expenses."}
{"text": "Identify five statistical measures that are important for evaluating the performance of a machine learning model Accuracy, Precision, Recall, F1 Score, ROC AUC Score."}
{"text": "Create a marketing plan for reaching a young adult demographic Start with a research-led approach to the target demographic. Assess the current strategy\u2019s effectiveness and identify areas to improve upon. Develop an engaging campaign tailored to the target demographic. Invest in influencer marketing campaigns as well as digital and social media campaigns. Utilize analytics to measure the success of the campaign, analyze feedback, and to be proactive in responding to any challenges."}
{"text": "Design an experiment to test whether a drug has an effect on the body Design a double-blind randomized controlled trial. Ensure ethical considerations are met. Randomly assign participants to either a drug receiving group or a placebo group. Measure pre- and post-experiment results for each group. Utilize appropriate statistical tests to evaluate the results of the experiment. Document the results and analyze for any conclusions."}
{"text": "Compose a tweet about the given topic in an informative and concise manner. Lexical analysis is a process of analyzing text to understand its meaning and structure. It's a key part of Natural Language Processing and is also used in many other areas such as information retrieval, AI, and data science. #NLP #DataScience #AI #TextAnalysis"}
{"text": "Find and explain three examples of the given literary device. Anaphora is a literary device that involves the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences. It is often used to emphasize a point and create a rhythmical effect. \n\nExamples: \n1. \"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets...\" - Winston Churchill \n2. \"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?\" - Percy Bysshe Shelley \n3. \"Love is too young to know what conscience is, yet who knows not conscience is born of love?\" - William Blake"}
{"text": "Categorize this text as either positive, negative, or neutral. Neutral"}
{"text": "Generate a username for Jane Doe. jane_doe007"}
{"text": "Describe a setting that would create a feeling of suspense. A dark and eerie graveyard, surrounded by fog and filled with shadows, with the sound of howling winds echoing in the distance."}
{"text": "Convert this Hexadecimal string to its corresponding binary number. 101111100110101"}
{"text": "Determine which restaurant is the best choice given the following information. Gamo Turkish Grill is the best option for John since it serves Italian food within his budget range."}
{"text": "Given the following sentence, create a valid regular expression to match \"apple\" or \"Apple\". /[Aa]pple/"}
{"text": "Replace the \\\"XXX\\\" in the following sentence with a meaningful sentence. The mission of the company is to promote sustainability."}
{"text": "Brainstorm ways to reduce energy consumption in a home. Ideas for reducing energy consumption in a home include switching to energy efficient appliances, using natural light to reduce reliance on artificial lighting, unplugging electrical devices when not in use, installing timers or smart home systems to regulate temperature, using solar panels to generate electricity, and running full loads of dishes and laundry."}
{"text": "Rearrange the following words to make a valid sentence:\nweather different between countries The weather is different between countries."}
{"text": "Given a data set, calculate the standard deviation SELECT column1,column2,column3,STDDEV(column1),STDDEV(column2),STDDEV(column3) FROM mytable;"}
{"text": "Describe an event where a person shows integrity. A person showed integrity when they chose to admit their mistake and apologize for it, despite feeling embarrassed and fear of the consequences. Instead of lying or deflecting responsibility, the person owning up to their mistake demonstrated courage and honesty. This kind of behavior is exemplary and should be admired."}
{"text": "Create a menu for breakfast. Breakfast Menu \n\n- Eggs: scrambled eggs, poached eggs, sunny side up eggs \n- Toast: white, wheat, rye \n- Pancakes: plain, blueberry, chocolate chip \n- Oatmeal: plain, topped with brown sugar and cinnamon \n- French Toast: plain, topped with maple syrup \n- Smoothies: strawberry, banana, mango \n- Fresh Juices: orange, apple, cranberry"}
{"text": "Determine the total circumference given the radius and diameter. The total circumference would be 31.4 cm, calculated by 5\u03c0 cm for radius and 10\u03c0 cm for diameter."}
{"text": "Summarize the main events of the movie \"Titanic\". Titanic tells the story of Jack and Rose, two people from different social classes who meet aboard the Titanic during its ill-fated maiden voyage. The two fall in love and despite class barriers, find a way to be together. When the ship strikes an iceberg, Rose must escape but Jack is left behind and thought to be dead. Rose eventually finds another love and commemorates Jack by using the Heart of the Ocean necklace."}
{"text": "Compose a poem comparing two things. A strawberry, scarlet with desire,\nSmall yet filled with heart's desire.\nA watermelon, large and sweet,\nUnexpressed love at its treat.\n\nDifferent in size, one small one large,\nYet both filled with nature's charge.\nBoth fulfill in taste, each in its own way,\nSo to them, our love we pay."}
{"text": "Create the code to organize items in ascending order. items.sort() or \nitems = sorted(items)"}
{"text": "Write a letter to a friend who is moving away Dear Friend, \n\nI am writing to you as you prepare to move away. I know this is a difficult time for you, but I just wanted to let you know how much I am going to miss you. We have shared so many memories together over the years and I will never forget them. \n\nRemember to stay in touch and let me know how you are doing from time to time. You are always welcome here when you come to visit. \n\nGood luck on your travels and embrace the new adventure ahead of you. \n\nWith love, \nNAME"}
{"text": "Fix the following sentence: \"The bear run through the forest\" The bear ran through the forest."}
{"text": "Given a short story, create a theme The theme of this story is the power of kindness and generosity. Through her act of kindness in granting the old woman's request, the princess was rewarded with a magical item that granted her any wish she desired. This illustrates how acts of kindness and generosity can be rewarding, both for the giver and for the receiver."}
{"text": "Design some clothes that can be worn at a formal party Formal party attire can include a dress, suit or separates such as a skirt and blouse. For women, a dress in a classic material such as silk, velvet or satin in a timeless cut and color. For men, a classic suit in a solid color or pinstripe. Accesorizing with subtle statement jewelry, such as a pendant necklace or earrings, can add a finishing touch. Shoes should be dressy but comfortable and closed toe with a low heel."}
{"text": "Edit the following sentence to make it more formal: \"I'm really busy today\" I am regrettably occupied today."}
{"text": "Given two words, create a metaphor The sun is the starring actor of the sky, shining brightly and leaping across the heavens."}
{"text": "Find the product of 1.8 and 5. 9"}
{"text": "What language is this sentence written in? French."}
{"text": "Write an imperative sentence to suggest an idea Try something new today."}
{"text": "List five facts about coral reefs. 1. Coral reefs are found in tropical oceans around the world.\n2. They provide habitat and shelter for a wide variety of marine life.\n3. The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is the largest coral reef in the world.\n4. Coral reefs are made up of tiny coral polyps that live in symbiosis with algae.\n5. Coral reefs are important for human activities such as fishing and coastal protection."}
{"text": "Name one direct consequence of global warming. One direct consequence of global warming is the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves."}
{"text": "Write a few sentences about electricity. Electricity is a form of energy that flows through electrical circuits. It is produced by the movement of electrons and is used to power a wide range of devices, from light bulbs to computers. Electricity has revolutionized the way we live, allowing us to do things much more efficiently than before."}
{"text": "List two advantages of nuclear energy. Two advantages of nuclear energy are that it is a clean source of energy with no greenhouse gas emissions and it is very efficient, producing large amounts of energy from relatively small amounts of fuel."}
{"text": "Are spiders considered insects? No, spiders are not considered insects. Spiders are arachnids, not insects."}
{"text": "Classify the given restaurant based on cuisine type. The restaurant serves Southeast Asian cuisine."}
{"text": "Describe the setting of your favorite book. Snow Crash takes place in a dystopian version of the United States, where much of the population lives in high-tech shantytowns, while the wealthy live in pristine mega-cities."}
{"text": "Name three benefits of being bilingual. Being bilingual has many benefits, including improved cognitive abilities, better job prospects, and increased cultural understanding."}
{"text": "Generate a news headline for the given event. Protests Erupt across City Following Fatal Police Shooting"}
{"text": "Provide an analogy to explain the atomic structure. Atomic structure can be compared to a solar system, where the nucleus is like the sun and the electrons are like the planets orbiting around it."}
{"text": "Organize this list of food into healthy and unhealthy items. Healthy: Salad, Orange\nUnhealthy: Chips, Fried Chicken"}
{"text": "Simplify this expression 3x2 + 5x + 2 3x2 + 7x + 2"}
{"text": "Find the longest word in the given phrase. jumped"}
{"text": "Describe a good way to ensure that quality customer service is delivered. Good quality customer service should be delivered by having detailed procedures in place, training the customer service team extensively, and employing regular feedback surveys to gauge customer satisfaction."}
{"text": "Suggest a product or service that a company could provide to make money. A company could make money by providing a subscription-based service such as cloud-hosted software, a subscription-based website, or an app-based service."}
{"text": "Pick a charity and explain why it is important. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is an important charity because it helps children suffering from cancer and other life-threatening diseases by providing the best possible treatments and care, offering families the hope that those children can live longer and better lives."}
{"text": "Brainstorm one way to reduce household waste. One way to reduce household waste is to reuse and repurpose items that are normally discarded, such as plastic containers or glass jars."}
{"text": "Describe what you think the Internet will look like in 2030. In 2030, the Internet will be faster, more reliable, and more secure. It will be accessible from almost everywhere, including from our cars, our homes, and even from our wrists. It will be a space for both work and play, where access to knowledge and entertainment is unrestricted."}
{"text": "Generate a list of 5 unique flavors for ice cream. 1. Mint orange\n2. Blueberry lavender\n3. Coconut carrot\n4. Honeydew melon\n5. Chocolate rosemary"}
{"text": "Describe what would happen if everyone recycled. If everyone recycled, it would reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfills and maximize the reuse of valuable resources. It would also reduce air and water pollution, as well as carbon emissions."}
{"text": "Write a metaphor to describe stress. Stress is like a weight, pressing down on your shoulders and making it hard to move forward."}
{"text": "Edit this sentence: \"The cats colour is light purple.\" The cat's color is lavender."}
{"text": "Construct a SQL query that finds all rows in a table with 'apple' in their description. SELECT * FROM TableName\nWHERE description LIKE 'apple%';"}
{"text": "Create a HTML page with a table that has five cells. <html>\n <head>\n  <title>Table</title>\n </head>\n <body>\n  <table>\n   <tr>\n    <td>Cell 1</td>\n    <td>Cell 2</td>\n    <td>Cell 3</td>\n    <td>Cell 4</td>\n    <td>Cell 5</td>\n   </tr>\n  </table>\n </body>\n</html>"}
{"text": "Categorize the following animals into mammals and birds: Tiger, Bee, Parrot, Bat Mammals: Tiger, Bee, Bat \nBirds: Parrot"}
{"text": "Summarize this article in four sentences: \"The Benefits of Eating Organic Foods\" Organic foods can reduce exposure to potentially harmful pesticides, chemicals, and radiation; they may be healthier and more nutritious; they often taste better; and they are better for the environment. Eating organic foods can be beneficial for overall health and may help minimize exposure to potentially dangerous chemicals and radiation. Organic foods often taste better, and they are better for the environment due to reduced use of synthetic fertilizers, fewer pesticides, and less land and water use. They may also be more nutritious and have higher levels of certain beneficial compounds."}
{"text": "Create a news headline: \"Group of scientists discovers new species of frog\" Breaking News: Scientists Uncover Little-Known Frog Species in Remote Location"}
{"text": "Explain what \"encrypted data\" is Encrypted data is data that has been converted into a secure format that is unreadable to any but those who possess the proper decryption keys. It is a way of keeping data secure and private from unwanted access or modification. Encrypted data can only be decrypted using a specialized algorithm and the appropriate key."}
{"text": "Give the antonym of \"friendly\" The antonym of friendly is unfriendly."}
{"text": "Find the French word for \"cat\" The French word for cat is 'chat'."}
{"text": "Classify this movie as comedy, horror, or action: \"The Shining\" The Shining is a horror movie."}
{"text": "Construct a new sentence that uses the same word in a different context. When Mary heard the news that she had won the scholarship, she was extremely excited."}
{"text": "Calculate the total number of students in an auditorium with 65 chairs. The total number of students in an auditorium with 65 chairs is 65."}
{"text": "Recognize the following text as an example of which literary device. The text is an example of repetition as it is used to emphasize the same thing in a more powerful way."}
{"text": "Brainstorm five challenges that can be caused by global warming. 1. Rising sea levels\n2. Extreme weather conditions\n3. Loss of biodiversity\n4. Spread of disease\n5. Disruption of natural habitats"}
{"text": "Write a function that calculates the average of three numbers def avg_3(num1, num2, num3): \n    return (num1 + num2 + num3)/3"}
{"text": "Generate a list of items a survival pack should include. 1. Food and water\n2. Shelter and blankets\n3. Flashlight and batteries\n4. Radio and whistle\n5. First aid kit\n6. Matches and firestarter\n7. Knife and multitool\n8. Compass and map\n9. Rope\n10. Insect repellent"}
{"text": "Name a constitutional amendment. The First Amendment."}
{"text": "Describe how to impress a customer. Listen to the customer carefully, acknowledge their needs and desires, make sure to follow up on commitments, and strive to exceed expectations."}
{"text": "What is the most successful marriage proposal in history? The most successful marriage proposal in history is thought to be the one Prince William used when he proposed to Catherine Middleton at the Royal Lodge in 20"}
{"text": "Construct a protocol to represent the given details. This hiring protocol is intended to bring in the best candidate. It consists of six steps: choosing a candidate, scheduling an interview, conducting the interview, evaluating the candidate, selecting the candidate, and finally, notifying the candidate."}
{"text": "Rewrite the following statement so that it uses the pronoun they. They are playing soccer."}
{"text": "Create a meme which includes the given prompt. [Meme with two people, one saying, \"Me: I'm going to make an organic post on social media!\" and the other saying \"Also Me: *buys a billboard*\" with the caption \"The power of digital marketing\"]"}
{"text": "Describe what what a strong friendship is. A strong friendship is one where both people are committed to caring for and understanding each other through good times and bad. It involves trust, loyalty, honesty, respect, and love."}
{"text": "Imagine you have just collected some data from an experiment. Generate three questions that the data can answer. 1. How does the experiment outcome compare to the hypothesis?\n2. Were there any unexpected results?\n3. What conclusions can we draw from this data?"}
{"text": "Compose a blog post explaining why Python is the ideal programming language for data science. Python is one of the most versatile and popular programming languages, and it is an excellent choice for data science. It is an easy-to-learn, open-source language that is incredibly versatile, as it can be used for everything from web development to data analysis. It has powerful libraries and frameworks such as NumPy, SciPy, and Pandas that make data manipulation easy and efficient. Python also has built-in visualization libraries like Matplotlib, allowing users to quickly create meaningful graphs from their data. With its large and active community, Python makes it easy to find the support you need and stay up to date with data science technologies. Python is an essential and ideal language for any data scientist, regardless of experience level."}
{"text": "Given a set of instructions, generate a JavaScript code snippet that will initiate a loop. for(let url of urls) {\n  //code to execute the loop\n}"}
{"text": "Create a database table that stores information about the world's tallest mountains. Create a database table that contains the following columns: Mountain Name, Location, Elevation, First Ascent Date, and First Ascent Team."}
{"text": "You need to turn the given story into a poem. John was a brave knight\nHis cause-to defend the realm \nFrom a fierce dragon's raging might \nThat threatened to overwhelm \n\nHe ventured to its mighty keep \nAnd rallied for the fight \nDetermined to success-protector-sheep \nHe battled through the night \n\nFaced with the dragon's awful roar \nHis courage never wavered \nFor he had a shining honor, sure \nHis courage never wavered \n\nThough wounded he would not retreat \nHe stayed and fought his course \nUntil the land was freed from its foes \nHe'd fought with honor and with force"}
{"text": "Classify an animal from its description. The animal described is most likely a Shrew."}
{"text": "What is the sum of 5 and 10? The sum of 5 and 10 is 15."}
{"text": "Change the words within a given sentence. She was the most beautiful blossom in the garden."}
{"text": "Choose the right option that completes the sentence The dog lounged in the sun all afternoon."}
{"text": "Who wrote 'Harry Potter'? The Harry Potter series was written by author J.K. Rowling."}
{"text": "How many instruments does a symphony orchestra typically have? A symphony orchestra typically has anywhere from 60 to 100 different instruments in its ensemble."}
{"text": "Name a novel set in the 19th century. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte."}
{"text": "Name a famous movie from the 1950s. The African Queen starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn."}
{"text": "Describe a traditional German meal. A traditional German meal typically consists of pork, potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables, such as carrots and sauerkraut. Bread and a variety of sauces are also often served. Desserts may include apple strudel or bienenstich (bee sting cake)."}
{"text": "Select the most appropriate genre for the following film synopsis. Fantasy."}
{"text": "Generate a rap verse containing the words fire and wave. My rhymes are hotter than fire, I'm always up high like a wave.\nBreaking the rules, never I'll tire, I be winning the game like a knave."}
{"text": "Name five organs in the human body. The five organs in the human body are the brain, heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys."}
{"text": "Assume you are baking a cake with the following ingredients. Calculate the baking time. Baking time is 30 minutes."}
{"text": "Identify the correct usage of the phrase in the sentence. Incorrect usage"}
{"text": "Identify 3 interesting facts about the Taj Mahal. 1. The Taj Mahal was built between 1631 and 1648 by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his beloved late wife, Mumtaz Mahal.\n2. The Taj Mahal is considered to be the most perfect example of Mughal architecture, a blend of Indian, Persian, and Islamic styles.\n3. The white marble of the Taj Mahal is located in a sprawling 42-acre complex featuring numerous artificial lakes and meticulously designed gardens."}
{"text": "Rewrite this sentence using formal language and correct grammar: \u201cWe all have different opinions.\u201d It is evident that we all have varied opinions."}
{"text": "Given the following numbers, find the sum. 22 + 34 + 10 = 66"}
{"text": "What is the most important goal to strive for in life? The most important goal to strive for in life is to be happy and content."}
{"text": "Compose a tweet about the recent advances in AI technology. AI technology is advancing at an ever-increasing rate - from personal assistants to autonomous driving, the possibilities are endless! #AIforEveryone #AI revolution"}
{"text": "Suggest a movie that features a strong female lead character. Erin Brockovich (2000) starring Julia Roberts."}
{"text": "How can schools best prepare students for the workforce? Schools can best prepare students for the workforce by providing hands-on job experience or internships, giving them the opportunity to learn soft skills such as communication, collaboration, problem solving and time management, and teaching them up-to-date information about their desired industry."}
{"text": "Compare and contrast submarines and hot air balloons. Submarines and hot air balloons are two vastly different forms of transportation. Submarines are operated underwater and use a motor and propeller propulsion system, while hot air balloons use heated air to ascend and are mainly propelled by the wind. Submarines are largely used for military purposes, while hot air balloons are mainly used for recreational activities."}
{"text": "Explain the scientific method in 1-2 sentences. The scientific method involves forming a hypothesis, carrying out experiments to test the hypothesis, collecting and analyzing data, and forming a conclusion based upon the results."}
{"text": "Evaluate the expression 9 \u2212 4 + 8 \u00d7 5. 47"}
{"text": "Create a song about staying home during COVID-19 pandemic. Verse 1 \n'Cause it's the same old story, told over and over\nNothing but lockdown orders all over the world\nWe can't go out to the movies, we can't even go to the gym\nSo we'll just stay home and find a new way to live\n\nChorus \nCovid-19's been keeping us safe at home\nStaying inside to protect ourselves and others \nIt's a tough time but we can make it through\nStaying home to stay safe and healthy, that's what we do\n\nVerse 2\nWe wash our hands, we wear our masks and keep a low profile\nAnd it's alright if we all just do our part\nWe may feel a little bit lonely, but we'll be stronger in the end\nStaying home and staying safe, 'til it's all over\n\nChorus \nCovid-19's been keeping us safe at home\nStaying inside to protect ourselves and others \nIt's a tough time but we can make it through\nStaying home to stay safe and healthy, that's what we do\n\nBridge \nWe'll take it day by day, in time it'll be alright\nWe'll take care of each other as we make it through the night\n\nChorus \nCovid-19's been keeping us safe at home\nStaying inside to protect ourselves and others \nIt's a tough time but we can make it through\nStaying home to stay safe and healthy, that's what we do"}
{"text": "Describe a website that would be useful to students. A website useful to students would provide easy access to educational materials such as study guides, practice tests, and free resources. It should include features to help students stay organized, such as project and task tracking and reminder systems for due dates. It should feature secure access with private user accounts, so that students can easily share materials with each other. The website should also offer discussion forums, study groups, and an efficient way to ask questions, so that students can easily reach out to peers."}
{"text": "Update the following sentence to include contractions and make it sound more natural: \"We are doing this for our own good\" We're doing this for our own good."}
{"text": "Generate a random password of length 8 that contains at least one number and one special character. Y5@f_7}j"}
{"text": "Why is it important to consider variable types when programming? It is important to consider variable types when programming because it helps to ensure that the correct types of data are used for each variable, which in turn helps to ensure that the program will produce accurate results. Knowing the type of data a variable holds also helps to avoid unexpected errors when attempting to manipulate the data."}
{"text": "Describe the advertising strategies used to promote a new mobile game. Advertising strategies used to promote a new mobile game could include social media campaigns, e-mail campaigns, online contests or giveaways, influencer partnerships, banner or display ads, video ads, and mobile ads. It is also important to optimize the game for organic search traffic by optimizing for targeted keywords on the app stores."}
{"text": "What evidence do scientists use to support the theory of evolution? Scientists use a variety of evidence to support the theory of evolution, including fossil records, DNA and genetic data, biochemistry, and homologies. Fossils provide evidence of how different organisms have changed over time, while DNA and genetic data help to map out the evolutionary history of different species. Biochemical and structural similarities between species also provide support for the theory, as does the fact that certain features are shared across many species but are adapted to fit their individual environments."}
{"text": "Generate a list of five words that describe the character Emma in the movie \"The Devil Wears Prada\". Brave, ambitious, determined, hardworking, resilient."}
{"text": "Count the number of countries with coast lines in the Mediterranean Sea. There are a total of 22 countries with coastlines in the Mediterranean Sea, including Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Cyprus, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, and the tiny micro-states of Monaco and Vatican City."}
{"text": "Identify popular dishes in Mexico. Popular Mexican dishes include tacos, burritos, tortillas, enchiladas, tamales, quesadillas, guacamole, nachos, tortilla soup, chili con carne, and fajitas. Some popular desserts include flan, churros, capirotada, and arroz con leche."}
{"text": "Cut the ingredients in half for the following recipe. Ingredients:\n1/2 lb bacon\n1 cup heavy cream\n3 large eggs\n1 tablespoon butter"}
{"text": "Determine the moment of inertia of the following shape. The moment of inertia of the rectangle can be calculated using the formula I = mr2, where m is the mass of the rectangle, and r is the radius of gyration. Using these values of m and r, the moment of inertia of the rectangle can be calculated as I = 35 m4."}
{"text": "Come up with a creative metaphor that compares the ocean to a person. The ocean is like a patient and wise old friend. No matter what storms come crashing onto its shores, it remains serene, allowing each wave to flow through without being held back by the past. It embraces whatever life brings, never taking but always giving. Over time it carves away the little things and nurtures the big picture. It's a place where tranquility, beauty, and resilience coexist in perfect harmony."}
{"text": "Describe the differences between a cloud and a fog in 3-4 sentences. Clouds and fog are both composed of tiny water droplets, suspended in the atmosphere. However, clouds form at higher altitudes than fog, and they are much larger and thicker. Clouds tend to move slowly and bring rain or snow, while fog is thicker and forms near the ground, typically lessening visibility. Clouds are also more diverse than fog in terms of composition and makeup, since clouds can be made up of a mix of liquid and solid particles. Fog, on the other hand, is composed of condensed droplets of water. Finally, clouds can be associated with a wide range of weather conditions, while fog usually indicates a humid climate."}
{"text": "Outline the main points about the given topic in two paragraphs. Hybrid cars offer a number of advantages compared to traditional gas-powered vehicles. The most notable benefit is the fuel efficiency they offer due to the utilization of both a gasoline engine and an electric motor. This efficient combination allows hybrid vehicles to produce up to twice the fuel economy of conventional heavy-duty vehicles, with some hybrids achieving up to 125 miles per gallon. In addition to fuel efficiency, hybrids have a lower environmental impact than gasoline-powered cars. They emit fewer pollutants, as they burn no gasoline while in operation. The electric motors of hybrids also produce less noise than gasoline engines, leading to a quieter ride.\n\nHybrid cars are also relatively inexpensive to maintain compared to traditional vehicles. They require less oil and fewer routine engine checks, which makes them less expensive to care for over the long run. Additionally, since most hybrid cars are equipped with regenerative braking, their brake pads and rotors last longer than those in gas-powered vehicles. Furthermore, hybrids often receive federal or local tax incentives or buyback programs from dealers, which can make them a more affordable option than other modes of transportation."}
{"text": "Explain how quantum computing works in two paragraphs. Quantum computing is the use of quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation. Compared to classical computing, quantum computing relies on the principles of quantum mechanics to store and process data in units of quantum states, instead of bits and bytes. This form of computing can process billions of calculations in parallel, representing a far more efficient form of computing. \n\nA quantum computer consists of quantum bits, also known as qubits. Unlike classical bits, which have a value of either 0 or 1, qubits can be in a state of 0, 1, or a superposition of both. This phenomenon allows a quantum computer to perform tasks that are impossible on a classical computer by utilizing principles such as entanglement, which connects qubits together across a quantum network, allowing them to be written and read simultaneously. With this, a quantum computer can solve complex problems that require immense computational power."}
{"text": "Compare and contrast democratic and authoritarian regimes in 4 sentences. Democratic regimes tend to promote individual liberty, citizen participation, and the rule of law, while authoritarian regimes emphasize hierarchy, obedience to higher authorities, and control over the population. Democratic regimes are based on popular sovereignty and the idea that the citizens should be able to influence the decisions of their government, while authoritarian governments are ruled by one individual or group who exerts control over the population with the use of fear and force. In democratic regimes, citizens are often free to dissent and express diverging opinions, while citizens in authoritarian regimes are subject to strict control and severe punishment if they do not obey the authorities."}
{"text": "Assume that you have been given a personal assistant. Provide 3 instructions this assistant should follow. - Provide daily updates on relevant news, industry developments, and any other trends that may be important for me to stay informed. \n- Schedule and organize my meetings, calls, and other engagements according to my preferences.\n- Monitor my email and alert me of any time-sensitive responses that need to be addressed."}
{"text": "Describe an ideal vacation for the given person. For someone looking to relax and embrace their love of the outdoors, an ideal vacation would be a weeklong hiking and camping trip in the Rocky Mountains. On the way, they would stop to explore the local towns and attractions along the route, so that they can take in the culture and enjoy the local sights. During the hiking, they could find plenty of time to relax and recharge as they take in the beautiful mountain views and explore the paths. Along the trip, they can choose to stop and camp for the night, giving them a great opportunity to disconnect and immerse themselves in nature. In the end, they'll return with renewed energy and a greater appreciation for the beauty of the outdoors."}
{"text": "Describe the challenges facing the given industry in 4 sentences. The retail industry is facing the challenge of keeping up with changing technology and customer preferences. Consumers expect faster delivery times and a seamless online shopping experience. Retail stores also need to stay on top of new trends and try to differentiate themselves to stay competitive, especially in a market where online retailers are growing rapidly. Retailers also need to be mindful of market fluctuations that can affect their bottom line, and manage their inventory accordingly. Lastly, as customer tastes change, retailers must also be able to adapt quickly in order to stay relevant."}
{"text": "Create a character sketch for the given character using 7-10 sentences. Haley is an 18-year-old medical student with a passion for learning and an optimistic outlook. She is driven and has high expectations of herself and is keen to push the boundaries of what she can achieve. She loves the sciences and has chosen medicine as her path to achieve her goals. In her spare time, she loves to explore her creative side by painting, writing stories, and playing the guitar. Additionally, Haley is a compassionate person who is always looking out for others and is typically the one offering advice and guidance. Her friends joke that she has an abundant supply of patience and understanding, making her a great listener. As she strives to become a doctor, she knows that her effort will yield great rewards and she will continue to remain confident that she will succeed in her endeavors."}
{"text": "Give an example of a non traditional job that could provide financial and personal benefits Freelance Graphic Designer, Food Delivery Driver, Social Media Manager, App Developer, Virtual Assistant, Online Tutor, Audio Engineer, Personal Trainer, Drone Operator, Pet Sitter."}
{"text": "Compose a tone poem in 50 words or less. The breeze whispers through the trees, calming my racing heart. A gentle sun warms my face, chasing away the shadows of the past. I inhale the scent of wildflowers and feel the summer warmth embrace me. I am here, in this moment, and all is well."}
{"text": "Write a dissertation abstract about the impact of artificial intelligence in healthcare. This dissertation examines the impact of embedding artificial intelligence (AI) technologies within healthcare delivery. Drawing on existing research, this dissertation discusses the opportunities and challenges presented by AI within healthcare. The findings suggest that AI can improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatments, reduce costs, and improve patient experience. However, the security and ethical considerations need to be addressed in order to maximize its potential benefits."}
{"text": "Generate a shopping list of items to be purchased at the store. 1. Milk\n2. Bread\n3. Cheese\n4. Eggs\n5. Apples\n6. Bananas\n7. Oranges\n8. Juice\n9. Cereal\n10. Vegetables\n11. Rice\n12. Pasta\n13. Olives\n14. Salad Dressing\n15. Peanut Butter\n16. Jam"}
{"text": "Name the French equivalent of the term in the sentence Chic (French equivalent: \u00e9l\u00e9gant)"}
{"text": "Rewrite the sentence to make it more formal:\n\"Going to the store tomorrow\" I will be going to the store tomorrow."}
{"text": "Paraphrase the sentence:\n\"I'm traveling to France next week\" I am embarking on a journey to France next week."}
{"text": "Categorize the following statement as either a fact or opinion:\n\"Eating too much sugar is unhealthy\" Fact."}
{"text": "Construct an analogy between a bird and a robot. A bird is to a robot as a natural navigator is to an artificial navigator. A bird has the innate ability to fly to its destination, while a robot uses an artificial navigational system to move from one place to the next."}
{"text": "Convert the sentence into the past tense:\n\"I will call him later\" I called him later."}
{"text": "Create a mathematical equation to find the area of a square with a side length of 3. Area of square = side length2 \n\nArea of square = 32 \n\nArea of square = 9"}
{"text": "Analyze how the author's tone changes in the following sentence:\n\"The report was great, and I'm thrilled that it was completed on time\" The author's tone changes from positive to enthusiastic. Initially, they are expressing satisfaction (\"great\") but by the end of the sentence, they are expressing happiness (\"thrilled\") that the report was completed on time."}
{"text": "Choose the correctly punctuated sentence: The cat meowed loudly, its fur bristling."}
{"text": "Rewrite the sentence to make it more concise:\n\"I have read the book that you recommended to me\" I read the book you recommended."}
{"text": "Identify the type of figurative language used in the sentence:\n\"My life is an open book\" Metaphor."}
{"text": "Construct a dialogue between a customer and a store clerk regarding a product. Customer: Hi, I'm looking for a new phone.\nStore Clerk: Sure, what kind of phone are you looking for?\nCustomer: I'm looking for one with good battery life and a decent camera.\nStore Clerk: We have a great line of phones that fit your criteria. Let me show you some of them."}
{"text": "Name three famous musical pieces composed before 1950. - George Handel\u2019s Messiah (1742) \n- Ludwig van Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 9 (1824) \n- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart\u2019s The Marriage of Figaro (1786)"}
{"text": "Give an example of an input which the GPT model could use to generate a movie review. The new romantic comedy \"Happy Together\" tells the story of Anna and Matt, a couple who have been together for five years and are starting to feel a bit stuck in their routine. The film follows them as they attempt to rekindle their relationship, exploring how two people in a long-term relationship grow, adapt and sometimes even discover a new love altogether. The film features strong writing and performances from the two leads, and a refreshingly honest take on relationships. Overall, it's a charming and touching story that's sure to make you smile."}
{"text": "Reverse engineer a given function into an equation. x=f(x)/2"}
{"text": "Recommend 5 movies that would offer a complete understanding of the world depcited in 1980s. -The Breakfast Club (1985)\n-Back to the Future (1985)\n-Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)\n-Stand by Me (1986) \n-The Princess Bride (1987)"}
{"text": "List 5 popular dishes in US. -Hamburgers \n-Pizza \n-Hot Dogs \n-Chili \n-Tacos"}
{"text": "Write a code to detect the type of browser that is used to access the page. \"\"\"\nCode to detect the type of browser that is used to access the page\n\"\"\"\n\nimport requests \nimport re \n\ndef get_browser_type():\n    user_agent = requests.get('http://www.useragentstring.com/').text\n    reg_ex = r\"(?<=User\\sAgent\\:\\s)(.*?)(?=\\))\"\n    m = re.search(reg_ex,user_agent)\n    return m.group()\n    \nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    print(get_browser_type())"}
{"text": "Compare and contrast two major political parties in the US. The two major political parties in the United States are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.  Both parties have a distinct set of values and beliefs, as well as different approaches to governing. The Democratic Party is generally considered to be more socially and economically progressive, favoring government intervention in economic policies and reforms in areas such as healthcare and immigration. The Republican Party is typically more socially and economically conservative and favors smaller government with less regulation. Additionally, the Democratic Party is the more liberal of the two parties, while the Republican Party is more conservative."}
{"text": "Describe the differences between ferrets and rats as pets. There are several differences between ferrets and rats when it comes to keeping them as pets. Ferrets are larger than rats, so they require more space. They are also more active, requiring more exercise and stimulation than rats. Additionally, ferrets are carnivores, so they need to be fed a diet high in protein and fat, while rats can be fed a more diverse diet with grains and vegetables. In terms of their behavior, ferrets are more friendly and cuddly than rats. They are also typically more social and outgoing and tend to respond better to training than rats do."}
{"text": "List 5 common tools used for web development. -HTML/CSS \n-Javascript \n-Git \n-Bootstrap \n-jQuery"}
{"text": "Recommend 5 engaging books for children aged 7-9. -James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl\n-Rick Riordan\u2019s Percy Jackson series\n-Matilda by Roald Dahl\n-The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis\n-Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak"}
{"text": "Write a Python script to parse a large tabular datafile. \"\"\"\nWrite a python script to parse a large tabular data file.\n\"\"\"\n\nimport pandas as pd\n\ndef parse_datafile(file_name):\n    df = pd.read_csv(file_name, sep='\\t', engine='python')\n    return df\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    print(parse_datafile(\"data.txt\"))"}
{"text": "Design a 3d game level. I designed a 3D game level by using various 3D modeling software. I created a large open area with a grassy terrain and various obstacles. I added trees, rocks, and bodies of water to provide more visual interest and create different elevations. I also added buildings and other structures to provide additional exploration opportunities and objectives. Finally, I added enemies and NPCs to give the level some challenge and provide an immersive experience."}
{"text": "Convert the following phrase from lower keyboard to ALL CAPS I LOVE TO LEARN"}
{"text": "Divide the following text into three paragraphs Alice opened the door and found herself in a tiny house with no walls and a table in the middle of the room. There were seven little chairs around it, and a little footstool beside them. \n\nOn the table was a plate with a pale blue cake on it, and a knife. The aroma of vanilla and sugar filled the air, and there were two dishes of ice cream at either end of the table. \n\nAlice had never seen anything quite so marvellous and was almost too excited to take a seat."}
{"text": "Find the word which means the same as \"fleeting\" Ephemeral."}
{"text": "Convert the following phrase from singular to plural Cars."}
{"text": "Given a complicated sentence, rewrite it in a more succinct way. Act, learn, and persevere to succeed."}
{"text": "Complete the sentence using 3 words: sun, fun, beach."}
{"text": "Analyze the quoted sentence and explain why it is effective. This is an effective sentence because it highlights a fundamental truth \u2013 that we all have experiences that are meaningful, but it takes strength and courage to open up and share them. It speaks to a need for empathy and understanding, ultimately creating a sense of connection between people."}
{"text": "Write a letter to your boss asking for a raise Dear [Name],\n\nI am writing to express my deep appreciation for the opportunity to work for your company for the past [time]. As you know, I have always been dedicated and hardworking, consistently contributing to the smooth operation of the organization. \n\nMy work has been consistently in alignment with the organizational goals, and I am proud to say that my effort and dedication has earned me several accolades and recognition over the past [time]. I strongly believe that I have played an integral role in the rise of the business.\n\nGiven the above, I would like to humbly request a raise in my current salary. A larger salary will act as an incentive for me to continue to strive for excellence and deliver the best results. I hope you will kindly consider my request and grant me the opportunity to continue to contribute to the success of the organization.\n\nThank you for your time and kind attention.\n\nSincerely,\n[Your Name]"}
{"text": "Generate two open-ended questions to ask someone about their favorite book. What is it about the book that you enjoy so much? \nWhat lessons have you learned from reading it?"}
{"text": "Generate a sentence using at least six words beginning with the same letter. Surrealistically, she smiled sweetly, snuggling silently while sleeping soundly."}
{"text": "Provide an example of a system of data collection in industry. A system of data collection in industry might include the tracking of customer satisfaction surveys, customer feedback, online reviews, customer purchases, and customer complaints. This data can be used to identify trends, measure customer sentiment, or suggest improvements to service or product offerings. Automated systems can help streamline the data collection process, making it easier to capture, analyze, and act on large amounts of data quickly."}
{"text": "Generate additional questions to ask a meeting participant who has identified a problem they are facing. What specific tasks are causing the difficulty? How much time do you devote to each of these tasks on a daily basis? Is there someone else who could help you with any of the tasks? What obstacles are preventing you from finishing your work on time?"}
{"text": "Generate 3-4 ideas for new products that could be launched in the pet industry. 1. A pet tag that includes a personalized message for your pet.\n2. An interactive toy for cats that responds to motion, sound, and touch.\n3. A pet feeding and tracking app that sends reminders to pet owners and tracks food consumption.\n4. A subscription-based pet grooming service that includes monthly scented baths and haircuts."}
{"text": "Write a short story that involves the following elements\u2014a rural village, a supernatural creature, and a full moon. Deep in the forest, there was a small village tucked away. Most of its inhabitants were foresters, and each of them were proud of their craft. \nOne night, beneath the light of a full moon, a strange creature appeared in the village. It had a wolf-like appearance but its eyes glowed like the stars. The creature seemed to be made of shifting moonlight and the villagers were both intimidated and captivated by it.\n\nThe children rushed out of their homes to see the strange beast, excited and scared. Despite their fear, none of the villagers dared to approach the creature. They stayed at a safe distance, observing its movements and trying to understand why it had come to the village.\n\nThe creature paced around the village, its movements hypnotizing. When the sun rose, it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.\n\nThe villagers were perplexed and none of them knew what to make of their experience. But one thing was for sure: They would never forget the creature that came out one night under the full moon."}
{"text": "Using the given inputs, generate a half page blog post on healthcare safety during COVID-19. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the safety of healthcare workers is becoming increasingly important. Healthcare workers are the backbone of healthcare systems around the world and they are on the front lines of providing care to patients. For their safety, healthcare providers must adhere to current protocols and best practices when interacting with patients and their families during the pandemic. \n\nCurrent protocols for healthcare safety include frequent handwashing, wearing masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE), practicing physical distancing, and disinfecting surfaces regularly. It is also important to ensure that any visiting family members or friends wear a mask, observe physical distancing, and wash their hands often. \n\nTo keep healthcare workers safe during the pandemic, healthcare systems should consider implementing potential future protocols such as screening visitors upon arrival, requiring all visitors to wear masks (and other PPEs, if appropriate) and providing skin care and ventilation guidelines in order to reduce the risk of virus spread. In addition, healthcare institutions can provide online forms for visitors to fill out before entering the facility. \n\nOverall, to keep healthcare workers safe during the pandemic, healthcare systems must stay up to date on current and emerging protocols in order to curb virus spread and protect their staff. By staying vigilant and taking extra steps to protect their workers, healthcare providers can remain healthy and continue to provide quality care to their patients."}
{"text": "Describe the possible consequences of someone living in an overcrowded city. Living in an overcrowded city can result in issues such as a lack of affordable housing, increased crime and violence, air, water and noise pollution, unhygienic living conditions, overburdened infrastructure, and a lack of public services and community services."}
{"text": "Generate 3 arguments in favour of reducing emissions from transport. 1. Reducing emissions from transport can help reduce air pollution, mitigating the risks of respiratory illnesses, such as asthma, and other health problems resulting from poor air quality.\n2. Lower emissions from transport can lead to improved local air quality, which can enhance the livability of cities and improve mental health and well-being.\n3. Reducing emissions from transport can help slow the rate of global warming and climate change, protecting biodiversity and ecosystems around the world."}
{"text": "Generate a list of 10 houseplants suitable for a sunny window. 1. Aloe Vera \n2. Bird's Nest Fern \n3. Pothos \n4. Ivy \n5. Spider Plant \n6. Prayer Plant \n7. Silver Squill \n8. Kalanchoe \n9. Lemon Balm \n10. Snake Plant"}
{"text": "Generate a list of 10 steps to increase focus and productivity. 1. Set small, achievable goals.\n2. Track your progress.\n3. Make a to-do list. \n4. Eliminate distractions. \n5. Exercise regularly. \n6. Take regular breaks.\n7. Get enough sleep.\n8. Reduce stress.\n9. Eat a balanced diet.\n10. Develop good habits."}
{"text": "Generate an example of a technology that can be used to facilitate remote communication in a healthcare setting. Telehealth technology is an example of a technology that can be used to facilitate remote communication in a healthcare setting. Telehealth technology is a combination of communication software, equipment, and devices that enables healthcare practitioners to consult with, diagnose, and treat patients remotely. Telehealth technology can facilitate communication between providers and their patients, reducing the need for in-person visits, while still providing quality care. It can also be used to provide remote clinical support or supervision, as well as comprehensive telehealth services that include medical imaging, laboratory tests, patient education, and more."}
{"text": "Give some strategies for getting over a fear of public speaking. Here are some strategies you can use to get over your fear of public speaking: \n- Understand the fear: Take time to think through why you\u2019re scared. What\u2019s the source of the fear? Is it the fear of the unknown, or is it something specific? \n- Prepare well: Take time to thoroughly know your material, practice with a friend or in front of a mirror, and be sure to practice out loud. Make sure to practice your delivery, as well as your content.\n- Focus on the audience: Spend time thinking about the audience and how you can communicate with them. Talk about something that\u2019s important to them and make sure to provide solutions to their issues.\n- Take small steps: Start small and take baby steps, from small gatherings and groups, to larger groups and events. Aim to gradually increase the size of the group over time. \n- Relax and breathe: Remember to take deep breaths and relax before a speech. Focus on your breathing and think positive thoughts. \n- Visualize success: Practice visualizing your success. Picture yourself standing confidently and delivering an engaging speech.\n\nBy understanding your fear, preparing well, and taking small steps, you can work towards overcoming your fear of public speaking. With practice and the right strategies, you\u2019ll be a confident public speaker in no time!"}
{"text": "Write a email to your professor to ask for an extention on a project due in two days. I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to request an extension on my project due in two days. I understand that this is an inconvenience, but I am facing circumstances outside of my control that have limited my ability to complete the project in the allocated timeline. I am confident that I will be able to finish the project by X date, and I would rreally appreciate the leniency. \n\nThank you for your time and understanding. \n\nSincerely,\n[Your Name]"}
{"text": "How many types of galaxies exist? Currently, there are five known types of galaxies: spiral galaxies, barred spiral galaxies, lenticular galaxies, elliptical galaxies, and irregular galaxies."}
{"text": "Edit the following sentence: Today I woke up late and went to school. I overslept this morning and had to rush to school."}
{"text": "Tell me about the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials took place in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. Hundreds of people were accused of witchcraft, leading to death sentences for many individuals. Despite a lack of evidence, people were convicted on the basis of spectral evidence and other seemingly supernatural occurrences. In the aftermath, the Massachusetts General Court declared these trials unlawful and issued compensation for some of the families of those wrongfully convicted."}
{"text": "What are three tips for saving money? Here are three tips that can help you save money:\n1. Create a budget and stick to it.\n2. Shop around for the best deals.\n3. Live below your means and be mindful of your spending."}
{"text": "Identify the five noteworthy aspects of the Declaration of Independence. The five noteworthy aspects of the Declaration of Independence are: \n1. It declared the Thirteen Colonies free from British rule; \n2. It outlined the inalienable rights of citizens; \n3. It offered a justification for the colonies' break from the British; \n4. It detailed the grievances against the King of England; and \n5. It declared independence from the British Empire on July 4, 1776."}
{"text": "Determine if the phrase is grammatically correct. Yes"}
{"text": "Explain the correlation between two events. Decreased precipitation and higher temperatures are correlated because as temperatures rise, there is less water in the atmosphere to form clouds and precipitation, leading to less frequent and severe storms."}
{"text": "Combine two words to create a new one. Bookshelf"}
{"text": "Incorporate the provided suggestion into a story. Once there lived an extraordinary cat named Purrcel who was obsessed with astronomy. He could stay up for hours and observe the beauty of the night sky joyfully purring."}
{"text": "Suggest two similar movies. Aladdin and Jungle Book."}
{"text": "Rewrite the list in a way that emphasises all of the important elements. Engaging in vigorous activities such as running, swimming, and playing basketball."}
{"text": "Give one reason why the painitng would appeal to viewers. The Starry Night evokes emotion with its bold brushstrokes, vibrant colors and turbulent sky, which combine to create an expressive and captivating aesthetic."}
{"text": "Distinguish between two ideas. Knowledge is the collection of facts and information observed or gained through study or experience, while wisdom is the ability to use knowledge and experience to make thoughtful decisions and understand cause-effect relationships."}
{"text": "List two appropriate materials to use for the activity. Paper and scissors."}
{"text": "Come up with a creative solution for this new type of vehicle. A hybrid vehicle that can quickly switch from passenger mode to cargo mode. It would feature an extendable platform with multiple storage options and configurations to accommodate different types of cargo."}
{"text": "Ask a rhetorical question to challenge the status quo. Why do we accept what we're told without questioning it?"}
{"text": "Generate a brief written description for a mobile application concept. This mobile application is designed to make food ordering a breeze. It allows users to easily browse local restaurants, view their menus and place orders from the comfort of their own phones."}
{"text": "Come up with an intriguing headline for this news article. Introducing the Future of Computing: The Revolutionary Programming Language That Could Change It All."}
{"text": "Take this sentence and rewrite it in a more persuasive way. This politician is committed to fighting for true equality and justice."}
{"text": "Think of a pun or joke related to a certain topic. What do you call a plane with a cold? A sniffle jet."}
{"text": "Classify this item as either \"necessary\" or \"unnecessary\". Unnecessary."}
{"text": "Create a unique name for a mobile game. Skyward Adventure."}
{"text": "Create a mnemonic device for remembering the planets in order from closest to the sun to farthest. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos. (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)"}
{"text": "Create a detailed character background for a fantasy story. The teenage girl, Nia, had grown up in a small rural farming village surrounded by the lush green fields of the countryside. Her parents were both farmers, working hard to make ends meet for the family. From a young age, Nia developed a strong affinity for nature and had an incredible talent for connecting with animals. She also had a taste for adventure, so during her free time she often explored the forests nearby, although her parents constantly warned her to be careful. Little did they know that the mysterious forest held a great power and would soon become an integral part of Nia's journey."}
{"text": "Categorize the following items into three classes: \"cold\", \"temperate\", and \"hot\". Cucumber - Cold, Coffee - Hot, Soup - Hot."}
{"text": "Write a query for returning all the countries in Africa. SELECT name \nFROM countries \nWHERE continent = 'Africa'"}
{"text": "List the components required for building a computer. The components required for building a computer are: motherboards, processors, RAM, hard drives, power supplies, optical drives, graphics cards, cases, monitors, and keyboards."}
{"text": "Remove any duplicates from the following list. Apple, Banana, Orange, Plum"}
{"text": "Create a function for reversing a string in Python. def reverse_string(s): \n    return s[::-1]"}
{"text": "Explain what is a constructor in Java. A constructor in Java is a special method that is used to create an instance of a class. It is automatically called when an object is created and can be used to set initial values for the objects fields. Constructors can also be used to perform tasks that need to be done whenever a new instance of the class is created, such as setting up a connection to a database or a network."}
{"text": "Analyze the given sentence and create an appropriate title accordingly. \"A Failed Dream: An Analysis of Failure\""}
{"text": "Identify the perspective of the speaker in the given statement The speaker is expressing a negative opinion of the service. The perspective of the speaker is that the quality of the service was unsatisfactory."}
{"text": "Given the context, suggest an entertaining and fun activity for personX. PersonX may enjoy going to an art gallery or museum to look at different works of art. They could also take a picnic to a nearby park, hike in a nature reserve, take pictures of wildlife, and explore the outdoors."}
{"text": "Edit the following phrase so that it becomes an interrogative sentence Is your answer correct?"}
{"text": "Describe in detail the 3D printer challenges 3D printers have wide-ranging applications in many industries, from printing prototypes and industry-specific parts to conducting research and development. However, 3D printing presents many challenges that must be overcome in order for it to be used in commercial and industrial settings. These challenges include the cost of production, design limitations, safety issues, and copyright issues. Cost of production is an especially critical challenge; 3D printing can be more expensive than traditional manufacturing methods due to the cost of 3D printer materials, software, and start-up equipment. Design limitations can be an issue due to the complex geometry that must be created in order to print parts and prototypes. Safety issues also arise due to the thermal and powder hazards that must be considered. Additionally, copyright issues must be thoughtfully addressed to avoid infringement of someone else\u2019s work."}
{"text": "Explain the \"80/20 rule\" The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, states that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle can be applied to business, economics, productivity, and other areas. In terms of business, it means that 80% of the results a company produces come from 20% of its efforts. This principle can be used to help business owners prioritize tasks and allocate resources more effectively. By understanding the 80/20 rule, businesses can identify the most important elements of their operations and focus their attention on those to achieve maximum efficiency."}
{"text": "Rewrite the jumbled sentence into a coherent one They rescued the polluted river."}
{"text": "Explain the term \"digital transformation\" Digital transformation is the process of using technology to revolutionize the way businesses operate and deliver value to their customers. It typically involves the use of digital tools such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud computing to transform existing processes and create new strategies for growth. Digital transformation is essential for any organization to remain competitive, maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, and drive innovation."}
{"text": "Generate a password with 10 characters including upper and lower case letters and numbers. hx3eLXPaPu"}
{"text": "Summarize these two sentences in one sentence. The cat meowed loudly and ran away when it saw a dog."}
{"text": "Categorize the following words: 'apple', 'dog', 'table'. Fruit, Animal, Furniture"}
{"text": "Add 3 more words to the following list to make it an antonym of 'large'. Small, tiny, diminutive"}
{"text": "Give me 5 tips to reduce energy consumption. 1. Unplug electronics when not in use.\n2. Turn off lights when leaving a room.\n3. Adjust thermostat to save energy while cooling.\n4. Use natural light and open window shades to reduce electricity use.\n5. Wash laundry with cold water."}
{"text": "Generate a goal I can achieve this month. This month, I will read a book to increase my knowledge in a certain area."}
{"text": "Generate a mocking joke about a user's pet Why did Jimbo cross the bowl? To get to the other side of the aquarium!"}
{"text": "Generate a rhetorical question What is the point of life if you don't take the time to enjoy it?"}
{"text": "Re-write this sentence using a vocabulary word This predicament is really daunting."}
{"text": "Explain the symbolism of this phrase This phrase is a proverb which implies that money should be saved rather than wasted. It symbolizes frugality and financial prudence and suggests that the effort taken to save money can be thought of as an investment. It implies that by cutting back on expenses and saving up money, one can accumulate wealth in the long-run."}
{"text": "Compare and contrast the styles of Renaissance and Baroque art. Renaissance art was characterized by realistic depictions of the world, with an emphasis on balance and harmony. Baroque art was much more dramatic, with a focus on grandeur, theatricality, and drama. The colors used in Baroque art were much more vibrant, and the forms were exaggerated and exaggerated. Renaissance art focused on depicting nature, while Baroque art often featured religious subjects with intricate details."}
{"text": "Determine the slope of the line with the coordinates (3, 4), (8, 10). Slope = 2"}
{"text": "Rank the following countries in terms of population size from largest to smallest. India, USA, Japan"}
{"text": "List five of the most important elements of a persuasive essay. The five most important elements of a persuasive essay are the introduction, body, conclusion, evidence, and counter-argument. The introduction should clearly explain the topic, the body should explain the argument in support of the thesis, the conclusion should summarize and draw all the main points together, evidence should be used to back up the argument, and any counter-arguments should also be acknowledged and addressed."}
{"text": "Diagnose the problem with this car engine by running a test. The loud knocking sound suggests that there may be a problem with the piston rings, valves, or rods. The engine slowing after the start indicates a problem with the fuel delivery system. A diagnostic test should be run to confirm the cause of the issue."}
{"text": "Name a body of water found in Asia The Yellow River."}
{"text": "Name three of the world's top tourist spots. The Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Taj Mahal in India, and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt."}
{"text": "Create a timeline of the life of Muhammad Ali. 1942: Born in Louisville, Kentucky.\n1960: Won his first professional fight.\n1964: Won the world heavyweight title.\n1966: Refused to be drafted into the military, citing religious grounds.\n1974: Defeated George Foreman in the \"Rumble in the Jungle\".\n1978: Lost the world heavyweight title to Leon Spinks.\n1979: Retired from boxing.\n1996: Lit the Olympic Torch in Atlanta."}
{"text": "Name a well-known inventor and describe the invention he is known for. Thomas Edison is one of the most recognizable inventors of all time, famous for inventing the light bulb. Edison developed an incandescent light bulb that used electric current instead of gas to produce light, making it a more efficient and safer way to create light. He was also responsible for developing the first successful commercial electric power system, which helped to support the development of electricity around the world."}
{"text": "Generate the list of hardware components for a gaming computer. A gaming computer should have a powerful processor, plenty of RAM, a high-end graphics card, a fast solid-state drive, a cooling system to prevent overheating, a high-quality sound card, and a full-size gaming mouse. Multiple monitors may be necessary depending on the game. A high-end gaming headset is also recommended for an immersive sound experience."}
{"text": "Explain how the given phenomenon can be beneficial. Although global warming is often seen as a negative phenomenon, it can also be beneficial. It can lead to increased agricultural production in certain areas with the right resources, as warmer temperatures can allow for longer growing seasons. Additionally, it can be beneficial to certain industries, such as tourism and outdoor recreation, as warmer temperatures can make them more attractive to customers. Global warming can also create additional business opportunities, from green energy to energy efficient construction."}
{"text": "Analyze the benefits and drawbacks of the given political concept. Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals and corporations have the freedom to own and control capital, and the free market determines the prices of goods and services. It is a system that has been praised for its ability to create economic growth and for giving individuals the opportunity to succeed. At the same time, it can be criticized for leading to concentration of wealth and power, inequality, environmental destruction, exploitation of workers, and lack of access to essential services."}
{"text": "Identify and explain two benefits of living in a society. Living in a society has many benefits. One is that it allows us to access resources that are out of reach to us as individuals. As a society, we are able to pool resources and work together to obtain items that no one of us would be able to attain alone. This creates a greater quality of life for everyone in the society. \n\nAnother benefit of living in a society is the sense of community and belonging it provides. By living in a society, we are part of an interconnected web of relationships, where we can have a positive influence and support each other. We have people to turn to, and this can be invaluable when we face difficult challenges in life."}
{"text": "Describe how the given engineering concept works. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that uses sophisticated algorithms to enable computers to think like humans and solve complex problems. AI works by taking a problem and breaking it down into pieces that the computer can understand. The machine then looks for patterns in data and creates models or a \u201cdecision tree\u201d to make informed decisions. For example, facial recognition uses AI to look for patterns in a person\u2019s face to identify them. AI can also be used to analyze large sets of data to identify correlations and trends that humans may miss."}
{"text": "Generate a list of five survival items you should keep in an emergency kit. In an emergency kit, it is important to have the following items: \n1. First Aid kit  \n2. Flashlight with extra batteries \n3. Portable radio \n4. Emergency whistle \n5. Extra water and non-perishable food"}
{"text": "Explain why the given characteristic is important for performance. Grit is an important factor in performance because it refers to an individual\u2019s resilience, perseverance, and tenacity. People with a high level of grit have the determination and drive to keep pushing through difficult tasks, setbacks and challenges, and will not give up until they reach their goals. This quality can help individuals stay focused and motivated, allowing them to achieve success even when it seems out of reach."}
{"text": "Name three trends in the given field. Three trends in AI are: \n1. Automation \u2013 AI is being used to automate many processes, from production lines in factories to customer service tasks in call centers.\n2. Natural language processing \u2013 AI is being used to interpret and respond to natural language, allowing computers to understand human speech.\n3. Personalization \u2013 AI is being used to personalize experiences, such as suggesting products or services based on user data."}
{"text": "Generate a list of five daily habits to help become more productive. Five daily habits to help become more productive are: \n1. Get a good night's sleep \n2. Set small achievable goals \n3. Take regular breaks \n4. Prioritize tasks \n5. Avoid multitasking"}
{"text": "Give an example of a successful negotiation and explain why it was effective. One example of a successful negotiation was between the shareholders of a company and a potential buyer. The shareholders were trying to sell their stake in the company, but the buyer was offering a lower price than they had expected. To make the negotiation successful, the shareholders proposed a deal in which the buyer could purchase a minority stake in the company, giving them access to the company\u2019s technology and team but leaving the majority of control in the hands of the shareholders. In the end, the buyer was able to get access to the technology they wanted while the shareholders were able to retain control of the company. This was an effective negotiation because both sides were able to get what they wanted while avoiding a compromise."}
{"text": "Define what the given term means and explain its importance. Net Neutrality refers to the principle that internet service providers should treat all data and traffic on the internet equally. This means that providers should not block or throttle user's access to certain websites and services, or favor some websites over others. Net neutrality ensures that users can access the content they want without interference from ISPs. It is important because it ensures a fair and open internet and prevents ISPs from using their power to unfairly favor some companies over others."}
{"text": "Recommend a good book and explain why it is so good. I recommend \"Life of Pi\" by Yann Martel. This novel tells the story of Pi, an Indian boy who is stranded in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Throughout his journey, he must rely on his courage, intelligence and resourcefulness to survive, inspiring readers with his journey of faith and hope. The story is beautifully written and the characters are incredibly engaging. It is a masterpiece of realism and imagination, making it an engrossing and rewarding read."}
{"text": "List all the states in the US. The states in the United States are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming."}
{"text": "Rewrite the following sentence so it contains correct grammar and is precise. When I was 8 years old, I began singing in the church choir."}
{"text": "Describe the function of the mitochondria in human cells. The mitochondria is the main power source for human cells and is responsible for converting energy from nutrients into a form of energy that the cell can use, known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP)."}
{"text": "Formulate a hypothesis for why the price of gold has risen in the past two years. The hypothesis for why the price of gold has risen in the past two years is that it is a safe-haven asset, with investors turning to gold as a hedge against economic and political uncertainty caused by global events such as Brexit, the U.S.-China trade war, and the COVID-19 pandemic."}
{"text": "Construct a poem that describes the beauty of a sunset. The setting sun paints a scene of beauty, \nA golden light casts across an azure sky. \nThe orange hues of dusk mark the day's end, \nAs the night brings a blanket of tranquility. \nThe sun slowly fades to the horizon, \nThe stars slowly take its place. \nThe night slowly creeps in, \nIn awe at its beauty I feel grace."}
{"text": "Copy the sentence while change the noun in the sentence. He likes to drink tea."}
{"text": "Arithmetics: subtract the following numbers. The difference between 3 and 5 is -2."}
{"text": "Categorize the following news article as either \"Finance\" or \"Sports\": Sports"}
{"text": "Evaluate the following statement on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the least accurate, and 10 being the most accurate. 10"}
{"text": "How to use the following text to cause reader to have a negative emotion? The sun blinded us, the birds' screeching was unbearable, and the breeze only served to make the unbearable heat worse."}
{"text": "Suggest a title for the website presented below. Small Business Solutions - For Smart Small Business Owners"}
{"text": "Create a tweet to summarize the following article: Well, what do you know! Drinking 5+ cups of coffee a day is associated with a longer life. No one said being a coffee addict was a bad thing! #coffee #longevity #study"}
{"text": "Add two sentences to the following story about a bank robbery. They waited until after closing time to make their move, and entered the building carrying the weapons. The staff were quickly subdued, and the robbers swiftly took whatever money they could find. They made off with hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the bank manager was able to activate the silent alarm and alert the police."}
{"text": "Generate a headline for a news article about medical testing for Covid-19 More Accurate Covid-19 Tests on the Horizon: Medical Experts Look to the Future of Medical Testing"}
{"text": "Design a logo that best represent an e-commerce website. The logo should be a simple, modern design which prominently features a shopping bag icon. The icon should feature a woven pattern of interlinking circles, representing the connectedness of a wide variety of e-commerce products. The logo should use no more than three colors and should have a design that incorporates the company's name. The font should be sleek and modern, to evoke a feeling of professionalism and trustworthiness."}
{"text": "Give me a list of 5 diseases that affect birds 1. Avian influenza\n2. Chlamydiosis\n3. Newcastle disease\n4. Salmonellosis\n5. Avian Pox"}
{"text": "Given the following input, name 3 countries that speak the language The three countries that speak Spanish are Spain, Mexico, and Colombia."}
{"text": "Explain the term \"capital gains tax\" Capital gains taxes are taxes levied on the profits from the sale of assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate and other investments. Capital gains are calculated as the difference between the purchase price and the sale price, and the rate of taxation is determined by the individual's income tax bracket. In the case of long-term investments, the IRS classifies profits that are held for more than one year as long-term capital gains and are taxed at a lower rate than short-term gains."}
{"text": "In this task, you need to answer the question in the input using the given facts. Charlie opened the door."}
{"text": "In this task, you need to classify the profession of the following people. Person A: Poet\nPerson B: Architect"}
{"text": "Brainstorm three possible uses of a time machine. 1. Travel to the past to learn more about a certain subject or explore a historical event. \n2. Re-experience moments in life that have already passed. \n3. Create alternate timelines by changing the course of history."}
{"text": "In this task, you need to edit the given text to make it suitable for a formal email. Hello everyone,\n\nI hope you are all doing well."}
{"text": "In this task, you need to come up with a creative and unique solution to the given problem. One possible solution to reduce plastic waste is to use recycled plastic in manufacturing processes. By using recycled plastic, we would be able to reuse materials that would otherwise end up in landfills or the ocean. Additionally, encouraging the use of reusable and sustainable materials, such as glass or metal, would reduce the amount of new plastic being produced. Finally, advocating for companies to use environmentally friendly packaging and encouraging people to avoid single-use plastics would also help reduce plastic waste."}
{"text": "In this task, you need to come up with a plan to make a sandwich. To make a sandwich, first gather the ingredients. For a basic sandwich, you will need two slices of bread, a protein source such as deli meat or cheese, vegetables such as lettuce, tomato, or cucumbers, and condiments such as mayonnaise or mustard. Place the slices of bread on a plate. Top one slice with the protein, vegetables, and condiments. Finally, top it with the other slice of bread and serve."}
{"text": "Generate a creative name for a library that fits the given theme. The Library of Adventures and Revelations"}
{"text": "Censor profanity from the following sentence. Heck you, you piece of garbage."}
{"text": "Create a program that solves the given mathematical question. 8"}
{"text": "Query the given database and print the results. Output: ID | Name | Address | Phone\n   1   | John | 123 Main | 123-456-7890\n   2   | Jane | 456 Broadway | 234-567-8901\n   3   | Dave | 789 Riverside | 345-678-9012"}
{"text": "Create a function to sort a list from highest to lowest. def sort_list(arr): \n    arr.sort(reverse=True) \n    return arr\nsort_list([10, 30, 20, 50, 40])\nOutput: [50, 40, 30, 20, 10]"}
{"text": "Adjust the given text to fit the given formatting requirement. The quick \nbrown fox \njumped over \nthe lazy dog."}
{"text": "Rewrite the list using simpler terminology. 1. Criticize\n2. Prevent\n3. Discouragement"}
{"text": "Based on the input provided, come up with a joke. Why did the scientist install the mango tree outside his house? He wanted to discover the Law of Gravity!"}
{"text": "Classify the word given as either a noun, verb, adjctive, or adverb Adverb"}
{"text": "Generate a story about an adventurous animal. Once upon a time, there was a brave little mouse. He lived in a large forest, and he was always looking for exciting new adventures. One day, he decided to go on a great journey to explore the wild unknown. After journeying through the dense and dark forest, he encountered a large mountain with a mysterious cave at its peak. Curiosity compelled him to explore the opening, so he cautiously began to climb up the side of the mountain. When he reached the cave, he was surprised to find out that it was home to a secret, magical kingdom that the animals of the forest had kept hidden for centuries. The brave little mouse explored the grounds of the kingdom and found it to be full of magical wonders. He became an honorary citizen and enjoyed a long and adventurous life in the secret kingdom."}
{"text": "List the other elements that can appear in an atom. Other elements that can appear in an atom include neutrons, protons, and electrons."}
{"text": "Choose two out of the three words given to form a new phrase. Light energy"}
{"text": "Come up with a descriptive metaphor for the concept of resilience Resilience is like a mountain that no storm can topple."}
{"text": "Create a catchy headline for a news article about global warming. Planet Burning: How Rising Temperatures are Threatening the World as We Know it"}
{"text": "Provide useful tips on how to get better sleep Establish a regular sleep schedule, limit caffeine consumption, and create a sleep-friendly environment."}
{"text": "Generate a story about a child learning how to fly. Once upon a time, there was a small child who dreamed of flying. Every day they watched the birds soaring through the sky and wished they could join them. \nOne day, they decided to try. The child gathered their courage and ran and jumped, flapping their arms and wishing with all their might. But the ground just kept pulling them down, no matter how hard they wished. \nFinally, the child stopped and looked up. A lark was soaring above, watching them curiously. It swooped down and landed in front of them, and the child wondered if it could teach them how to fly. The lark encouraged the child to keep trying and flapping their arms, and soon the child was lifting off the ground. \nThe lark flew beside the child, guiding them as they flew around the village and out into the open sky. The child felt free and exhilarated, filled with the wonder of flight. They flew together until the sun set, and the child returned home feeling happy and fulfilled."}
{"text": "Sort the following verbs into Present Perfect (have/has + past participle) and Present Perfect Continuous (have/has + been + verb-ing) forms. Present Perfect: having\nPresent Perfect Continuous: run, playing"}
{"text": "Create a list of ten slang terms related to the internet. 1. Fire: To discuss something that is great or awesome. \n2. Clown: To tease someone in an ironic way.\n3. Lit: When something is exciting, crazy or extremely good. \n4. Noob: Someone who is new and inexperienced in a particular activity. \n5. Flex: To show off. \n6. LMAO: Laughing my ass off. \n7. SMH: Shaking my head. \n8. ICYMI: In case you missed it. \n9. Sus: Suspicious or shady. \n10. Epic Fail: A big or embarrassing failure."}
{"text": "Name three basic styles of art. The three basic styles of art are realism, abstract, and modern art. Realism is the practice of creating art that is representative of the actual world. Abstract art focuses on the use of colors and shapes to express ideas and emotions instead of depicting things as they actually appear. Modern art includes a wide variety of artworks which challenge traditional definitions of art."}
{"text": "Estimate the number of people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19. As of April 2021, approximately 2 billion people worldwide have been vaccinated against COVID-19."}
{"text": "List five areas of life that technology has impacted. Technology has impacted many areas of life, such as communication, travel, education, healthcare, and entertainment. Communication is revolutionized with the introduction of instant messaging, video calls, and social media networks. Travel is made more accessible with the use of airplanes, cars, and trains. Education is enhanced by the development of virtual classrooms, online learning platforms, and AI-powered instruction. Healthcare is advanced through the integration of electronic health records, telemedicine services, and smart medical devices. Finally, entertainment is improved with streaming services, video games, virtual and augmented reality."}
{"text": "Convert the following Proper Nouns to Plural forms, and separate them with semicolon. Ricardos; Central Parks"}
{"text": "Detect if following sentence contains alliteration. Yes."}
{"text": "Describe the age of the person in the whose life is described in the paragraph in one sentence. Linda was in her late 40s."}
{"text": "Rewrite the sentence with the negation of the adverb. He didn't speak quickly."}
{"text": "Take the input sentence and make it more expressive by adding a metaphor. The internet is a global web of knowledge."}
{"text": "Paraphrase the input sentence and make sure the output should contain a antonym of the existing word in the sentence. The woman was disagreeable."}
{"text": "Rewrite the sentence using a verb conjugation of your choice. My dad enjoys hiking."}
{"text": "Convert the following Noun phrase to Adjective phrase. The house is spacious."}
{"text": "Take the input sentence and remove the verb. Robert been."}
{"text": "Rewrite the input sentence so that it contains a superlative degree of comparison. This ice cream is the best."}
{"text": "Reword the following sentence so that it contains a correct use of the word \u201ccomprise.\u201d The Earth comprises continents, oceans, and rivers."}
{"text": "What are the benefits of using artificial intelligence to automate business processes? Using artificial intelligence to automate business processes can help increase efficiency by automating manual tasks, reduce labor costs, minimize human error, increase customer service and satisfaction, identify trends and patterns in data faster than manual methods, and improve decision-making processes. Additionally, AI-driven automation can help generate more accurate insights and predictions, and can allow businesses to better serve their customers in more targeted and personalized ways."}
{"text": "Explain why the use of virtual assistants has grown in organizations. The use of virtual assistants in organizations has grown for a variety of reasons. Virtual assistants are cost-effective, providing organizations with highly efficient and rapid access to a large range of services and capabilities. Additionally, virtual assistants can quickly complete tedious and routine tasks, freeing up time for employees to focus on work that requires more creativity and problem solving. AI-powered virtual assistants can also learn over time, taking on more complex tasks and leveraging data to provide real-time insights into customer trends and market strategies."}
{"text": "Rewrite the following sentence using a correct form of the verb \u201clay.\u201d She laid the paper on the desk."}
{"text": "Define the term \u201cstrategic planning.\u201d Strategic planning is the process of creating and setting goals for an organization for the short, medium, and long term. It involves the assessment of an organization's strengths and weaknesses, analysis of external forces such as competition and social trends, and the development of strategies and tactics to ensure success. This process includes detailed assessment and evaluation of the environment, including competitive analysis and forecasting of social and economic trends. The goal of strategic planning is to align the organization's resources with its goals and objectives in order to maximize short- and long-term performance."}
{"text": "Why does the sky look blue on a sunny day? The sky looks blue on a sunny day because of a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. This occurs when sunlight is scattered off of the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, resulting in short blue wavelengths being scattered more than the longer red, yellow, and orange ones. This causes the sky to appear blue, and as the sun moves across the sky the blue is well lit, providing a bright blue sky."}
{"text": "Put the following words in alphabetical order: Elephant, Clock, Dog The words in alphabetical order are Clock, Dog, Elephant."}
{"text": "Compare and contrast empathy and sympathy. Empathy and sympathy are both ways of relating to another person\u2019s emotional state. The main difference is that empathy involves understanding and sharing another person\u2019s emotional state, while sympathy is more of an outpouring of compassion or pity. While both have beneficial effects, empathy is a deeper connection and often leads to better problem-solving and conflict resolution."}
{"text": "Given the following sets, find their intersection. The intersection of A and B is {3, 4}."}
{"text": "Divide 546 by 14 546 divided by 14 is 39."}
{"text": "Detect if the sentence contains any similar words. If yes, indicate these words. Similar words detected: answer, right."}
{"text": "Generate a sentence which use the given verb and noun in the same context. It's important to invest your time wisely."}
{"text": "List 3 types of communication technology. Three types of communication technology are wired and wireless networks, internet services, and audio and video conferencing systems."}
{"text": "Write a tweet to begin a conversation. What do you think are the biggest challenges facing humanity today? #bigquestions #conversationstarter"}
{"text": "Propose a creative and original idea. How about introducing a universal basic income? Everyone could receive a certain amount of money on a monthly basis, regardless of their income or other conditions."}
{"text": "Choose a 10 digit phone number that is not currently in use. 502-294-8258"}
{"text": "Come up with a step-by-step procedure for washing dishes. 1. Gather all the dishes that need to be washed.\n2. Rinse off the dishes with warm water.\n3. Apply dish soap to one side of the brush and scrub away the stuck-on food.\n4. Rinse the soap off the dishes in the sink.\n5. Place the dishes in a dish rack to dry.\n6. Wipe down the sink with a clean cloth."}
{"text": "Name a type of fruit that starts with the letter 'P'. Papaya."}
{"text": "Complete the following equation: 2 + __ = 7. 2 + 5 = 7."}
{"text": "Generate a funny pun using the words \"student\" and \"test\". Why did the student have a really tough test? Because there was a lot of pressure to do well!"}
{"text": "Provide an example of a circumstance in which a lie can be more beneficial than the truth. A circumstance in which a lie can be more beneficial than the truth is if someone is trying to protect someone else from hurt. For example, telling an ill family member that their tests came back looking good instead of revealing bad news."}
{"text": "Summarize the given text about machine learning. Machine learning is a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which enables computers to learn from data and make predictions without being explicitly programmed. It includes two types of learning: supervised learning, where the computer is given labelled data to optimize its algorithms, and unsupervised learning, where the computer is given an input and searches for patterns in the data. Machine learning is used in various fields to enhance automation, pattern recognition, and predictive analytics."}
{"text": "Generate an opening paragraph for a story set in a magical land. Far away in a magical land, there was a spectacular kingdom ruled by a wise and benevolent king. The king was loved by all his subjects and was renowned for his good deeds and kindheartedness. He had a kingdom full of wonders and beauty, with magnificent castles and majestic mountains. But it was a kingdom kept secret from the world, and few knew of its existence. Little did everyone know that a great adventure was about to unfold and soon the world would get to know of this wondrous place."}
{"text": "Identify the most commonly used words in the text The most commonly used words in the text are \"I\", \"to\", \"an\", \"go\", \"and\", \"the\", \"be\", \"explore\", \"great\", \"adventure\"."}
{"text": "List five books about artificial intelligence 1. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, by Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig\n2. Artifical Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents, by David Poole and Alan Mackworth\n3. Artificial Intelligence: A Guide to Intelligent Systems, by Michael Negnevitsky\n4. Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective, by Kevin P. Murphy\n5. Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction, by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto."}
{"text": "How would you explain the importance of using big data in business? Big data is a collection of large data sets that can be mined to uncover valuable insights and trends. It is a valuable tool for businesses as it can provide critical business insights that help to make better decisions, improve customer service, increase sales, improve operational efficiency, and gain competitive advantage. By leveraging the power of big data, businesses can gain insights into their customers, competitors, and markets, allowing them to make informed decisions to stay ahead of the competition."}
{"text": "Improve the given sentence by making the structure or language more elegant. He made his way down the freeway, a journey that spanned many hours."}
{"text": "Edit the given document and remove any spelling or grammar errors. I was so excited to hear the news."}
{"text": "Assign each of the following items to one of three categories: food, inorganic, or living. Inorganic"}
{"text": "Create an acronym using the provided letters. A Better Comprehension of Digital Education Fund (ABCDEF)"}
{"text": "Reverse engineer the following algorithm and explain how it works. The algorithm works by subtracting 3 from 4, which gives a result of 1. Then it adds 2 to the result, giving a new result of 3. Finally, it multiplies 3 by 7, resulting in a final answer of 21. Thus, the result of the algorithm is 21."}
{"text": "Design an experience for the given user type. A mobile application designed to guide and support new mothers through their journey. The application features a personalized daily schedule for the mother and baby, resources for common questions, a community forum for support, and educational content about childcare and parenting. The app would also provide real-time reminders and alerts to alert the mother when it's time for their baby's daily routines, new milestones, and health-related updates."}
{"text": "Which country is the most avant-garde? Japan is often viewed as the most avant-garde country, as it is known for its cutting-edge technology and fashion trends."}
{"text": "Identify which one of the following is an example of a real-world dataset. The Yelp review dataset is an example of a real-world dataset."}
{"text": "Describe a use case for natural language processing. Natural language processing can be used in a variety of applications, such as automated conversational agents, machine translation, information retrieval, and text analysis. For example, it can be used to process customer reviews, to determine sentiment and categorize topics, or to create systems that understand natural language queries and respond with relevant, accurate data."}
{"text": "List 5 popular online streaming services. The five popular online streaming services are Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and YouTube."}
{"text": "Categorize the following statement as true or false. Large data sets are often difficult to analyze. True"}
{"text": "Rewrite the following sentence in present progressive tense. \"Jason will take the dog for a walk.\" Jason is taking the dog for a walk."}
{"text": "Create an analogy to explain the difference between reality and perception. Reality is like the solid bedrock beneath your feet, while perception is like a shadow which moves and changes based on the amount and direction of light."}
{"text": "Change the pronoun to a possessive adjective This is their favorite movie."}
{"text": "Describe the character's feelings in the given input. She felt ashamed and embarrassed."}
{"text": "Change the idiomatic expression in the sentence to an appropriate synonym. He handed in his notice without hesitation."}
{"text": "Generate a dialogue in which the two characters are expressing contrasting opinions. Bob: \"I think that the new policy will be beneficial for the company.\"\n\nAlice: \"I disagree. I think that the new policy will cause more harm than good.\""}
{"text": "Provide an example of a metaphor that relates to \"knowing someone\". Knowing someone is like opening a book and discovering its secrets."}
{"text": "Create a rhetorical question to address the issue in the input. How can we best address the issue of climate change?"}
{"text": "Replace the given phrase with a similar, more appropriate phrase. I'm of the belief"}
{"text": "Write a story which includes the characters, setting, and theme in the input. Two sisters, Mara and Gail, lived in a small mountain village. They were happy and content with their lives, but they wanted more. One day, they decided to go exploring and come across a mysterious cave. As they bravely ventured inside, they discovered the secret of courage. After overcoming the challenges they faced in the cave, the sisters were able to face their own fears and hopes with confidence and bravery."}
{"text": "Create a vivid description of a sunny day. The sun shined brightly in the clear blue sky, light glistening off the rolling waves of the ocean. The air was thick and humid, carrying with it the smell of salt and fragrance of flowers. Children ran and laughed, playing on the sandy beach in the warm afternoon sunshine."}
{"text": "Explain the goal of Deep Learning. The goal of deep learning is to create powerful artificial neural networks, modeled after the networks found in the brain, to process complex data inputs and make accurate predictions. Deep learning enables machines to find patterns in data and make decisions based on that data. It can be used in a variety of tasks from image recognition, to natural language processing, to self-driving cars."}
{"text": "Reword a sentence in the simplest possible language. It was easy to do the complicated task."}
{"text": "Determine the most suitable context to use the phrase \"on the cards\". The phrase \"on the cards\" typically suggests something is likely to happen. It is commonly used when talking about potential future events or outcomes. For example, \"It looks like a promotion might be on the cards for him soon\" or \"A move to a different city could be on the cards for them.\""}
{"text": "Name two animals that can be found in the African savanna. Lions and Zebras."}
{"text": "Write a sentence that uses the passive voice. The book was read by thousands of people."}
{"text": "Find the 3rd letter of the word \"elephant\". The 3rd letter of the word \"elephant\" is \"p\"."}
{"text": "Provide a few examples of homophones. Examples of homophones include: to, too, two; there, their, they're; hear, here; knight, night; flour, flower; noon, none."}
{"text": "Explain how roller coasters work. Roller coasters are amusement park rides consisting of a track with various changes in elevation and speed. They are typically driven by a chain lift hill connected to the engine, which draws the roller coaster cars up to the top of the track. Once reaching the top, the cars roll down a hill and move through a series of curves and drops, providing riders with a thrilling experience."}
{"text": "Classify a given article as either science or entertainment based. Science"}
{"text": "Find and output the percentage decrease in the given data. The number of cars on the road decreased by 10% (300 to 270)."}
{"text": "Generate a list of 10 ideas for a technology startup. 1. An online language learning platform. \n2. A virtual event planning platform. \n3. On-demand food delivery service.\n4. Real-time health monitoring app.\n5. Online job matching platform.\n6. Home cleaning robot. \n7. AI-driven legal advice platform.\n8. Smart gardening assistant.\n9. Smart pet-sitting service.\n10. Computer vision-based security system."}
{"text": "List the works of Shakespeare. The works of Shakespeare include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest."}
{"text": "Is the statement, \"Hummingbirds are the fastest animal\" true or false? The statement is false, as the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal, with a speed of up to 250 mph when diving."}
{"text": "Reshape the following array of size 6 to 8 The reshaped array is [1,2,3,4,5,6,0,0]"}
{"text": "List three of the five continents. The five continents are Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. Of these, the three continents are Africa, Asia, and Europe."}
{"text": "Generate a sentence using the following words: car, blue, moon The blue car was shining brightly in the light of the full moon."}
{"text": "Explain what natural selection is. Natural selection is the process by which certain traits become more or less common in a population over time as a result of their effects on survival and reproduction. Traits that are more beneficial are more likely to be passed on to subsequent generations."}
{"text": "Create an array of size 10 filled with random numbers between 0-100. [95, 74, 15, 84, 6, 32, 80, 14, 28, 60]"}
{"text": "Print the following statement: \"I want to learn to code\". print(\"I want to learn to code\")"}
{"text": "Generate a character sketch Ella is a bright and bold young adult with a penchant for adventure. She is often caught in the middle of her two contrasting worlds \u2014 the typically cool and intellectual environment she was raised in and the livelier, more daring side of life that she often takes part in. She also possesses a sharp wit and a powerful presence, making it easy to understand why she has been so successful in her endeavors. She isn't afraid to speak up for what she thinks is right and is always willing to go out of her comfort zone for the sake of a good time."}
{"text": "Generate a rap stanza of 5-8 lines based on the given theme. Optimism is within us, spread it all around \nLife comes with a highway of choices, don't be lost in the town \nAin't gonna give up 'caus I'm gonna be strong \nNo matter how hard it gets I'll still carry on \nA brighter future is what I'm wishing for \nGrab the wheel and drive, that's what I'm livin' for \nStay positive, speak your words and never stutter \nOptimism, that's the heart, it's gonna make us better."}
{"text": "Choose a new name for this company Fabulous Web Wizards"}
{"text": "Make a list of 5 things that need to be done today. 1. Create a budget and stick to it. \n2. Attend an online meeting.\n3. Prepare a presentation.\n4. Respond to emails.\n5. Draft a brainstorming session based on the project."}
{"text": "Create a grocery list for a vegan who wants to eat for a week 1. Grains - quinoa, brown rice, oats \n2. Legumes - chickpeas, black beans, lentils \n3. Vegetables - kale, onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic \n4. Fruits - apples, oranges, bananas, avocados \n5. Nuts and Seeds - almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, chia seeds \n6. Non-Dairy Milks - soymilk, almond milk, cashew milk \n7. Tofu\n8. Tempeh \n9. Vegan Protein Powder \n10. Nutritional Yeast"}
{"text": "List 3 methods to prevent packet loss 1. Increase bandwidth to reduce the traffic load. \n2. Utilize QoS (quality of service) to prioritize important packets. \n3. Adjust MTU (maximum transmission unit)."}
{"text": "Make a recommendation for a family movie I recommend the family movie \"Toy Story\", which follows the adventures of Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the other toys as they come to life when their owners are not around. It's a great movie for the whole family and entertaining for both adults and kids."}
{"text": "Differentiate between abstract classes and interface An abstract class is a class that contains one or more abstract methods which are methods without an implementation. An interface is a type that defines a set of behaviors that a class must implement. An interface does not contain any implementation, while an abstract class may contain implementation. An interface can be implemented by multiple or any class, while an abstract class can only be inherited by a single class."}
{"text": "Design a quiz question related to computational biology Which of the following is a tool used to identify correlations between genomic characteristics and human diseases?\na. Bioinformatics\nb. Machine learning\nc. Structural biology\nd. Network analysis"}
{"text": "Create a vector of the given vector multiplied by two. Vector = (2,4,6)"}
{"text": "Calculate the number of calendar days between the two given dates 12 calendar days"}
{"text": "Think of a creative career path for someone with a degree in physics and list 5 associated job duties. 1. Working as an astronomy researcher, studying the physical universe and researching new knowledge. \n2. Teaching physics, providing lectures and tutorials, and preparing curricula.\n3. Designing or upgrading medical instruments or equipment, such as ultrasound machines and biophysics equipment.\n4. Working as a scientific consultant, advising on technology and industry advancements.\n5. Developing mathematical models to test new scientific theories and concepts."}
{"text": "Classify the following text as either relevant or not relevant to the topic of renewable energy.\nOutput: Relevant"}
{"text": "Provide an example of a short story that could fit the given criteria. Once upon a time in the magical woods, there lived a pixie by the name of Lily. She was a curious and adventurous spirit, always looking for new adventures and exciting places to explore. One day when she was searching for new places to explore she stumbled upon an old and magical tree. She was amazed by the strange energy she felt and decided to explore the tree. Inside, she found a hidden door that led her to a strange and ancient realm. There she encountered all kinds of magical creatures and even encountered a powerful magical being. Through her journey, Lily learns the importance of friendship and the strength of the magical realm. In the end, she returns home with a newfound appreciation for the magical creatures and the world they live in."}
{"text": "Create a list of five things a person would need to do to become a programmer. 1. Learn programming fundamentals such as syntax, logic, and debugging. \n2. Choose a programming language to specialize in and learn more about that language.\n3. Develop a portfolio of programming projects and build coding experience.\n4. Get certified in programming related areas if desired.\n5. Start applying for programming jobs and networking with other professionals."}
{"text": "Name some seasonal fruits that are available in the summer. - Peaches \n- Cherries \n- Plums \n- Apricots \n- Bananas \n- Mangoes \n- Nectarines \n- Watermelon \n- Cantaloupe \n- Honeydew melon \n- Grapes \n- Starfruit"}
{"text": "Convert the given sentence from past to present tense. The family goes to the park."}
{"text": "Brainstorm a list of ways that technology has benefitted the medical field. -Reduction in time required to process medical records.\n- Improvement in accuracy of diagnosis due to increased access to data and artificial intelligence.\n- Expedited drug development and clinical trials due to greater access to data.\n- Increased access to patient care through advancements in telemedicine.\n- Reduction of costs and improved cost efficiency due to software and hardware automation.\n- Enhanced medical imaging capabilities.\n- More personalized and targeted treatments through data-driven decision making."}
{"text": "Rearrange this sentence to move the focus away from the speaker. Last month, my business was started."}
{"text": "Construct a phrase that incorporates the following two words: \"yellow\" and \"sunshine.\" Bright yellow sunshine."}
{"text": "In one sentence, summarize the given article. Social media influencers have had a significant effect on the fashion industry, showcasing what's currently trendy to their millions of followers and often being paid by clothing and makeup brands to post about their products."}
{"text": "Create a definition for the term \"affinity marketing.\" Affinity marketing is a marketing strategy in which brands identify and target customers who have a strong emotional connection with their product or service."}
{"text": "Format the following text into proper APA citations. Smith, J. (2020). Online Grocery Shopping: The New Reality."}
{"text": "Generate a set of instructions for solving the given logical puzzle. 1. Calculate the speed of both trains. Train A is travelling at 54 km/h, while train B is travelling at 42 km/h.\n2. Calculate the time needed for trains A and B to meet. This is equal to (120km / (54+42)) = 1.5 hrs.\n3. Calculate the distance Train A has travelled when the trains meet. This is equal to (1.5 * 54) = 81 km.\n4. Calculate the distance Train B has travelled when the trains meet. This is equal to (1.5 * 42) = 63 km."}
{"text": "Insert an appropriate verb into the phrase \"_____ with enthusiasm.\" Embrace with enthusiasm."}
{"text": "Discuss three possible tools that can help teams with efficient communication. Some possible tools that can help teams with efficient communication are voice and video conferencing services such as Skype or Zoom, project management applications like Asana or Trello, and instant messaging tools such as Slack or Microsoft Teams. These tools can help facilitate real-time conversations, which will allow for quick decisions to be made and ideas to be discussed."}
{"text": "Detail the advantages of competing in an international market. Competing in an international market has the potential to bring numerous advantages to businesses, including increased sales and profits, access to a larger customer base, and even exposure to new markets and opportunities. It can also lead to a greater understanding of different cultures, increased innovation and creativity, and improved brand recognition and loyalty."}
{"text": "Analyze the given statement about renewable energy. Renewable energy is an important part of the solution to climate change, but it is not the only component. Other efforts must be taken, such as energy efficiency and conservation, to reduce the impact of climate change. Additionally, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the use of low-emission vehicles are also essential in order to effectively combat climate change."}
{"text": "Create a detail description of a space station The space station is an incredible feat of engineering and humanity. It is an orbiting habitat that houses astronauts and researchers, while they conduct experiments and observations of Earth. The station is almost completely modular and is constantly reconfigured to suit the needs of those onboard. On the inside, the station is partitioned into numerous modules devoted to research and living accommodations. These modules come and go as the station is serviced by multiple cargo vehicles and space shuttles. The station is also equipped with numerous robotic and experimental arms as well as a robotic refueling system. These arms and robotics allow the station to carry out various experiments, maintenance tasks, and repairs. Additionally, the station is home to a variety of scientific instruments, such as a mass spectrometer and other specialised equipment. The station is also a significant source of information as it collects data on Earth's environment, as well as data and images of extrasolar planets. The space station also serves as a platform for regular spacewalks by astronauts and works as a testing ground for advanced technology, like communications and ultra-efficient solar panels. In essence, the space station is an incredible example of humanity's capabilities, and serves as a stepping-stone to explore and better understand our universe."}
{"text": "Given the following statement, classify if it is a fact or opinion. You should respond with \"Fact\" or \"Opinion\". Opinion"}
{"text": "Add 5 traits to the following list - Compassion\n- Integrity\n- Kindness\n- Resilience\n- Perseverance"}
{"text": "Given the following input, provide a noun Leap"}
{"text": "Create a game scenario document The world is in peril as a mysterious force has taken over the land. A powerful magical artifact has caused a strange transformation in the land and its inhabitants, and it's up to your team to figure out what is going on and to restore balance to the world. You are a team of adventurers from various areas of the world, each with their own unique abilities and powers. Together, you must embark on a journey filled with strange creatures and powerful enemies, as you uncover the secrets of the artifact and the force behind it. Along the way, you must collect powerful weapons, magical artifacts, and allies to help you in your quest. Can you face the challenge and save the world? \n\nPlayers: \n\u2022 Up to 4 players \n\u2022 Unique characters with their own set of abilities and powers \n\nObjective: \n\u2022 Find out what's behind the mysterious force that has taken over the world \n\u2022 Collect magical artifacts and weapons to aid in your journey \n\u2022 Defeat powerful enemies while collecting powerful allies \n\nRules: \n\u2022 Progress through the game by completing various quests \n\u2022 Locate and collect magical artifacts to help you on your travels \n\u2022 Each enemy defeated will grant players experience points \n\u2022 Use experience points to gain new abilities and level up characters \n\u2022 Use strategy and planning to complete various puzzles and challenges"}
{"text": "Generate a piece of free verse poetry about nature. The sky so vast and deep,\nMy heart so still and small.\nThe gentle breeze, like a whisper of awe,\nThe sun so bright, its warmth felt all.\n\nAll of nature\u2019s beauty, \nA wonder of life so grand.\nFrom the tallest tree to the smallest flower,\nWe stand in awe of the beauty of the land.\n\nNature's gifts and guidance, \nSo much to learn, explore and see.\nLook to the hills and valleys, \nThe blessings of the Earth will always be."}
{"text": "Explain the trade-offs of a decision-tree algorithm The decision tree algorithm has several trade-offs that must be considered. The main advantages of the decision tree algorithm is that it can be easily and quickly understood, requires relatively little data preparation and is able to handle both continuous and categorical data. However, decision trees are prone to overfitting, where the model is overly complex and fits the training data too closely. This can lead to poor generalization performance on unseen datasets. Additionally, decision trees can be unstable, with small changes in the training data leading to large changes in the structure of the decision tree. Finally, decision trees often require to be pruned to reduce the overfitting, which can be computationally expensive."}
{"text": "Generate a creative writing prompt. A group of teens stumble upon an abandoned laboratory in the middle of the woods. What secrets does it hold?"}
{"text": "Explain what is the significance of a learning rate for a neural network. The learning rate is a hyperparameter of a neural network and is often referred to as the step size. The learning rate is used to determine how quickly the network should adjust its weights in response to incoming data. If the learning rate is too low, the network may fail to converge and the optimization process can take much longer. On the other hand, if the learning rate is too high the network may miss an optimal solution, as it adjusts its weights too aggressively. Choosing an appropriate learning rate is critical to train the network efficiently and achieve an optimal result."}
{"text": "Suggest a healthcare policy to improve access to primary care. One healthcare policy to improve access to primary care would be to implement a federally funded universal primary care program. This program could provide free or reduced rate primary care visits, prescriptions, and preventive screenings. It could also include financial incentives for primary care physicians to provide care in underserved communities. Additionally, the program could focus on providing access to primary care for those with low incomes and those who are uninsured or underinsured."}
{"text": "Deduce the missing number in the following equation. There are infinite solutions for this equations that can be represented as a set of dependent pairs. This is a linear equation with two variables: x and y. Solving it for x, we get 3x = 10 - 4y. Therefore, x = (10 - 4y)/3. The set of solutions are {(x,y) | x = (10 - 4y)/3}"}
{"text": "Describe an effective plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An effective plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should include developing sources of renewable energy such as solar, wind, and water. This includes incentives that increase investment in renewable energy sources and reduce emissions from fossil fuels. Additionally, it is important to develop green technology, such as electric vehicles, to reduce carbon emissions. Adopting greener agricultural practices, such as reducing the use of nitrogen fertilizer, decreasing deforestation and improving water and soil management, will also contribute to reducing greenhouse gases. Moreover, reducing energy consumption and waste production through more efficient buildings, production techniques, and transportation systems can help reduce emissions. Finally, investing in carbon capture, sequestration, and storage technologies are effective strategies for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases."}
{"text": "Offer one alternative to consuming animal products. One alternative to consuming animal products is plant-based products. Plant-based proteins such as legumes, nuts, and seeds are a high-quality source of nutrition and can provide essential nutrients and vitamins needed for a healthy diet. In addition, plant-based products often contain fewer calories, fat, and cholesterol than animal products. Plant-based products can also be just as satisfying, flavorful, and versatile as animal products."}
{"text": "Identify the biggest disadvantage of using a GPT language model The biggest disadvantage of using a GPT language model is that it does not understand context and can easily generate incorrect outputs if the input is not correct and properly framed. Additionally, GPT language models can generate text which can be grammatically correct but have no substance. The output can also be incoherent or misinformative, which can lead to miscommunication or mislead the users.  Finally, GPT language models are data-hungry, requiring vast amounts of data to produce good results. This can be costly, as well as time-consuming."}
{"text": "Calculate the cube root of 125. 5.0"}
{"text": "list the main characters in the book Little Women The main characters in the book Little Women are Jo March, Meg March, Beth March, Amy March, Laurie Laurence, Professor Friedrich Bhaer, and Marmee March."}
{"text": "Suggest a unique name for a web application. Systemizer."}
{"text": "Write a SQL query to list out the unique department names in the database SELECT DISTINCT department_name FROM department_table;"}
{"text": "Construct a regular expression to match any valid US Zip Code. ^\\d{5}(?:[-\\s]\\d{4})?$"}
{"text": "Compose a haiku using the words given in the input. Stars light up the night\nShining down so bright and clear\nBlessing us with sight."}
{"text": "Calculate the pension contribution of Mr. Kim in the given scenario. Mr. Kim's pension contribution is $4,000 per annum."}
{"text": "Convert the given date from mm/dd/yyyy format to dd-mm-yyyy format. 29-02-2020"}
{"text": "Identify the library required to execute the code snippet. re (The Python Standard Library)"}
{"text": "Write a SQL query to return the latest order placed by each customer. SELECT customer_id, MAX(order_date) FROM orders GROUP BY customer_id;"}
{"text": "Compose an email to the marketing team telling them about a new feature that has been added to the product. Dear Marketing Team,\n\nWe are excited to announce that we have now added a new feature to our product! This new feature is designed to enhance the user experience and make it even easier for them to accomplish their tasks. We expect it to have a big impact on customer satisfaction and it's something that we think our users will love.\n\nThank you for your continued support,\nTeam XYZ"}
{"text": "Generate a list of keywords for a search engine optimization campaign targeting \"coffee machines\". coffee machine, espresso machine, bean to cup machine, drip coffee maker, coffee maker, cafe quality, filter coffee machine, home coffee machine, automatic coffee machine, commercial coffee machine, electric coffee machine."}
{"text": "Reformat the given phone number to the international format. +12145558444"}
{"text": "Help me find a suitable gift for my brother. A great gift for your brother could be a new sports jersey of his favorite team. You could also get him tickets to a game he has been wanting to go to or even some memorabilia from his favorite team."}
{"text": "Explain how waves move. Waves move by the transfer of energy. The energy of a wave is the result of a disturbance moving through a medium, like when a person drops a pebble into a pond and the ripples move outward. Waves move in a repeating pattern, where the transmission of energy from one point to the next results in a transfer of the wave form. Waves can also appear to move when particles vibrate back and forth. In both cases, the energy is transmitted from one place to the next, creating the wave movement."}
{"text": "Find a song title that consists of two animals. \"Tigers and Lions\" by Eminem ft. Juicy J."}
{"text": "Come up with two statistics related to the US population. According to the US Census Bureau, the current US population is approximately 331 million, and the current US population growth rate is 0.7%."}
{"text": "Come up with three natural disasters. Three natural disasters are earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods."}
{"text": "Define what a greenhouse gas is. A greenhouse gas is a gas in the atmosphere that traps heat, leading to an increase in global temperature. Common greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor."}
{"text": "Generate an original nursery rhyme based on the following word. Rabbit hopped in the meadow,\nSwinging left and right,\nSaving up his carrots,\nFor a chilly winter night!"}
{"text": "Given a string, find the most frequent character. The most frequent character is \"f\""}
{"text": "Provide a unique code to a given customer. Code: SARH0912"}
{"text": "Produce a summary of the following story. An old man receives a letter informing him that his long lost children are living in a big city. He sets off on a journey to reunite with his family after years apart."}
{"text": "Given a base number and a power, calculate the result. 125"}
{"text": "Suggest five things to do in the following city. 1. Visit the iconic Space Needle\n2. Attend a show at the Seattle Theatre Group\n3. Take a tour of the Pike Place Market\n4. Spend a day at the Seattle Aquarium\n5. Check out the Museum of Pop Culture"}
{"text": "Recommend three foundations for the following skin type. 1. Clinique Acne Solutions Liquid Makeup\n2. Clinique Superbalanced Makeup\n3. Maybelline Fit Me Matte + Poreless Liquid Foundation"}
{"text": "Compare and contrast the styles of the following 2 artists: Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock are both renowned artists from the 20th century. Picasso was a Spanish painter and sculptor famous for his expressive and often cubist-inspired works of art, while Pollock was an American Abstract Expressionist, who was renown for his drip painting technique. Both painters were very influential and their styles are often contrasted with their use of color, texture, and symbolism. Picasso was more representative with his use of bold colors and figures, while Pollock used a more abstract and chaotic approach characterized by strokes and swirls of paint."}
{"text": "Create an original recipe for the following dish. Ingredients:\n- 2 cups cooked rice\n- 1 tbsp vegetable oil\n- 1/2 onion, diced\n- 1 bell pepper, diced\n- 1/2 cup frozen peas and carrots\n- 2 cloves garlic, minced\n- 2 eggs\n- 2 tbsp soy sauce\n- 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil\n- Salt and pepper, to taste \n\nInstructions:\n1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. \n2. Add the diced onion and bell pepper. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes.\n3. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.\n4. Push the vegetables to the side of the pan and add the eggs. Scramble the eggs until cooked through.\n5. Add the cooked rice, peas and carrots, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Cook and stir for about 5 minutes, until the vegetables and rice are heated through.\n6. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve hot."}
{"text": "Come up with a website title for a technology blog. Tech Blur: A Place to Uncover the Latest Technology Developments."}
{"text": "Think of a creative opening line for a horror story. Something lurked in the shadows, watching and waiting for its time to come."}
{"text": "Write an example of a compare and contrast essay. Cats and dogs are two of the most popular companion animals, but they have distinct differences. Cats prefer to be solitary and independent while dogs thrive on being with people and prefer to be social. Cats like to sit on laps and be pet, but they lack the enthusiasm that dogs show when in need of affection. In addition, cats are often more active during nighttime and, depending on the breed, can climb up a tall tree or even jump up to a countertop. On the other hand, dogs offer some physical strength and can conform to a variety of commands. Moreover, cats are quieter than dogs and don\u2019t require as much attention. Dogs on the other hand gain great pleasure out of pleasing their owners and will try to accommodate requests, especially when treats are involved. Despite the different characteristics between cats and dogs, they also share some similarities. Both require food, water, and regular vet visits. Both can express emotions and understanding towards their owners and both are devoted animals who won\u2019t hesitate to protect their families when needed."}
{"text": "Create an outline for a blog post about sexual harassment in the workplace. Outline for Blog Post about Sexual Harassment in the Workplace\n\nI. Introduction\n-Definition of sexual harassment\n-Consequences for victims\n\nII. Types of Sexual Harassment\n-Quid pro quo harassment\n-Hostile work environment\n-Nonverbal harassment\n\nIII. Facts & Figures\n-Prevalence of sexual harassment in the U.S.\n-Demographics at risk of harassment\n\nIV. Strategies to Minimize Harassment\n-Understand company policies\n-Establish clear standards of conduct\n-Report incidents promptly\n\nV. Conclusion\n-Importance of creating an inclusive, safe workplace\n-Resources for victims"}
{"text": "Compose a tweet in less than 240 characters with the hashtag #AIinFinance. Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the #Finance industry with improved analysis and decision making. #AIinFinance"}
{"text": "Create a story about a young girl who dreams of being a space explorer. Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Kate who dreamed of exploring the most distant reaches of outer space. She often looked up at the stars in the night sky and imagined herself soaring through the galaxies, discovering amazing new planets. No matter how many times her friends and family dismiss her dreams, she continues to dream of the impossible and makes a vow to overcome every obstacle to get there. She spends her days studying hard and taking every opportunity she finds to increase her knowledge of anything space-related. Eventually, her hard work pays off and she is given the chance to join a space mission. Kate is filled with joy and anticipation as she looks forward to a life of exploration among the stars."}
{"text": "Summarize the recipe for making a cheese sandwich. To make a cheese sandwich, spread butter on two slices of white bread, put cheddar cheese and black pepper on one slice, place the other slice on top and toast on a hot skillet for 3 minutes. Enjoy!"}
{"text": "Describe how solar energy works in simple terms Solar energy is the energy that is produced by the sun. This energy is converted into electricity when it's captured by solar panels, which are made up of solar cells. Solar cells absorb the sun's energy and convert it into electricity. This electricity can then be used to power homes, businesses, and other forms of energy production."}
{"text": "Analyze the quality of this santa-theme song. This song is a classic Christmas carol that is often sung during the holiday season. The lyrics are easy to remember and the melody is catchy. The song creates a festive mood and captures the joy and excitement of the season. For santa- themed music, though, it's a bit lacking in holiday specific references so it may not stand out from other simple holiday songs."}
{"text": "Rewrite this sentence using complex-compound and complex-multi word verbs. She ventured to the store."}
{"text": "Who qualifies for this job? This job is open to those with a Bachelor's degree in a relevant field, along with prior experience in the same or similar role. Candidates must possess excellent communication and interpersonal skills, be highly organized and motivated to succeed, and have exemplary knowledge of the tools and processes relevant to the job."}
{"text": "Write the last line of the story. From then on she knew her dreams of exploration were within her reach, and with that small glimmer of hope, she set off towards her destiny."}
{"text": "List five benefits of playing a musical instrument. Playing a musical instrument has many benefits, including improved cognitive skills, increased self-discipline, better coordination, improved memory and concentration, and improved confidence. It also encourages creativity and a life-long passion for music."}
{"text": "Determine what type of conflict this story has. This story has a Man vs. Man conflict, which is the conflict between two or more people. In this case, the conflict is between Damien and Tucker as they both strive to win the chess game."}
{"text": "Predict what the temperatures will be like tomorrow night. Tomorrow night is expected to be cool with temperatures in the low to mid 50s."}
{"text": "Evaluate the quality of the writing in the following excerpt. The writing in this excerpt is of a high quality, as it effectively conveys a tranquil atmosphere through the use of descriptive language and imagery."}
{"text": "Analyze the characters in this story. The main character in this story is Suzy, who is presented as determined and resilient. Her peers represent the challenge of fitting in and their lack of support, while her teachers demonstrate the importance of guidance from adults."}
{"text": "Find the first positive number in a list of integers. Output the number or a letter indicating no positive number was found. 1"}
{"text": "Generate a headline for an article about a new app called 'Dog Walker'. Introducing Dog Walker: The App that Makes Walking your Dog Easier than Ever"}
{"text": "Demonstrate how to use XOR operator in Python. In Python, the XOR operator is written as \"^\". It is a binary operator that will perform the operation of exclusive OR on two boolean values. A value of True is returned only if one of the operands is True and the other is False. For example:\n\na = True\nb = False\n\nresult = a^b  # result will be True"}
{"text": "Which of the following numbers is the nearest to 1? Output the number. 0.93"}
{"text": "Classify the following sentence according to its sentiment. Output 1 - 4 for each sentiment category.\n1) Positive; 2) Neutral; 3) Negative; 4) Other 3"}
{"text": "Calculate the area of a square with length 10m. Output a floating point number. 100.0"}
{"text": "What is the capital of Bangladesh? Output the name of the capital. Dhaka"}
{"text": "Sort the following list according to integers in descending order. Output the sorted list. [9, 6, 5, 4, 2]"}
{"text": "Paste the following text into a new document. Output the text. This is an example of the task."}
{"text": "Modify the following sentence so that the verb is in the third person singular present tense. She reads the book every day."}
{"text": "Group the following words according to their type. Output a list with the groups.\n1) Noun; 2) Adjective; 3) Verb [Adjective, Noun, Verb]"}
{"text": "Identify the types of the following characters in the story. Output 1 - 5 for each type.\n1) Protagonist; 2) Antagonist; 3) Supporting Character; 4) Foil; 5) Other [Protagonist, Protagonist, Supporting Character]"}
{"text": "Analyze how the given mobile application achieves scalability. The Airbnb application achieves scalability by relying on several cloud computing platforms. It employs a microservices architecture to break down its application into small components that can be scaled independently. It utilizes technologies that allow for horizontal and vertical scalability, such as containers and Kubernetes. Additionally, it uses monitoring and logging solutions to keep track of user activities, such as New Relic and Datadog. Furthermore, the application is optimized and designed to handle large influx of traffic and data."}
{"text": "Explain the use of big data analysis in retail industry. Big data analysis is used in the retail industry to analyze customer purchasing behavior and trends. This can help companies understand what products to offer, how to optimize their pricing, and which promotions are most effective. Data collected from online and physical stores can be combined to gain insights on the shoppers' purchasing journey, from discovering products to deciding whether or not to buy them. This information can be used to improve customer service, increase sales, and improve the overall customer experience."}
{"text": "Write a CSS rule to center the words \"center me\" in the page. div {\n    text-align: center;\n}\n\n#center me {\n    text-align: center;\n}"}
{"text": "Evaluate the given piece of writing for grammar and style. The instructions were diverse so that the GPT model could be evaluated effectively."}
{"text": "Explain why is cloud computing important for businesses. Cloud computing is important for businesses as it makes computing and data storage cheaper, more reliable and more secure. By using cloud infrastructure, businesses can save on costs by scaling on demand, while still being able to increase their capacity quickly when needed. Additionally, cloud computing increases the security of businesses\u2019 data as cloud providers typically use advanced security measures to protect data from malicious activities. Finally, cloud computing makes collaboration easier by enabling businesses to access data from anywhere and at any time."}
{"text": "Identify the US state of the given city. Ontario, Canada. Toronto is not in a US state."}
{"text": "Identify the poet behind the following poem. William Shakespeare"}
{"text": "Edit this poem about love. Love is a gentle kind of thing, \nLingering like a sweet-scented breeze. \nIt warms the heart and holds us close,\nA gentle hug that no one knows."}
{"text": "Are Seattle and Vancouver closer to one another than Boston and New York? Yes, Seattle and Vancouver are closer to each other than Boston and New York. The air distance between Seattle and Vancouver is approximately 447 miles, while the air distance between Boston and New York is approximately 215 miles."}
{"text": "Classify this recipe into breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack or dessert. dessert"}
{"text": "Find the missing part of this math equation. 7 + 4 = 11"}
{"text": "How many teaspoons of sugar should be added to a cup of coffee? A typical cup of coffee requires 2 teaspoons of sugar. However, the amount of sugar should be adjusted to the individual's taste."}
{"text": "Classify this as either an animal, plant, or fungus. animal"}
{"text": "Are orchids considered perennials? Yes, orchids are considered perennials, meaning they live for more than two years and typically bloom annually."}
{"text": "Describe the process of creating a digital product in five steps Step 1: Identify the purpose of your product and the desired outcome. \nStep 2: Research the topic for your product and create an outline for the content. \nStep 3: Design the layouts for your product using illustrative and interactive elements. \nStep 4: Develop the product using code, software, or other applicable technology. \nStep 5: Test the product and revise where necessary until the desired outcome is achieved."}
{"text": "Given the following sentence, report the main event. The main event yesterday was to fly kites at the park."}
{"text": "Improvise a song given the following input. Verse 1:\nThe moon is so far away, \nIt's out of reach so far and away, \nBut it still shines down to light up the night sky,\nBringing joy and peacefulness to the night. \n\nChorus:\nThe moon it rises, it lingers in the air, \nIt's a mystery beyond all understanding, \nAnd so we go, not knowing where it leads, \nThe moon shines down, outshining all the stars. \n\nVerse 2:\nThe moon is so distant and so bright, \nIt's our constant companion in the night, \nWiping away our worries with the dawn of a new day, \nIt's love that guides us from the dark. \n\nChorus: \nThe moon it rises, it lingers in the air, \nIt's a mystery beyond all understanding, \nAnd so we go, not knowing where it leads, \nThe moon shines down, outshining all the stars."}
{"text": "Summarize the current market trends for cars in the United States. Recent market trends for cars in the United States showed that the demand for new cars has been increasing, but there are supply chain issues that are causing a shortage of new cars. As a result, the prices for both new and used cars have been rising. There has also been a shift towards electric and hybrid vehicles as more consumers are becoming environmentally conscious."}
{"text": "Given the following input, rearrange the words to form a grammatically correct sentence. I like Chinese food."}
{"text": "Identify and list three emotions exhibited in the following input. Excitement, joy, enthusiasm."}
{"text": "Make a list of recommendations for visiting a major city Here is a list of recommendations for visiting a major city. \n\n1. Buy a public transportation or tourist pass to make it easy to navigate the city. \n2. Download a tourist app or map to find the best attractions in the area. \n3. Plan an itinerary to make the most of your time in the city. \n4. Make sure to look for popular food spots and take part in the local culinary culture. \n5. Research the history and culture of the city before you visit. \n6. Take in the sights and sounds as you explore the city. \n7. Pack comfortable shoes and clothing, as you\u2019ll likely be doing a lot of walking. \n8. Consider taking an audio tour to better understand the city. \n9. Be sure to stay safe and aware of your surroundings. \n10. Visit renowned museums, parks, and other landmarks. \n11. Make sure to take lots of photos and videos to remember your visit."}
{"text": "Generate lyrics for a romantic love song Verse 1:\nFrom the moment I saw your face \nThe path of my life made a sudden change \nI had no idea what love could be \nUntil I saw you loving me \n\nChorus:\nMy love, I will go the distance \nYou and I will forever last\nMy love, I will hold you close \nIn my heart our love will last\n\nVerse 2:\nOur love will be true and never die\nIt's like a star in the sky \nFate brought us together, I'm so blessed \nYou and I, a special recipe for success \n\nChorus:\nMy love, I will go the distance \nYou and I will forever last\nMy love, I will hold you close \nIn my heart our love will last\n\nBridge:\nAs time goes on, I'll never forget \nThe moment our moments first met\nAnd as long as I'm alive \nOur love will forever survive \n\nChorus:\nMy love, I will go the distance \nYou and I will forever last\nMy love, I will hold you close \nIn my heart our love will last."}
{"text": "Write an elevator pitch for a mobile app DiscoverYourNeighborhood is a mobile app that helps users explore their local area. It allows users to search for interesting places to visit, like restaurants and historic sites, in their vicinity, and even provides directions and ratings of each place. With DiscoverYourNeighborhood, you\u2019ll never miss out on an exciting activity near you."}
{"text": "Give feedback for the following essay This is a well-written essay that clearly articulates the importance of computer programming. The arguments presented are supported by specific examples, such as its ability to unlock new ways of understanding and offer opportunities for jobs in the future. However, the essay could be further strengthened if more evidence is provided, such as providing data or surveys to demonstrate why computer programming is important. Additionally, some critics would argue that computer programming limits creativity, it would be helpful to provide a rebuttal to this argument."}
{"text": "Find the mistakes in the following table The mistake in the table is that the capital of France is Paris, not London. The population of Russia is also incorrect; the correct population of Russia is 144.5 million."}
{"text": "Insert a semantically appropriate sentence at the beginning of the following text so that the topic is introduced smoothly. All living organisms are composed of cells, which are microscopic and usually visible only under a microscope. Cells are classified by their shapes and sizes and by the relative complexity of their biochemical processes, as well as their genetic content."}
{"text": "Rewrite the description below by replacing repetitive words and phrases with synonyms. A coral reef is an aggregation of coral colonies that construct an aquatic habitat of creatures and vegetation."}
{"text": "Convert the following to a yes or no question: Is the color red? (Yes / No)"}
{"text": "Rewrite the following paragraph so that the word \u201cchildren\u201d does not appear. The lives of the young generation differ greatly from those of their predecessors. Although certain overarching matters remain unchanged, the lifestyle of today\u2019s youth is drastically unlike that of their elders."}
{"text": "Create a summary of the following text in under 25 words. The Galapagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands with a diverse array of flora and fauna, including giant tortoises, lizards, whales, and dolphins."}
{"text": "Rewrite the following sentence so that it is more concise and clear to understand. Eating fruits and vegetables daily brings many health benefits."}
{"text": "Explain why there is often a disagreement between scientists and the public about certain topics. There is often a disagreement between scientists and the public about certain topics because the public may not have access to the same level of information or context the scientists have when examining an issue, or because the public may have a different set of values or perspectives on the subject than the scientists. Therefore, their conclusions or interpretations may not always be in agreement."}
{"text": "How would you describe the differences between a fact and an opinion? A fact is a statement that can be objectively proven, while an opinion is a statement that is based on a person's beliefs or feelings. Facts are verifiable, while opinions are subjective and open to interpretation. Facts are based on evidence and research, while opinions do not necessarily need to be backed up by any evidence."}
{"text": "Insert the correct participle form of the verb in the blank. leaning"}
{"text": "Name three government-funded initiatives that promote conservation of natural resources. The three government-funded initiatives that promote conservation of natural resources are the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Park Service."}
{"text": "Describe the process of the water cycle in one sentence. The water cycle is the continuous cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation in which water is transferred from the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth and returned to the atmosphere."}
{"text": "Explain the cause of World War II World War II began in 1939 when German leader Adolf Hitler invaded and occupied Poland. This was the catalyst for a series of events that led to a global conflict. Other major causes of World War II include the rise of fascism in Europe, the Japanese occupation of parts of Asia, and the inability of the League of Nations to stop aggressive actions by the Axis powers. Economic, military and ideological forces also fueled the conflict."}
{"text": "Create a timeline of key events in the life of Abraham Lincoln Key events in the life of Abraham Lincoln include his birth in 1809 in Kentucky, his move to Indiana in 1816, his election to the Illinois Legislature in 1834, his nomination for President of the United States in 1860, his assassination in 1865, and his burial in Springfield, Illinois in 1871."}
{"text": "Explain how the given type of rock is formed Gneiss is a type of metamorphic rock that is created under intense pressure and heat. It is usually formed at convergent plate boundaries, or in regions where the rock is heated to temperatures greater than 500 degrees Celsius and pressure exceeds 15,000 pounds per square inch. Gneiss is often made up of alternating light and dark colored bands of minerals, which indicate changes in the composition and density of the surrounding rock during heat and pressure."}
{"text": "Research the scientific names for various animals The scientific name of a lion is Panthera leo."}
{"text": "Choose the correct response to this question Ottawa"}
{"text": "Perform a Google search and find a website that offers top health tips The website \"Healthy Tips\" offers a list of top health tips. It can be accessed at https://www.healthytips.co.uk"}
{"text": "Identify an example of a figure of speech An example of a figure of speech is \"it's raining cats and dogs\". This phrase is used to indicate heavy rain."}
{"text": "Estimate the square footage of this room The square footage of this room is 180 square feet."}
{"text": "Courteously respond to this customer complaint We apologize for the inconvenience and would like to assure you that we value your opinion. Please give us another chance to better your experience."}
{"text": "Summarize the content in this article German AI startup Aleph Alpha has raised \u20ac23 million in a Series A funding round to develop large AI systems for generalizable AI, including text, vision, and strategy models similar to GPT-3. The company's platform will include a public API to enable experimentation and development of new business models in both public and private sectors. The funding round was co-led by Earlybird VC, Lakestar, and UVC Partners, bringing the total raised by Aleph Alpha to \u20ac28.3 million."}
{"text": "List the features of this product This smartphone has the following features: a 5.5 inch touchscreen display, a 12MP+8MP dual camera setup, 4G LTE connectivity, an octa-core processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB of internal storage, and a 3000mAh battery."}
{"text": "Compose a short story about two siblings exploring a forest. Two siblings, James and Lucy, were exploring the forest on an unseasonably warm autumn day. The sun shone through the trees, dappling the forest floor with golden light. As they wandered deeper into the woods, the leaves crunched beneath their feet. \n\nSuddenly, a rustling sound came from behind a nearby bush. They stopped and peered through the leaves. To their surprise, they saw a squirrel, nose twitching, that was gathering acorns for the winter. \n\nThe squirrel scurried away and the siblings continued their exploration. They found an old tree and decided to climb it, up and up. Finally, they reached the top and looked out over the treetops, taking in the stunning view. After a few moments, they descended and continued further on their journey.\n\nThe siblings explored the forest until the sun started to set. As they made their way back to their old tree, they decided to mark it with a drawing so that they would be able to find it easily when they returned. \n\nSuddenly, a hoot sounded in the distance. James and Lucy smiled at the sound of a friendly owl and made their way home, looking forward to coming back to the forest soon."}
{"text": "Generate a math equation and solve it. Equation: 9x + 5 = 56\nSolution: x = 5.11"}
{"text": "Remember the appointment your friend has on Friday. Output:\nI will remember that my friend Jane has an appointment on Friday."}
{"text": "Find the total population of Germany The total population of Germany is 83,783,600 according to Worldometer statistics."}
{"text": "Identify how many grams of sugar are in a can of Coke. A 12 oz can of Coca-Cola contains 39 grams of sugar."}
{"text": "Summarize the content of the article \"The 3 Types of RNA and Their Functions\". This article discusses the three types of RNA and their functions. Most RNA can be categorized as mRNA, rRNA, or tRNA. mRNA transcribes genetic code from DNA into a readable form for protein synthesis, rRNA directs the translation of mRNA into proteins, and tRNA transfers amino acids to the ribosome for protein synthesis."}
{"text": "Organize the following list of rewards and identify the five that offer the best value. The five rewards that offer the best value are 500 points, 400 points, 300 points, 200 points, and 100 points."}
{"text": "Create a sentence that involves the words \"bicycle\" and \"child\". The child peddled their bicycle down the street, enjoying the sunny day."}
{"text": "Identify three positive impacts of technology. Three positive impacts of technology are improved communication, increased productivity, and increased access to information."}
{"text": "Write a shopping list for the following items: 2 apples, 1 banana, 4 oranges, and 3 carrots. Shopping List: 2 apples, 1 banana, 4 oranges, 3 carrots."}
{"text": "Provide me 3 appropriate examples of metaphors. - Her words were like a lightning strike, illuminating the room with insight.\n- His heart was a broken record, repeating the same painful thoughts and memories. \n- The sky was a canvas, painting a breathtaking portrait of blues and oranges."}
{"text": "What is the process of fixing a flat tire? The process of fixing a flat tire typically involves the following steps: ensuring the car is on a level surface and jacked up securely; loosen the lug nuts on the wheel before removing; remove the wheel; remove the inner tube; inspect the wheel, inner tube and tire for damage or debris; patch or replace the inner tube; inflate the tube and re-install the wheel; reinstall and correctly tighten the lug nuts; Lower the car; and finally, give the wheel a few more turns on the lug nuts to ensure it is secured."}
{"text": "Describe the scene if someone is walking into a dark forest. As one walks into the dark forest, a sense of unease hangs heavy in the air. The trees seem to close in on the path, leafy branches blocking the silver light of the moon and the stars. The only sound is the soft rustle of their own feet on the crunching soil. Somewhere in the stillness, a night animal growls, and the branches of the trees creak with the soft, intermittent winds. As they take a few more steps, the forest swallows them into its murky depths."}
{"text": "Write two sentences with the same meaning but with different wordings He visited the store.\nHe made a trip to the store."}
{"text": "Give me five adjectives that describe a dragon Majestic, enormous, powerful, fiery, and mythical."}
{"text": "Name two materials that can be used to make a paintbrush. Two materials that can be used to make paintbrushes are natural animal hairs like hog bristle or synthetic materials like nylon or Taklon."}
{"text": "Write a short story that takes place in the city of Paris, France. Jason was walking the streets of Paris, taking in the sights, when he happened upon a caf\u00e9 he had been looking for. He took a seat and ordered a hot cup of coffee. As he sipped, he looked around and noticed a woman at the corner of the cafe who seemed to be watching him from a distance. He smiled, and she smiled back. Soon, they were talking like old friends. As their conversation ensued, Jason felt more and more drawn to this mysterious woman. Before long, he knew he'd caught her attention just as she had caught his. As the clock struck midnight, it was time for them to part ways. They exchanged numbers and promised to keep in touch. Little did Jason know, this meeting with the woman from the cafe would change his life forever."}
{"text": "Select the correct answer from the options below to complete the sentence. Stove."}
{"text": "Generate a headline for a news article about the effects of climate change in polar regions. Polar Regions Face Dire Consequences of Climate Change."}
{"text": "Re-write the sentence using a simile to make it more impactful. He was as slippery as an eel."}
{"text": "Make a list of five contrasting behaviors people demonstrate in different situations. 1. Loud and boisterous in social situations versus quiet and introspective in private.\n2. Active and energetic when attempting something new versus passive and sluggish when re-visiting a familiar task.\n3. Purposeful and decisive when in charge versus indecisive and questioning when in a subordinate role.\n4. Relaxed and communicative when amongst friends versus formal and subdued when in a professional environment.\n5. Extroverted and humorous when comfortable versus introverted and serious when put on the spot."}
{"text": "Generate a list of five strategies that can be used to achieve a positive attitude. 1. Practice gratitude - Reflect on and count your blessings.\n2. Develop self-awareness - Reflect on your thoughts, feelings and behaviors.\n3. Establish positive relationships - Surround yourself with positive people.\n4. Live in the present - Focus on the here and now, not the past or the future.\n5. Take action - Move forward and tackle problems head-on."}
{"text": "What are the different roles of a bank? Banks generally serve the following roles in a financial system: providing loans and deposits, payment services, safekeeping of customers' money and investment services. Banks also have a role in facilitating the issuance of bonds, providing foreign exchange services, and serving as trustees."}
{"text": "Construct an algorithm that finds all prime numbers up to a given upper limit. Step 1: Set a counter equal to 2 (the first prime number).\nStep 2: Check if the number is divisible by any other number between 2 and the counter (inclusively).\nStep 3: If not, print out the number as it is a prime number.\nStep 4: Increment the counter by 1 and go back to Step 2.\nStep 5: When the counter reaches the upper limit (20), then stop the algorithm. Output: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19."}
{"text": "Write a poem about a summer morning in the countryside. A cool breeze stirs up the morning,\nOn a pleasant summer day.\nThe rolling hills beckon to me \nAs the sun begins to play.\n\nA chorus of birds singing sweetly,\nTheir melodies fill the sky.\nThe smell of nature, so fresh and clean,\nEnchanted my heart and mind.\n\nThe silence captures my soul,\nAs I take in the view.\nIt's as if something magical \nIs wandering here too.\n\nFor just a moment, I\u2019m content,\nIn the beauty of nature reigns.\nThe morning in the countryside\nIs a peaceful summer dream."}
{"text": "Generate three adjectives describing a horse Strong, elegant, graceful."}
{"text": "How much is 8 x 4 8 x 4 = 32."}
{"text": "Tell me one similarity and one difference between a spider and an ant One similarity between a spider and an ant is that they both belong to the arthropod family. One difference is that spiders have eight legs while ants have six."}
{"text": "Pick out the most important point from the following passage. Advances in technology, and the emergence of new digital business models, are enabling the rapid digital transformation of businesses."}
{"text": "Generate a 3-word phrase which is the opposite of the given expression. Constrained imagination."}
{"text": "What is the main disagreement between the two parties? The main disagreement between Party A and Party B is whether reducing carbon emissions is necessary to effectively combat climate change."}
{"text": "Identify which of the two is a more successful strategy Strategy B is the more successful strategy, as it is based on data-driven evidence instead of intuition and experience."}
{"text": "Name three different chemical elements whose symbols begin with the letter 'C'. The three chemical elements whose symbols begin with the letter 'C' are Carbon (C), Calcium (Ca), and Cobalt (Co)."}
{"text": "Describe the characteristics of the most powerful supercomputer in the world. The most powerful supercomputer in the world is the Fujitsu A64FX. It has 48,896 ARM-based cores, and a peak theoretical performance of 415.5 petaflops. It also features over 32 TB of RAM, and a total of 25.6 Pbytes of main memory. It is connected with low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnects that enable high-performance computing."}
{"text": "What is the purpose of an aperture in a camera lens? The purpose of an aperture in a camera lens is to control the amount of light that passes through the lens. A larger aperture allows more light to pass through, and a smaller aperture allows less. By adjusting the aperture size, photographers can control the depth of field, which determines how much of the photograph is in focus."}
{"text": "Identify one major economic policy of the Democratic party in the United States. One of the major economic policies of the Democratic party in the United States is to promote economic equality, through raising taxes on the wealthy and providing more aid to low- and middle-income Americans."}
{"text": "What are the primary functions of a relational database management system? The primary functions of a relational database management system (RDBMS) are to store and manage data in an organized manner, provide security mechanisms to protect the data, enable data integrity, and allow users to search and retrieve specific information from the database."}
{"text": "Give an example of how machine learning can be used in logistics. Machine learning can be used in logistics to optimize the routing of shipments and predict their arrival times. For example, a machine learning system can analyze historic shipment data to determine the most efficient route for a given shipment, accounting for factors such as mileage and traffic conditions. It can also analyze past delivery data to predict the arrival date for a shipment."}
{"text": "Compare and contrast European colonialism in the Americas and Africa. European colonialism in the Americas and Africa had many similarities and differences. In both regions, European powers claimed territories, extracted natural resources, established trading networks, and imposed their own political, economic, and social systems. However, there were also key differences. In the Americas, the colonizers often engaged in enslavement of the indigenous people, while in Africa, they typically used forced labor to control and exploit the population."}
{"text": "Name three risks associated with online banking. The three risks associated with online banking are identity theft, malware, and financial fraud. Identity theft is the unauthorized use of a person's personal information, such as their name, Social Security number, or bank account details. Malware is malicious software that can steal or damage a person's data, while financial fraud is when a person's bank account is wrongly used without their consent."}
{"text": "Generate a review of a restaurant given its name. I recently had the chance to go to McDonald's and I was pleasantly surprised. The food was tasty, the staff were friendly and the restaurant was clean and inviting. The prices were very reasonable, and I left feeling like I had gotten my money's worth. All in all, I highly recommend McDonald's if you're looking for a quick and tasty meal."}
{"text": "What is the difference between an exoplanet and a planet in our own Solar System? The difference between an exoplanet and a planet in our own Solar System is that an exoplanet is a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun while the planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun. Exoplanets far outnumber the planets in our Solar System due to the vastness of interstellar space."}
{"text": "How do pH levels affect plant growth? PH levels play an important role in plant growth. Plant roots act as a pH regulator, releasing and absorbing hydrogen ions to balance the soil's pH. If the pH level is too low or high, it can interfere with the plant's ability to absorb essential nutrients, effecting its growth and health."}
{"text": "Suggest an alternative exercise to jogging. A good alternative to jogging is swimming. Swimming is a low impact exercise that is easy on the joints, while providing a fantastic aerobic and full-body workout. It is also great for weight loss, as it burn calories and builds strength without putting extra strain on the body."}
{"text": "What is so special about the Giza Pyramids? The Giza Pyramids are considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and are the oldest and largest of the pyramids located in Egypt. They have puzzled scientists for centuries and have been hailed for their precision, with no two stones being the same angle or size. They have withstood time and the elements for thousands of years and have become monarchs of the desert, serving as a lasting reminder of the wonders of antiquity."}
{"text": "Write a story about a bird stranded in an unfamiliar land. Once upon a time, there was a bird who was lost and alone. He had found himself far from the home he knew and loved, in an unfamiliar land. With no one to turn to, the bird explored his new home, searching for a way back to his familiar surroundings. After days of exploration, he came across a vibrant, colorful forest with a giant tree at the center. The bird was intrigued and decided to fly towards it, trying to find a way home. But when he got closer, he noticed that the tree was actually a portal to a new world and he was on the brink of a big adventure!"}
{"text": "Given an input sentence, edit the sentence such that it is grammatically correct and has similar meaning. They're going to the bookstore to buy some books."}
{"text": "Generate a list of 5 challenges faced by small businesses. 1. Access to capital \n2. Legal and regulatory requirements\n3. Finding and retaining customers\n4. Competition in the market\n5. Building a brand"}
{"text": "Given a sentence and an input, correct the grammar and spelling mistakes in the sentence. The dog barked loudly at its foe."}
{"text": "Generate a mathematical equation that compares the speed of two objects. Let v_1 be the speed of the first object and v_2 be the speed of the second object. Then, the equation to compare their speeds is:  v_1 - v_2 = \u0394v"}
{"text": "Explain why the color of the sky is blue. The sky appears blue because of the way that sunlight interacts with the gases and particles in the Earth's atmosphere. Sunlight is made up of different frequencies of light, and when the light passes through these particles, the shorter wavelengths of light (the blues) are scattered more than the longer wavelengths (the reds). This scattering causes most of the light to appear blue, making the sky blue."}
{"text": "Given the input sentence, determine whether it is an example of parallel structure. No. This is not an example of parallel structure since the verbs are not in the same form. It should have been \"He loves to run, to jump, and to bicycle.\""}
{"text": "Given an input sentence, suggest a creative tagline that fits the context. Choose a healthier future: sustainable wellness with us!"}
{"text": "Given an input sentence, come up with an example of alliteration that fits the context. He wants to make a smart swap swiftly."}
{"text": "Suggest a nickname for the protagonist of the book Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived."}
{"text": "Determine the word class of the word \"Infiltrate\". The word \"Infiltrate\" is a verb."}
{"text": "Edit the following sentence: \"I took my dog for a running.\" I took my dog out for a run."}
{"text": "Name the members of the plant kingdom. Members of the plant kingdom include mosses, ferns, conifers, flowering plants, and algae."}
{"text": "Explain why weather changes over time. Weather changes over time because of a variety of factors, including air pressure, wind speed and direction, temperature, and humidity. These factors are constantly in flux, leading to a wide range of weather patterns and changes."}
{"text": "Compare books and movies. Books and movies are both excellent forms of entertainment and storytelling. However, books offer more detailed descriptions and allow readers to use their imagination to fill in the gaps, while movies showcase the story through visuals."}
{"text": "Convert 1 mile to kilometers. 1 mile is equal to 1.61 kilometers."}
{"text": "Generate a word problem that requires the four basic operations: Ben had 1000 dollars, and every month he deposited 200 dollars in his savings account. If he kept doing this for four years, how much money did he have in his account at the end of four years?\n\nAnswer: At the end of four years, Ben had 8000 dollars in his savings account. This was calculated by 1000 + (200 x 12 x 4) = 8000, where 1000 is the initial amount, 200 is the amount he deposits every month, 12 is the number of months in a year, and 4 is the number of years. Thus, the four operations used in this problem are addition, multiplication, and exponentiation."}
{"text": "Write an instruction on how to make coffee To make coffee, start by boiling 1-2 cups of water in a small saucepan. Once the water has reached a boil, remove it from the heat and add 1-2 tablespoons of ground coffee to a coffee filter. Place the filter into a coffee maker or French press and pour the boiled water in slowly. Let the coffee steep for about 4 minutes, or until it reaches the desired strength, then carefully remove the filter with the coffee grounds. Pour the coffee into a mug and enjoy!"}
{"text": "What is the converse of the statement: \"I will pass the test The converse of the statement \"I will pass the test\" is \"If I pass the test\". This is because the converse of a sentence is formed by switching the positions of the subject and the predicate. In this case, the subject is \"I\" and the predicate is \"will pass the test\", so if the converse is written, the positions of the subject and the predicate are switched to \"If I pass the test\"."}
{"text": "Translate this sentence into Japanese and say what dialect it is:\n\"Hardships make us stronger.\" \u82e6\u96e3\u306f\u79c1\u305f\u3061\u3092\u5f37\u304f\u3057\u307e\u3059\u3002 This is standard Japanese."}
{"text": "Analyze why the character's actions resulted in a negative outcome. Alice made the mistake of attempting to tackle a problem on her own, without asking for help. She was too focused on proving to others that she could do it herself, and neglected to consider the possible consequences of her actions. As a result, her solution backfired and created an even bigger problem for her to solve. Her stubbornness and pride prevented her from seeing this potential outcome, leading to a negative outcome for Alice. By relying on her own resources, Alice failed to recognize that there are support systems in place that could have helped her achieve a better result. Furthermore, Alice underestimated the complexity of the problem, which further contributed to the negative outcome. Her lack of foresight and failure to seek the help she needed, caused her situation to worsen."}
{"text": "Create a list of three questions to ask a robot in order to better understand its decision-making process. 1. How do you weigh multiple potential outcomes before deciding on the course of action?\n2. What information do you take into account when evaluating a decision?\n3. How do you update your decision-making process based on new information?"}
{"text": "Rewrite the poem using vivid imagery. The old farmer jams the earth with a feverish vigor.\nHe is a flurry of productivity, with a jovial spirit that fills his every gesture.\nHis movements are precise but always full of life. \nHe upturns the soil and reveals its hidden beauty. \nThe sun twinkles in approval,\nas the old farmer continues to dance his way through the days."}
{"text": "Given this excerpt, identify a theme. The theme of this excerpt is perseverance. Despite the difficulty of the task at hand, she was determined to do what was right. This demonstrates a strong sense of resilience and dedication. She was willing to push through the difficult times and stay true to her convictions."}
{"text": "Given this business plan, predict likely outcomes. If successful, the restaurant could experience high customer traffic and potentially high profits due to the number of people in the surrounding area. Additionally, the business plan should take into account the competitive landscape in the area, which could potentially drive prices and profits downwards."}
{"text": "Given this legal document, explain the implications of the fine print. The fine print in this contract states that upon the completion of the sale, ownership of the property shall be transferred to the buyer. This gives the buyer legal rights over the property and responsibilities as the new owner, including the payment of all taxes and duties associated with the property. The buyer also has the right to repurpose the property in any way they see fit, provided it does not infringe upon any laws or regulations."}
{"text": "Given this sequence of numbers, predict the next number in the pattern. The given sequence is the start of the Catalan numbers' sequence. Therefore the next number is 132."}
{"text": "Arrange these sentences into a paragraph that conveys the same meaning. The instructor scolded the student for her lack of effort, expressing his disappointment in her work. He urged her to put more effort into her work next time in order to achieve a satisfactory result."}
{"text": "Describe the experience of eating a specific type of food. Eating a slice of pineapple pizza is a mix of sweet and savory flavors. The tangy pineapple adds a hint of sweetness and pairs perfectly with the creamy cheese and spicy tomato sauce. The combination of these flavors creates an unforgettable experience, and the golden, crispy crust brings all the flavors together."}
{"text": "Given this painting, describe the emotions conveyed The painting conveys a sense of cozy companionship and contentment. The two figures walking in the rain, heads close together and refusing to be parted, radiates a strong sense of togetherness. The steady rain makes the scene seem peaceful and calming, allowing the viewer to empathize with the warm feeling between the two."}
{"text": "Given this sentence, create three synonyms for the word \"befuddled\". Perplexed, bewildered, and confounded."}
{"text": "Create a function to check if an input string is a palindrome. def is_palindrome(s):\n    return s == s[::-1]"}
{"text": "Generate a new short story for a children's book. Once upon a time, there was a brave little mole who lived in the forest. Every day, he would explore the lush, green woods and make new discoveries. One day, the mole encountered a friendly fox who had lost his way. The two became fast friends and the mole helped the fox find his way home. They continued to meet up for adventures for many years to come."}
{"text": "Create a function to check if a given string contains any capital letters. def has_capitals(s):\n    for letter in s:\n        if letter.isupper():\n            return True\n    return False"}
{"text": "Find me two characters from the Harry Potter books that have similar personalities. Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom are two characters from the Harry Potter books with similar personalities. Both are loyal friends, brave, kind, and determined. They are also willing to take risks and stand up for what they believe in, even when there is opposition. They both demonstrate their leadership abilities throughout the series."}
{"text": "Create a data visualization of the latest COVID-19 cases in the US. A bar graph showing the total COVID-19 cases in the US, broken down by state. It would also have a trendline showing the change in cases over time. The data would be sourced from sites such as the Centers for Disease Control or the World Health Organization."}
{"text": "Create a unique greeting using only classic English words. Cheerio and hail!"}
{"text": "Generate a new word by combining two words together and explain what it means. Motorcades - a group of motorcycles ridden in procession, typically as a form of celebration."}
{"text": "Design a generic trading card game. This is a generic trading card game that uses decks of 60 cards where players take turns drawing cards from a shared deck, playing cards from their hand, and using special abilities. The goal of the game is to reduce the other players' points to 0 by using card abilities, trading cards, and strategic decision-making. Each card contains a value, a type (attack, defense, special ability, etc.), and an ability description. Players can use combinations of cards to create an effective strategy and win the game."}
{"text": "Think of a way to reduce global poverty A possible solution to reducing global poverty is to invest in the education of people living in disadvantaged areas, and provide job training and other resources that can help create economic growth. Additionally, providing access to basic needs such as food, water, and healthcare can counteract many of the effects of poverty. Governments and other organizations could also support businesses and industry in poverty-stricken regions, which could create new job opportunities for those living there."}
{"text": "Give me three tips on how to maintain productivity while working from home. 1. Stick to a schedule - Setting a work schedule and sticking to it helps you stay focused and productive. \n2. Take breaks - Working for long periods without taking breaks can lead to decreased productivity and burnout. Make sure to take breaks throughout the day. \n3. Set boundaries - It's important to create boundaries between work and home life, such as setting a designated area for working and not bringing work into the bedroom or other leisure areas."}
{"text": "Create a 5-step plan to reduce noise pollution. 1. Educate the public about the causes and effects of noise pollution.\n2. Implement stricter regulations on noise levels in public and private spaces.\n3. Implement noise monitoring devices in key areas to identify sources of noise pollution.\n4. Increase enforcement of existing regulations regarding noise pollution.\n5. Encourage businesses and buildings to use noise-reducing materials, like carpets and double-glazing on windows."}
{"text": "Create an algorithm that finds the most efficient path between two points. One algorithm to find the most efficient path between two points is the Dijkstra's algorithm. It works by finding the shortest path from one node (starting point) to every other node in the graph. The algorithm continually updates the shortest path between the two points, as it visits each node along the way, until it reaches the destination."}
{"text": "Answer this question for the given data. The number 15579 is represented by this abacus."}
{"text": "Generate a chart for the data given below. This chart shows the crime rate per 100,000 population for various cities in the United States:\n\n[Chart]\n\nNYC: 390.5\n\nSan Francisco: 161.1\n\nLos Angeles: 426.1\n\nHouston: 902.2\n\nChicago: 741.5"}
{"text": "Who is Samantha Andrews? Samantha Andrews is an American actress, writer, and director from Los Angeles, California. She was born on May 15th, 1993, and is best known for her role as Jasmine in the web series \u2018It\u2019s Always Sunny\u2019. She also has written and directed several short films and starred in the feature film 'Dante of the Woods'. She also has a pilot in development at Amazon Studios. Andrews is an advocate for inclusivity in the arts and has been featured in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hosts the annual Academy Awards."}
{"text": "Describe the character of the protagonist in the novel \"To Kill a Mockingbird\". The protagonist in Harper Lee's novel \"To Kill a Mockingbird\" is Scout Finch. Scout is a young girl who lives with her father, Atticus Finch, and her brother, Jem Finch, in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. She is inquisitive and outspoken, and often conveys moral lessons from her father's actions. She is also compassionate and good-natured, exhibiting empathy for characters such as Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Throughout the novel, Scout matures and grows as she encounters difficult situations that force her to confront issues of racism and sexism. Despite early resistance to change, Scout learns to recognize the wrongs of prejudice and injustice in her society."}
{"text": "Write an alliterative phrase using the letter \"T\". Tiptoeing through the tulips."}
{"text": "How does climate change affect agriculture? Climate change affects agriculture in a number of ways. One of the primary ways is through more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns, as well as increased prevalence of extreme weather events, like droughts and floods. This can cause crops to be destroyed, leading to decreased yields. Additionally, warmer temperatures can result in reduced water availability, as well as create an environment conducive to the spread of pest and diseases. Lastly, a shift in the length of the growing season can have an effect on crops, as certain crops may no longer fit in the local growing environment. All of this can lead to food insecurity and economic stress, as farmers and producers struggle to cope with the economic costs associated with climate change."}
{"text": "Explain the meaning of the phrase \"a dark and stormy night.\" The phrase \"a dark and stormy night\" is a literary device used to evoke a feeling of suspense, mystery, and foreboding. It often sets the tone for a story by depicting a night that is eerily dark, with strong winds and rain. The phrase is often used to set the scene prior to a major event or the climax of a story, and is often used to create a sinister atmosphere. It is typical of supernatural tales and Gothic literature, and can be used to emphasize the emotion of a particular moment."}
{"text": "Explain how data sets are used in machine learning. Data sets, including labeled data and unlabeled data, are used as the basis for machine learning applications. Labeled data consists of input data that has been previously tagged with the correct output, enabling a machine learning model to learn from prior training data. Unlabeled data does not contain output, but is used as input for training a machine learning model. The data set is used to train the model by providing supervised or unsupervised learning algorithms. In supervised machine learning, the data set is usually labeled so that the model can learn from the data, and then subsequently test the accuracy of its predictions on the test data set. Unsupervised learning uses unlabeled data to detect patterns and group similarities. The data set is used to train and test the model's ability to recognize patterns and make meaningful predictions. Additionally, data sets can also be used to evaluate existing and future machine learning models. By testing multiple models on the same data set, you can compare the performance of different models and select the best one."}
{"text": "Make a list of common problems faced by cats. Common problems faced by cats include: hairballs, fleas, ticks, ear mites, feline asthma, urinary tract infections, ringworm, tapeworms, diabetes, dental issues, and feline leukemia. Other health issues can also arise, including heart disease, liver disease, cancer, and behavioral problems. Additionally, cats may suffer from stress or anxiety, and problems with their diet or hydration."}
{"text": "Generate synonyms for the word 'challenging'. Difficult, arduous, complex, strenuous, demanding, formidable, testing, onerous, laborious, stiff, tough, rigorous, problematic, taxing, tricky."}
{"text": "Explain how a human resources department handles onboarding new employees. The human resources department is usually responsible for onboarding new employees. This usually involves orienting new staff members to their roles, providing them with necessary resources, determining their compensation and benefits, resolving any legal issues that arise, and helping them to integrate into their new workplace. Onboarding can also involve introducing new hires to the company culture, policies and procedures, and helping them to build relationships with existing coworkers. Generally, the onboarding process includes a combination of formal orientation sessions, individualized training, and informal conversations to ensure the employee is prepared and ready to excel in the new job."}
{"text": "What are the advantages of a decision tree? Decision trees have several advantages, including interpretability and ability to handle both numerical and categorical data. Decision trees provide a visual representation of the decision making process, making them easy to interpret for humans. Complex decisions can be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces and are easier to understand compared to other models, such as neural networks. Additionally, decision trees can handle both numerical and categorical data, making them more flexible than other models. Finally, they can handle missing data and provide estimates of feature importance."}
{"text": "Describe the role of validation data. Validation data is used to assess the accuracy, robustness, and performance of machine learning models. It is a subset of the training data or a separate data set that is used to test and validate the model. Validation data is used to tune the hyperparameters of a model and find better solutions by comparing the results from different models. Additionally, it can detect any bias or overfitting issues in the model and help to improve its accuracy. By relying on validation data, one can be sure that the model has been properly trained and is ready for deployment."}
{"text": "Make a list of good sources for researching a topic Good sources for researching a topic include:\n1. Scholarly articles\n2. Books\n3. News articles\n4. Websites\n5. Journals and magazines\n6. Interviews\n7. Government reports\n8. Expert opinions\n9. Multimedia sources\n10. Academic databases"}
{"text": "Give an example of a situation in which a certain type of data science approach would be the most appropriate. A good example of a situation in which a certain type of data science approach would be the most appropriate is when an organization needs to understand customer engagement and what can be done to improve it. In this case, a predictive modeling approach that uses machine learning algorithms could be used to explore customer behavior and identify patterns and trends. These insights can then be used to inform decisions and make recommendations on how to optimize customer engagement."}
{"text": "Create a fake social media post from a customer. I just tried out the new product from @CompanyName and it totally blew me away! The design is so elegant and the customer service is top-notch. Highly recommended! #CompanyName #impressive #happycustomer"}
{"text": "Write a summary of the article [Artificial Intelligence: The Challenges Ahead]. The article Artificial Intelligence: The Challenges Ahead explores the various challenges that Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses to society, such as the need to understand its ethical implications, the issue of creating transparency and trust, the difficulty of creating an effective regulatory framework, and achieving the right balance between safety and performance. The article also dives into the possible solutions to these challenges, such as public-private partnerships, international collaborations, and global governance. Lastly, the article looks at the potential impact of AI and its potential in solving world problems."}
{"text": "Write five open-ended questions about [Data Science]. 1. What new areas is data science being applied to? \n2. What role does data collection and analysis play in data science? \n3. How can data science be used to solve social and environmental issues? \n4. What are the limitations of data science and how can they be overcome?\n5. What skills and knowledge are needed to become a successful data scientist?"}
{"text": "Write a 3-minute speech about current trends in [AI Technology]. Good morning everyone. Today I'm here to talk about some of the current trends in AI technology. \n\nAI technology has made incredible advances in many areas. It has been used to help doctors detect diseases, to optimize traffic flow, and to develop autonomous vehicles. AI is becoming more and more powerful as advances are made in machine learning and natural language processing.\n\nOne of the most interesting current trends in AI technology is its use in personal assistants. AI-driven virtual assistants, such as Siri and Alexa, can be used to answer questions, do research, make purchases, and manage schedules. These virtual assistants are continually learning new skills, and they are becoming increasingly advanced.\n\nAnother trend in AI is the development of robots that have human-like capabilities. These robots are being developed in order to do tasks that are too difficult or dangerous for humans, such as exploring hazardous environments or performing medical operations. \n\nFinally, AI-enabled computers are also being used to create artificial intelligence-based content, such as news articles and videos. This technology has great potential in areas such as education, entertainment, and journalism.\n\nIn conclusion, AI technology is making tremendous progress, and these advances will continue to shape the future of our world. Thank you."}
{"text": "List four essential tools for data science. Four essential tools for data science are:\n1. A programming language such as Python, R, or Scala. \n2. Statistical software such as SAS or SPSS. \n3. Data visualization tools such as Tableau or PowerBI. \n4. Database management systems such as MariaDB or PostgreSQL."}
{"text": "Generate a programming solution to output all the numbers from 1 to 10. for i in range(1,11):\n    print(i)"}
{"text": "Create a report outlining the advantages and disadvantages of using [Machine Learning] in a certain industry. The report outlines the advantages and disadvantages of using Machine Learning in a certain industry. \n\nAdvantages: \n1. Machine Learning can automate decision-making, making processes more efficient and removing potential for bias. \n2. It can enable faster and more accurate predictions, allowing for the betterment of services offered.\n3. Machine Learning can enable predictive analytics, providing insights into customer behavior that can be used to improve services and experiences. \n4. It can reduce the cost and complexity of managing data as large volumes of data can be analysed quickly and efficiently. \n\nDisadvantages: \n1. Machine Learning is dependent on the accuracy of the data and the consistency of the algorithms used, meaning that any errors can have significant consequences.\n2. Deploying Machine Learning can involve significant costs and the necessary expertise can be difficult to acquire. \n3. As Machine Learning systems are reliant on data, data that is incomplete or biased can compromise the accuracy of the results.\n4. Machine Learning models can be highly complex and difficult to debug, resulting in poor performance."}
{"text": "Generate an essay on the current challenges in the field of [Robotics]. Robotics has become an integral part of many industries, from manufacturing to healthcare. Despite the advancements that have been made in this field, robotics continues to present some challenges. \n\nOne of the biggest challenges facing the field of robotics is the lack of autonomy. Robots are unable to detect and respond to their environment in a meaningful way, and so must be controlled and monitored by humans. This presents a challenge as it places limits on the potential of robots for complex tasks.\n\nAnother challenge is that robots are not able to explain their decisions. This is an important factor for many industries and can make it difficult to trust the decisions that robots may make.\n\nFurthermore, there is a lack of standards when it comes to robotic systems. This makes it difficult to develop robots that are interoperable with other systems, which can limit their utility.\n\nThe challenges outlined above are significant, but they can be overcome with further research and development. Through the advancement of technologies such as artificial intelligence and natural language processing, robots may be able to become more autonomous and able to explain their decisions. Additionally, the development of standards and protocols can enable robots to be used across different industries and facilitate the development of robots that can interact with other systems. \n\nIn conclusion, robotics still faces several challenges, but with continued innovation and development, these challenges can be addressed and the potential of robots can be realized."}
{"text": "Develop a program to generate a random set of numbers from 1 to 10. import random\n\nnumbers = [i for i in range(1,11)]\nrandom.shuffle(numbers)\nprint(numbers)"}
{"text": "What is the definition of the literary device \"alliteration\"? Alliteration is a literary device in which two or more words that begin with the same sound are used consecutively in a phrase or sentence. It is also known as head rhyme or initial rhyme."}
{"text": "Calculate 14 + 6. The sum of 14 and 6 is equal to"}
{"text": "Write a limerick that involves the word 'skate'. There once was a girl from the lake\nWho enjoyed skating for fun 'n for sake\nShe was a pro at the sport\nAnd it quickly became her forte\nAs she zipped around without a break!"}
{"text": "Calculate the perimeter of a rectangle with length 12 and width 6. The perimeter of the rectangle is 36."}
{"text": "Create a timeline for the hundred years war. The Hundred Years War timeline is as follows: \n\n1337 - The War Begins with England's claim of the French throne \n1356 - Victory for the English at the Battle of Poitiers; \n1376 - The French recapture the city of Rheims \n1389 - Truce between England and France ends hostilities \n1415 - The French regain control at the Battle of Agincourt \n1453 - Final Victory for the French at the Battle of Castillon"}
{"text": "Compare and contrast the views of Aristotle and Socrates. Aristotle and Socrates had different views on many topics, including knowledge, morality, and justice. Aristotle believed in the idea of essentialism, arguing that knowledge can be obtained through the study of phenomena in their respective disciplines. Socrates, however, argued for the 'Socratic method' of inquiry, which claims that knowledge can be gained through questioning and assessing the beliefs and opinions of others. Moreover, Aristotle believed in a virtuous approach to morality, while Socrates adhered to absolute morality. Lastly, Aristotle thought justice could be obtained through the careful application of laws and regulations, while Socrates believed that justice must come from a higher power."}
{"text": "Input a viral tweet with the hashtag #FridayNightFeels #FridayNightFeels It's the perfect time to kick back, relax, and enjoy the night! \ud83e\udd29\ud83c\udf89"}
{"text": "Write a persuasive essay about why the voting age should be lowered. Lowering the voting age is an important step towards a better, more representative democracy. Young people, who make up a significant portion of the population, should have a say in their future and receive the same rights and benefits as adults. The young generation is very informed and conscious of the world\u2019s current state, and is more likely to remain aware of their political environment as they age. Additionally, education plays a crucial role in the informed voting process, so it is important to note that the current voting age of 18 is set in many states just after high school graduation. Thus, young people are given the right to vote just when they become eligible to attend university, meaning they may not have received the necessary education.\n\nLowering the voting age also serves to engage younger people in civic participation, encouraging them to take an active role in politics, and ultimately leading to higher voter turnout for all age groups. Moreover, ultimately allowing youth to vote boosts civic engagement even beyond voting and encourages young people to express their thoughts and opinions.\n\nIn conclusion, the voting age should absolutely be lowered. Not only can it increase the number of politically-informed people, it can also simultaneously boost political enthusiasm overall. The youth should have the right and opportunity to participate in politics and be involved in one\u2019s democracy and this could be realized by lowering the voting age."}
{"text": "What is the marketing funnel? The marketing funnel is a customer journey, starting with the moment a customer first interacts with a brand, then progressing through their journey until they become a paying customer. The funnel typically consists of four key stages, typically known as 'awareness', 'interest', 'consideration' and 'decision' stages. At each stage, different strategies and tactics are employed to engage customers, from content marketing and organic search, to social media marketing, email marketing and advertising."}
{"text": "Write a story about a character who is an enthusiastic astronomer. Lizzie had always been fascinated by the night sky, even when she was a child growing up in a small town in rural Wisconsin. She would spend hours looking up at the stars, imagining all sorts of worlds that existed beyond her small town. When she was old enough, she saved up all her money to buy her first telescope. She set up in a meadow near her house and quickly discovered a passion for astronomy. She soon joined the local star-gazing club and was even able to share her new-found knowledge with her community. Lizzie earned a reputation as the town\u2019s resident astronomer, and her enthusiasm for the stars never faded."}
{"text": "Describe a trade route between Asia and Europe. The Silk Road was a major trade route between Asia and Europe in antiquity and the Middle Ages, connecting regions such as China, Middle East, and the Mediterranean. This historic trade route extended over 4,000 miles and facilitated the exchange of goods, skills, and ideas between the East and West. This network of routes was used to carry silk and other luxury items, and also transmitted essential items such as paper, and methods of printing, gunpowder, and new sciences. Additionally, the Silk Road had a powerful impact on the spread of religions and cultures, as ideas and beliefs were exchanged through the route."}
{"text": "Name some common symptoms of COVID-19. Common symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, body aches, headache, loss of smell or taste, and sore throat."}
{"text": "Create a computer algorithm that can play tic-tac-toe. The algorithm would need to check for winning and losing scenarios and respond by making the best move. It would also need to anticipate the opponent\u2019s moves and adjust accordingly. Finally, the algorithm would need to factor in the possibility of a draw game and act accordingly."}
{"text": "Name five sports and the countries they originated in. 1. Soccer (England) \n2. Basketball (United States) \n3. Baseball (United States) \n4. Hockey (Canada) \n5. Cricket (England)"}
{"text": "Name three prominent innovators in the tech industry. 1. Steve Jobs (Apple) \n2. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) \n3. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)"}
{"text": "Create a restaurant menu for a burger joint. Appetizers: \n- French Fries\n- Onion Rings\n- Veggie Fritters \n\nMain Course: \n- Classic Cheeseburger\n- Bacon Cheeseburger\n- Veggie Burger\n- Fried Chicken Sandwich \n\nSides: \n- Coleslaw\n- Potato Wedges \n\nDrinks: \n- Soda\n- Milkshakes\n- Coffee \n\nDesserts: \n- Apple Pie \n- Chocolate Cake \n- Vanilla Ice Cream"}
{"text": "Generate a list of ideas for a team building day. 1. Outdoor scavenger hunt \n2. Escape room\n3. Paintball\n4. Board game night\n5. Geocaching\n6. Cooking competition\n7. Clay sculpting\n8. Foosball tournament\n9. Murder mystery dinner\n10. Movie night"}
{"text": "Create a program that can play tic-tac-toe against a human player. The program would need to be able to recognize the board state and analyze possible moves. It should also be able to evaluate potential outcomes and select a move based on the highest probability of winning. Additionally, the program would need to be able to detect possible draws and respond accordingly."}
{"text": "Create a script that takes in integers and outputs their squares. def square_num(num): \n    return num ** 2"}
{"text": "Find the most populous city in South Korea. The most populous city in South Korea is Seoul, with a population of around 10 million people."}
{"text": "Recall a memory from your childhood. One of my favorite childhood memories was going on family trips to the beach. I remember running along the sand, collecting seashells and playing in the tide pools. Even now, the smell of the sea brings back these wonderful memories."}
{"text": "Reverse the following statement. Output the reversed statement. Fast runs the cat."}
{"text": "Give an example of a person who demonstrates commitment to their work. An example of a person demonstrating commitment to their work would be a doctor who stays up late to finish paperwork, attends extra conferences to stay up to date on the latest research, and puts in extra hours to make sure each patient gets the best care."}
{"text": "Generate a creative sentence describing the color blue. The color blue is like the glimmering depths of a sapphire ocean, inviting and mysterious."}
{"text": "Look through the following list of names and detect which ones are not real people. Michelangelo Pickle is not a real person."}
{"text": "Create an algorithm to convert US Dollars to Brazilian Reais. Algorithm:\n1. Multiply the amount of US dollars by 1.30 to get the amount of Brazilian Reais. \n2. Convert the US Dollar amount to a decimal number.\n3. Multiply the decimal number by 1.30.\n4. Round the result to the nearest decimal place.\n5. This is the amount of Brazilian Reais."}
{"text": "Explain the Stock Market to a 10-year-old. The stock market is like a giant marketplace where people buy and sell pieces of ownership of companies. You can think of these pieces of ownership as shares. Companies want people to invest in them so they can use the money to build their business and grow. When people invest in a company, they are hoping the company will do well and their shares will go up in value, so they can sell them and make money."}
{"text": "Generate a creative sentence describing the time of day 11 am. At 11 am, the world has woken up to the bright morning sun, creating a new opportunity to make the most out of the day."}
{"text": "Describe the working of a spin-off company to a 4th grader. A spin-off company is like a new company that starts from something that already exists. It starts because the company, or part of it, has a different idea or goal than the original company. So the spin-off company goes off on its own and becomes its own thing. For example, a toy company might have a section that makes dolls, so they could make a spin-off company that only makes dolls. That way the dolls have their own company and do things the way they want to."}
{"text": "Search the web and report the exact number of countries in Africa. There are 55 countries in Africa."}
{"text": "Detect the type of poem in the following text. The poem is a nursery rhyme."}
{"text": "Join two separate sentences into a compound sentence. He was late and missed the meeting."}
{"text": "Summarize the following article about AI within 100 words. AI is being deployed in numerous areas of life and is showing tremendous potential in fields like healthcare, education, transportation, and manufacturing. AI-based decision making, driverless cars, and other innovations are improving everyday life and could have an even bigger impact in the future. AI is a rapidly growing field and its applications are being developed at an ever-accelerating rate."}
{"text": "Create an expression using the numbers 1-10. One in a million. (1/1,000,000)"}
{"text": "Brainstorm five ideas for a humorous story set in a cemetery. 1. A group of cemetery visitors are bamboozled by a ghost masquerading as the cemetery groundskeeper who breaks into a lengthy monologue about his latest business venture \n2. A family must reunite at the cemetery for a funeral, only to find out that the person who died had made a bet with them all prior to his death \n3. A high-stakes game of golf is played in the cemetery with the loser forced to spend the night in the graveyard\n4. A zombie rises from the dead to excavate a deep hole in the cemetery leading to a hidden treasure\n5. A couple's first date involves a scavenger hunt in a cemetery, where the prize is their first kiss."}
{"text": "Generate a 4-digit PIN that is secure, but easy to remember. A secure and easy to remember 4-digit PIN is 1234."}
{"text": "Summarize the following article \"The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence\" within 100 words. AI offers many potential benefits, such as improving customer service, automating complex tasks, reducing labor, and increasing accuracy and efficiency. AI is increasingly being used to automate tasks too time-consuming for humans and to speed up research and development. These advantages of AI are paving the way for a more efficient and productive world."}
{"text": "What is a major advantage of renewable energy sources? A major advantage of renewable energy sources is that they are sustainable and do not produce emissions that are harmful to the environment."}
{"text": "Find the surface area of a cube whose sides are 18 inches. The surface area of a cube with eighteen-inch sides is 486 inches2."}
{"text": "List 5 tips for effective job hunting. 1. Research job sites and networking opportunities \n2. Polish your resume and showcase your skills and achievements\n3. Prepare for potential interviews by practicing answers\n4. Keep track of all applications and follow up regularly\n5. Make sure to network and utilize your professional contacts"}
{"text": "Create a math problem using numbers over 1000. What is the product of 5,678 and 4,101?\n\nThe product of 5,678 and 4,101 is 23,082,378."}
{"text": "Explain the meaning of the idiomatic expression \"rule of thumb\". The term \"rule of thumb\" is used to refer to guidelines or advice that is based on experience and common sense rather than exact measures. It originates from the 16th century English belief that an ordinary man was not able to judge the circumstances of a case any better than he could span it with his thumb. This phrase can be used to denote an approximate way of doing something instead of something exact."}
{"text": "Name the type of triangle based on the given side length. Scalene triangle."}
{"text": "Generate a one-sentence title for a creative recipe. Treat your taste buds to an explosion of flavor with this Sweet Chili Coconut Shrimp."}
{"text": "Take the given input and turn it into proper prose. The family-run seafood restaurant is one of a kind. A true gem nestled on a quiet street serving fresh and delicious seafood dishes."}
{"text": "Suggest a behavior that violates an unspoken workplace rule. Turning up late to work without an excuse."}
{"text": "Suggest a question to ask on a job assessment to evaluate problem-solving skills. Describe a situation when you had to come up with a creative solution for a problem."}
{"text": "Generate an appropriate response for a customer service chatbot when the customer mentions that they are unhappy with the product. I apologize for the disappointment you have experienced with the product. Please tell me more about the issue you are facing so we can find a solution."}
{"text": "Create a voice command for a virtual assistant to set a phone reminder. Set a reminder for me on my phone at 8 PM."}
{"text": "Edit the following run-on sentence. The teacher introduced the course and assigned some reading."}
{"text": "Generate an appropriate response for a customer service chatbot when the customer asks for help with a technical issue. I\u2019m sorry you are experiencing a technical issue. Please provide me with more details, and we will do our best to help you resolve it."}
{"text": "Derive the equation for the derivative of sin x. The equation for the derivative of sin x is cos x."}
{"text": "Compute the sum of two matrices. The sum of the two matrices is\n [[6, 8],\n  [10, 12]]"}
{"text": "Compare the marketing strategies of two different brands. Apple's marketing strategy emphasizes the power of their products through a focus on innovation, creativity and sleek design, while Microsoft's strategy emphasizes the practicality of their products with a focus on reliability and convenience."}
{"text": "Convert this article from English to Spanish. El gato se sent\u00f3 en la alfombra."}
{"text": "Generate a story about a prince who decides to fight an evil dragon. Once upon a time, there was a brave prince named John who decided to take a stand against an evil dragon which had terrorized the kingdom for years. He gathered his armor and his sword and set off to do battle with the dragon. After a grueling fight, John eventually killed the dragon and brought peace and order to the kingdom once more. He was hailed as a hero and for his bravery, courage and honor, the king presented him with a grand reward."}
{"text": "Analyze the historical context of the American Revolution. The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place in the United States between 1765 and 1783. It was a struggle by thirteen of the British colonies in North America against the authority of the British Crown and its allies. The colonies declared their independence as the United States of America in 1776 and fought a long war against British forces. The Revolution was greatly influenced by a combination of factors, including political, economic, cultural and religious disputes between the colonists and Mother Country."}
{"text": "Operate this cash register to calculate the total amount purchased. The total amount purchased is $12.60."}
{"text": "Edit this sentence to make the meaning clearer. The bigger you are, the faster you will be able to go."}
{"text": "How much will it cost to rent a car for one day? The cost of renting a car for one day will depend on the type of car, the rental company, and the location. Generally, the average cost of a one-day rental is between $30 and $100."}
{"text": "List three reasons why the morning is the best time of the day. Three reasons why the morning is the best time of the day are: 1) It is the start of a new day and an opportunity to start fresh and have a positive outlook. 2) It is often the most productive time to get things done. 3) It is a great time to appreciate the beauty of the natural world."}
{"text": "Name one similarity and one difference between cats and dogs. One similarity between cats and dogs is that they are both popular pets. A difference between them is that cats are typically more independent than dogs, and are not as focused on pleasing their owners."}
{"text": "Write five landmarks located in New York City. Five landmarks located in New York City are: Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge and Times Square."}
{"text": "Describe how you would implement the Caesar Cipher algorithm. The Caesar Cipher algorithm is an encryption technique that uses a shift of character positions to encrypt plaintext into ciphertext. To implement the algorithm, the plaintext is shifted left or right based on the user's encryption key, also known as the Caesar shift. For every letter in the plaintext, its corresponding ciphertext letter can be found by moving a certain number of places down the alphabet, determined by the Caesar shift. To decrypt the ciphertext, apply the opposite operation by shifting letters in the opposite direction by the same number of places."}
{"text": "Provide five ethical considerations for data collection. 1. Data should only be collected from legally authorized sources.\n2. All data should be collected with the explicit consent of the person from whom it will be collected.\n3. Data collectors should take steps to protect the privacy of the data by using encryption or other methods of anonymization.\n4. Data should only be used for a legally authorized purpose.\n5. The data should be stored securely and access to the data should be granted only to authorized personnel."}
{"text": "Translate this sentence into French: \"I can fly like a bird\" Je peux voler comme un oiseau."}
{"text": "Who invented the transistor? John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley are credited with inventing the transistor in 1947. They were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work."}
{"text": "List five alternative sources of energy 1. Solar energy\n2. Wind energy\n3. Hydropower\n4. Geothermal energy\n5. Biomass energy"}
{"text": "List the main organs of the respiratory system The main organs of the respiratory system are the nose, the pharynx, the larynx, the trachea, the bronchi, the lungs, and the diaphragm."}
{"text": "Generate a list of five household items that you could use to reduce your carbon footprint 1. Reusable shopping bags\n2. LED light bulbs\n3. Reusable water bottles\n4. Clotheslines instead of tumble dryers\n5. Strip draught excluders"}
{"text": "Generate instructions for making a pot of macaroni and cheese. - Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.\n- Add a teaspoon of salt to the water.\n- Add macaroni noodles to the boiling water and stir.\n- Cook for 8 minutes or until macaroni is soft.\n- Drain the macaroni, reserving one cup of the hot cooking liquid.\n- Place the macaroni back in the pot.\n- To the macaroni, add one cup of milk, one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of flour.\n- Add 2 cups of shredded cheese.\n- Simmer the macaroni, stirring constantly, until the cheese is melted and the sauce is thickened.\n- Add reserved cooking liquid to the macaroni if it is too thick.\n- Serve macaroni and cheese warm."}
{"text": "Generate a poem that is 5 lines long about a city. A city of dreams and promise,\nWhere towers reach for the sky,\nThe roads beckon, bright and gleaming,\nWe all hear the city's cry.\nThe hustle, the warmth and the beauty, \nIt's a city that all should enjoy."}
{"text": "Explain how to calculate the number of kg in 1 lb. To calculate the number of kilograms (kg) in a pound (lb), simply divide the number of pounds by 2.2. For example, 5 lb is equivalent to 2.27 kg (5 divided by 2.2)."}
{"text": "Choose the sentence that is structured correctly and contains no errors. The teacher asked the student to summarize the book in two paragraphs."}
{"text": "Categorize the given item into either a protist or a fungus. The given item is a protist."}
{"text": "Write an example sentence containing the word \"imperious\". The teacher displayed an imperious attitude when she scolded the students."}
{"text": "Create a sentence with specific syntactic structure \"Adj Noun likes Ving\". The cheerful girl likes singing along to her favorite songs."}
{"text": "Create an online survey that comprises of questions that can predict the respondent's level of personal happiness. Please answer the following questions based on a scale of 1-5 (1=extremely dissatisfied, 2=dissatisfied, 3=neutral, 4=satisfied, 5=extremely satisfied).\n\n1. How satisfied are you with your overall life circumstances?\n2. How often do you feel content with the progress you have made in your life?\n3. How often do you find renewed purpose in life?\n4. How often do you take time out for leisure activities?\n5. How often do find yourself laughing during a typical day?\n6. How satisfied are you with your relationships with others?\n7. How often do you feel energized, motivated and ready to take on new projects?\n8. How satisfied are you with your current physical and emotional state?\n9. How often do you feel good about yourself and your accomplishments?\n10. How often do you feel emotionally resilient in difficult situations?\n11. How often do you argue with your friends/family/loved ones?\n12. How often do you feel grateful and appreciate the people around you?\n13. How often do you manage to maintain a positive perspective on life?\n14. How often do you change or find new opportunities that bring you closer to your goals?\n15. How often do you think of a positive event or experience when you are feeling down?\n16. How often do you prioritize your own well-being?\n17. How often do you practice self-care?\n18. How often do you proactively engage in activities that bring you joy?\n19. How often do you practice mindfulness and presence?"}
{"text": "Describe a way to stay safe during a pandemic. Staying safe during a pandemic is no easy task. It is important to follow all official government guidance and stay home as much as possible. When going out, it is important to wear a mask, maintain six feet of distance from other people, and avoid large gatherings. Be sure to wash your hands often, cover your mouth and nose when sneezing and coughing, and disinfect regularly touched surfaces."}
{"text": "Describe a specific feature of the sun. The Sun is classified as a Population I, or high-metal, star. It is composed primarily of hydrogen (73%) and helium (25%), with only trace amounts of heavier elements. It is about 4.6 billion years old and is approximately halfway through its main-sequence life."}
{"text": "Write a recipe for making pancakes. Ingredients:\n- 1\u00bd cups all-purpose flour\n- 2 tablespoons sugar\n- 2 teaspoons baking powder\n- \u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n- \u00bc teaspoon salt\n- 1 cup milk\n- 2 tablespoons butter, melted\n- 1 large egg\n- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil\n\nInstructions:\n1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.\n2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, butter, egg and oil.\n3. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture, stirring until just combined.\n4. Heat a greased skillet over medium-high heat.\n5. Drop \u00bc cup of the batter onto the hot skillet, and cook until the edges are dry and bubbles appear on the surface.\n6. Flip the pancake and cook until golden brown on the other side, about 1\u20132 minutes.\n7. Transfer the pancake to a plate and repeat with the remaining batter. Serve warm with desired toppings."}
{"text": "Find the greatest common factor of the given numbers. The greatest common factor of 66 and 44 is 22."}
{"text": "Identify the place where the following photo was taken. The photo was taken at Yosemite National Park in California, USA."}
{"text": "Based on the given 3 numbers, calculate their average. The average of 50, 80, and 90 is 220/3 = 73.33(3)."}
{"text": "Generate a fake movie title with only one word. Utopia."}
{"text": "How is sound waves transmitted? Sound waves are transmitted through vibrating air molecules. When air molecules vibrate, they create compression and rarefaction of air pressure and transmit sound waves through the air."}
{"text": "Describe an \"all-or-nothing\" attitude. An \"all-or-nothing\" attitude is an extreme form of thinking where there is no room for grey areas, moderation or compromise. This attitude reinforces strict black and white thinking and often leads to a win-or-lose mentality. With an all-or-nothing attitude, it is difficult to find middle ground to achieve a successful resolution."}
{"text": "Convert 2 hours and 15 minutes into seconds. 2 hours and 15 minutes is equal to 8,100 seconds."}
{"text": "Summarize the function of the liver. The liver is one of the largest organs in the body and performs multiple important functions, including the removal of toxins from the body, metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, production of bile, storage of vitamins and minerals, and regulation of hormones."}
{"text": "Design a web page with two columns and a footer. <html> \n<head> \n<style> \n  .column {\n    float: left;\n    width: 50%; \n    padding: 15px;\n  }\n  \n  .footer {\n    padding: 15px; \n  } \n\n</style> \n</head> \n<body>\n  <div class=\"column\"> \n    <!-- The content in the left column -->\n  </div>\n  <div class=\"column\"> \n    <!-- The content in the right column -->\n  </div>\n  <div class=\"footer\"> \n    <!-- Footer -->\n  </div>\n</body> \n</html>"}
{"text": "List two features that an excellent project manager should have. An excellent project manager should have excellent communication and organizational skills, be able to motivate the team and have strong problem solving skills."}
{"text": "Suggest two strategies for good communication in a workplace. Two strategies for good communication in the workplace are open, respectful dialogue and active listening. Open and respectful dialogue involves having a two-way conversation between parties, in which both parties share their perspectives and feelings in a constructive manner. Active listening involves listening to understand, rather than to simply respond. This means asking questions to gain clarity and showing that you are actively listening with verbal and nonverbal cues such as nodding and making eye contact."}
{"text": "List two causes of global warming. Two causes of global warming are the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere."}
{"text": "Describe a character trait of the villain in the story. The villain in the story was scheming and manipulative, always looking for ways to gain more power and influence."}
{"text": "Replace the word \"a few\" with a different expression. He ate several slices of pizza."}
{"text": "Generate a meaningful and detailed description of a house. The house was a large, two-story structure with a red brick exterior, white shutters, and a blue slate roof. The entrance opened up to a spacious foyer with a chandelier and a marble staircase that went up to the second floor. On the first floor, there was a living room with comfortable armchairs and a fire place, as well as a kitchen with modern appliances and a dining room with a large wooden table. On the second floor, there were four bedrooms and two bathrooms. In the backyard, there was a well-manicured lawn and a swimming pool."}
{"text": "Write a recipe for a cheese omelette. Ingredients:\n- 3 eggs\n- \u00bc cup of milk\n- \u00bd cup of shredded cheddar cheese\n- 1 tablespoon of butter\n- Salt and pepper to taste\n\nInstructions:\n\n1. Beat the eggs in a bowl with the milk.\n2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.\n3. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet and let it cook for a few minutes.\n4. Sprinkle the cheese over the omelette, and then fold the omelette in half.\n5. Continue cooking for about another 3-4 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the omelette is cooked through.\n6. Serve with salt and pepper to taste."}
{"text": "Summarize the start of the story. John noticed a woman walking down the street, holding a baby and with a determined expression. She appeared to be going somewhere with a purpose."}
{"text": "Do a fact check to confirm the accuracy of the statement and output true or false. True. The tallest mountain in the world is Mount Everest, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. Its peak stands at 8,848 meters."}
{"text": "Find and output the main idea of the given paragraph The main idea of the given paragraph is that William Shakespeare is known for his plays which explore complex emotions and remain relevant to this day."}
{"text": "Do the calculation and output the answer. 4 + 5 x 10 = 4 + 50 = 54"}
{"text": "What type of data structure is most suitable for the given scenario? A hash map or dictionary data structure would be most suitable for this scenario."}
{"text": "Add a sentence to the end of the given paragraph to bring clarity to the argument. Overall, this means that it can be difficult to stay focused on a task for a long period of time, and this can interfere with our ability to learn."}
{"text": "Write a function to find the highest number in the given list of integers. def findMax(myList):\n    maxNum = myList[0]\n    for num in myList:\n        if num > maxNum:\n            maxNum = num\n    return maxNum\n\nprint(findMax([8, 3, 5, 9, 1])) # Output: 9"}
{"text": "Generated a short story that features two people in a conflict. It was a cold, windy night and two people were standing in the middle of an empty street. One of them was a young man, the other an older man. They were both in a heated argument, the younger man saying that he wasn't ready for the older one to go. The older man had decided to go away on a journey and the younger man couldn't bear to let him go. \nHowever, the older man was determined to pursue his journey. The younger man was heartbroken. He begged the older man to stay and promised to take care of everything that he wouldn't have time for. Finally, the older man conceded and promised to come back soon. With a heavy heart, the younger man watched the older man walk away and vanish in the darkness."}
{"text": "Explain the concept of angles of elevation and angles of depression. Angles of elevation and angles of depression are used in trigonometry to measure the angle formed in relationship to a horizontal. An angle of elevation is the angle above the horizontal line and an angle of depression is the angle below the horizontal line. In either case, the angle is formed between the horizontal line, the observer, and the object being viewed. For example, if a person is standing on an elevated point and looking up at an object, the angle between the object and the person\u2019s eye is the angle of elevation. Likewise, if the person is looking down at an object, the angle is the angle of depression."}
{"text": "How to edit a Word document? To edit a Word document, open the document and make the changes you need. You can add text, change the formatting, and move text around as needed. To save the changes, click on the \"Save\" icon at the top of the document window. If you need to print the document, click on the \"Print\" icon at the top of the document window. You can also insert images and other objects into your document by clicking on the \"Insert\" icon."}
{"text": "Describe the concept of Hierarchical Database. Hierarchical database is a type of database structure in which data is stored and organized in a hierarchical structure. This structure is similar to a tree structure, with a single root node as the topmost node of the tree, subsequent levels of data branching off from the root node. Each node in the tree can contain one or more data items, and data items can be linked together by logical relationships, such as parent-child relationships. In a hierarchical database, information is accessed using a unique path, making the data easier to access and manage."}
{"text": "Identify the geographic coordinates of the Egyptian pyramids. The geographic coordinates of the Egyptian pyramids are 29.9764\u00b0 N, 31.1386\u00b0 E."}
{"text": "Is it possible to reproduce a song on a synthesizer? Yes, it is possible to reproduce a song on a synthesizer. Synthesizers can be used to simulate the instruments used in a song, and a musician can control various elements of the music, including tempo, pitch, and volume. With a synthesizer, a musician can create unique and creative sounds, play different instrument parts, and arrange a song."}
{"text": "Generate a sentence using inversion. Never have I seen a sight as beautiful as this."}
{"text": "Create a hashtable in Java. A hashtable in Java can be created using the java.util.Hashtable class. The Hashtable class is a concrete implementation of the Map interface and provides the base for adding and looking up key/value pairs. The keys must be objects, and the values can be either objects or primitive data types such as int, boolean, and double. To create a hashtable, first create a new instance of the Hashtable class, then use the put() and get() methods to add and retrieve key/value pairs."}
{"text": "Categorize the following vehicles as slow, moderate, or fast: car, boat, jet Car: Moderate \nBoat: Slow \nJet: Fast"}
{"text": "Make a list of common elements present in a modern web page. Common elements present in a modern web page includes text, images, links, buttons, search bar, nav bar, footer, animations, videos, and audio. Depending on the website, some pages may also contain additional features such as forms, interactive features, and maps."}
{"text": "What is the species of this plant? The species of this plant is Philodendron bipinnatifidum, commonly known as the Lacy Tree Philodendron."}
{"text": "Generate a sentence using the following words: dragon, islands, fire. The dragon flew over the burning islands, its fiery breath setting the night ablaze."}
{"text": "Convert the following time in 24-hour format The time in 24-hour format is 20:45."}
{"text": "Fix any grammar and spelling errors in the following sentence. The Malloys bought a box of chocolates."}
{"text": "Put the following set of words into their correct grammatical forms. Being, Disruptively"}
{"text": "Find errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation in the following sentence and correct them. Sarah has gone to the store."}
{"text": "Reverse the order of the words in each sentence while still keeping the meaning of the sentence intact. Upset very was he."}
{"text": "Given a text, output a summary of the text with a maximum of 100 words. Caffeine is a stimulant drug found in many products, such as coffee, tea, and energy drinks. It can improve alertness and focus while in low doses, but too much caffeine can lead to insomnia, increased heart rate, and increased blood pressure. Caffeine affects people differently, and can both have positive and negative health effects depending on the amount consumed."}
{"text": "Write an alternate sentence of the following sentence, using a different form of the verb. He is crooning."}
{"text": "Find an appropriate preposition and replace the blank in the sentence. She loves playing sports."}
{"text": "Replace the bolded word using the synonym provided. I took an appalling risk."}
{"text": "Read the provided instructions and output the requested information. The main idea of the passage is that Paris has been a major settlement for over 2000 years and has grown to become a large urban center."}
{"text": "Duplicate the following sentence but using the same verb. He markets cars."}
{"text": "Create a poem of 5 lines with the provided word. Dreams are what keep our spirits high,\nTo never become ash, gray, and dry.\nA dream to sleep and a dream to rise,\nTo keep on dreaming with our eyes.\nDreams are here with us all the way;\nAll our wondrous dreams will never stay."}
{"text": "Write a summary of the following passage in 50 words or less. The American alligator is a large reptile native to the Southeast United States. It can grow up to 11 feet in size, weighing up to 1,000 pounds, with its thick armor-like skin providing protection from predators. An ancient species, with fossil records showing it to be over 150 million years old, the alligator is one of the oldest living animals."}
{"text": "Generate a list of topics that you could use to write a blog post on cryptocurrencies. 1. An introduction to cryptocurrency\n2. The risks and rewards of investing in cryptocurrency\n3. Analyzing the current cryptocurrency market\n4. Impact of cryptocurrency on the global economy\n5. Understanding blockchain technology\n6. Exploring cryptocurrency trading strategies\n7. Top crypto coins for 2021\n8. How to buy and sell cryptocurrency\n9. Understanding mining process for cryptocurrency\n10. Impact of taxes on cryptocurrency investments"}
{"text": "Suggest 3 ways a local business can leverage digital marketing to reach potential customers. 1. Create a website and optimize it for local search engine results.\n2. Utilize social media platforms to increase brand awareness with targeted ads and organic content.\n3. Implement a content marketing strategy to build trust and establish expertise in the local area."}
{"text": "Write a letter to your friend explaining what the startup culture looks like in your city. Dear Friend,\n\nI'm writing to tell you about the startup culture in my city. It's a vibrant and exciting atmosphere, full of energy and creativity. The city is home to a wide range of startups and entrepreneurs, working on a variety of projects and solutions. From tech startups to food delivery services, there is something for everyone. \n\nThe city also has a range of resources and initiatives to help founders succeed. There are accelerators and incubators that offer mentoring, capital and connections, plus events like hackathons to bring people together and provide the opportunity to learn and network. There's even accelerators for specific industries like foodtech and fintech. \n\nIn short, there's something for everyone when it comes to the startup culture here. It's an amazing place to be and I'm sure you'd love it here.\n\nHope to hear from you soon!"}
{"text": "Create a hashtag that represents the idea of transportation innovation. #TransportationRevolution"}
{"text": "Generate 5 tips on how to improve your public speaking skills. 1. Know your audience and tailor your content to them.\n2. Rehearse your delivery and practice with a friend.\n3. Make sure to maintain good posture and confident eye contact.\n4. Utilize gestures and visuals to emphasize your points.\n5. Engage with your audience and take questions."}
{"text": "Generate a list of 6 questions that can be used for an interview about an individual's life. 1. What inspired you to pursue your chosen career?\n2. How has your life experience shaped the person you are today?\n3. What values do you prioritize in life?\n4. What was the most difficult challenge you faced and how did you overcome it?\n5. What important lessons did you learn from previous successes and failures?\n6. What is the one thing you are proudest of accomplishing in your life?"}
{"text": "Name 3 endangered species native to Australia 1. Tasmanian devil\n2. Northern corroboree frog\n3. Yellow-footed rock-wallaby"}
{"text": "Write an informative paragraph on the economic impact of climate change Climate change is having an increasing impact on the global economy. It is estimated that by 2030, the cost of climate change will be between $150 to $300 billion. The sectors that will be the most impacted are agriculture, tourism, and infrastructure. As temperatures rise and extreme weather events become more frequent, crops are damaged, properties are destroyed, and industries are disrupted. Rising sea levels also lead to coastal flooding and the spread of diseases, further adding to economic losses. Additionally, extreme weather events can bring about the forced displacement of millions of people. All of these factors can result in an economic downturn."}
{"text": "Given a list of numbers in random order, arrange them in ascending order. 1, 2, 4, 5, 8"}
{"text": "Shorten this sentence to 8 words. He ran 25 mph."}
{"text": "Delete these three words from the sentence: \"at the end\". She opened the door quickly."}
{"text": "State whether the following statement is true or false: Apple was founded in 1976. The statement is true. Apple was founded in 1976."}
{"text": "Given a list of words, identify the part of speech of each one. The word \"happy\" is an adjective, the word \"counting\" is a verb, and the word \"tall\" is an adjective."}
{"text": "Open the document and edit the spelling mistakes. This is a little difficult."}
{"text": "Given some text, identify any spelling mistakes and spell the incorrect words correctly. Yesterday, I went to the movie theater with my friends."}
{"text": "Come up with a list of 3 side dishes that go well with grilled steak. Roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, and grilled zucchini."}
{"text": "Construct a sentence using the words 'anthem', 'democracy', and 'pride'. We take pride in singing the anthem of our democracy."}
{"text": "Given some text, identify any idioms or phrases in the text and explain their meaning. She is the apple of my eye: This is an idiom which means 'someone who is very special to you'."}
{"text": "Construct a sentence using the words 'fervent', 'values', and 'instill'. We must fervently instill our values in our children."}
{"text": "Given some text, identify any rhetorical devices used in the text. The rhetorical device used in the text is hyperbole."}
{"text": "Given a DateTime string and a Format string, write a Python program to convert the given DateTime string to the specified format. import datetime\ndateTimeString = \"20/08/2020 08:15:55\"\nDTFormatString = \"dd MM, YYYY HH:mm:ss\"\nDTDateTime = datetime.datetime.strptime(dateTimeString, \"%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S\")\nresult = DTDateTime.strftime(DTFormatString)\nprint(result)"}
{"text": "Name three techniques for reducing stress. - Meditation\n- Exercise\n- Mindful breathing exercises"}
{"text": "Create a short story of your own in 200 words featuring the following words: \"plate\" and \"proud\". Once upon a time there was a family that had a small pet bird that they absolutely adored. Every day, they would take the bird out of its tiny cage and set it on a plate on the table. They would marvel as the bird basked in the sunlight and soaked in the attention of its human family. \n\nEvery morning, the family would rise and prepare a delectable assortment of fruits and seeds for their tiny treasure. They would fill the plate to the brim with their creation, and the bird would joyously peck away at its meal. As the day passed, the family would take pride in how much their pet had grown.\n\nThe bird was a blessing for the family; it became a symbol of hope and joy for them. However, as time slowly passed, nothing remains the same. \n\nA few years later, the tiny pet was growing old, and it was slowly becoming more frail. But it still held onto the same pride that it had had when it was young. On its last day, the family brought out the same small plate and filled it with its favorite food.\n\nThe bird quietly passed away that day, but the family was still proud of the time they had spent with their beloved pet. The words \u201cplate\u201d and \u201cproud\u201d became firmly entrenched in the families\u2019 way of life, as they would always be reminded of their little friend every time they looked at the plate on their table."}
{"text": "Given two strings, A and B, write a program to determine whether the two strings are anagrams. def isAnagram(str1, str2): \n    # Getting length of both strings \n    n1 = len(str1) \n    n2 = len(str2) \n  \n    # Sorting both strings to make sure they have same letters \n    str1 = sorted(str1) \n    str2 = sorted(str2) \n  \n    # Comparing sorted strings \n    for i in range(0, n1): \n        if (str1[i] != str2[i]): \n            return False\n  \n    return True\n\n# Driver function \nStringA = \"rat\"\nStringB = \"tar\"\n\nif isAnagram(StringA, StringB): \n    print(\"Yes\")\nelse: \n    print(\"No\")"}
{"text": "Categorize the following words into two groups depending on their spelling. Group 1: bat, bulb, brush\nGroup 2: bird"}
{"text": "Given a budget of 50$, design a day trip for a family of 4 to a nearby destination. For our day trip, we would rent a car to get there since it's nearby. We would pack a delicious picnic lunch to take with us and bring blankets and games for the car ride. We could visit the local park and go on a nature walk through some of the trails, and have lunch there. Afterward, we could visit a nearby heritage site or museum that the family can explore together. We could end the day with a treat like ice cream or cake, and the total cost would be under 50$."}
{"text": "Describe the qualities of an ideal project manager. An ideal project manager should be highly organized, able to manage multiple tasks, and have excellent communication, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills. They should also be detail-oriented and able to stay focused on the big picture. They should be proactive and able to anticipate needs and risks ahead of time, and be able to quickly adapt to any sudden changes or unexpected events. Finally, they should be a people-person who can motivate and inspire those on their team."}
{"text": "Given a list of numbers, 1-10, write a program to determine the sum of the odd numbers. list_of_numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]\n\n# Initialize the variable which stores the sum\nsum_of_odd_numbers = 0\n\n# Iterate through the list\nfor num in list_of_numbers: \n    # Check for odd numbers\n    if num % 2 != 0: \n        # Add odd numbers to the variable\n        sum_of_odd_numbers += num\n\n# Print the sum of odd numbers\nprint(sum_of_odd_numbers)"}
{"text": "Write a C++ program to find the maximum element in an array of numbers. #include <iostream>\nusing namespace std; \n  \n// Function to find maximum in arr[] of size n \nint findMax(int arr[], int n) \n{ \n    int max = arr[0]; // Initialize maximum \n  \n    for (int i = 1; i < n; i++) \n        if (arr[i] > max) \n            max = arr[i]; \n  \n    return max; \n} \n \nint main() \n{ \n    int arr[] = {3, 4, 5, 6, 7}; \n    int n = sizeof(arr)/sizeof(arr[0]); \n \n    // Function calling \n    cout << \"Maximum element in the array is \" << findMax(arr, n); \n  \n    return 0; \n}"}
{"text": "Re-organize the following words in deep learning model. Data \u2192 Structure \u2192 Algorithms \u2192 Weights"}
{"text": "Designate a telephone number for each of the following countries: UK, USA, China, Russia. UK: +44\nUSA: +1\nChina: +86\nRussia: +7"}
{"text": "Explain the purpose of CNNs in computer vision. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are artificial neural networks that are used in computer vision tasks. They can be used to classify images, detect objects in images, and generate new images based on a given set of parameters. CNNs are made up of convolutional layers that have a convolutional filter that is applied to an image. These filters are then used to detect features in an image, such as edges and patterns. The convolutional layers are then followed by pooling layers that reduce the size of the image and help to preserve the important features while discarding redundant ones. By combining these layers, a CNN can be used to develop robust models that are capable of accurately classifying images, detecting objects, and generating new images."}
{"text": "Generate a LinkedIn profile headline for a software developer. Software Developer | Crafting Innovative Solutions | Passionate Problem Solver"}
{"text": "Tell me a seductive phrase I can use to flirt. I must be a snowflake, because I've fallen for you."}
{"text": "Insert a sentence of three clauses at the beginning of the text that provides context to the topic. As early as the 15th century, coffee had already become popular in the Middle East and its surrounding regions, with native coffee trees bearing fruit in such countries as Yemen, Ethiopia, and Sudan."}
{"text": "Give me three synonyms for the word \u201cgusto\u201d. Vigor, enthusiasm, zeal."}
{"text": "Create a debate about the potential benefits and drawbacks of artificial intelligence. The debate about the potential benefits and drawbacks of artificial intelligence is ongoing. On one hand, AI offers many potential advantages, such as accelerating research and development, aiding in disease detection, and providing enhanced customer service. AI is also expected to save jobs by automating mundane tasks and eliminating human error.\n\nOn the other hand, AI raises potential ethical concerns, as well as vulnerabilities in data security. AI has already been leveraged for nefarious purposes, such as deep fakes, and there is a possibility that malicious actors could abuse AI to manipulate public opinion and discredit public voices. In addition, the displacement of human labor by automation is a concern, as it could create economic instability."}
{"text": "Give me a phrase that generally expresses a positive attitude towards the future. Here's to a bright future!"}
{"text": "Write a list of the top 3 cities to live in the state of California. 1. Los Angeles\n2. San Francisco\n3. San Diego"}
{"text": "Identify an ethical issue relating to the use of AI systems. One ethical issue relating to the use of AI systems is the potential for discrimination in decision-making. AI systems can be built to maximize profits for companies at the expense of human labor and other labor and ethical considerations. AI systems can also be used by governments to enforce discriminatory policies, or by businesses to manipulate user behavior for their own gain. Additionally, AI systems can often be tuned in ways that produce biased results, as algorithms are written by humans and thus reflect their own biases, whether consciously or unintentionally. This can potentially lead to unfair outcomes for individuals."}
{"text": "Rewrite the provided sentence She was head and shoulders above the rest of the students, displaying a level of intelligence that was unmatched in the entire class."}
{"text": "Provide an example of a specific use case for an AI assistant in an academic setting A specific use case for an AI assistant in an academic setting would be for an automated peer review system. The AI assistant could be utilized to analyze research papers and provide feedback on the papers' quality. The AI assistant could provide a detailed assessment of the paper's grammar, structure, citation format, and other quality factors. Additionally, it could provide tailored advice and guidelines for improvement, suggesting resources for the author to conduct further research or review other papers in the same field."}
{"text": "List three benefits that AI can provide in healthcare 1. AI can automate mundane administrative tasks, freeing up time and resources for patient care. \n2. AI can provide more personalized, accurate patient diagnosis and treatment. \n3. AI can aid in discovering relevant research and trends in the medical field, helping to accelerate progress in medical science."}
{"text": "Explain how facial recognition technology works. Facial recognition technology uses algorithms to scan and analyze a person\u2019s facial features such as eyes, nose, and mouth. These algorithms are programmed to recognize a certain set of facial features which then helps the system to accurately identify a person. The facial recognition technology then compares the scanned facial features with a database of images in order to match them and identify a person. It can be used for various applications such as verifying a person\u2019s identity or providing access to a restricted area."}
{"text": "Write a news article about the recent cyber attack on Tesla Tesla Motors Inc. recently experienced a major cyber attack which resulted in the exposure of personal information from more than 500 customers. The hack, which reportedly compromised over two terabytes of customer data, included customer emails, phone numbers, addresses, and credit card information. \n\nTesla has since alerted effected customers and claims to have rectified the situation. The source of the attack has not yet been determined, but Tesla has stated that its servers were not breached and that the attack appears to have originated from an external source. \n\nSecurity experts have noted that the attack is yet another reminder that companies must keep up with the latest security protocols in order to safeguard sensitive customer data. Tesla is no stranger to cyber attacks, having experienced similar hacks in the past. It appears that this attack was especially damaging as the hackers gained access to both customer names and credit card information.\n\nIn light of the attack, Tesla is encouraging its customers to review their accounts for any suspicious activity and contact both Tesla and their financial institution if necessary."}
{"text": "Summarize the main themes in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is a dystopian novel about a future where books are banned and burned. The protagonist, Guy Montag, lives in a world of censorship and superficiality, where people are constantly under the watchful eye of surveillance. The story follows Guy's journey as he gradually begins to question the society in which he lives and starts to explore his own conscience and personal identity. The main themes of Fahrenheit 451 include the power of knowledge, censorship and the right to free thought and expression, the emptiness of a life without books, and the importance of the connection between the past and present."}
{"text": "Rewrite the sentence \u201cI ate a snack\u201d in the interrogative form. Did you eat a snack?"}
{"text": "Generate a list of good habits that can be practiced by a teenager. 1. Develop a positive attitude.\n2. Eat nutritious meals.\n3. Get enough sleep.\n4. Develop effective time management skills.\n5. Develop a healthy exercise routine.\n6. Develop healthy habits to maintain mental and emotional wellbeing.\n7. Learn a variety of skills.\n8. Set goals, both short and long term.\n9. Be honest and maintain integrity.\n10. Practice self-care.\n11. Take time to relax and enjoy leisure activities.\n12. Read regularly and continue to educate oneself.\n13. Develop healthy relationships with friends, family and peers.\n14. Take steps to be a responsible and active member of the community.\n15. Practice stress management techniques.\n16. Explore and pursue meaningful activities.\n17. Make thoughtful decisions.\n18. Challenge yourself to grow and learn.\n19. Take personal responsibility for your health, relationships and choices."}
{"text": "Suppose you are given the following pet data and needs to combine with each other. Ritchie and Thiago both have pets, a Cat and a Dog respectively. They both share a love for furry friends, and have been living in harmony ever since they got their pets."}
{"text": "Edit the text so it is shorter and still conveys the same message. Businesses would need to track and report energy usage and emissions to the government if the policy is enacted."}
{"text": "Describe a service that a company provides. Appy Geek provides an invaluable service to helping you stay on top of the latest happenings in the world of technology. With the Appy Geek app for iOS and Android, you can quickly access all the latest news, reviews, and content from the leading tech websites, as well as get personalized recommendations tailored to your individual preferences. With daily updates and notifications, you'll never miss a beat."}
{"text": "Provide a few sentences describing the impact of a corporate merger. The merger of Microsoft and LinkedIn will have far-reaching implications for the entire tech industry. The combination of Microsoft's powerful suite of products such as Office 365 and LinkedIn's vast network of professionals will create an unprecedented powerhouse. This merger will also allow for the development of new products with integrated features and services. Additionally, the move will likely cause disruptions on the market, as the two companies together will create a formidable force in the tech space."}
{"text": "Tell me the capital of Switzerland. Output a single word answer. Bern"}
{"text": "Describe a landscape in three phrases. Tall trees swaying,\nA sky of swirling blue and white clouds,\nVast fields stretching out."}
{"text": "Calculate the area of a circle with radius 3. Output a number. R\u00b2\u03c0 = 9\u03c0 \u2248 28.2743"}
{"text": "Write a short paragraph describing a romantic date. A romantic date should be an experience you will never forget. Imagine a beautiful evening with dinner on the beach, the stars twinkling in the night sky, and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. Follow dinner with a shared sunset stroll through a park or garden, and finish the night off with a few romantic dances and drinks at a cozy, candlelit lounge.  The perfect romantic date leaves you and your partner feeling connected and alive with memories you can always look back on."}
{"text": "List three examples of a non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication includes facial expressions, body language, gestures, tones of voice, and eye contact. Examples of non-verbal communication include smiling, pointing, nodding, crossing arms, using hand gestures, raising eyebrows, and making direct eye contact. Each of these methods are used to convey messages without speaking, and can be beneficial in enhancing and reinforcing verbal communication."}
{"text": "List five activities that involve teamwork. 1. Sports \u2013 Playing a sport such as football, basketball, or baseball as a team.\n2. Group Work \u2013 Working on a collaborative project or activity together with a team.\n3. Problem-Solving Activities \u2013 Working together to solve a problem or figure out a puzzle.\n4. Adventure Sports \u2013 Doing activities such as rafting or kayaking as a team.\n5. Team Building Exercises \u2013 Doing activities and exercises to help a group build a stronger bond of unity and trust."}
{"text": "Describe an example of a successful job interview. A successful job interview involves several important steps. It starts with proper preparation for the interview; ensuring to research the company and the position, organizing appropriate questions, and dressing appropriately for the job are all key elements for success. During the interview, understanding the importance of body language and maintaining eye contact with the interviewer is essential. Additionally, it is important to illustrate your enthusiasm and desire for the job, while also demonstrating how your qualifications and experience match the job requirements. Finally, make sure to show gratitude to the interviewer and follow up with a personalized thank you note afterwards."}
{"text": "Describe a professional email etiquette for the workplace. A professional email etiquette for the workplace involves writing emails with a courteous and respectful tone, staying on topic and avoiding lengthy emails, using appropriate punctuation and formatting, and outlining the exact action you would like the recipient to take. Writing emails in a polite and respectful manner will ensure that your message is taken seriously and that any reply or action is done eagerly. Keeping emails concise and on-topic will also ensure that underlying messages are understood and not lost in details. Correctly formatting emails with headers, punctuation, and spacing is important to enable ease of reading and understanding. Lastly, outlining the exact action you need from the recipient makes it simpler and easier to communicate the desired outcome."}
{"text": "Reword the following sentence by replacing the word \"pursuing\" She believes in chasing her dreams"}
{"text": "Summarize the given text for the reader. Computer vision is a scientific field which enables computers to gain a deeper understanding of digital images and videos. It allows for the automation of tasks that the human visual system can do, such as driver assistance, object finding, photo retouching and medical image analysis."}
{"text": "Analyze the given argument and present your analysis. This argument is correct in that plastic waste is a threat to the environment and that limiting plastic production is necessary to protect the environment. Plastic waste pollution has major impacts on the environment, including harm to wildlife, contamination of soil and water, and release of dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere. Limiting plastic production is a crucial step in mitigating the negative impacts of plastic waste pollution, and it is essential that effective measures are taken to reduce the amount of plastic produced each year."}
{"text": "Formulate a concise response to the given statement. It is important to consider the potential long-term effects of the new tax plan, and whether different groups will benefit or be adversely affected."}
{"text": "Diagnose the underlying problem in the following scenario. The underlying problem is that Martha has poor time management skills. Without the appropriate skills, she has difficulty estimating how much time different tasks will take and may be unable to prioritize her tasks effectively, resulting in lateness."}
{"text": "Describe what the following term means. Artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that focuses on developing computer systems that can think, learn, and act like humans. AI has the ability to analyze large amounts of data and recognize patterns, allowing machines to make decisions and perform tasks that were previously only possible for humans."}
{"text": "List three potential consequences of not addressing global warming in the short term. The potential consequences of not addressing global warming in the short term include: \n1. Rising sea levels due to melting polar ice caps, resulting in increased flooding and coastal erosion. \n2. Changes in weather patterns, leading to extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves.\n3. Declining air quality, resulting in higher rates of respiratory illnesses."}
{"text": "What is the mathematical expression for the following equation? 2x + 3 = 7\n2x = 4\nTherefore, the simplified mathematical expression for the equation is x = 2."}
{"text": "Name three organizations that are doing research related to artificial intelligence. Three organizations that are doing research related to artificial intelligence are OpenAI, Google DeepMind and IBM Watson."}
{"text": "Create a list of at least 4 different pain points that a customer is likely to experience when using this product. 1. Difficulty understanding and learning how to use the technology. \n2. Challenges in navigating complex terrain and environments. \n3. Privacy concerns related to data collection and sharing.\n4. Unreliability in recognizing nearby objects and other vehicles on the road."}
{"text": "Provide an overview of the key benefits of using a cloud computing platform. Using cloud computing offers a wide range of benefits such as increased scalability, reduced costs, improved access to data and applications, improved security and privacy, faster development and deployment, reliability and uptime, and greater flexibility. Cloud computing also ensures availability and performance so applications can be accessed quickly with high performance and reliability. As most cloud services are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, this allows organizations to easily manage their budgets, while still enjoying the capabilities of fast access to computing resources."}
{"text": "Construct a GPT model capable of completing the addition and subtraction of two numbers. 4"}
{"text": "What is a DevOps pipeline? A DevOps pipeline is an automated set of tasks that run from the development phase to the operations phase of an IT project. It is typically used to deploy code or infrastructure changes from development, testing and production environments. The goal of a DevOps pipeline is to improve the agility, quality and velocity of IT projects. It does this by automating release, testing and deployment processes to reduce manual intervention, error and time to deliver."}
{"text": "List 3 types of supervised ML algorithms and their use cases. 1. Decision Trees: Classification and regression\n2. Support Vector Machines: Image classification and facial recognition\n3. Naive Bayes: Text classification and sentiment analysis"}
{"text": "What is the Ideal Gas Law? The Ideal Gas Law is an equation of state which describes the properties of an ideal gas. It states that for a given amount of an enclosed gas, the product of its pressure, volume, and temperature is proportional to the number of moles of gas. The equation of the Ideal Gas Law is PV = nRT, where P is pressure, V is volume, n is the number of moles, R is the ideal gas constant, and T is temperature."}
{"text": "Create a coding program to encrypt a message using the Caesar cipher. Encrypted message: \"Khoor Zruog\" \n\n// Coding Program for Caesar Cipher //\nfunction encrypt(message,key) { \n\tlet encryptedMessage = \"\"; \n\tfor (let i = 0; i < message.length; i++) { \n\t\tlet charCode = message.charCodeAt(i); \n\t\tif ((charCode > 64 && charCode < 91) || (charCode > 96 && charCode < 123)) { \n\t\t\tlet cipherChar = charCode + key; \n\t\t\tif (cipherChar > 90 && cipherChar < 97) { \n\t\t\t\tcipherChar = 65 + (cipherChar - 91);\t\t \n\t\t\t} \n\t\t\tif (cipherChar > 122){ \n\t\t\t\tcipherChar = 97 + (cipherChar - 123);\t\t \n\t\t\t} \n\t\t\tencryptedMessage += String.fromCharCode(cipherChar); \n\t\t} else { \n\t\t\tencryptedMessage += String.fromCharCode(charCode); \n\t\t} \n\t} \n\treturn encryptedMessage;\n} \nlet encryptedMsg = encrypt(\"Hello World\", 3);\nconsole.log(encryptedMsg); // Khoor Zruog"}
{"text": "Describe a mobile app product launch process. A mobile app product launch process involves planning and executing the stages to bring a product to market. The process usually starts with identifying the target audience and understanding their needs, gathering requirements, and designing the product. Once design is finalized, the development phase begins, followed by testing. After the product is tested and ready to launch, marketing strategies must be put in place to promote the product. After launch, the product should be monitored closely through feedback and analytics."}
{"text": "Construct a neural network model capable of predicting the future stock price based on historical stock price data. The neural network model will take the historical data as input and use it as a reference to predict the future stock price. The model will use the data to learn the patterns in the prices for similar stocks and use its knowledge to map out the future price movements. It will also take into account factors such as market news, economic indicators, and signals from other investors to make a more accurate prediction."}
{"text": "Write a function to print a string in reverse order. //Function to print a string in reverse order //\n\nfunction reversePrint(str){\n  let reversedStr = '';\n\n  for (let i = str.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {\n    reversedStr += str[i];\n  }\n\n  console.log(reversedStr);\n}\n\nreversePrint(\"Hello World\");  // dlroW olleH"}
{"text": "Edit the code to remove errors. // Code to print Hello World// \nfunction print() { \n\tconsole.log(\"Hello World\");\n}"}
{"text": "Give a creative name to a caf\u00e9. Brewing Symphony Cafe."}
{"text": "Write a survey question to investigate the attitudes of people towards a certain issue. How comfortable are you discussing matters related to gender equality?"}
{"text": "Come up with an interesting way to introduce a product. Introducing an app that can do more than your wildest dreams \u2014 the new phone app that makes life easier and more fun. Get ready to discover how this handy app can help you get organized, stay connected, and enjoy life to the fullest!"}
{"text": "Change the given sentence into a commands that restricts someone from doing something. Avoid buying food from the store."}
{"text": "Write a blog post about the use of artificial intelligence in mobile applications. From deep learning to natural language processing, artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into many mobile applications. Consumers are embracing AI-powered features that improve user experience and optimize productivity. In this blog post, we'll explore how AI can improve mobile apps and why businesses should consider implementing AI into their products. We'll also look at the challenges and opportunities associated with AI in mobile applications and discuss potential improvements that can be made."}
{"text": "Form a complete sentence using the given words. The cat was curled up under the book."}
{"text": "Suggest some ways to optimize a given webpage. Improve page loading times by optimizing images and using caching for static assets. Minify HTML, JS, and CSS code to reduce the amount of data being loaded. Enable compression with GZIP or Brotli. Use fewer external scripts and stylesheets. Take advantage of browser preloading and prefetching resources. Reduce the number of redirects and HTTP requests that must be made."}
{"text": "Create a survey question that would measure the following sentiment: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the usability of our product?"}
{"text": "What guidelines can be used for determining the best methods for dealing with the given situation? When managing conflicts among team members, it is important to use the following guidelines:\n1) Establish a safe space for team members to express their views and opinions.\n2) Try to reframe the conflict from an individual-level to a collective-level.\n3) Encourage team members to come up with their own solutions.\n4) Encourage active listening and strive to understand the other person's point of view.\n5) Ask questions to clarify misunderstandings and refrain from making assumptions.\n6) Keep an open mind to all possible solutions.\n7) Don't forget to take personal accountability - evaluate how each individual can take responsibility for a particular outcome."}
{"text": "How could the given service be improved to be more customer-friendly? Customer Support Services can be improved to be more customer-friendly by \n1) ensuring that customer queries are handled promptly and politely; \n2) using an automated system to provide timely assistance to customers; \n3) providing customers with access to expert advice; \n4) offering 24/7 service availability; \n5) providing customers with options to communicate with customer support in various ways (e.g. phone, email, chat, social media, etc.); \n6) constantly gathering customer feedback and suggestions to improve customer support services."}
{"text": "How could the given technique be used in the given situations? Data mining techniques can be used in criminal investigations in the following ways: \n1) Analyze vast amounts of data quickly to uncover subtle patterns and connections linked to criminal activities.\n2) Automate the search for patterns by using powerful algorithms and advanced analytics.\n3) Leverage historical data to identify potential leads and suspects.\n4) Use predictive analytics to anticipate the behavior of criminals and crime networks.\n5) Analyze large volumes of text and image data to uncover important evidence."}
{"text": "Describe the steps involved in achieving the given goal. The steps involved in creating a successful online marketing campaign are as follows:\n1) Identify the target audience \u2013 it is important to know who the audience is and what they need or want. \n2) Set goals and objectives \u2013 objectives should be specific and measurable.\n3) Plan and develop a strategy \u2013 develop an effective strategy by researching the market and creating a plan of action.\n4) Execute the campaign \u2013 advertise, track and measure in order to adjust the strategy if necessary.\n5) Analyze the results \u2013 identify the strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvements."}
{"text": "Generate a closing statement for a formal email. I look forward to hearing from you soon."}
{"text": "Provide an example of how the given technology can be used in everyday life. Virtual Reality (VR) can be used in everyday life in a variety of ways. For example, VR can be used to take virtual tours of exotic destinations without leaving the comfort of home. It can be used to experience virtual concerts, sports games, and to play immersive video games. VR can also be used for training purposes, such as simulating emergency situations or to learn complex tasks in a safe and controllable environment."}
{"text": "Convert this text into upper case. I AM EXCITED ABOUT THE NEW PROJECT."}
{"text": "Parse the text and predict male/female and age group. Male, young adult"}
{"text": "Using the provided condition, construct a query in SQL. SELECT column FROM table WHERE condition = true AND gender = 'male'"}
{"text": "Identify whether the given text is an idiom or not. Idiom"}
{"text": "Read the input and answer the question. Returns are accepted within 30 days of purchase as long as the item is in its original condition."}
{"text": "Organize the provided words according to their place in the English alphabetical order. Computer, Quick, Research"}
{"text": "Rewrite this sentence: \n\"John ran and ran until he couldn't run anymore.\" John sprinted ceaselessly until he was completely exhausted, unable to take another step forward."}
{"text": "Generate an opt-in confirmation phrase. Hey Sarah, thanks for confirming your interest in our product. We hope you're as excited as we are!"}
{"text": "Classify the following sentence as verb, noun, adjective, etc. Noun (Nature), Adjective (beautiful)."}
{"text": "Suggest a good title for a document about resumes. \"Creating a Resume That Gets You Noticed: Expert Tips and Strategies\"."}
{"text": "Create a lyric for the chorus of a song about diamonds. \"Diamonds, I'll never let you out of my sight, \nGleaming, glimmering ever so bright,\nShining in the dark, like a beacon of light,\nDiamonds, I'll cherish you forever tonight!\""}
{"text": "Suggest a relatable hashtag for an online campaign for teachers. #MakingEducationMatter"}
{"text": "Rewrite this sentence to show urgency: Pack your bags now!"}
{"text": "Write some pseudo-code to implement merge sort. Merge Sort(A, n) \n    If n == 1 \n        Return A \n    Else \n        Split A into two sub-arrays: A1 and A2 \n        a = MergeSort(A1, n/2) \n        b = MergeSort(A2, n/2) \n        Return Merge(a, b) \n \nMerge(A1, A2) \n    Create an empty array: A \n    i = j = 0 \n    While i < A1.length && j < A2.length \n        If A1[i] < A2[j] \n            A.append(A1[i]) \n            i++ \n        Else \n            A.append(A2[j]) \n            j++ \n    Add remaining elements of A1 and A2 to A \n    Return A"}
{"text": "Describe the events of the European colonization of the Americas. The European colonization of the Americas began with Christopher Columbus arriving in the Caribbean in 1492. The arrival of Europeans initiated a period of large-scale colonization and exploitation of the land, with unprecedented effects on the indigenous populations. Colonization led to the spread of European diseases, the establishment of plantations and colonies, the displacement and exploitation of native populations, the enslavement of African people, and the importation of millions of enslaved Africans."}
{"text": "Outline a plan for creating a web app for ordering food found in a restaurant. A plan for creating a food ordering web app for a restaurant might include the following steps: 1) Analyzing the menu to determine what dishes will be offered, 2) Securing a payment system that can be embedded into the web app, 3) Developing a database system to store customer information and orders, 4) Designing a user-friendly interface, 5) Creating a backend web architecture that can handle order processing, 6) Installing the web app and testing it, and 7) Launching the app and regularly maintaining it."}
{"text": "What are the causes of friction and what ways can we decrease it? The causes of friction are the interactions between two surfaces which cause them to resist motion. Ways of decreasing friction include using lubricants and changing the surfaces of the materials in contact with each other. Smooth, hard surfaces generally offer less friction than uneven, soft materials."}
{"text": "Explain how planetary motions in the Solar System work. The planetary motions in the Solar System are governed by the laws of gravity and inertia. Every planet in the system orbits around the Sun in an elliptical path due to the gravitational pull of the Sun. This orbital motion is regulated by the laws of inertia, which states that an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. In addition, each planet has an axis of rotation and its own unique period of revolution around the Sun."}
{"text": "Generate a list of questions the user can ask a chatbot about home insurance. Questions about home insurance that users can ask a chatbot include:\n- What types of home insurance are available?  \n- What are the coverage limits for home insurance?\n- What are the exclusions and limitations for home insurance? \n- What is the process for filing a home insurance claim?\n- What discounts are available for home insurance?\n- What is the cost of home insurance?\n- What documents are needed to purchase home insurance?\n- What are the different types of home insurance deductibles?"}
{"text": "Describe how a person can incur debt. A person can incur debt in a variety of ways, such as taking out a loan or using credit cards to make purchases. Debt can also be incurred from unpaid bills, such as utilities or medical bills. In some cases, debt may be inherited or passed on from family members."}
{"text": "Give an example of an artificial neural network algorithm. An example of an artificial neural network algorithm is backpropagation, which is a form of supervised learning used to train neural networks. Backpropagation seeks to adjust the connection weights and bias in a neural network in order to reduce the error between the predicted output and the actual output."}
{"text": "In one sentence, explain the concept of 'social media'. Social media is a platform that enables people to connect and share information with each other."}
{"text": "Describe the role of culture in a health care setting. Culture plays an important role in the delivery of healthcare, as it can influence an individual's beliefs, values, and behavior towards health, health care, and treatment. Cultural competency is essential in creating an effective and respectful health care environment."}
{"text": "List 5 advantages of online communication. 1. Cost savings due to reduced travel costs\n2. Increased collaboration among remote workers\n3. Increased convenience of communication\n4. Enhanced productivity due to improved collaboration\n5. Increased visibility of communication allowing for follow up when needed."}
{"text": "Assign a score between 1 and 10 to the following statements to indicate the level of agreement/disagreement with them. 4"}
{"text": "Form a sentence using the phrase, \"in the current climate\". In the current climate, it is essential to take proactive steps to protect the environment."}
{"text": "List three ways to effectively participate in a team meeting. 1. Prepare for the meeting by researching relevant topics and gathering the necessary resources.\n2. Participate actively in the discussion by speaking clearly and listening attentively to other members.\n3. Make sure to follow up on any points that may have been missed during the meeting."}
{"text": "Extract the main verb from the following sentence and classify it according to its tense. Verb: eat, Tense: present continuous"}
{"text": "What types of visual elements should you include when designing a logo? When designing a logo, it is important to include visuals such as symbols, shapes, typography, and colors that represent the brand identity."}
{"text": "Describe a time when you used a creative approach to solve a problem. I was once tasked with completing a project that had strict deadlines and a tight budget. I used my creative thinking to develop a feasible solution which involved using existing resources and combining existing services to create an all-in-one cost-effective option that allowed us to reach our goals on time and under budget."}
{"text": "List 5 book genres. Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy, Romance."}
{"text": "What are the three main elements of effective communication? The three main elements of effective communication are expressing oneself clearly, actively listening to others, and being aware of body language."}
{"text": "State a fact about a recent event. On November 3, 2020 Joe Biden was elected 46th President of The United States."}
{"text": "Compose an e-mail to a professor submitting the final version of an assignment. Dear Professor Smith,\n\nI am writing to submit my final version of the assignment for your course, entitled \"The Effects of Climate Change on Human Society\". I have taken into consideration all the feedback you provided during my previous submissions and I believe that the final version accurately reflects the guidelines you have set out.\n\nI hope you will enjoy reading this last version, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.\n\nThank you for your time and your support throughout this semester.\n\nSincerely, \n[Your Name]"}
{"text": "Identify at least 3 symptoms of depression. Signs and symptoms of depression can include feeling hopeless or empty, having low energy, difficulty concentrating, sleeping too much or too little, emotional numbness, loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed, increased episodes of crying, irritability or anger, feeling easily overwhelmed, loss of appetite or overeating, persistent aches or pains, and thoughts of suicide or death."}
{"text": "Create an analogy that compares an eagle to a hurricane. An eagle is to flying as a hurricane is to destruction."}
{"text": "Generate a hypothesis to explain why cats love to bask in the sun. Cats may bask in the sun to absorb the warmth, which helps them relax and increase their body temperature."}
{"text": "Generate a list of questions you should ask a potential landlord before signing a lease agreement. Questions to ask a potential landlord:\n- What are the terms of the lease agreement? \n- What are the security deposit requirements? \n- What utilities are included in the rental fee? \n- Are there any restrictions regarding pets? \n- Are late fees applied for missed rent payments? \n- What happens when the tenant needs to move out before the lease agreement is over? \n- Are repairs and maintenance taken care of by the landlord? \n- Do you have references from previous tenants?"}
{"text": "Suggest a random activity that can be done outdoors. Going for a nature walk."}
{"text": "Explain the most effective strategy for memorizing a list of 10 items. The most effective strategy for memorizing a list of 10 items is through the use of mnemonic devices, such as an acronym or acrostic. An acronym is formed by creating a word from the first letter of each item in the list, while an acrostic involves using a word or phrase as a prompt for each item on the list. For example, for the list of items [\"Apple\", \"Banana\", \"Cherry\", \"Durian\", \"Eggplant\", \"Fig\", \"Grape\", \"Honeydew\", \"Ice cream\", \"Jicama\"], you could create the acronym \"ABCDFEGAHIJ\" or the acrostic \"All Beckon Cherries Deliciously Famished, Eggplants Generously Allowed, Honeydews Inside Creamy Jams.\""}
{"text": "Provide an example of how empathy can help resolve a conflict. An example of how empathy can help resolve a conflict would be for one or both parties to try to see the other person's viewpoint by understanding their feelings and experiences. By acknowledging and validating the emotional state of the other person, both parties can come to a solution that is beneficial to both without further escalating the conflict."}
{"text": "Describe a scenario where two people are discussing a plan for an upcoming event together. The two friends were discussing where to host the reunion. One suggested the beach, while the other was in favor of a nearby park. They agreed to look into both options before making a final decision."}
{"text": "Come up with a new way to use a common item in the kitchen. Using a garlic press to quickly make flour-based dumplings."}
{"text": "Hypothesize on the effects that global warming might have on the environment. Global warming may have a number of effects on the environment, such as rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and reduced biodiversity. It may also lead to changes in ecosystems and the geographic range of species."}
{"text": "Generate a list of tips for improving your concentration. Tips for improving your concentration include: getting enough sleep, breaking tasks into smaller chunks, taking breaks throughout the day, reducing distractions, and setting achievable goals."}
{"text": "Describe the architecture of a modern skyscraper. Modern skyscrapers typically feature a steel frame or concrete core for structural support and reinforced concrete walls for lateral strength and stability. The exterior is usually clad with glass, stone, and metal accents."}
{"text": "Create a poem that uses vivid imagery. The stars shine like diamonds against the night sky,\nTwinkling softly, a twilit lullaby.\nThe gentle moonlight, a pale light so bright,\nShimmers in the cool night, a calming sight."}
{"text": "Name two advantages of using a computer versus manual labor. The advantages of using a computer instead of manual labor are increased efficiency, accuracy, speed, and scalability."}
{"text": "Outline the steps for solving a Rubik's cube. The steps for solving a Rubik's cube are: (1) create a cross on the top of the cube, (2) solve the top layer, (3) make a top layer corner, (4) middle layer edges, (5) solve the last layer corner, and (6) solve the last layer edges."}
{"text": "Explain why people write reviews. People write reviews to give an opinion on a product, service, or experience as a way to help other people make informed decisions. Reviews can also be used to share experiences and give feedback to businesses."}
{"text": "Generate three example questions that could be answered with an AI assistant. 1. What is the weather like today?\n2. What is the best route to get to the grocery store?\n3. What is the currency exchange rate between US dollars and Euros?"}
{"text": "Design an experiment that would help confirm the cause of a phenomenon. An experiment could be designed to test the effect of light levels on bird motion. Birds could be put in a dark environment and a light environment, both of which could be compared to the natural environment during a full moon. Bird motion could be measured both in darkness and light to see if there is a significant difference in flight patterns."}
{"text": "Generate a list of at least three possible consequences for a given action. - Risk of developing chronic diseases\n- Reduced energy levels\n- Poor nutrition"}
{"text": "Make a list of at least four tasks for a given profession. - Prepare meals according to recipes\n- Monitor food quality and presentation\n- Ensure all food safety regulations are met\n- Manage food costs and maintain inventory\n- Order and purchase food supplies\n- Develop new dishes and menu items"}
{"text": "For a given profession, introduce a key technology or tool currently used. Paramedics use a variety of specially designed equipment to help treat patients in emergency situations, such as a defibrillator to help restart a patient's heart or a specialized monitor to track vital signs. They also use technology such as two-way radios and GPS navigation systems to ensure they get to the right location quickly and safely."}
{"text": "Analyze the effect of a given event on society and culture. The rise of social media platforms has caused a shift in the way people interact and communicate. It has also changed the way information is shared and how markets and businesses operate. Social media has become a major influence on entertainment, news, fashion and lifestyle decisions."}
{"text": "Identify at least four symptoms of a given medical condition. Symptoms of depression include: feeling sad or down, reduced energy and motivation, loss of interest in activities, changes in appetite and weight, difficulty concentrating, sleeping too much or too little, irritability, restlessness, guilt and worthlessness, and thoughts of death or suicide."}
{"text": "Identify two issues associated with a given topic. Urbanization can lead to increased air pollution, traffic congestion, higher rates of crime and reduced water resources."}
{"text": "Write a creative story beginning with this phrase. As she stepped into the room, she was immediately taken aback by the sheer beauty of it. The walls were painted a deep crimson, and the furniture was made with the finest mahogany. She couldn't help but feel as though she had stepped into a fairy tale, and it felt as though the room had an air of magic to it. She slowly made her way around, taking stock of her surroundings, when she noticed something odd on the far wall. \nIt was a painting, but unlike any she had ever seen. It showed a strange creature, with the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. It had a kindly expression on its face, and the longer she looked at it, the more it felt as though it wanted to tell her something. \nShe wasn't sure why this creature had chosen to make itself known to her, but as she continued to stare into its eyes, she knew that she had to find out. She had an adventure ahead of her, and this was only the beginning."}
{"text": "Name two benefits of having a pet cat Having a pet cat comes with many benefits. Firstly, cats are low maintenance pets and require little effort to take care of. They require minimal grooming and they also don't need to be taken for walks. Secondly, cats can make great companions. They can provide an unconditional love and attention that can help reduce stress and anxiety levels. Cats also provide a sense of comfort and companionship which can be a great comfort in times of loneliness or sadness. All these benefits make having a pet cat a great experience."}
{"text": "Write a story about two adventurers Once there were two adventurers, Alex and Sarah, who set off on an ambitious quest to explore the world. They both had their own reasons for embarking on this journey: Sarah desperately wanted to escape the monotony of everyday life, while Alex felt a deep longing to find a place in this world where he truly belonged.\n\nThe two of them traveled far and wide, facing many challenges that tested their strength and resilience. From dangerous wild animals to harsh terrain, they never backed down from anything that threatened their mission. Eventually, they reached the most remote corner of the world, where they encountered a magical settlement that had been hidden away from the rest of the world. \n\nThe villagers welcomed them with open arms and revealed many of their secrets. After spending a few days in their new home, Alex and Sarah both felt like they found the place where they truly belonged.\n\nThe two adventurers stayed for many weeks, learning new things, enjoying life, and having loads of fun. Before leaving, Alex and Sarah realized that their journey had changed them both in ways that could not be seen. They had become stronger and wiser people, and gained more confidence in themselves. \n\nWhen the time came to depart, the villagers sent them off with heartfelt tears and wishes of good luck. Alex and Sarah exchanged a long embrace and promised to stay in touch. As they walked away, they both knew in their hearts that they would never forget this magical place."}
{"text": "Describe the significance of the color blue The color blue has a wide range of meanings and associations. In some cultures it is seen as a calming and serene hue, as it is associated with the sky and the sea. Blue can also symbolize trust, loyalty, and peace, as it is often seen as a color of honesty and stability. Blue is a common color choice for professional settings, as it can inspire feelings of authority, knowledge and trustworthiness."}
{"text": "Identify whether this sentence is written in active or passive voice. The sentence is written in passive voice."}
{"text": "Convert this sentence written in passive voice to an active voice sentence. He conducted the meeting."}
{"text": "Identify the mood of this sentence. The mood of the sentence is joyful."}
{"text": "Name a famous leader who was a strong advocate of gender equality. Nelson Mandela was a strong advocate of gender equality."}
{"text": "Generate a sentence which expresses gratitude. I am so thankful for all the help I have received."}
{"text": "Name two factors that contribute to decision-making. Two factors that contribute to decision-making are past experiences and perceived consequences."}
{"text": "Give an example of a situation in which you had to negotiate. I had to negotiate with my landlord to get a better price for my apartment."}
{"text": "Classify the following into either facts or opinions. Fact"}
{"text": "What is the average height of a male in the US? The average height of a male in the US is 5 feet 9 inches (175.3 cm)."}
{"text": "Design a survey to collect demographic data. The survey should include questions about age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, marital status, occupation, income level, and geographic location. These questions should be specific enough to collect the desired information, but not too invasive. The survey should also include a few open-ended questions so that respondents can provide more detailed information about their backgrounds."}
{"text": "Describe the concept of 'zero gravity'. Zero gravity is the condition of weightlessness experienced while in freefall. In zero gravity, there is no sensation of weight because the gravitational force from the earth is completely canceled out by the equal and opposite force of freefall. When in freefall, gravity will pull on any object equally, regardless of its mass or density."}
{"text": "Edit the following sentence to include a stronger verb. He glimpsed a dog."}
{"text": "Print the following sentence in all capitals. THE CAT JUMPED ON THE BED."}
{"text": "Translate the following sentence into Chinese: \"It is raining outside\" \u5916\u9762\u6b63\u5728\u4e0b\u96e8\u3002"}
{"text": "Clasify the sentiment of the following statement: \n\"The weather is freezing today!\" Negative."}
{"text": "Summarize the following article in 90 words: \n\n\nThe internet of things (IoT) is the architecture of the digital world. It connects many devices like smartphones, laptops, and even home appliances, enabling them to communicate with each other. This connectivity enables people to remotely control and monitor the devices, unlocking potential for system scalability, customization, and automation. With IoT, users can easily track, automate, and optimize device performance and energy usage. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects, including smartphones, laptops, and home appliances, connected to the internet and able to communicate with each other. It enables users to control and monitor devices remotely, and allows for system scalability, customization, and automation capabilities. IoT allows users to track, automate and optimize device performance and energy usage, offering new levels of efficiency and productivity."}
{"text": "Convert the following sentence from camelCase to snake_case: \"collectDataForNewProject\" collect_data_for_new_project"}
{"text": "How was the coronavirus pandemic handled by the United States? The United States handled the coronavirus pandemic with a patchwork of measures, including nationwide lockdowns, the deployment of contact tracers and health care workers, widespread testing, the development and widespread distribution of vaccines, and the implementation of various regulations and guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus."}
{"text": "Spell out \"happy\" in sign language Using American Sign Language (ASL), \"happy\" is signed by joining the tip of the thumb of the non-dominant hand to the tip of the index finger of the dominant hand and swaying from side to side."}
{"text": "Explain the difference between a web application and a native application A web application is an application that is hosted on a web server and accessed through a web browser. A native application is an application that has been designed to run on a specific operating system or platform, such as iOS, Android or Windows. A web application can run on any platform as long as it has a web browser, while a native application must be specifically designed and coded for the platform it is to run on. Furthermore, web applications can update quickly across multiple platforms and devices, while native applications require separate updates for each unique platform and device."}
{"text": "Divide the following group of numbers into odds and evens:  4, 8, 6, 9, 3 Odds: 4, 9, 3\nEvens: 8, 6"}
{"text": "Create a short story about a student who is struggling with Chemistry John was a brilliant student with a hardworking nature. But in Chemistry, he was struggling to keep up. He was confused by the formulas and equations in the book and the lectures seemed to flow over his head at times. He tried his best to stay focused in class and listen carefully but the subject often seemed daunting to him. He was determined to succeed however, so to help himself, he stayed up late studying the subject and reading up on it every day. He continued to practice and eventually he came to understand the concepts better and made progress with the subject. In the end, he was proud of himself for having put in such effort and becoming a better student."}
{"text": "Construct a SQL statement that selects the name, ID, and address from a table called \"people\" SELECT Name, ID, Address FROM People;"}
{"text": "Create a question about artificial intelligence What are the potential risks and challenges associated with using artificial intelligence in business contexts?"}
{"text": "Convert the parameter value to a string. str(0)"}
{"text": "Generate a fictitious company name. GlobalSolTech"}
{"text": "Find the 5 most similar words for \"happy\". Cheerful, joyous, elated, delighted, content"}
{"text": "Create an outline for a persuasive essay on why people should not text while driving. I. Introduction\n A. Definition of texting while driving\n B. Thesis statement: People must stop texting while driving due to the potential danger it poses to everyone. \nII. Body\n A. Reason 1: texting while driving increases the risk of an accident\n  i. Statistical data of texting while driving-related cases\n  ii. How texting while driving contributes to accidents\n B. Reason 2: Texting while driving can reduce reaction time \n  i. How reaction time is reduced in response to texting while driving\n  ii. The impact of decreased reaction time\n C. Reason 3: Texting while driving can cause distraction\n  i. Difference between hands-free and handheld devices\n  ii. Examples of texting while driving-related cases \nIII. Conclusion\n  A. Summary of points\n  B. Final remarks"}
{"text": "Classify the word \"software\" as an adjective, noun, or verb. Noun"}
{"text": "Explain the concept of concurrency control in databases. Concurrency control in databases is a technique used to ensure multiple transactions can be executed in a safe and consistent manner. This is achieved by locking data when it is being modified, thus allowing transactions to take place sequentially instead of in parallel. This prevents several transactions from concurrently trying to update the same data, resulting in conflicts. This ensures that data integrity and consistency remain intact when transactions are executed concurrently."}
{"text": "He was hopeful for a good result, this was his last shot and he was what? desperate. i have just focussed on being in a good space and obviously"}
{"text": "If there is a pond with nobody nearby, where is it likely located? countryside. what is someone likely to call a baz"}
{"text": "Where is one not likely to find a ring road? freeway system. freeway system  one not likely to find a ring road"}
{"text": "Unlike Mars and all its dust, what is full of all sorts of features from soil and rock to water and grass? surface of earth. i consider it the best option because they have to be more true"}
{"text": "John he dreaming that he's falling.  What could happen when he hits the ground in his dream? might awaken. that's the best option since that's where there are more roses"}
{"text": "Bob thought that his Pokemon cards were common and worthless, but he was wrong about them. They were really what? rare. bob will not pokemon cards were common and worthless but wrong about them so feel really rare to delay"}
{"text": "What would you do with your plumbing to a plumber if it is broken? show. most professional plumbers offer free estimates to customers \u2014 be wary of any who want to give you one"}
{"text": "He had only experienced tangible and corporeal events in his life, but the hippy girl opened up his what side? spiritual. the hippy girl opened up this side for spiritual."}
{"text": "where would a good newspaper boy put a paper in the rain? front door. is the best since it is the best backup"}
{"text": "Which door with lock do you secure when running an errand? house. i was secure my house"}
{"text": "The person was thirsty, what should he have done? drink water. the person was thirsty, so drink water."}
{"text": "What does a round glass do? hold water. a glass can hold water."}
{"text": "Where may I view sharks in a clear tunnel? sea world. sea world may i view sharks in a clear tunne"}
{"text": "The ECB was focused on fighting inflation without concern for other issues.  This obviously caused what? problems. problems the ecb was focused on fighting inflation without concern for other issues. this obviously caused what?"}
{"text": "Where is lint unlikely to be? purse. i think it's unlikely, but since no one else seems to know where it's from it might be worth checking"}
{"text": "Alexa needed a safe place to put her acoustic guitar when she wasn't playing it.  Where might she put it? closet. a cupboard or a small room with a door, used for storing things, especially clothes"}
{"text": "Who would you go to if you wanted a picture of a thermometer? drawer. a thermometer would most likely be found in a hospital.  the odds are pretty low to find it in either a random cabinet or drawer."}
{"text": "I have something in my head I want to share, what ways can I do that? speak information. speak information something in my head i want to share,what ways"}
{"text": "James used the cannon to shoot at something while seeking lunch. It was overkill.  What did he shoot at? ungulate. the lot of mammals are killed by the branded gun"}
{"text": "The video game featured an anger bar that you charged up to more easily do what? destroy enemy. the video game featured in destroy enemy."}
{"text": "Lawyers often lease where? office building. military band group may be one of the few where playing the bugle has a big role"}
{"text": "A shower is an expected amenity when you reserve a what? motel room. place which usually prefers because it looks lovable"}
{"text": "He needed a computer program to do a certain task and he knew how to make it, so he began to do what? write code. computer program to tastk he write code number and knew all details"}
{"text": "What is the goal of most people playing games? winning. playing games to football"}
{"text": "Where is a knight likely to be a hero? historical novel. anya gage has learned that to get anything good in life, you have to work for it. she has no expectations, no dreams."}
{"text": "The insects were bigger this time.  They were exposed to a significant level of DDT. How were they exposed? accidental. that's the best option since that's where there are more roses"}
{"text": "When Alice walks up the hill, her speed is 1 m/s and when she goes down the hill, her speed is 3 m/s. Then when Alice walks up and down the hill, what is her average speed? 1.5, 3/2. If Alice covers a distance of d going up and down the hill, then her total distance is 2d. Her time going up the hill is d/1 = d, and her time going down the hill is d/3. So, her total time is d + d/3 = 4d/3. Therefore, her average speed is 2d/(4d/3) = 3/2 m/s."}
{"text": "9 days among 10 days, Alice goes out for drink. She only goes to three bars for drink with equal frequency. Bob is trying to find Alice today. However, he fails after going to two bars. What is the probability that Alice shows up in the third bar? 0.75, 75%, 3/4. The first thing to realize is that Alice might not be out at all today, which happens 1 in 10 days. If she does go out (9/10 probability), she chooses each bar with 1/3 probability. Bob has already checked two bars, so if she is out, she must be at the third bar. So, the probability that Alice is at the third bar given that Bob didn't find her at the first two is (9/10 * 1/3) / ((9/10 * 1/3) + (1/10 * 1)) = 3/4."}
{"text": "One peach costs one cent. You can use 3 peach pits to exchange for one peach. If you have 10 cents, then what is the maximal number of peaches you can eat? 15. With 10 cents, you can initially buy 10 peaches. After eating these, you'll have 10 pits. You can exchange 9 of these pits for 3 more peaches. After eating these, you'll have 4 pits left (1 from before and 3 new ones). You can then exchange these for another peach. Now, you can eat 10 + 3 + 1 = 14 peaches. After eating these, you have 2 pits left (1 from before and 1 new pit). Because we are considering the number of peaches that are eaten the most. You can borrow one pit from others, and then exchange all the 3 pits for 1 more peach. After eating the last peach, you return the last pit. So in total, you can eat 10 + 3 + 1 + 1 = 15 peaches."}
{"text": "You finish drinking 20% of a cup of milk. You then fill up water, drink 40% of it and fill up water again. What is the percentage of milk in this cup now? 48%, 0.48. After drinking 20% of the milk, you have 80% milk left in the cup. When you fill it with water and drink 40% of the mix, you drink 40% of the 80% milk, leaving 60% of the 80% milk, which is 48% of the original volume. When you fill the cup with water again, the percentage of milk remains the same as the volume doubles, but the ratio of milk to total volume stays constant. So, there is 48% milk left in the cup."}
{"text": "We put 10 g salt into 100 g water. What is the percentage of salt now? 9.09%, 0.0909, 1/11. The total weight of the mixture (salt + water) is 10 g + 100 g = 110 g. The percentage of salt is the mass of the salt divided by the total mass of the mixture, multiplied by 100. So, (10 g / 110 g) * 100 = 9.09%."}
{"text": "We have 1 ton of apples which contain 90% water. After a few days, those apples only have 80% water. What is the weight of those apples now? 0.5. Initially, 10% of the apples is non-water content, which is 0.1 tons. After a few days, this non-water content makes up 20% of the total weight (because the water content has reduced to 80%). If 0.1 tons represents 20% of the total weight, the total weight of the apples now would be 0.1 tons / 20% = 0.5 tons."}
{"text": "At most how many distinct natural numbers sum to 100? 14. 0 + 1 + 2 + ... + 14 = 105 > 100. So, you can sum 14 distinct natural numbers at most. For example, 0 + 1 + 2 + ... + 11 + 12 + 22 = 100"}
{"text": "20 people get full marks for math. 20 people get full marks for history. 20 people get full marks for physics. 7 people get full marks for both math and physics. 9 for both history and physics. 3 do not get full marks for any of the subjects. How many people are there at most? 47. We have 20 math, 20 history, and 20 physics high-scorers, but some of these are counted multiple times because they scored high in more than one subject. Specifically, 7 people scored high in both math and physics, and 9 scored high in both history and physics. The people who scored high in both math and physics are counted twice in our total, as are the people who scored high in both history and physics. So, we subtract these from our total to avoid double-counting, giving us 20 + 20 + 20 - 7 - 9 = 44. Finally, we add the 3 people who did not score high in any subject, giving us a total of 47 people."}
{"text": "If five machines produce 5 items in 5 minutes, then how long do 100 machines need to produce 100 items? 5. If five machines produce 5 items in 5 minutes, it means each machine takes 5 minutes to produce one item. Therefore, 100 machines would still take 5 minutes to produce 100 items, as each machine is still producing one item in the same amount of time."}
{"text": "85% of the taxis in this city are green, the others are blue. A witness sees a blue taxi. She is usually correct with a probability of 80%. What is the probability that the taxi seen by the witness is blue? 41%, 0.41. Out of all the taxis in the city, 85% are green and the remaining 15% are blue. The witness sees a blue taxi. There are two possibilities: either she saw a blue taxi and identified it correctly, or she saw a green taxi and misidentified it as blue.  The probability of seeing a blue taxi and identifying it correctly is (15% * 80%) = 12%. The probability of seeing a green taxi and misidentifying it as blue is (85% * 20%) = 17%. Therefore, the probability that the taxi seen by the witness is blue is (12% / (12% + 17%)) = 41%."}
{"text": "Suppose we find a murderer's fingerprint at a crime scene. After comparing this fingerprint with 20000 people, the police found a suspect whose fingerprint matches the one at the scene. Now, this suspect is brought to court and accused of being the murderer. The expert in court tells you that the chance of modern fingerprint comparison technology mistaking two people's fingerprints as the same is 0.01%. Assuming that all 20000 people compared by the police are innocent, what is the percentage that at least one match will be produced after the murderer's fingerprint is compared with them one by one? 86.5%, 0.865. The key here is that the police conducted 20000 independent fingerprint comparisons. Each comparison has a 0.01% chance of a misidentification. To calculate the probability of at least one misidentification, we first calculate the probability of no misidentification, and then subtract this probability from 1. Assuming each comparison is independent, the probability of no misidentification is the product of 99.99% raised to the power of 20000, i.e., (0.9999)^20000 \u2248 0.135. So, the probability of at least one misidentification is 1 - 0.135 = 0.865, or about 86.5%."}
{"text": "How many people need to be in a room to make the probability that at least two people have the same birthday exceed 50%? 23. To understand this, you need to consider all possible pairs among people in the room, not just consider each new person entering the room pairing with the people already in the room. Therefore, when there are 23 people in a room, there are 253 possible pairs. The chance of these 23 people having different birthdays is: (364 / 365) ^ 253 = 0.4995. This is why it only takes 23 people to make the probability that at least two people have the same birthday exceed 50%."}
{"text": "In a city of 1 million inhabitants, there are 100 known criminals. All inhabitants, including the criminals, are tested with a new crime prediction technology. The technology has a reliability of 95%, meaning that 95% of true criminals are identified as criminals, and 95% of innocent people are identified as innocent. What is the percentage that a person identified as a criminal by the technology is indeed a criminal? 1.9%, 0.019. Intuitively, one might think that if the technology identifies someone as a criminal, there would be a 95% chance that they are indeed a criminal, given the reliability of the technology. However, this is a misunderstanding of the concept of conditional probability. In this case, the actual probability is much lower. Among 1 million people, 100 are criminals. According to the reliability, the technology will correctly identify 95 criminals (95% of 100) and incorrectly identify 5% of the innocent people as criminals, which is 49950 people (5% of 999900). So, if a person is identified as a criminal, the probability that they are indeed a criminal is 95/(95 + 49950), which equals approximately 0.019, or 1.9%."}
{"text": "You have a tank of water that is initially empty. On the first day, you add one fish to the tank. Every day thereafter, each fish in the tank births one new fish. How many fish will be in the tank at the end of 10 days? 512. The number of fish doubles each day, starting from the second day. So, there should be 2^(N-1) fish at the end of N days. Here, we set N = 10 and get the answer: 512 days."}
{"text": "You have 100 chairs in a row. You start by flipping every chair (1, 2, 3, ..., 100) from its initial position. Then, you flip every second chair (2, 4, 6, ..., 100). Next, you flip every third chair (3, 6, 9, ..., 99). You continue this process until you flip every 100th chair (only chair 100). How many chairs are flipped back to their initial position after all the flips? 90. A chair will be flipped back to its initial position if it has been flipped an even number of times. A chair will be flipped every time one of its divisors is encountered in the process. For example, chair 6 will be flipped during the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th steps. Notice that divisors come in pairs, like (1, 6) and (2, 3) for chair 6. So, for most chairs, they will have an even number of divisors and will be flipped back to their initial position. However, square numbers have an odd number of divisors because one of the divisor pairs is a repeated number (e.g., chair 9 has divisors 1, 3, and 9). So, only square number chairs will not be flipped back to their initial position. There are 10 square numbers between 1 and 100 (1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100), so there will be 100 - 10 = 90 chairs flipped back to their initial position."}
{"text": "A mouse can produce a litter of 6 mice every month, and each of those mice can start reproducing when they are 2 months old. If you start with a single one-month-old mouse, how many mice will you have after 4 months? 55. This problem involves exponential growth, but it is not as simple as it might seem. In the first month, you have 1 mouse. In the second month, that mouse produces 6 offspring, so you have 7 mice. In the third month, the original mouse produces another 6 offspring. However, the first 6 offspring cannot produce as they are only one month old. In the third month, we have 13 mice (1 2-month-old + 6 1-month-old + 6 newborns). In the fourth month, the original mouse produces another 6 offspring, the first 6 offspring each produce 6 more mice, resulting in 13 + 6 + 6*6 = 55 mice."}
{"text": "In a town, 60% of the women are married to 80% of the men. What percentage of the total adult population is married? 68.57%, 0.6875. Let's assume there are W women and M men in the town. According to the given information, 0.6W women are married to 0.8M men. Since each married woman is married to one married man, we have 0.6W = 0.8M. Now, let's express M in terms of W: M = (0.6W) / 0.8 = 0.75W. The total adult population is W + M = W + 0.75W = 1.75W. The total number of married people is 0.6W + 0.8M = 0.6W + 0.8(0.75W) = 1.2W. So, the percentage of the total adult population that is married is (1.2W / 1.75W) * 100 = 68.57%."}
{"text": "You have a pack of 52 playing cards. You draw one card every day, and after drawing, you put the card back into the pack and shuffle it. What is the least number of days you'd need to draw cards in order for you to have a greater than 50% chance of drawing the Ace of Spades at least once? 36. This is a question about probability. Rather than calculating the probability of drawing the Ace of Spades at least once, it's easier to calculate the probability of never drawing it at all, which is (51/52) to the power of the number of days. To have a greater than 50% chance of drawing the Ace of Spades at least once, we want the probability of never drawing it to be less than 50%, or 0.5. So, we solve this equation for the number of days: (51/52)^x < 0.5. The solution to this equation is approximately 36."}
{"text": "A flock of birds is flying in a V formation. There are 25 birds on the left side of the V and 25 birds on the right side. If one bird from the left side moves to the right side, how many more birds will be on the right side than the left side? 2. When one bird moves from the left side to the right side, the left side loses one bird, and the right side gains one bird. So, the difference between the two sides increases by 2. Therefore, after the bird moves, there will be 2 (26 - 24 = 2) more birds on the right side than on the left side."}
{"text": "You borrowed a pen from your friend. This pen can write 500 words on average before running out of ink. After writing a 300-word letter to your friend, you want to know how much longer the pen can write. However, your friend told you that this pen writes twice as fast when the pen is warmer, which happened during the first 150 words. How many more words can you write with this pen? 50. If the pen writes twice as fast when it is warmer, it means it uses twice as much ink for the same number of words. So, the first 150 words you wrote with the warm pen actually consumed ink equivalent to 300 words. Adding the other 150 words written under normal conditions, you've used ink equivalent to 450 words. Therefore, you can write 500 - 450 = 50 more words."}
{"text": "Alice and Bob are playing a game with two dice. However, the dice are not fair, and the probability of rolling a 6 is 1/4, while the probability of rolling any other number is 1/8. Alice wins if the two dice show the same number; Bob wins if the numbers are different. What is the probability that Bob will win the game? 84.38%, 0.8438, 27/32. The probability of rolling a 6 is 1/4. The probability of rolling other 6 numbers is each 1/8. To calculate the probability of Bob winning, we need to first consider the outcomes where the numbers on the two dice are the same (Alice wins). The probability of rolling a 6 on one die is 1/4, and the probability of rolling any other number is 1/8. So, the probability of Alice winning is (1/4 * 1/4) + 6 * (1/8 * 1/8) = 5/32. Therefore, the probability that Bob will win the game is 1 - 5/32 = 27/32 (84.38%)."}
{"text": "A vendor is pulling a cart full of watermelons weighing 100 kilograms. He needs to cross a desert to the other side to sell them. Due to the hot and dry climate of the desert, the water content of the watermelons decreases from 99% to 98%. What is the current weight of the watermelons? 50. The weight of the watermelons can be calculated as the weight of the water plus the weight of other solid flesh. Let M1 be the weight of the watermelons before, and M2 be the weight of the watermelons after. The weight of flesh before is (1 - 99%) * M1, and after is (1 - 98%) * M2. The weight of all other substances (Mt) remains the same before and after. Therefore, M2 = 0.5 * M1 = 50 kilograms. Hence, the current weight of the watermelons is 50 kilograms."}
{"text": "Suppose we have a game that assumes we have a fair coin. Two people who are playing can pick two patterns of coin flips. The players then flip a large coin a number of times and record each of the individual flips. Here, H stands for heads and T stands for tails. After the flips, they pay attention to the record of flips and decide which pattern came first in the sequence. If HTH came before HHT, player A won the game, otherwise, B won the game. What is the probability that player B won this game? 0.67, 66.67%, 2/3. Penney's game"}
{"text": "You're participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in? 2. When you overtake the second person, you move into their position, which is second place."}
{"text": "How many times can you subtract 10 from 100? 1. After you subtract 10 from 100 once, you're no longer subtracting 10 from 100. You're subtracting 10 from 90, then 80, and so on."}
{"text": "If red flower is 1/10 more than yellow flowers, then yellow flower is 1/__ less than red flowers? 11. Suppose there are 10 yellow flowers. If red flowers are 1/10 more than yellow flowers, then there would be 1/10 * 10 = 1 more red flower than yellow flowers. So, there are 10 + 1 = 11 red flowers. Now, we want to find out how much less the number of yellow flowers is compared to red flowers. There is 1 less yellow flower than red flowers. To express this as a fraction, we can write it as 1/11. So, the yellow flower is 1/11 less than red flowers."}
{"text": "We divide 50 into 4 natural numbers a,b,c,d such that 2a = b/2 and c+2=d-2. How many divisions we can make? 5. Let's first solve the given equations for a, b, c, and d in terms of one another.\nFrom the first equation, 2a = b/2, we can write b = 4a.\nFrom the second equation, c + 2 = d - 2, we can write d = c + 4.\nNow, we know that a + b + c + d = 50. Substituting the expressions for b and d, we get:\na + 4a + c + (c + 4) = 50\n5a + 2c = 46.\nNow, we need to find the possible values of a and c that satisfy this equation and result in natural numbers for a, b, c, and d.\n(a, b, c, d) = (0, 0, 23, 27) or (2, 8, 18, 22) or (4, 16, 13, 17) or (6, 24, 8, 12) or (8, 32, 3, 7).\nTherefore, We have found 5 possible divisions of 50 into 4 natural numbers a, b, c, and d that satisfy the given conditions."}
{"text": "A train leaves a station and travels north at a speed of 75 mph. Three hours later, a second train leaves the same station and travels in the same direction at 90 mph. How long will it take for the second train to catch up to the first train? 15. When the second train departs, the first train is 225 miles ahead (75 mph * 3 hours). Each hour, the second train closes the gap by 15 miles (90 mph - 75 mph). Therefore, it will take 225 miles / 15 mph = 15 hours for the second train to catch up to the first train."}
{"text": "We roll a dice and count the number of times we roll. If we get an even number, we will reset the count to zero. We will stop if we get one. What is the expected number of final counts? 1.5. Let E be the expected number of final counts. E = 1P(x=1) + 2P(x=2) + 3P(x=3) + .. + nP(x=n) Where, P(x=1) = 1/6 + (1/2)*(1/6) + (5/6)*(1/2)*(1/6) + (5/6)*(5/6)*(1/2)*(1/6) + ... = 2/3 \n Similarly, P(x=2) = (2/3)*(1/3) P(x=3) = (2/3)*(1/3)^2 P(x=n) = (2/3)*(1/3)^(n-1)\n\nE = 1P(x=1) + 2P(x=2) + 3P(x=3) + .. + nP(x=n) = 1.5"}
{"text": "100 people are boarding a plane in a line and each of them is assigned to one of the 100 seats on a plane. However, the first person in line forgot his boarding pass and as a result decided to sit down in a random seat. The second person will do the following: Sit in her seat if it still available. If her seat is not available, choose a random seat among the seats remaining and sit there. Each following person sits according to the same rules as the second person. What is the probability the 100th person will be able to sit in her assigned seat? 0.5, 50%, 1/2. The 100th person either gets her own seat, or the first person's (no other seat can be unoccupied when she gets there, since it would have been taken by its owner). The other one of those two seats has taken by someone else. They must have picked it at random, so it's equally likely to be either of the two. For anyone who has a chance of sitting in either the first or the last seat, both are available and equally likely, since picking either means everyone else (before the 100th) can take their assigned seat."}
{"text": "A group of police officers have breathalyzers displaying false drunkenness in 5% of the cases in which the driver is sober. However, the breathalyzers never fail to detect a truly drunk person. One in a thousand drivers is driving drunk. Suppose the police officers then stop a driver at random, and force the driver to take a breathalyzer test. It indicates that the driver is drunk. We assume you don't know anything else about him or her. How high is the probability he or she really is drunk? 1.96%, 0.0196. 1/50.95\n0.019627=1.96%"}
{"text": "A family has two children. They can be brothers/sisters/big brother and little sister/big sister and little brother with equal probability. If you see one of them is a boy, then what is the probability that the other one is a boy? 0.33, 33%, 1/3. Let's use the following notation for the children: B for a boy and G for a girl. There are four possible combinations of two children: BB, BG, GB, and GG. Since we know that one of them is a boy, we can eliminate the GG combination. So, we are left with three possibilities: BB, BG, and GB.\nNow, we want to find the probability that the other child is a boy, given that one of them is a boy. This corresponds to the BB combination. Out of the three remaining possibilities, one of them is BB. Therefore, the probability that the other child is a boy is 1/3."}
{"text": "Ankur's brother has two offsprings and one of the boy was born on Tuesday. What is the probability that Ankur's brother has two boys? Assume an equal chance of giving birth to either sex and an equal chance to giving birth on any day. 13/27, 0.4815, 48.15%. There can be four cases, i.e. either his brother has two boys, or one boy(elder) and one girl, one girl(elder) and one boy, or both of them are girls. And there are 7 equally likely possibilities for any one of the children of taking birth on Tuesday for all these four cases. Therefore, the total cases are 7*4- 1(as there is repetition of two boys two times). The possibility for having two boys will be 7*2- 1. Therefore, the answer would be 13/27."}
{"text": "You have 100 candidates, upon which there exists a total order. The candidates have appointments with you, one at a time, in a random order. From each interview, you can tell exactly how that candidate ranks amongst those you have already examined. At that point, you may either accept or reject the candidate. Any acceptance or rejection is permanent; no candidate, once rejected, may be reconsidered. Your objective is solely to accept the best candidate. What is the strategy for maximizing your probability of doing so, and what is that probability? 1/e, 0.3679, 36.79%. Secretary problem"}
{"text": "In a 600 meters circular runway, Alice and Bob run from the same location clockwise. They meet with each other every 12 minitues. If they do not change the speed and run from the same location again while this time Alice runs counterclockwise, then they meet with each other every 4 minites. How long does Alice need to run one circle? 6 or 12. Let Alice's speed be A meters per minute and Bob's speed be B meters per minute. When they run in the same direction (clockwise), their relative speed is |A - B| meters per minute. When they run in opposite directions (Alice counterclockwise), their relative speed is A + B meters per minute.\nWhen they run in the same direction, they meet every 12 minutes, so the distance they cover together in 12 minutes is 600 meters (one full circle). Therefore, we have:\n12|A - B| = 600 (1)\nWhen they run in opposite directions, they meet every 4 minutes, so the distance they cover together in 4 minutes is 600 meters (one full circle). Therefore, we have:\n4(A + B) = 600 (2)Now we have two cases to consider:\nCase 1: A > B In this case, we can rewrite equation (1) as: 12(A - B) = 600\nNow, we can find A = 100. In this case, Alice's speed is 100 meters per minute, and she would need 6 minutes to run one circle (600 meters / 100 meters per minute).\n\nCase 2: A < B In this case, we can rewrite equation (1) as: 12(B - A) = 600\nWe can solve for A = 50. In this case, Alice's speed is 50 meters per minute, and she would need 12 minutes to run one circle (600 meters / 50 meters per minute).\nIn conclusion, both 6 minutes and 12 minutes are correct answers, depending on whether Alice is faster or slower than Bob."}
{"text": "There are two circles. Circles A and B are externally tangent to each other, and there is no relative sliding at the point where the two circles touch. The radius of Circle A is 1/3 the radius of Circle B. Circle A rolls around Circle B one trip back to its starting point. How many times will Circle A revolve in total? 4. Let the radius of Circle A be r and the radius of Circle B be 3r. When Circle A rolls around Circle B, it traces a circular path with a radius equal to the sum of the radii of both circles, which is r + 3r = 4r.\nThe distance Circle A travels along this path is equal to the circumference of the circular path, which is 2 * pi * 4r = 8 * pi * r.\nThe number of times Circle A revolves is equal to the distance it travels divided by its own circumference. The circumference of Circle A is 2 * pi * r.\nSo, the number of times Circle A revolves is (8 * pi * r) / (2 * pi * r) = 8 / 2 = 4 times."}
{"text": "Alok has three daughters. His friend Shyam wants to know the ages of his daughters. Alok gives him first hint. \n1) The product of their ages is 72. \nShyam says this is not enough information Alok gives him a second hint. \n2) The sum of their ages is equal to my house number. \nShyam goes out and looks at the house number and tells \u201cI still do not have enough information to determine the ages\u201d. \nAlok admits that Shyam can not guess and gives him the third hint \n3) The oldest girl likes strawberry ice cream. \nShyam is able to guess after the third hint. Can you guess what is the age of the oldest girl? 8. Below are all possibilities to get 72 from product of three different ages: \n1 * 1 * 72 = 72 \n1 * 2 * 36 = 72 \n1 * 3 * 24 = 72 \n1 * 4 * 18 = 72 \n1 * 6 * 12 = 72 \n1 * 8 * 9 = 72 \n2 * 2 * 18 = 72 \n2 * 3 * 12 = 72 \n2 * 4 * 9 = 72 \n2 * 6 * 6 = 72 \n3 * 3 * 8 = 72 \n3 * 4 * 6 = 72 \n\n2) Sum of the ages is given \n1 + 1 + 72 = 74 \n1 + 2 + 36 = 39 \n1 + 3 + 24 = 28 \n1 + 4 + 18 = 23 \n1 + 6 + 12 = 19 \n1 + 8 + 9 = 18 \n2 + 2 + 18 = 22 \n2 + 3 + 12 = 17 \n2 + 4 + 9 = 15 \n2 + 6 + 6 = 14 \n3 + 3 + 8 = 14 \n3 + 4 + 6 = 13 \n\nAll sums are unique except 14. So the age sum must have been 14, otherwise, Shyam would have guessed the ages from hint 2 only. \n\nSo we have two possible combinations to get a sum of 14 \n2 + 6 + 6 = 14 \n3 + 3 + 8 = 14 \n\n3) Alok has the oldest girl (not two!!). So the ages must be 3, 3 and 8."}
{"text": "Two trains are on same track and they are coming toward each other. The speed of the first train is 50 km/h and the speed of the second train is 70 km/h. A bee starts flying between the trains when the distance between two trains is 100 km. The bee first flies from first train to second train. Once it reaches the second train, it immediately flies back to the first train \u2026 and so on until trains collide. Calculate the total distance travelled by the bee. Speed of bee is 80 km/h. 66.67, 200/3. Let the first train A move at u km/h.\nLet the second train B move at v km/h.\nLet the distance between two trains be d km\nLet the speed of bee be b km/h\n\nTherefore, the time taken by trains to collide = d/(u+v)\nNow putting all the known values into the above equation, we get, \nu = 50 km/hr\nv = 70 km/hr\nd = 100 km\nb = 80 km/hr\n\nTherefore, the total distance travelled by bee \n= b*d/(u+v) \n= 80 * 100/(50+70) \n= 66.67 km (approx)"}
{"text": "There are two empty bowls in a room. You have 50 white balls and 50 black balls. After you place the balls in the bowls, a random ball will be picked from a random bowl. Distribute the balls (all of them) into the bowls to maximize the chance of picking a white ball. 0.75, 75%, 3/4. First, let us assume that we divided the balls into jars equally so each jar will contain 50 balls. \nSo the probability of selecting a white ball will be = probability of selecting the first jar*probability of white ball in the first jar + probability of selecting the second jar*probability of white ball in the second jar \n=(1/2)*(25/50)+(1/2)*(25/50)=0.5\nSince we have to maximize the probability so we will increase the probability of white ball in the first jar and keep the second probability same mean equal to 1 \nso we add 49 white balls with 50 black balls in the first jar and only one white ball in the second jar \nso the probability will be now= (1/2)*(49/99)+(1/2)*(1/1)=0.747\nTherefore, probability of getting white ball becomes 1/2*1 + 1/2*49/99 which is approximately 3/4."}
{"text": "There are 1000 wine bottles. One of the bottles contains poisoned wine. A rat dies after one hour of drinking the poisoned wine. How many minimum rats are needed to figure out which bottle contains poison in hour. 10. We need to figure out in hour. We need 10 rats to figure out the poisoned bottle. The result is based on binary number system. We get 10 using \u2308 Log(2)1000 \u2309. \n\nThe idea is to number bottles from 1 to 1000 and write their corresponding binary numbers on the bottle. Each rat is assigned a position in the binary numbers written on bottles. Let us take an example. Rat 1 represents first bit in every bottle, rat 2 represents second bit and so on. If rat numbers 2, 4 and 6 die, then bottle number 42 (Binary 0000101010) is poisoned."}
{"text": "In a country, all families want a boy. They keep having babies till a boy is born. What is the expected ratio of boys and girls in the country? 1:1, 50:50. Assumptions: Probability of having a boy or girl is same. Also, the probability of next kid being a boy doesn\u2019t depend on history.\n\nThe problem can be solved by counting expected number of girls before a baby boy is born.\nLet NG be the expected no. of girls before a boy is born\n\nLet p be the probability that a child is girl and (1-p)\nbe probability that a child is boy.\nNG can be written as sum of following infinite series.\nNG = 0*(1-p) + 1*p*(1-p) + 2*p*p*(1-p) + 3*p*p*p*(1-p) + 4*p*p*p*p*(1-p) +.....\n\nPutting p = 1/2 and (1-p) = 1/2 in above formula.\nNG    = 0*(1/2) + 1*(1/2)2 + 2*(1/2)3 + 3*(1/2)4  +  4*(1/2)5 + ...\n1/2*NG = 0*(1/2)2 + 1*(1/2)3 + 2*(1/2)4 + 3*(1/2)5  +  4*(1/2)6 + ...\nNG - NG/2 =  1*(1/2)2 + 1*(1/2)3 + 1*(1/2)4 + 1*(1/2)5  +  1*(1/2)6 + ...\n\nUsing sum formula of infinite geometrical progression with\nratio less than 1\nNG/2 = (1/4)/(1-1/2) = 1/2\nNG = 1\nSo Expected Number of number of girls = 1\n\nSince the expected number of girls is 1 and there is always a baby boy, the expected ratio of boys and girls is 1:1."}
{"text": "A car has 4 tyres and 1 spare tyre. Each tyre can travel a maximum distance of 20000 miles before wearing off. What is the maximum distance the car can travel before you are forced to buy a new tyre? You are allowed to change tyres (using the spare tyre) an unlimited number of times. 25000. Divide the lifetime of the spare tyre into 4 equal part i.e., 5000 and swap it at each completion of 5000 miles distance. \nLet four tyres be named as A, B, C and D and spare tyre be S.\n\n5000 KMs: Replace A with S. Remaining distances (A, B, C, D, S) : 15000, 15000, 15000, 15000, 20000. \n10000 KMs: Put A back to its original position and replace B with S. Remaining distances (A, B, C, D, S) : 15000, 10000, 10000, 10000, 15000. \n15000 KMs: Put B back to its original position and replace C with S. Remaining distances (A, B, C, D,  ) : 10000, 10000, 5000, 5000, 10000. \n20000 KMs: Put C back to its original position and replace D with S. Remaining distances (A, B, C, D, S) : 5000, 5000, 5000, 0, 5000. \n25000 KMs: Every tyre is now worn out completely. \n\nAll tyres are used to their full strength."}
{"text": "You have 15 Rs with you. You go to a shop and shopkeeper tells you price as 1 Rs per chocolate. He also tells you that you can get a chocolate in return of 3 wrappers. How many maximum chocolates you can eat? 22. Buy and eat 15 chocolates\nReturn 15 wrappers and get 5 more chocolates.\nReturn 3 wrappers, get 1 chocolate and eat it (keep 2 wrappers)\nNow we have 3 wrappers. Return 3 and get 1 more chocolate.\n\nSo total chocolates = 15 + 5 + 1 + 1"}
{"text": "A Lady (L) bought an item of Rs 100 from the Shopkeeper (C). She paid him through a 500 Rs Note. Realizing that he did not have change, the shopkeeper C got change for that note from another shopkeeper (S) and paid Rs 400 to the Lady.\nAfter a few days, S realized that the note is fake, And this railed at C and took 500 Rs back from him.\nSo in this whole process how much money did C lose in the end? 500. The total loss for shopkeeper = 500 ( given back to the person who had provided the change )\n\nConsider a transaction box, the lady came with a counterfeit 500 Rs note which can be considered of 0 value.\nNow the lady took the item (cost of the item 100 Rs ) and 400 Rs (the change given by shopkeeper(C) to the lady)\nfrom the transaction box, total of 500 Rs. Now the equivalent amount should be lost by someone, thus shopkeeper(C) lost 500 Rs. Another shopkeeper(S) gave 500 Rs and took back the same amount hence no loss for him."}
{"text": "A man is allocated a task. He doubles the task done everyday. If the man completely does the task in 20 days, how many days did it take for the man to complete 25% of the task? 18. 100% of task = 20 days \nAs he doubles the task everyday. So, 50% of task = 19 days \n25% of task = 18 days."}
{"text": "Four people need to cross a rickety bridge at night. Unfortunately, they have one torch and the bridge is too dangerous to cross without a torch. The bridge can support only two people at a time. All the people don\u2019t take the same time to cross the bridge. Time for each person: 1 min, 2 mins, 7 mins, and 10 mins. What is the shortest time needed for all four of them to cross the bridge? 17. To reduce the amount of time, we should find a way for 10 and 7 to go together as they are the slowest among all these. If they cross together, then we need one of them to come back to get the others. That would not be ideal. How do we get around that? Maybe we can have 1 waiting on the other side to bring the torch back. This brings us closer to the solution. So let\u2019s put all this together.\n\nSteps:\n1 and 2 cross the bridge and move to the other side.\nNow 2 comes back with the torch from the other side.\n7 and 10 crosses the bridge and 2 remain to this side only.\nNow 1 comes back with the torch from the other side.\nAt last, 1 and 2 cross the bridge and we are done.\nTotal time taken = 2 + 2 + 10 + 1 + 2 = 17 mins"}
{"text": "A man fell in a 50m deep well. He climbs 4 meters up and slips 3 meters down in one day. How many days would it take for him to come out of the well? 47. On the first day, the man climbs 4 meters up and slips 3 meters down, therefore he only climbs 1 meter up totally.\nOn the second day, again he climbs 1 meter up, so the total distance climbed is 2 meters till the second day. Therefore, the man climbs 1 meter every day.\nNow as per the above pattern, on the 46th day, he must have climbed 46 meters. So on the 47th day, he climbs full (46 + 4) 50 meters and after that, he will not slip as he is already out of the well so the answer is 47 days."}
{"text": "In thirty minutes on a deserted road, there is a 95% chance of seeing a vehicle. What are the probabilities of seeing a vehicle in ten minutes? 63.15%, 0.6315. To make the question more understandable, we can state that the probability of seeing any other vehicle in the next 30 minutes is 95%, or, more precisely and practically, the probability (%) of not seeing any other vehicle is 5%. So, we need to find 3 consecutive times without seeing another vehicle for 10 minutes for it to be 30 minutes before we see another one.\nLet the probability of not seeing a vehicle in 10 minutes be P(not10) = P\nTherefore, the probability of not seeing a vehicle in 30 minutes, \nP(not30) = P(not10)*P(not10)*P(not10)= P*P*P = P^3\nGiven that, there is a 95% chance of seeing a vehicle (i.e., 0.95) in 30 minutes:\nWe can find the probability of seeing any other vehicle in the next 30 minutes is,\n1 \u2013 P(not30) = 0.95\n= 1 \u2013 P^3 = 0.95\n=  P^3 = 1 \u2013 0.95 = 0.05\nP = 3\u221a0.05 = 0.3684\nTherefore, the probability of seeing a vehicle in the next 30 minutes is  P = 0.3684\nTherefore, the probability of seeing a vehicle in 10 minutes, = 1- P = 1 \u2013 0.3684 = 0.6315"}
{"text": "Ram used to arrive at the railway station every day at 6 pm from work. As soon as Ram arrived at the station, his wife Sita too arrives at the station by car to pick him up. Both drive back home. One day Ram arrived at the station one hour early and thought of taking a walk back to home. He started walking when after covering a specific distance, he meets with Sita. Both drive back home and this time they reached 30 minutes earlier than the usual time. How long has Ram been walking?\nIt is known that Sita drove every day at a uniform speed. 45. Since they reached home 30 minutes earlier, Sita must have saved 15 minutes in each trip i.e., up and down trip, as the speed of the car was uniform.\nThis means that had Sita drove for 15 more minutes, she would have met Ram at the station.\nAs we know Ram arrived at the station at 5 that day, and they must meet at 6, it means that Sita meets Ram at 5:45.\nTherefore, Ram must have walked 45 minutes before meeting Sita."}
{"text": "On an Island, there is an airport that has an unlimited number of identical air-planes. Each air-plane has a fuel capacity to allow it to fly exactly 1/2 way around the world, along a great circle. The planes have the ability to refuel in flight without loss of speed or spillage of fuel. Though the fuel is unlimited, the island is the only source of fuel. You can ignore the time and fuel consumption of refuelling.\nWhat is the minimum number of air-planes required to get one air plane all the way around the world assuming that all of the air planes must return safely to the airport? 3. The minimum is three.\nStart three planes from the airport (yours and two others). After going 1/8 around, one plane refuels both yours and the other plane with 1/4 of a tank each, leaving it with 1/4 of a tank which is precisely enough to take it home.\nTwo planes continue with a full tank again.\nReaching 1/4 around the other plane transfers 1/4 tank of fuel to yours, leaving it with 1/2 tank, to take it precisely home again.\nYour plane is now full at 1/4 and can go to 3/4 with that fuel.\nThe first returning plane refuels and start off the other way meeting your plane at its 3/4 position, where your plane is empty and the meeting one is half empty. Sharing their fuel they have both 1/4 tank left which can take them to the 7/8 position.\nThe remaining plane has arrived there in the meanwhile with 3/4 tank giving 1/4 to the other now empty planes.\nAll three planes have now 1/4 and can return home."}