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.


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...


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.


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.


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 § 1950.6.)  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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” 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.


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.


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 — 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.


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


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.)   [...]


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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).


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.


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.


Ongoing things to do and read to improve knowledge of finance? Good luck!


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.


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...


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


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.


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.


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’s 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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? Even if the price of your home did match inflation or better — and that's a question I'll let the other answers address — 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 — 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 — 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 cliché, but it is no guarantee.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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...


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.


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.


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.


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!


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:


I had “deposited” money with Pritchard so can I expect £85,000 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 £50,000 per person. FSCS has no discretion to pay any more.


What happens if my losses are over the FSCS maximum of £50,000 and I accept the FSCS’s 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 “in your shoes” and will claim for the whole of your loss, even if it was over £50,000. 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 = £80,000 FSCS compensation = £50,000 Dividend of 50p/£ received by FSCS = £40,000 FSCS pays £30,000 to claimant so he is fully compensated (total £80,000), and retains £10,000 recovery for itself Example 2: Loss = £100,000 FSCS compensation = £50,000 Dividend of 50p/£ received by FSCS = £50,000 FSCS pays £50,000 to claimant so he is fully compensated (total £100,000), and retains nothing for itself FSCS does not have to have make a full recovery of its £50,000 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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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:


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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?


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.


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.


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.


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)


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.


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.


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?


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


Are Index Funds really as good as “experts” claim? A lot of it boils down to these key points: