What does “no adjustments” mean?
Typically that applies if the broker Form 1099-B reports an incorrect basis to the IRS.  If the Form 1099-B shows incorrect basis relative to your records, then you can use 8949, column (g) to report the correct basis.  The 8949 Instructions provide a brief example. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/i8949--2013.pdf Although you have an obligation to report all income, and hence to report the true basis, as a practical matter this information will usually be correct as presented by the broker.  If you have separate information or reports relating to your investments, and you are so inclined, then you can double-check the basis information in your 1099-B. If you aren't aware of basis discrepancies, then the adjustments probably don't apply to you and your investments can stick to Schedule D. In addition to the adjustment type in NL7's answer, there are a host of others.  If there are any adjustments, form 8949 is required, if not, the gains can be separated into short and long-term and added together to be entered on Schedule D.  Anything requiring an adjustment code in column F of the 8949 requires an entry in column G.   Some other example entries for column F include: (see the 8949 instructions for a complete list) **A wash sale occurs when you sell or trade stock or securities at a loss and within 30 days before or after the sale you: Buy substantially identical stock or securities, Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade, Acquire a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities, or Acquire substantially identical stock for your individual retirement account (IRA) or Roth IRA. (from Pub17)
"In Second Opinion's opinion, they say ""Do not initiate new position.""  This means do not buy the stock if you do not already own it.   Since they also say to hold if you do own it, this is a very ""who knows what it will do"" neutral position (IMO)." I have not come across any studies that address this specifically. Personally, I would want 5 years of stability to compare to an equal period prior to 2008 and I am not convinced that we have that. I would envision such an outcome however, as a result of belt-tightening in light of the recession carrying over as business-as-usual afterwards. The pace of progress makes it difficult to make one to one comparisons but were I to draft a question for consideration it would probably be: Does salary of job description X (e.g. software engineer) earn an amount equal to the same position during 2002-2007 in adjusted dollars? Some controls would most likely be necessary. When you place a bid between the bid/ask spread, that means you are raising the bid (or lowering the ask, if you are selling). The NBBO (national best bid and offer) is now changed because of your action, and yes, certain kinds of orders may be set to react to that (a higher bid or lower ask triggering them), also many algorithms (that haven't already queued an order simply waiting for a trigger, like in a stop limit) read the bid and ask and are programmed to then place an order at that point. "It's not like there are no explanations for the delay.  It's one thing if you make predictions that don't materialize, and you just scratch your head and say, ""isn't that curious.."".  That's what's being implied here, and it's a straw man.   If you look closer, you see the mechanisms by which the day of reckoning has been postponed (housing bubble and now a fiscal deficit bubble).  Given you can explain the delay, I don't see how it invalidates the core tenet of the initial assertion, which is that the current system is unsustainable.   It's a matter of distinguishing between the need to abandon the entire theory or needing to modify it." Wrong way round. Transitional arrangements are non-binding guidelines that the lenders can observe if they choose to. The borrower - like your friend - doesn't  get to choose whether to use them or not. Your friend obviously can't afford the property, so if you do this, all I can say is congratulations on buying your new house, and I hope you got a deal on the mortgage. A correction always happens every 10-12 years, but the GDP hasn't been moved because of housing this time, which had never happened before either.  So just a typical correction could happen, like in 1998, and 1988 and the decades before that. Options or Shares vest by date they are granted. It would strike me as odd for anyone to say their shares were given with 4 year vesting, but the clock was pre-started years prior.  In my opinion, you have nothing to complain about. You quote a rate (2.75%) and then quote a margin (1.75%).  The margin is usually an addition to some base rate.  How is the margin expressed in the figures you have?  Is it included in the rate, or in addition to it? As for the other stuff, it looks like the rate can go up at most 1% per year, up to a maximum of 5% increase.  The first adjustment cap is also 1%.  That just says that your first rate increase is capped the same as subsequent increases. If the margin is already included, and the increases are based on your initial rate, then this puts you at a maximum of 7.75%. You must verify this.  I don't have your loan documents. And again, why would you want to risk an increase at all?  You have a decent fixed-rate mortgage already.  That still doesn't make sense to me.  Going from 2.75% to 7.75% as above can increase your monthly payment by over 40%. Usually you want two consecutive quarters before declaring a recession.   This blog doesn't reference any seasonal adjustment; a one or two month decline may be to any number of reasons. E.g. labor numbers dropped this month largely attributed to weather. I only see screen shots of excel sheets, I'm not willing to invest any time into parsing that out :( In general you need to ask yourself how serious you are about tracking your finances.  If your GNUCash 'cleared' balance doesn't match your statement, it represents an error on either your part or much less likely the banks part.  Tracking down this error might be a real pain, but you will also likely learn from it.  So to answer your question - find the entry or entries that don't match and fix them.   That said, sometimes indeed this can be very tedious, time consuming and frustrating, especially if it is for a relatively small dollar amount.  Time too is money, so in these cases, the 'Expense:Adjustment' might be a reasonable approach. This was basically what I had figured but I've read pieces from a few people saying that it's going to have no effect at all which makes less than no sense. Do you know of any good writeups that would back your side? "Massaging statistical data is an art form.  Probably the most common tactic to manipulate without manipulating is to not measure something that is not immediately connected to the stat, but is absolutely influencing it.  Then there is scope manipulation (we see this with the wage gap stats) where data will be purposely aggregated at a level outside of the scope.  My pet peeve with national stats is when people will compare data collected in the US where we regulate thoroughly to data collected in a country like China where they live by the mantra ""if you are not cheating then you are not trying"".  Education stats for instance that always make us look bad when we absolutely know the Chinese are padding like crazy." IESC has a one-time, non-repeatable event in its operating income stream.  It magnifies operating income by about a factor of five.  It impacts both the numerator and the denominator.  Without knowing exactly how the adjustments are made it would take too much work for me to calculate it exactly, but I did get close to their number using a relatively crude adjustment rule. Basically, Yahoo is excluding one-time events from its definitions since, although they are classified as operating events, they distort the financial record.  I teach securities analysis and have done it as a profession.  If I had to choose between Yahoo and Marketwatch, at least for this security, I would clearly choose Yahoo. "I think a mention of the age-old adage ""correlation does not mean causation"" is in order here.   Keep in mind another possible explanation is when the issue is brought to light people are suddenly given a reason to call in, instead of shrugging it off as a temporary issue." If they're not matching, and their profit-sharing has nothing to do with how much you invest, then I'd say don't bother with the company 401k at all.  If you need to at least have an account open to get the profit sharing, then contribute the bare minimum. Having your retirement account through your company forces you to follow their standards, choose from their funds, use their broker, etc.  It also means that when you leave the company, you either have to move your money anyway, or else have an account through a company you don't work for, which I wouldn't feel all that comfortable doing anyway. If you open a retirement account through your bank or a private financial planner, then it's yours, and you can contribute what you want, when you want, and buy the securities that you want.  Your account executive is there to service you, not your company.