The Margin Account holds the funds that are MUST for any margin trades. Any funds excess of the MUST for margin trades are kept in the SMA account. These funds can be used for further Margin trades in new securities [funds get transfered into the Margin Account]. They cannot be used to met the Shortfall due to margin calls on existing trades. New funds need to be arranged. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_memorandum_account


I am also from Malaysia and I just purchase a property around Klang Valley area. Property market is just like share market. You will never know when is the highest peak point and when is the lowest peak point. Yes. Not only you, but everyone of us. What I would say that, just buy according to your need and your financial status. If you feel that you need a comfortable place to stay rather than renting a room, and buying that property will not burden your financial status too much, why not go for it? The best time to purchase property is perhaps last year when world economic is down turn. But thing is over and can never go back. Since all of us don't have a crystal ball to tell the future, why not just act according to your heart and common sense (Buy according to need) ;)


">> So, are you against Trump? Yes or no? > Yes, I think you would categorize me as against him but I don't think I'm against him but against the things I see him doing things that I do not think will make life better for the average American. So you are anti-Trump because what he does, and so far, when I asked for an example, the BEST you can find is this very gray topic of Medicare Part-D? And you get this Medicare ""issue"" from Vox whom you, yourself, say ""Vox does spin things left"". And Medicare Part-D issue was not dealt at all by Obama in 8 years, am I right? Ok!!!! Please find me something significant that Trump did that you don't like. If you can't find anything, then I ask to read about the topic of Tribalism: the sense that you must belong to one camp because everything is black or white. Look!!! I am even saying that Trump is not an ideal leader. I am 100% sure that he will do things I don't like. I also never liked his opinions about abortions and coal. There! You see? **But by far, Trump is much better than almost all Democrats, and even many many in the GOP. So I voted for him, first time in my life that I voted for a Republican! And I support him, not because he does everything exactly to my liking, but because he's a good president, better than all the rest, and he does a good job.**"


Preferred stocks are, err... Preferred. The whole point of preferred stocks is that they have some preference over other classes of stocks (there may be more than 2, by the way). It can be more voting rights, more dividends or priority on dividends' distribution (common with VC investments), or priority on liquidations (in bankruptcy, preferred stock holders are ranked higher than common). Many times initial or critical investments are made on preferred terms, and the stocks are converted to common when certain thresholds are met. Obviously all these benefits require a premium on the price.


For reporting purposes, most IRA firms prefer that you roll the 401(k) funds into a Rollover or Traditional IRA and then convert to the ROTH from there. The mid-air conversions (401(k) directly into a ROTH) can get tricky when you go to do your taxes the following year if the 1099 form from the releasing custodian and the 5498 form from the accepting custodian have different numbers due to the conversion amount and taxes withheld if any.


"In a cap-weighted fund, the fund itself isn't buying or selling at all (except to support redemptions or purchases of the fund). As the value of a stock in the index goes up, then its value in the fund goes up naturally. This is the advantage of a cap-weighted fund, that it doesn't have to trade (buy and sell), it just sits on the stocks. That makes a cap-weighted fund inexpensive (low trading costs) and tax-efficient (doesn't trigger capital gains due to sales). The buying high and selling low referred to by ""fundamental indexation"" advocates like Wisdom Tree is buying high and selling low on the part of the investor. That is, when you purchase the market-cap-weighted fund, at that time that you purchase, you will spend more on the higher-priced stocks, just because they account for more of the value of the fund, and less money goes to the cheaper stocks which account for less of the value of the fund. In the prospectus for a fund they should tell you which index they use, and if the prospectus doesn't describe the weighting of the index, you could do a web search for the index name and find out how that index is constructed. A market-cap-weighted fund is the standard kind of weighting which is what you get if you buy the stocks in the index and then hold them without buying or selling. Most of the famous indexes (e.g. S&P500) are cap-weighted, with the notable exception of the Dow Jones Industrial Average which is ""price-weighted"" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-weighted_index. Price-weighting is just an archaic tradition, not something one would use for a new index design today. A fund weighted by ""fundamentals"" or equal-weighted, rather than cap-weighted, is effectively doing a kind of rebalancing, selling what's gone up to buy more of what's gone down. Rather than buying an exotic fund, you could get a similar effect by buying a balanced fund (one that mixes stocks and bonds). Then when stocks go up, your fund would sell them and buy bonds, and the fund would sell the most of the highest-market-cap stocks that make up more of the index. And vice versa of course. But the fundamental-weighted funds are fine, the more important considerations include your stocks vs. bonds percentages (asset allocation) and whether you make irrational trades instead of sticking to a plan."


Think of it like professional athlete salaries. For every 10,000 people with talent and drive there is one that makes it into the NFL with a multi-million dollar salary. Likewise there are thousands of people with banking related degrees working 80-100 hours a week for shit wages with the hope that they'll make the cut and eventually hit it big with some sweet super high paying job someday.


> Questioning a speaker’s motives is not only not a fallacy, it is a sign of healthy debate. She's only saying that because her only rhetoric is to attack the motives of the VCs:) See, I simply don't follow. I don't have anything like her background in formal logic, but it seems to me that the truth of a statement remains whether it benefits the speaker or not. The health benefits of spinach remain the same whether a neutral scientist says so or a spinach marketing pamphlet says so. Certainly we might be sceptical of the spinach marketing board, but if it turns out their opinions follow from verifiable facts then their motives don't enter into it.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/solar-power-will-kill-coal-sooner-than-you-think) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Natural gas will reap $804 billion, bringing 16 percent more generation capacity and making the fuel central to balancing a grid that&#039;s increasingly dependent on power flowing from intermittent sources, like wind and solar. > Onshore wind, which has dropped 30 percent in price in the past eight years, will fall another 47 percent by the end of BNEF&#039;s forecast horizon. > By 2040, wind and solar will make up almost half of the world&#039;s installed generation capacity, up from just 12 percent now, and account for 34 percent of all the power generated, compared with 5 percent at the moment, BNEF concluded. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6hwl1b/solar_power_will_kill_coal_faster_than_you_think/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~146897 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **percent**^#1 **Energy**^#2 **capacity**^#3 **fuel**^#4 **BNEF**^#5"


I could be wrong, but I doubt you're going to be able to roll the current mortgage into a new one. The problem is that the bank is going to require that the new loan is fully collateralized by the new house. So the only way that you can ensure that is if you can construct the house cheaply enough that the difference between the construction cost and the end market value is enough to cover the current loan AND keep the loan-to-value (LTV) low enough that the bank is secured. So say you currently owe $40k on your mortgage, and you want to build a house that will be worth $200k. In order to avoid PMI, you're going to have to have an LTV of 80% or less, which means that you can spend no more than $160k to build the house. If you want to roll the existing loan in, now you have to build for less than $120k, and there's no way that you can build a $200k house for $120k unless you live in an area with very high land value and hire the builders directly (and even then it may not be possible). Otherwise you're going to have to make up the difference in cash. When you tear down a house, you are essentially throwing away the value of the house - when you have a mortgage on the house, you throw away that value plus you still owe the money, which is a difficult hole to climb out of. A better solution might be to try and sell the house as-is, perhaps to someone else who can tear down the house and rebuild with cash. If that is not a viable option (or you don't want to move) then you might consider a home equity loan to renovate parts of the house, provided that they increase the market value enough to justify the cost (e.g. modernize the kitchen, add on a room, remodel bathrooms, etc. So it all depends on what the house is worth today as-is, how much it will cost you to rebuild, and what the value of the new house will be.


While you can print that on the check, it isn't considered legally binding. If you are concerned about a check not being deposited in a timely manner, consider purchasing a cashier's check instead. This doesn't solve the problem per se, but it transfers responsibility of tracking that check from you to the bank.


"In the UK, I could start my own business - either as a self-employed person, or by starting a company. With a company, the company might have £50,000 income, £5,000 cost, and pay me a £45,000 salary. In that case the company has no profit and pays no taxes, but I personally pay income tax. Or I could pay myself any salary I like, say £20,000 salary, so I pay tax on £25,000 profit and £20,000 salary. The state actually gets less money in total if I set my salary so the company makes a profit. If I'm self employed, income minus cost is my profit and I pay taxes on that. If I don't make profit, I pay no tax. Unfortunately, I also wouldn't have any money to buy food, pay the rent, and so on and so on. I'd have the same income and pay the same taxes as someone who is unemployed. There are ""businesses"" that are just run for the enjoyment of the owner and don't make profit. Rich guy buys a farm and starts breeding race horses, that kind of thing. In that case, there is zero difference between a guy breeding race horses and calling it a ""business"" and another guy breeding race horses and calling it a hobby. Neither makes money and neither pays taxes."


Without making specific recommendations, it is worthwhile to point out the differing tax treatments for a Roth IRA: investments in a Roth IRA will not be taxed when you withdraw them during retirement (unless they change the law on that or something crazy). So if you are thinking about investing in some areas with high risk and high potential reward (e.g. emerging market stocks) then the Roth IRA might be the place to do it. That way, if the investment works out, you have more money in the account that won't ever be taxed. We can talk about the possible risks of certain kinds of investments, but this is not an appropriate forum to recommend for or against them specifically. Healthcare stocks are subject to political risk in the current regulatory climate. BRICs are subject to political risks regarding the political and business climate in the relevant nations, and the growth of their economies need not correspond with growth in the companies you hold in your portfolio. Energy stocks are subject to the world economic climate and demand for oil, unless you're talking alternative-energy stocks, which are subject to political risk regarding their subsidies and technological risk regarding whether or not their technologies pan out. It is worth pointing out that any ETF you invest in will have a prospectus, and that prospectus will contain a section discussing the risks which could affect your investment. Read it before investing! :)


"An ideal option for you would be to use as many or as few as you choose, but have all of them available to you. The service desk guy told you you can do exactly that. Problem, though: you have no proof that a representative of the company told you that. Get proof. Recording, written statement, whatever. If writing a letter, make it clear you expect a response. The time you spend ""being a good guy"" is not free, you should get something for it. No idea how to go about that - mentioning the service desk guy in a letter might give him trouble. Maybe suggest that you could allow your image to be used in a short advertising campaign, as thanks. But whatever you do get, enjoy it. Consequences? Any number of things can happen, from lifetime free meals to court cases, negative points and being banned, regardless of who is right, legally or morally. Someone in Management there might still choose to burden you with responsibility even if their own CEO declared you a saint and lifetime customer of honor. But you might never get to that bridge. For now, get proof, and use what points you know are yours anyway."


No, absolutely not. Income tax rates are marginal. The tax bracket's higher tax rate only applies to extra dollars over the threshold, not to dollars below it. The normal income tax does not have any cliffs where one extra dollar of income will cost more than one dollar in extra taxes. Moreover, you are ignoring the personal exemption and standard deduction. A gross salary of $72,000 is not the same as taxable income of $72,000. The deduction will generally be $12,200 and the exemptions will be $3,900 for you, your spouse, and any kids. So married-filing-jointly with the standard deduction will get an automatic $20,000 off of adjusted gross income when counting taxable income. So the appropriate taxable income is actually going to be more like $52,000. Note that getting your compensation package reshuffled may result in different tax treatment. But simply taking a smaller salary (rather than taking some compensation as stock options, health insurance, or fringe benefits), is not a money-saving move. Never do it.


It depends greatly from place to place, but nothing beats the Internet reviews' research. If you can't find anything digging slightly deeper than the impressive home page, then you probably should be worried. As it seems that you are. Specifically, I do these: @JohnFX mentions a valid point: check for physical presence. Check that the office address is a real office and not a PO box or residential; call the number and see who answers it (if you call several times during different hours and the same person answers - that's probably a one-man operation). But that doesn't always help because short-term renting an office is not all that hard and getting a call-centre outsourced to a third-world country doesn't cost all that much. It definitely helps if you're dealing with someone local, but if you're in Sweden and checking out a suspicious operation in Cyprus - this is definitely not enough.


I recently paid off a line of credit on an investment property that I own. I had some surplus cash and decided to pay off the line of credit rather than to make a principal payment on the primary mortgage with a higher interest rate. The interest rate on the line of credit was tiny and the balance was also pretty low. My reasoning was that by paying off the line of credit I would be done with that account and would have one less bill to pay each month, one less risk of something going wrong and a late payment hurting my credit, one less statement to reconcile each month, and one less bookkeeping core to manage. I could have grown my net worth by few couple of dollars each month had I kept the line of credit and made a principal payment on the primary loan. I judged that it wasn't worth the hassle and risks.


Try a gym for a month before you sign up on any contracts. This will also give you time to figure out if you are the type who can stick with a schedule to workout on regular basis. Community centres are cost effective and offer pretty good facilities. They have monthly plans as well so no long term committments.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_557266/lang--en/index.htm) reduced by 84%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The report, World Employment and Social Outlook Trends for Women 2017, estimates that if this goal was realized at the global level, it has the potential to add US$ 5.8 trillion dollars to the global economy. > Gender gap in labour force participation and potential impact of closing these gaps Promoting women&#039;s well-being On top of the significant economic benefits, engaging more women in the world of work would have a positive impact on their well-being since most women would like to work. > &quot;We need to start by changing our attitudes towards the role of women in the world of work and in society. Far too often some members of society still fall back on the excuse that it is&quot;unacceptable&quot; for a woman to have a paid job,&quot; said Steven Tobin, lead author of the report. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6hddjv/world_employment_and_social_outlook_ilo_trends/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~144729 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Women**^#1 **work**^#2 **cent**^#3 **per**^#4 **men**^#5"


The answer to your question is no. Your credit rating is the way creditors let each other know whether you are in a good position and have a strong tendency to repay your debts, not whether you are an easy target for making money on interest and penalties associated with failing to repay debts in full. The fact that you make your payments on time will definitely not lower your credit rating. While the banks are not making as much money on you as they would if you carried a balance, they are also not spending a lot of money on you, nor losing a lot of money on people like you failing to repay debts. The transactions charged to the retailers cover the costs of operating your card and then a little bit. That is enough to make you worth keeping as a customer. They are happy with your arrangement. The formula for credit rating computation is proprietary, but we know what the factors are overall. Making payments on time consistently is a positive, not a negative factor. However, they do look at the number of cards and overall mix of cards and other types of debt. For example, if you have a very large amount of credit capacity in your cards and no mortgage, that could possibly be a negative. If you have opened some of those accounts recently, it could be a negative. If you have a larger number credit cards than they think is good, that could be a negative. There are other things as well that could be bringing your score down. Probably worth it to take a look. If you want to get an idea of what factors are adding positively and negatively to your credit score, I'd encourage you to visit CreditKarma.com, Quizzle.com, or another source intended to help you understand and improve your credit rating.


I am a realtor and work for Rausch Coleman and can answer this question for you. We are a production builder. We build in communities with typically 5-9 Floorplan options per community and a select set of option and finishes that we offer. Because of the set options, we buy the materials in bulk and are able to receive cost savings on that from our suppliers which we can pass on to you. We use the same trades consistently through out our division which means they have our plans and process down to a science. They know the product, which means less likely to make mistakes and less likely to miss things. Our heart is affordability in that we understand that not everyone can afford granite, gas, hardwood floors, etc. so we allow you to be able to customize your monthly payment, and that you are not financing something you may not want or need or to allow you to get in to a home you may not be able to afford otherwise. We work a lot with the first time buyer and we want to provide the best quality for the best value. We start our homes at a base model and allow you to customize the way you want (adding granite, gas, hardwoods, fireplace, etc.) and in doing that we allow you to choose whether you want to pay $90 or $101 per square foot or whatever that may be. I can tell you in Northwest Arkansas we are the best value and the quality shows. I pull comps consistently and in fact have another builder in the same community as I sell in. Our homes in this community for single stories is about $88-$95 and two story homes are on average $78-$86. Two stories are more cost efficient in that the square footage goes up and not out so there is less concrete, which is one of the most expensive parts of the homebuilding process. This other builder consistently sells their homes for $101-$105 per square foot, and uses the exact same materials we do. The difference? Yes granite and hardwoods and gas and custom cabinets come standard, you have no choice in that. Would you rather have the option for a lower priced home if you didn't want granite? Or if you'd rather have carpet? We build in 5 different markets over 4 states and are in our 61st year of business. I'd love to meet with you and can walk you through a community and show you our homes (at all stages of construction) where you can see the product and quality in our homes. I am in our Dixieland Crossing community here in Northwest Arkansas. You can check out our website for other information at www.rauschcoleman.com


There's more to this tax than meets the eye. California, along with countless other states, issued municipal bonds backed by tobacco taxes/tobacco sales/tobacco judgments. Over time states become dependent on the revenues, and enjoy the ability to raise taxes then get the cash immediately by issuing bonds to bring all those future cash flows to the present. There's a big problem, though; smokers are quitting. Here's an article by [HuffPo on the topic](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/20/tobacco-sales-california_n_1289514.html). tl;dr: Politicians spent money from tobacco on other purposes, so now they want to tax smokers more because the state government projected more revenues than they're currently receiving.


I don't know why a financial investor or a retail trader would do this. But I can guess why a market maker in options would do this. Let us say you buy an option from an option market maker and the market maker sold the option to you. He made a small profit in the bid-ask spread but now he is holding a short position in the option with unlimited risk exposure. So to protect himself, he will take an offsetting position in the underlying and become delta neutral, so that his position is not affected by the moves in the underlying. In the end, he can do this because he is not in the market to make money by betting on direction, unlike the rest of us poor mortals. He is making money from the bid-ask spread. So to ensure that his profits are not eroded by an adverse move in the underlying, he will continuously seek to be delta neutral. But once again, this is for a market maker. For market takers like us, I still don't understand why we would need to delta hedge.


"You are pushing your luck, but not because you're not in the US, because it is likely that you're not qualified. From what you said, I doubt you can take it (I'm not a professional though, get a professional opinion). You say ""dedicated space"". It has to be an exclusive room. You cannot deduct 10 sq. ft. from your living room because your computer that is used wholly for your business is there. It has to be a room that is used exclusively for your business, and for your business only. I.e.: nothing not related to the business is there, and when you're there the only thing you do is working on your business. Your office doesn't have to be in the US necessarily, to the best of my knowledge. Your office must be in your home. If you take primary residence exclusion as part of your FEI, then I doubt you can deduct as well."


"Although there are occasional cases where simply moving money between countries results in a tax liability - for example a ""non-domiciled"" UK resident using the ""remittance basis"" - this is not the case in your situation. In general it would be extremely rare for non-residents of a country to be taxed on bringing money into that country, as it would be bad for tourism which most countries want to encourage. The requirement to declare large sums of money on entry is primarily so that the authorities can detect money laundering, rather than tax. Note that you will have to pay US tax on any interest you earn on that US bank account."


If I were you I would educate myself better on the ins and outs of employment law. Apparently not knowing all the details has already cost you substantial amount of money. [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/unemployment-benefits-contesting-employees-claim-30348.html](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/unemployment-benefits-contesting-employees-claim-30348.html) Of course the details can vary quite a bit by jurisdiction. Please consider consulting with an attorney who specializes in employment law who can help you protect yourself in the future.


The tax rates are correct numbers 24.7% for top 1% and ~30% (averaged) for bottom 80%. If you can't see the disparity issue; then, not much further I can do. I guess see you on the other side. Until then, enjoy life.


It makes sense that a credit score is a history of how you have handled monetary commitments. It allows the employer another method of evaluating you. Whether it provides useful information to the employer is another question. It may give them an idea of if you make risky decisions, take on too much at one time, or if you are able to repay on time. From my recent job search as a recent college graduate, this was not normal. As far as I'm aware it is legal, but you do have to give consent.


It's a phrase that has no meaning out of context. When I go to Las Vegas (I don't go, but if I did) I would treat what I took as money I plan to lose. When I trade stock options and buy puts or calls, I view it as a calculated risk, with a far greater than zero chance of having the trade show zero in time. A single company has a chance of going bankrupt. A mix of stocks has risk, the S&P was at less than half its high in the 2008 crash. The money I had in the S&P was not money I could afford to lose, but I could afford to wait it out. There's a difference. We're not back at the highs, but we're close. By the way, there are many people who would not sleep knowing that their statement shows a 50% loss from a prior high point. Those people should be in a mix more suited to their risk tolerance.


Mint has worked fairly well for tracking budgets and expenses, but I use GnuCash to plug in the holes. It offers MSFT$ like registers; the ability to track cash expenses, assets, and liabilities; and the option to track individual investment transactions. I also use GnuCash reports for my taxes since it gives a clearer picture of my finances than Mint does.


I haven't been following this crisis at all, so I know nothing about this, but I understand why the value of the Euro would shoot up as a result of Greece/Italy/Portugal leaving. But why would the Germans not want this? Is it because Germany is a leading exporter and it would increase the costs of exports from the country? Or could you expand on that for me? thanks


Child care expenses aren't exactly deductible without the FSA, but if you can't use the FSA and end up paying them with after tax dollars, you can use these expenses to qualify for the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, which, depending on your circumstances, could save you more money than the FSA would have saved you.


I'm going to suggest a slightly different approach. Most answers seem to suggest paying off the lower rate card to clear it. Some answers / comments also talk about emergency funds. One risk of paying off a card is that the card issuer may choose to reduce your credit limit if they see you as high risk, to prevent you re-spending the money. If you don't trust yourself with the card then this could be a good thing (and remember you're always free to ask for a limit decrease). But if you want access to emergency funds, then I would suggest paying half onto each card. That way if one card cuts you off, you have a chance of still having access to the other in an emergency.


"To quote a comedian: ""You don't have to be a helicopter pilot or engineer to know there is a problem when the engine is on fire."" There is no need to appeal to authority. We can very often get so caught up in the myriad details of our subject matter that we fail to step back and see the situation from another point of view. We then become entrenched in our ideology, and overly defensive when others bring criticisms. You have become overly entrenched in your Republican ideology. Your economic theories have left you lacking an understanding of value beyond what can be translated into financial gain. Actors spend their lives learning to replicate life. They gain a better understanding of suffering and joy, the ""intangibles"" in the economic field. Thus, that is where their criticisms often come from. You can expect each person to bring criticisms and insights from their field. My field contains logic, critical thinking, and taking things a literally and parsed as possible, because computers only do EXACTLY what you tell them. So you will see that my criticisms are often about improper logic, or false conclusions based on dependencies or interactions that don't really exist. How did I disenfranchise myself? Because I enjoyed comedy? That doesn't make sense at all. As for going full retard ( a quote from a comedy, I might add), your argument is flying off the handle based off assumptions that have little relation to reality. Where was my ass during primaries? Working offsite at a client's, far from voting machines. Before then, I was glued to media just as most people were at that time. I don't see what you obviously adore in Trump. I see him as a hypocritical bully that talks big, but still represents money. He has lost more money than most people have earned in their lifetime of hard work, yet he is touted as a great businessman. He attacks those who criticize him. Hillary is a two-faced, back stabbing snake who will say anything to get the audience in her favor, and isn't above lying to get her way. Unfortunately, she is sneakier than Trump. If I had voted, I would have voted for Trump, just because his methods are much more obvious. That doesn't mean his methods are better. Just because you have become so entrenched in Trump's support structure that you fail to see his failings doesn't mean they don't exist. Just because liberals become so entrenched in hating Trump that they fail to see his good side doesn't mean it doesn't exist either. But you aren't looking at both sides of the road. You aren't even trying to. Instead, you are telling me how my methods are bad because they aren't the same as yours, my opinions are bad because they don't agree with yours, and I am going full retard because you disagree. You are yet again not verifying a damned thing, and are appealing to authority the whole way. You aren't thinking for yourself. You are being led like a sheep by your preferred media. Every time I have pointed out this shortcoming, you have moved passed it without addressing it. But verification is the key to solid decision making. How can I possibly accept your view when you refuse to verify your information before you not only agree with it, but argue it to others? That's the action of an extremist or ""true believer"", not someone trying to make sure they know the truth. Where is your logic and critical thinking? Bring it back into the game. Stop arguing with your ego and look for your own inconsistencies before you try to drag issues you see with me into the light. I have pointed out time and again how my methods are self-consistent, and I've even admitted when I didn't have enough information. You have never self-analyzed in the course of this discussion. By inductive reasoning, I feel you may rarely, if ever, self-analyze. Clean up your logic before you try to clean up mine, please."


"Right now, I think Tesla is scared of being wounded by being too successful. If the Model 3 is as popular as I think it will be, and they can't crank them out fast enough, there's going to be a constant barrage of negative publicity. I guess they now see anything that can mitigate demand to a more reasonable level as a good thing. Talking about ditching the tax credits is easy when you're on top, but a few years ago, it was hard to get a straight price out of them on how much the cars actually cost, because of all the weasel math. The price they preferred to tell you was minus the tax credit(s) and even incorporated savings from not buying gasoline factored in. ""Yeah, that's all good and well, but how much does it actually cost?"""


"I would think that a lot of brokers would put the restriction suggested in @homer150mw in place or something more restrictive, so that's the first line of answer. If you did get assigned on your short option, then (I think) the T+3 settlement rules would matter for you. Basically you have 3 days to deliver. You'll get a note from your broker demanding that you provide the stock and probably threatening to liquidate assets in your account to cover their costs if you don't comply. If you still have the long-leg of the calendar spread then you can obtain the stock by exercising your long call, or, if you have sufficient funds available, you can just buy the stock and keep your long call. (If you're planning to exercise the long call to cover the position, then you need to check with your broker to see how quickly the stock so-obtained will get credited to your account since it also has some settlement timeline. It's possible that you may not be able to get the stock quickly enough, especially if you act on day 3.) Note that this is why you must buy the call with the far date. It is your ""insurance"" against a big move against you and getting assigned on your short call at a price that you cannot cover. With the IRA, you have some additional concerns over regular cash account - Namely you cannot freely contribute new cash any time that you want. That means that you have to have some coherent strategy in place here that ensures you can cover your obligations no matter what scenario unfolds. Usually brokers put additional restrictions on trades within IRAs just for this reason. Finally, in the cash account and assuming that you are assigned on your short call, you could potentially could get hit with a good faith, cash liquidation, or free riding violation when your short call is assigned, depending on how you deliver the stock and other things that you're doing in the same account. There are other questions on that on this site and lots of information online. The rules aren't super-simple, so I won't try to reproduce them here. Some related questions to those rules: An external reference also on potential violations in a cash account: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/avoiding-cash-trading-violations"


"Sigh. You need to educate yourself regarding the recent financial crisis before claiming the government had to bail out JP Morgan. The reason I said you don't know the difference between a depository bank and an investment bank is because JP Morgan isn't even the institution that ""gambled"" nor was it the institution that needed a bail out. It's one of the institutions that bought the toxic assets, thereby assuming the risk and mitigating what would've been a global catastrophe. Furthermore, you seemingly don't understand the concept of a bail out considering you think the TARP cost the tax payers money which is also false. The reason I was condescending towards you is because you insulted the CEO of a bank that had nothing to do with the housing crisis, and in fact kept us from what would've resulted in an economic depression at a minimum. ""Fuck you"" to the guy who was partly responsible for keeping our economy afloat and has every right to be frustrated at this point in time is so moronic that I don't even know where to begin."


All the mirrored departments ( Marketing, Sales, HR, Facilities, etc.) between banks and tech companies will have a similar layout in terms of roles; the major differences between them would be operations. Operations in a bank is populated by finance/econ/accounting majors. Operations in a tech startup are populated by STEM. You wouldn't expect them to be identical, and the differences between them will affect the overall demographics of a company. It's a far cry to say wall street is intentionally hiring women and silicon valley is intentionally not when there's a disparity in the availability of women for those roles coming from the education system.


Of course not, even if it got me closer to work, I've moved 30+ times in my life and I'm fucking done with it. I'm just saying, there are conceivably options, it isn't a total monopoly, even if you have to do an unreasonable amount of work to get around it. From an investing standpoint, there are competitors, even if there aren't real options for customers.


The government started the crisis and the banks concluded it. Barney Frank and the House Committee on Financial Services continually pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to issue new mortgages with the intent of increasing home ownership. The House set goals for mortgage issuances; thus Fannie and Freddie lowered the requirements for obtaining a new mortgage. Other banks saw this happening and were forced to lower their requirements for issuing mortgages. Then, the banks realized they were holding a lot of risky mortgages on their books, so they found a way to spread the risk among other banks and investors. Through financial ingenuity to reduce risk and maximize return, they created a new investment (securitized the debt) where risky mortgages were bundled, the earnings tranched, and resold to investors. In this way, they transformed hard-to-sell subprime mortgages into salable AAA and AA debt. This depended on the fact that the risk of default on each mortgage was *independent* of the others. This scheme reduced risk and increased returns for banks and investors. However, the securitized mortgages contributed to a higher overall *system* risk. As long as there weren't mass defaults, everyone was better off. Well, clearly there were mass defaults on risky mortgages, which destroyed the securitization scheme and brought down the banks. The missing element in all this was a strong, competent regulatory body that looked out for the country's welfare. Everyone else was looking out for themselves: Barney Frank & the House looked out for their voters' agenda to push home ownership. Home buyers were taking advantage of the favorable credit. The banks satisfied mortgage demand. The banks also figured out a way to sell risky mortgages to investors so more could be issued. However, no one looked out for the system-wide risk.


why does it make sense financially to buy property and become a landlord? Because then your investment generates cash instead of just sitting idle. All taxes, fees and repairs aside it would take almost 21 years before I start making profits. No - your profit will be the rents that you collect (minus expenses). You still have an asset that is worth roughly what you paid for it (and might go up in value), so you don't need to recoup the entire cost of the property before making a profit. Compared to investing the same 150k in an ETF portfolio with conservative 4% in annual returns I would have made around 140k € after taxes in the same 21 years i.e. almost doubled the money. If you charge 600 € / month (and never miss a month of rental income), after 21 years you have made 151k € in rents plus you still have a property. That property is most likely going to be worth more than you paid for it, so you should have at least 300k € in assets. Having said all that, it does NOT always make sense to invest in rental property. Being a landlord can be a hard job, and there are many risks involved that are different that risks in financial investments.


"That is correct. I've bought plenty of well made products made in China. My beef is with products formerly well made in the US, that have been moved to China but that don't seem to care about quality any more. It's as if the companies are saying ""look how much we're saving"" without realising that too much profit is not sustainable if it includes making a cheap trashy product."


He should definitely look into a 529 plan. Each state offers one. These provide tax incentives. Other relatives can contribute. A downside is if your nephew does not end up going to college, there will be a pentalty for withdrawing the money for other purposes (as there would be for withdrawing from a 401K early).


There is a fourth option - pay those taxes. Depending on the amounts, it might be the easiest way - if you make 34.49 in interest, and pay 6 $ in taxes on it, and be done, that might not be worth any other effort. If the expected taxable amount is significant, moving (most of it) to index funds or other simply switching existing investments to ‘reinvest’ instead of ‘pay out in cash’ would be the best approach. Again, some smaller amounts in savings or checkings accounts are probably not worth any effort. Transferring the money to the US doesn’t save you taxes, as any interest would still be taxable. You have a risk to lose on the conversion back and forth (and a potential to gain - the exchange rate could go either way!), so if you are sure you go back, it’s not a good idea to move the money.


Let us be candid! In this period of economic hardship many individuals just cannot afford to acquire technology best coffee maker on the market place. Nevertheless that is no cause to deny yourself one of life’s small delights, a mug of hot and alluring coffee to help you pick up your day or start off your early morning. In this video we are going to look at an alternative solution means for somebody even within the tightest of budgets in order to have the funds for a coffee machine.


"Kids, know some shit about your bank before hopping on the crazy train. GS doesn't have an ""M&A division"" and even partners make less than 1M salary - notoriously. And whether you're at Goldman or anywhere else, nobody wants to hear ""I think investment banking is cool because there are a lot of rich people and I would like to be rich, that's just amazing to me"" And learn to tie your tie. What a fucking goober"


complete fucking bullshit line of thinking. There are far more expensive industrial development (silicon fabrication, each fab cost $3-15Billion). You don't see Samsung running around begging for patent extension do you? The pharma industry is bunch of con artist and scum. It has always been like that. (You do know Merck originally sold opium right?)


Looks like what you are considering is buying an existing book of clients from a retiring planner. These are hit and miss as some have no connection, but other times that can be quite lucrative. If you want to know more PM me and we can chat about it more.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://medium.com/society-matters/wall-street-landlords-are-chasing-the-american-dream-heres-what-it-means-for-families-8e753e9d99fe) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Though house prices have recovered in many regions of the US, many of the people living in these homes are now renting - and their landlords are some of the biggest investment firms on Wall Street. > Another Wall Street backed firm, American Homes 4 Rent, owns a further 49,000 homes across 22 states. > Destination unknownScaling up portfolios consisting of thousands or tens of thousands of rental homes has made it possible for Wall Street firms to roll out financial instruments suited to &quot;a rentership society&quot;. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6zejn5/wall_street_landlords_are_chasing_the_american/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~207867 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **home**^#1 **rent**^#2 **rental**^#3 **single-family**^#4 **house**^#5"


"It's almost certainly the money you've earned from the bank. Money the bank earned from you would normally be described as ""Interest charged"" or ""Interest payable""."


"During the actual decline, there's very little money to be made and a lot to lose. When housing prices tank, everybody loses; the banks are exposed to higher risk of mortgage defaults, insurers start having to pay out more for ""gas leaks"" claiming over-leveraged homes, realtors starve because their commissions go down (even as foreclosures put more homes on the market) and people faced with financial uncertainty will stay put in their current homes instead of moving elsewhere. And homebuilders and contractors go broke because nobody wants to spend cash on a new home or major reno that looks like a losing investment. There can be some bright spots. Smaller hardware stores will make money as people do relatively small DIY projects to improve the condition of their current home. The larger stores get this business too, but it tends to be more than offset by the loss of contractor business (FAR more lucrative, and something the ACEs and True-Values don't really get in on). Of course the ""grave-robbers"" do well; gold buyers, auctioneers, pawn shops, repo firms; these guys eat well when other people are defaulting on loans or have to sell their stuff for fast cash. Most of these businesses are not publicly traded. One thing that was seen was increased revenues at discount retailers like Wal-Mart, Dollar General etc. When things are bad, people in the middle class who had avoided these stores for image or morality reasons learn to swallow their pride and buy discount store brands for half the price of national brand names. That lessens the blow felt by the discount retailers as overall consumer spending decreases; the pie shrinks, but the discount retailers get a bigger slice of the mandatory spending on food, clothing, etc (and the higher-level retailers get it in the shorts). When the pie starts to grow again as consumer spending picks back up, the discount retailers retain their percentage for a while, as the fickle middle class can afford to buy more from the discount retailer but can't yet afford to take their business back to the shopping mall stores. This produces a flatter, ""offset"" price graph for discount retailers through the business cycle; they don't lose as early or as much as everyone else in a major downturn, and they turn it around sooner while everyone else may still be on the way down, but as everything gets better for everyone on the upswing it's less great for the discount guys, as they start losing customers and their dollars to competitors with better stuff, even as the ones they keep spend more. This doesn't generally manifest as a true negative correlation, but it can be a good hedge. The number one money-making investment in a tanking economy is gold. When things go down the crapper, everyone wants gold, so if you see the train wreck coming far enough in advance, you can make a big move to gold and really make some money off that investment. For instance, when the first whispers about ARM adjustments and mass defaults reached the public consciousness in mid-2005, gold bullion jumped from about $400 to over $700 in a nine-month period. It cooled off again in 06-07 but only to about $600/oz, and then in late 07 it steadily climbed to peak at $1000/oz; even if you got in late, an investment of $1000 in July '07 in ""bulk"" gold would have netted you $650 in one year; that's a 65% APY. Then the economy hit bottom and a lot of investors ditched gold for investments they thought would pull back out of their holes quickly; For just a little while in '08 gold was down to $700 again. Then came all the government reports; unemployment not budging, home prices still declining, a lot of banks still hiding just how bad their position was. If you had seen that it was going to be bad, bad, bad, like a lot of now-billionaire hedge fund investors did, a $1000 investment in gold in July 05, and then cashing out at the tops of the peaks and buying back in at the major troughs, would be worth almost $4000 today. That's a 400% return over 7 years, or an annual average yield of 57%. There simply hasn't been anything like that in the last 7 years."


Hmm well the methods used differ depending on the asset class. I've worked with a REIT and PE on a few different types of commercial projects. For a general overview though I would say look up courses at a local community college and purchase the text books on the syllabus. Some asset classes also have free industry updates which can give you an broad overview. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk specifics.


if someone wants to retire, they can save up for it themselves. we're no longer the richest country in the world surrounded by a rest-of-the-world destroyed by world war II. big news. on average, people need to work to get by.


> This is only for their own products. Amazon is not the only player in the world not even close. The shear amount of packages Fed ex alone ships is insane not to mention their network. That is what you are responding to. You didn't address the claim. Before AWS there was nothing like it, and they didn't have a serious competitor for years, Bezos once told Buffett how weird it is that everyone knows he has good ideas, knows about AWS and yet he didn't have a real competitor for 6 years. Because his claim is that fedex has huge infrastructure operating a scale that is far greater than Amazons as Amazon is the last player, and becuase you are comparing the case of shipping to the case of AWS where amazon was the first player in and the first to have serious infrastructure the analogy fails to obtain. The two cases aren't similar in the salient way. That is, the case of AWS not only fails to address the claim, it is one of the worst possible analogies given that the saleint feature is being the first player and already having the infrastructure to meet all current demands on a larger scale than anyone else. In the fedex example fedex has that property, in the AWS case AWS had it.


Sadly, people with millions of dollars rarely give it away to complete strangers that they found at random on the Internet in exchange for trivial efforts. Anyone who claims to be willing to give you millions of dollars for just about nothing in return is almost certainly pulling a scam. It doesn't matter if you can't figure out how they're going to cheat you. They have plan. Just because your father has no money doesn't mean he can't be robbed. The scammer is almost surely planning to move some money around, and leave your father with a debt that he will be legally obligated to pay. She'll then take off with the money. (Of course you figured out that the picture is fake. It may not even be a pretty young girl -- that may well just be a persona the scammer created to appeal to your father. It might really be a fat, balding old man.) Your father would be smarter to sit in his back yard and wait for money to fall from the sky.


No, because of regulations Paypal is different in India to most countries and you cannot actually spend paypal balance. You will need to verify your PAN number and connect a bank account, although this should be very quick


> But it's just a tool, it's not artificially intelligent, and it will only do as well as people's willingness to bound its search by an appropriate set of constraints. Exactly right. Because a business doesn't think. The agents, or representatives of the business do. The business itself as an organization or entity isn't a person, so it isn't able to make a decision. The business will just follow orders given to it like a puppet. One might think when watching a puppet show that the evil character stabbing the others is evil... But it's just a puppet. It's the puppeteer that's operating the strings.


No, my argument is that our system is designed to allow the executive and judicial branch to legislate if the legislative branch can't. Legislate might not be the appropriate word, but a decision from the executive branch becomes defacto law if the judicial branch determines that: 1) legislation exists allowing the executive branch to make that call (as is the case with NLRB) or 2) it doesn't conflict with current legislation. After that point its up to the legislative branch to pass a law that negates it. That is just a fact of our system of government... yes its fucking anti-democracy as hell, but (IMO) its less terrible than having no legislation passed.


Yes, Regulation T is specified as the equity percentage of assets. So, yes, one can buy double the amount of equity in initial buying power but no more. A broker shouldn't even permit purchases that would violate margin regulation. Maintenance margin is at 25%, so equity must remain above 25% of the total or the brokerage will force liquidations.


They haven't even correctly identified the problem yet. The fundamental issue is that prices are too high in the US. Individuals can't afford the high profit margins and not even the government can afford to keep paying 3000 times what each little thing might cost anywhere else.


">If we lose our reserve currency status, we would have to pay it off with a different currency. No, a debt that comes into being as dollar-denominated remains dollar-denominated. Reserve currency status doesn't change this. The advantage of having the reserve currency is that other countries have a strong motive to accumulate dollars. Because of this we can pay for our imports in dollars. If we no longer had the reserve currency we would lose the ability to run a persistent trade deficit without borrowing foreign currency to do so. To some extent this would self-correct. If foreigners no longer desired to hoard dollars, the flow of dollars back in to the US would bring down the trade deficit. Going forward, we'd have to ""live within our means"" with respect to foreign trade, funding imports with exports. Domestically every country that has its own currency, not just the US, can use that currency to fully fund its own domestic productive capacity. Printing money doesn't make a poor country rich but it does allow any country to fully realize its own potential. >Other countries don't have the luxury of just printing out massive amounts of money to pay off their debts. This is only true when a country borrows in a currency it doesn't issue. When a country spends in its own currency its policy space is constrained by inflation. To the extent any country uses, pegs to or borrows in someone else's currency that policy space is narrowed by the need to first borrow or earn that currency. >if the UN followed through with its suggestion to create a global reserve currency or reverted back to the gold standard The euro shows us where that road leads. Countries that give up monetary authority give up sovereignty and when they find themselves in a situation where the monetary policy they no longer control is at odds with their needs, their economies get torn apart. That's why one country, one currency is good policy. Stability and maximum policy space is achieved when fiscal authority, political legitimacy and monetary authority are consolidated at the same level. It's a three-legged stool that becomes a fragile balancing act when one leg is taken away. Also, there's a whole side discussion to be had on what the alternatives are to the dollar as a reserve currency. The dollar is in that position for a reason."


"I haven't seen this addressed anywhere else, so I'll make a small answer to add on to the great ones already here. Money isn't the only way a person can contribute to a relationship. Time and effort are valuable contributions. Who runs the household? Who cooks, cleans, does laundry? How will you share these duties? My husband and I have a couple of rules. One of which is that we don't keep count. ""I did dishes, so you do laundry"". ""I made coffee last time, so now it's your turn"". ""I paid this, so you pay that"". That's not allowed. I happen to make ~4x as much as my husband, but I work 4x the hours (he's part time at the moment). So, he does the dishes, he cooks, he does laundry, he runs the household. Do I value him less? No! I value him more, because he is part of the team, and he feeds me coffee while I work (we have our own business). Even though I make so much more than him, we still split everything down the middle. Because his contribution to this relationship, to this household, is so much more than just money. And I value him. I value his contribution. At the end of the day, you are a team - and if you split hairs over finances, you'll find yourself splitting hairs over everything."


Start at flea markets.. rent a table or two for the weekend and see what sells and what doesn't. Don't saddle yourself with high overhead in the beginning. You don't want to borrow a ton of money when you are just starting out.


As opposed to sitting on reddit all day spamming articles no one responds to because they're stupid and clickbaity? If you posted something from a respected journal or academic source, I'd be more inclined to engage in discourse or take your posts seriously, but instead, you post stupid bullshit instead. Where'd you get your degree? DeVry? The School of Hard Knocks? Get over yourself.


Depends on how the money is invested within the 401k... but in general, prices move both up and down with a long-tem bias toward up. Think of it this way: with fund shares priced lower now, you are getting shares cheaper than when you entered the plan. So this dip is actually working in your favor, as long as you are comfortable trusting that long-term view (and trusting the funds your 401k money is going into). Believe me, it's even scarier when you're nearer your target retirement date and a 10% dip may be six figures... but it's all theoretical until you actually start drawing the money back out, and you have to learn to accept some volatility as part of the trade-off for getting returns better than bonds.


If Bezos wants subsidies Chicago likely can't / won't be able to match other places. If you ignore those, I'd agree it has almost every other box checked in terms of labor, infrastructure, space, etc. Unfortunately, I'm guessing they'll go with the subsidies. If they moved in and helped build up a new area of the city though that'd be awesome.


A CFA is plus all over the world but it probably won't be as useful as in the US. You can take the exams in many countries though so if you start in the US you should be able to continue back home. Better look online to see what your options are. CFA is not perfect for all types of finance careers though so before you start make sure it makes sense for you.


"Some countries and people are criminally insane and there's no way to ""constructively"" fix them... except using force to remove them from society or earth. Nothing to do with Trump. Actually, Trump, if no choice, will have the balls to wipe N.Korea from the face of the earth. God forbid if it was Hillary/Democrat needing to face this choice."


As others said, there is no recovery from that being late. However, to fix your situation: You can do a Rollover of Funds from HSA 1 to HSA 2. Both my HSAs have that option right on their website; I log on to HSA 2 (the target), and request a rollover from HSA 1 (the source), for the desired amount (3000 for you); I guess most HSAs offer that; if not you can call them to start it. This has no tax or limit implications; it just moves money between equally qualified HSAs. You could also consider - while you do that - to roll over the complete content of HSA 1 and get rid of it (as it is 'hard to access'). There is no limit (so you can move a million if you have it there), and as said above, no tax implication, no limit violations, as long as the money goes from one HSA into another HSA with the same ownership.


I need you to open your eyes just a liiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit more. You act like the only kind of weed available are indica strands. I smoke marijuana because it fights my chronic fatigue and nausea. And every time you smoke doesn't get you stoned off your ass to the point where all you can do is sit on the couch and bum it. Some of the greatest minds smoked pot. You're just being willfully closed minded.


"Edit: This is false. Seritage has no listed properties in Canada [on their website](http://www.seritage.com/properties) And ""Fast Eddie"" will make even more bank by renting out the space occupied by his old hobby project through Seritage, after neglecting the space his hobby project was in since his purchase during his stock buybacks."


The current FED's spend is to encourage spends by putting in more liquidity, SOME of this funds [directly or indirectly] reach emerging markets and get invested in stocks ... so without these forex inflows, the Balance of Payments would be under pressure ... so these forex are artificially keeping the Exchange rate down. For example the USD vs INR rate was in the range of 1 USD to around INR 50 for nearly 4-5 years. In the period the inflation in India was around 10-15%, so ideally the rate should have slowly moved towards INR 60, however it took a news of FED cut-back to more the rates in the range of INR 65 before stabilizing to Rs 60


"This question has been asked and answered before. Financially, owning a car will be more economical than leasing one in most cases. The reason for this is that leasing arrangements are designed to make a profit for the leasing company over and above the value of the car. A leasing company that does not profit off their customers will not be in business for long. This is a zero-sum game and the leasing customer is the loser. The lion's share of the customer losses are in maintenance and in the event of an accident or other damage. In both cases, leasing arrangements are designed to make a large profit for the owner. The average customer assumes they will never get into an accident and they underestimate the losses they will take on the maintenance. For example, if both oxygen sensors need to be replaced and it would have cost you $800 to replace them yourself, but the leasing company charges you $1200, then BOOM! you just lost $400. If the car is totaled, the customer will lose many thousands of dollars. Leasing contracts are designed to make money for the owner, not the customer. Another way leasing agents make money is on ""required maintenance"". Most leasing contracts require the leasor to perform ""required"" maintenance, oil changes, tire rotations, etc. Also, with newer cars manufacturers recalls are common. Those are required as well. Nearly nobody does this maintenance correctly. This gives the agent the excuse to charge the customer thousands of dollars when the vehicle is returned. Bills of $4000 to $6000 on a 3 year lease for failure to perform required maintenance are common. Its items like this that allow the leasing agent to get a profit on what looks like a ""good deal"" when the customer walked in the door 3 years previously. The advantage of leasing is that it costs less up front and it is more convenient to switch to a different car because you don't have to sell the car."


"> People with failed businesses also often put in crazy long hours and submit themselves to huge financial risk. That's what you have to do just to start a business. It doesn't predict success. Yes, but most people that start companies are unrealistic, poorly connected and barely average intelligence (if at all). I'd say perhaps 0.5% of entrepreneurs are really in the ""top tier"" where differences are shaped more by luck than anything else. Not sure if you've ever dealt with real life entrepreneurs, but I daresay you could make some pretty good estimates about who might succeed and who might not after talking to a random sampling of 50, and no - it wouldn't be because you can smell luck. Work ethic is kind of a baseline, and something shared with naive dreamers and total idiots, as well as unlucky realistic geniuses."


I think better advice would be always max out your 401K at least to the level that the company provides a match. For example, my company will match 50% up to 10% of your salary. Good luck finding another investment with a guaranteed immediate 50% return. Beyond the company match, it is probably good advice to put as much in the 401K as you can afford if you aren't disciplined enough to invest that money on your own. Otherwise it depends on a number of factors as to whether it is better to invest on your own or in the company plan.


"Why would anyone ever get a 15 year instead of just paying off a 30 year in 15 years? Because the rate is not the same. Never that I've seen in my 30 years of following rates. I've seen the rate difference range from .25% to .75%. (In March '15, the average rate in my area is 30yr 3.75% / 15yr 3.00%) For a $150K loan, this puts the 15yr payment at $1036, with the 30 (at higher rate) paid in 15 years at $1091. This $55 difference can be considered a flexibility premium,"" as it offers the option to pay the actual $695 in any period the money is needed elsewhere. If the rate were the same, I'd grab the 30, and since I can't say ""invest the difference,"" I'd say to pay at a pace to go 15, unless you had a cash flow situation. A spouse out of work. An emergency that you funded with a high interest rate loan, etc. The advice to have an emergency fund is great until for whatever reason, there's just not enough. On a personal note, I did go with the 15 year mortgage for our last refinance. I was nearing 50 at the time, and it seemed prudent to aim for a mortgage free retirement."


"From the perspective of an investor and someone in high-tech during that period, here is my take: A few high tech companies had made it big (Apple, Microsoft, Dell) and a lot of people were sitting around bemoaning the fact that we all should have realized that computers were going to be huge and invested early in those companies. We all convinced ourselves that we knew it was going to happen (whether we did or not), but for some reason we didn't put our money where our mouth was and now we were grumpy because we could be millionaires already. In the meantime the whole Internet thing transitioned from being something that only nerds and academics used to a new paradigm for computing. Many of us reasoned that we weren't going to be suckers twice and this time we were getting on that boat before it left for money-land. So it became fashionable to invest in Internet stocks. Everyone was doing it. It was guaranteed to come up in any conversation at parties or with friends at work. So with all this investment money out there for the Internet's ""next big thing"" naturally lots of companies popped up to take advantage of the easy money. It got to the point where brokers and Venture capital firms were beating the bushes LOOKING for companies to throw money at and often they didn't scrutinize these company's business plans very well and/or bought into insane growth projections. Frankly, most of the business plans amounted to ""We may not make any money off our users, but if we get enough people to sign up that HAS to be valuable, right?"" Problem #2 was that most of these companies weren't run by proven business types, but that didn't matter. It worked for those rag-tag kids at Google, Apple and Microsoft right? Well-heeled business types who know how to build a sustainable business model are so gauche in the new ""Internet Economy"". Also, the implicit agenda of most of these new entrepreneurs is (1) Get enough funding to make the company big enough go public while keeping enough equity to get rich when it does; (2) Buy a Ferrari; (3) Repeat with another company. Now these investors weren't stupid. They knew what was going on and that most of these Internet companies weren't going to be around in a decade. Everyone was just playing the momentum and planned to get out when they saw ""the signal"" that the whole house of cards was going to fall. At the time we always talked about the fact that these investments were totally playing with monopoly money, but it was addictive. During the peak, at least on paper, my brokerage account was earning more money for me than my day job. The problem was, that it was all kind of a pyramid scheme. These dot com companies needed a continual supply of new investment because most of them were operating at a loss and some didn't even have a mechanism to make a profit at all, at least not a realistic one. A buddy of mine, for example worked for an IPO bound company that made a freaking web based contact management system. They didn't charge yet, but they would one day turn on the meter and all of those thousands of customers who signed up for a free account would naturally start paying for something the company was actively devaluing by giving it away for free. This company raised more than $100M in venture capital. So eventually it started to get harder for these companies to continue to raise new money to pay operational costs without showing some kind of ROI. That is, the tried-and-true model for valuing a company started to seep back in and these companies had to admit that the CEO had no clothes. So without money to continue paying for expensive developers and marketing, these companies started to go under. When a few of the big names tumbled, everyone saw that as ""the signal"" and it was a race to the bank. The rest is history."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://theminskys.org/usa-2017-q1-sectoral-balances-update/) reduced by 83%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The graph setup this way shows how government fiscal deficits make their way towards the rest of the world or into the private sector. > If you were following the sectoral balances graph closely in 2000-2008, you could see how the private sector was continuously indebted, both households and businesses. > From a purely sectoral balances perspective, as long as we maintain our government deficit and the rest of the world continues to want US goods and services, the US private sector seems poised to continue muddling along. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/748wua/usa_2017_q1_sectoral_balances_update/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~221925 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **sector**^#1 **deficit**^#2 **way**^#3 **private**^#4 **GDP**^#5"


"Unless you have a history of over-using credit (i.e. you've gotten yourself into debt trouble), then I think that the banker is giving you bad advice in telling you to get your own credit limit reduced. Having more credit available to you that is left unused will make your utilization ratio lower, which is generally better for your credit score, according to this article on CreditKarma.com. The ""sweet spot"" seems to be 1-20% utilization of your total credit. (But remember, this is only one factor in your credit score, and not even the biggest-- having a long history of on-time payments counts the most.) My own personal experience seems to bear this out. I have two major credit cards that I use. One card has a high credit limit (high for me anyway) and I use it for just about everything that I buy-- groceries, gas, durable goods, services, you name it. The other card has a limit that is about 1/3 of the first, and I use it for a few recurring bills and occasional purchases where they don't take the first card. I also have a couple of department store cards that I use rather infrequently (typically 1 purchase every 3 months or so). At the end of each month, when the respective statements post, each card has a balance that is 15% or less of the credit limit on that card. I pay off the entire balance on each card each month, and the cycle repeats. I have never been late on a payment, and my credit history for all of these cards goes back 10 years. My credit score is nearly as high as it can go. If having unused credit were a detriment, I would expect my score to be much lower. So, no, having ""too much credit available"" is not going to hurt you, unless you are not using it at all, or are tempted to abuse it (use too much). The key is to use common sense. Have a small number of cards, keep them active, spend within your means so you can pay off the balance in full after the statement posts, and never be late on your payments. That's all it takes to have good credit."


I'm not going to look this up to confirm but back in prehistoric times when I was in high school I'm sure I am was taught that the 4x4 or 2x2 referred to the rough sawn timber an that most people but dressed timber sand that is why it's smaller. That said this is a stupid lawsuit for many reasons.


Time to bring back mcpizza lol. I love some of the experiments they've done over the years. Sometimes you need to stop pretending and focus on what you're good at and be the best at it. Instead the focus on expanding out instead of improving what they have in terms of quality.


KPMG's website has: For the purposes of taxation, how is an individual defined as a resident of Sweden? An individual is considered a resident in Sweden for tax purposes if one of the following three conditions is met: The individual has his/her real home and dwelling in Sweden. The individual stays in Sweden during a lengthy period of time (a permanent sojourn) and with only occasional interruptions. There is no legal definition of permanent sojourn, but a stay of six months or more will in general constitute residency. So, given your I am presently resident in Sweden and this from the above website: There is no legal definition of permanent sojourn, but a stay of six months or more will in general constitute residency. I believe you are liable for Swedish income tax. I am not an accountant. This is just speculation based on a Google search. Get paid advice! :-)


Try to find out (online) what 'the experts' think about your stock. Normally, there are some that advise you to sell, some to hold and some to buy. Hold on to your stock when most advise you to buy, otherwise, just sell it and get it over with. A stock's estimated value depends on a lot of things, the worst of these are human emotions... People buy with the crowd and sell on panic. Not something you should want to do. The 'real' value of a stock depends on assets, cash-flow, backlog, benefits, dividends, etc. Also, their competitors, the market position they have, etc. So, once you have an estimate of how much the stock is 'worth', then you can buy or sell according to the market value. Beware of putting all your eggs in one basket. Look at what happened to Arthur Andersen, Lehman Brothers, Parmalat, Worldcom, Enron, etc.


Sample Numbers: Owe $100k on house. House (after 'crash') valued at: $50K. Reason for consternation: What rational person pays $100k for property that is only worth half that amount? True Story: My neighbor paid almost $250K (a quarter-of-a-million dollars - think about that..) for a house that when he walked (ran!) away from it was sold by the bank for $88K. Unless he declares bankruptcy (and forgoes all his other assets, including retirement savings) he still owes the bank the difference. And even with bankruptcy, he may still owe the bank - this should cause anyone to be a bit concerned about being up-side down in a mortgage loan.


Last year was a great opportunity for dividend stocks and MLPs. I have a few which are earning 6-9% of my investment basis cost. Municipal bonds are a good value now. If you have the connections, passive investments in convenience franchises or other commercial property are a good income stream. A Dunkin Donuts used to be an amazing money printing machine.


"Paying tax is a Good Thing. However, warren has made good point and I would like you to consider this other thing: Go into your payees bank with the payee, get the money withdrawn from the teller and take it with you. Unless I am missing something, or the teller handed your payee fake notes, you are ""safe"""


If you are in the 15% marginal tax bracket, I'd agree, no harm in using Roth. If you are in the 25% bracket or above, it would take quite a bit of savings to retire in a higher bracket. I can't know your entire situation, but the average person is barely saving enough to be in the 15% bracket in retirement, let alone higher.


I believe he thinks that it cannot be racist if it is the truth, when in reality it's not true. I think that a large part of the reason white people were successful in the United States was because of the massive wealth of resources. His comparison to Zimbabwe makes no sense because it is a completely different physical climate with different resources. But of course he pins it on skin color, because it's easy for him to do in his mind. It's really upsetting to know there's still a lot of people like this; I also don't know how they can continue lying to themselves, with evidence of successful people from all races and cultures. Obviously the massive wealth in the UAE is due to the fact that they're brown, not because of the oil /s.


Education in India has always been the need of the hour. Education implies to the growth of every human being in the society in the form of mentality, knowledge, difference between right and wrong etc. The importance of education not only related to the development of intellectual skills and knowledge but also to the effective…


gatlinburg vacation home rental --iTrip.net is a company that has revolutionized the way people book vacations, making the process easy and stress free. Due to our forward thinking and advanced online booking engine, we're able to provide quality vacations rentals and a lower price.


Long convexity is achieved by owning long dated low delta options. When a significant move occurs in the underlying the volatility curve will move higher. Instead of a linear relationship between your long position and it's return, you receive a multiple of the linear return. For example: Share price $50 Long 1 (equals 100 shares) contract of a 2 year 100 call Assume this is a 5 delta option If the stock price rises to $70 the delta of the option will rise because it is now closer to the strike. Lets assume it is now a 20 delta option. Then Expected return on a $20 price move higher, 100 shares($20)(.20-.05)=$300 However what happens is the entire volatility surface rises and causes the 20 delta option to be 30 delta option. Then The return on a $20 price move higher, 100 shares($20)(.30-.05)=$500 This $200 extra gain is due to convexity and explains why option traders are willing to pay above the theoretical price for these options.


"If your shares get called on stock at a price below what you paid for the stock, your gain or loss depends on what premium you got for the options you sold. ""can I deliver shares at that assigned strike using margin or additional capital if I have it? Can the broker just take care of it and let me collect the time premium? "" You don't need margin or any cash because you already hold the shares. A covered call means your cash requirements are 'covered'. So they'll just buy your shares at the strike price of $50. And you still get to keep the premium (which you should have gotten when you sold the covered call). You only need cash or margin when you've sold an uncovered call or put."


Emergency Account Vault (Windows) I use it to store info about all of my accounts/assets in an encrypted document. It's more for keeping track of everything that is in your name than managing money. Good for situations when you need to quickly look up info about a specific account you own.


"This Stack Exchange site is a nice place to find answers and ask questions. Good start! Moving away from the recursive answer... Simply distilling personal finance down to ""I have money, I'll need money in the future, what do I do"", an easily digestible book with how-to, multi-step guidelines is ""I Will Teach You To Be Rich"". The author talks about setting up the accounts you should have, making sure all your bills are paid automatically, saving on the big things and tips to increase your take home pay. That link goes to a compilation page on the blog with many of the most fundamental articles. However, ""The World’s Easiest Guide To Understanding Retirement Accounts"" is a particularly key article. While all the information is on the free blog, the book is well organized and concise. The Simple Dollar is a nice blog with frugal living tips, lifestyle assessments, financial thoughts and reader questions. The author also reviews about a book a week. Investing - hoping to get better returns than savings can provide while minimizing risk. This thread is an excellent list of books to learn about investing. I highly recommend ""The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing"" and ""The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need"". The world of investment vehicles is huge but it doesn't have to be complicated once you ignore all the fads and risky stuff. Index mutual funds are the place to start (and maybe end). Asset allocation and diversification are themes to guide you. The books on that list will teach you."


They would work in any way those who choose to participate will it too work. They would make a democratic choice in how they spend their own dollars. Democracy isn't once every 4 years it is something that should happen every day with every choice you make. Only the free market provides true democracy.


The optimal way to pay off all cards in the least amount of time is a waterfall approach, with the most money going to the account with the highest interest rate, or in the event of a tie, the lowest balance. Then when that account is paid off, go to the next one. There's a bit of wiggle room if one is tax deductible, but in this case, there shouldn't be. So, what you should do is pay off card 2, then 1, then 3, using the waterfall scheme. You have correctly identified that card 2 will be paid off in 18 months. Figure out what the balance will be on Card 1 at that time, and how long the new payment of $1105 will take to get it paid off. Then figure out how long it'll take to pay off card 3 with $1365. Without crunching the numbers myself, I'm guessing you'll be debt free in about 26 months or so, that card 3 will be paid off before you are done with Card 1. So what you'd do in that case is pay off card 1 using the combined total payment.


"In finance, form is function, and while a reason for a trade could be anything, but since the result of a trade is a change in value, it could be presumed that one seeks to receive a change in value. Stock company There may have been more esoteric examples, but currently, possession of a company (total ownership of its' assets actually) is delineated by percentage or a glorified ""banknote"" frequently called a ""share"". Percentage companies are usually sole proprietorship and partnerships, but partnerships can now trade in ""units"". Share companies are usually corporations. With shares, a company can be divided into almost totally indistinguishable units. This allows for more flexible ownership, so individuals can trade them without having to change the company contract. Considering the ease of trade, it could be assumed that common stock contract provisions were formulated to provide for such an ease. Motivation to trade This could be anything, but it seems those with the largest ownership of common stock have lots of wealth, so it could be assumed that people at least want to own stocks to own wealth. Shorting might be a little harder to reason, but I personally assume that the motivation to trade is still to increase wealth. Social benefit of the stock market Assuming that ownership in a company is socially valuable and that the total value of ownership is proportional to the social value provided, the social benefit of a stock market is that it provided the means to scale ownership through convenience, speed, and reliability."


"In the UK there is a non-profit called the Citizen's Advice Bureau which provides free advice to people on a wide range of subjects, but including debt and budgeting. Consumer Credit Counselling Service provides explicit help but again, in the UK. A search for ""volunteer debt counsellor"" reveals a whole host of organizations that do that, but almost all based in the UK or Canada or Australia. The US seems not to be well provided with such organizations. This page advises people to volunteer as a debt counsellor, but gives no specifics of organizations, just ""Volunteer at local county community centers, churches and agencies. Your local faith-based organization might be a good place to start, even if you are not a member. Regrettably a search for ""free debt counselling"" produced a similar list of non-profits in UK and Canada, but mainly companies peddling consolidation loans in the US."


"China is a gigantic investor in the USA. Whenever you hear the term ""trade deficit"" that the US has to China, there is an identical amount in ""investment surplus"" that the US gets from China. That investment is everywhere - in our stock market, in our government debt, in our real estate and in our Ohio Windshield plants. Every time you buy an iPhone, you're handing China hundreds of dollars which they then invest in America. We very literally gave them a Windshield plant in exchange for consumer goods. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/16/that-china-trade-deficit-comes-back-to-the-us-110-billion-into-real-estate-alone/#76342d974653"


LOL!!!! So again, it's Trump and only Trump's fault. Are you serious? The ACA did not have serious issues in November before Trump was elected? Even Bernie Sanders does not like the ACA. Anyway, back to Trump: he's clearly for a National Health Care system. Am I right? Yes or no? And he clearly wants to fix ObamaCare, am I right? Yes or no? And he clearly could not and did not do anything about the ObamaCare because of traitors withing the Republican parties, am I right? Yes or no?


Mathura has a long history and tradition associated with the life of Shree Lord Krishna 8TH Avatar of Lord Vishnu and a much-loved god of the Hindus.Temples in Mathura- Krishna Janma Bhoomi Mandir, Jama Masjid, Dwarkadhish Temple, Kusum Sarovar, Radha Kund, Kans Qila, Mathura Museum, Govardhan Hill etc.


Actually, by far more Supreme Court rulings are unanimous than anything else, as you can see [here](https://www.law360.com/articles/808513/the-supreme-court-term-by-the-numbers) You hear more about the ones that aren't unanimous, because those are the controversial cases. But each Justice is very well educated on the law and generally they all have a similar understanding of how laws are applied.


Any investor can make a bad bet, even Buffett. Even if you have done every bit of research on an investment possible you are exposed to random external events.. acts of god, and outright fraud.


Do you have the option of paying cash for the phone? To answer your question though: Essentially, you have to use credit RESPONSIBLY. That doesn't mean go get a slew of loans and pay them off. As Ratish said, a credit card is a good start. I basically buy everything with a card and then pay it off every month when the bill comes out. I actually have two and I alternate but that's getting nitpicky. It should be noted that simply getting a card won't help your score. In fact, it may go down initially as the inquiry and new account opening may have a negative effect. The positive effect will happen as you develop good payment behavior over time. One big thing you can do, in your case, is always pay your mobile bill on time. Having a good payment history with them will go a long way to prove you are responsible.


The US doesn't have a Value Added Tax, which is the one usually refundable upon departing the country... so sales taxes you pay in this country stay in this country and you don't get a refund. Just remember to treat the tax as an implied part of the price. (And be aware that state and local taxes may vary, so the total price may be higher in one place than in another. New York City adds a few percent on top of the state sales tax, for example.) If you aren't sure how much tax would be, don't be afraid to ask.


First, who is saying that it is a better option? In general it is best to pay cash for things when you can. I think the reality is that for most people owning a house would be very difficult without some sort of financing. That said, one argument for financing a house these days even if you could afford to pay cash is that the interest rates are very low. For a 30-year fixed loan you can borrow money under 4.5% APR with decent credit. If you are willing to accept even a little risk you could almost certainly invest that same money and get a return higher than 4.5%. With the US mortgage interest tax deduction the numbers are even more favorable for financing. Those rates look even more attractive when you consider you are paying for the house with today's dollars and paying back the loan with dollars from up to 30 years in the future, which will be worth much less.


Are you looking for someone who could motivate you to achieve the heights of success? Mitesh Khatri is the man, who can boost your morale and instill positive thought within you. His inspiring speech and effective messages can bring a huge difference to your approach and attitude to do better in your career. http://miteshkhatri.livejournal.com/283.html


It is. So if we force companies to pay a living wage to everyone, why would a company pay skilled workers more? If they had to pay everyone a minimum of 36-60k, why pay anyone else more? By setting a livable wage, the government would also be setting a possible maximum wage. As a side note, the cost of goods would go up if a grocery store had to pay all of its employees a livable wage. Where is the happy medium and how would you calculate it?


"The wording of this question is very confusing because ""primary signer"" would, in ordinary parlance, mean the person borrowing the money and the co-signer (not consigner) would mean the one who is guaranteeing the repayment of the loan: if the borrower does not pay, the co-signer is liable for making the payments. Whose name is on the title of the car? Who borrowed the money to buy the car? Is the loan in your name and your son co-signed the loan to induce the bank to loan you money to purchase the car, or is it the other way around, that your son borrowed the money and you co-signed the loan in order to induce the bank to loan your son the money? If the car title and the loan are in your name, are you defaulting on the loan and so your son is making the loan payments that should have come from you? Or is it that your son borrowed the money to buy the car, his name is on the title, he is making the payments, and you are no longer interested in backing him up in case he defaults and the bank comes after you for the money?"


"As you note, your question is inherently opinion-based. That said, if I were in your situation I would sell the stock all at once and buy whatever it is you want to buy (hopefully some index ETF or mutual fund). According to what I see, the current value of the HD stock is about $8500 and the JNJ stock is worth less than $500. With a total investment of less than $10,000, any gain you are likely to miss by liquidating now is not going to be huge in absolute terms. This is doubly true since you were given the stock, so you have no specific reason to believe it will do well at all. If you had picked it yourself based on careful analysis, it could be worth keeping if you ""believed in yourself"" (or even if you just wanted to test your acumen), but as it is the stock is essentially random. Even if you want to pursue an aggressive allocation, it doesn't make sense to allocate everything to one stock for no reason. If you were going to put everything in one stock, you'd want it to be a stock you had analyzed and picked. (I still think it would be a bad idea, but at least it would be a more defensible idea.) So I would say the risk of your lopsided allocation (just two companies, with more than 90% of the value in just one) outweighs any risk of missing out on a gain. If news breaks tomorrow that the CEO of Home Depot has been embezzling (or if Trump decides to go on the Twitter warpath for some reason), your investment could disappear. Another common way to think about it is: if you had $9000 today to buy stocks with, would you buy $8500 worth of HD and $500 worth of JNJ? If not, it probably doesn't make sense to hold them just because you happen to have them. The only potential exception to my advice above would be tax considerations. You didn't mention what your basis in the stock is. Looking at historical prices, it looks like if all the stock was 20 years old you'd have a gain of about $8000, and if all of it was 10 years old you'd have a gain of about $6000. If your tax situation is such that selling all the stock at once would push you into a higher tax bracket, it might make sense to sell only enough to fit into your current bracket, and sell the rest next year. However, I think this situation is unlikely because: A) since the stock has been held for a long time, most of the gains will be at the lower long-term rate; B) if you have solid income, you can probably afford the tax; and C) if you don't have solid income, your long-term capital gains rate will likely be zero."


Jeffrey Benjamin lawyer By trusting attorney Jeffrey Benjamin to handle your case, you’re bringing aboard someone who knows how to handle business, commercial litigation, fraud and breach of contract cases. Beyond that, he has also overseen predatory lending, identity theft and other violations under the New York Deceptive Practices Act and New Jersey Consumer Fraud Truth in Consumer Contract and Warranty acts.


This is dumb on many levels. First are they really trying to blame the Flash Crash for investors leaving the market. It's 2014 and they claim in 17 of 25 months since the 2010 crash investors have withdrawn (not really sure what this means either, since shares don't disappear- does this just mean the market is up? It's unclear). Either way the article quoted is from 2012! And for a research team creating an empirical model, this is a very scary usage of small sample size, mistaking correlation for causation, etc. And the algo, though they don't give much info, seems to be the very essence of data mining. Pick a million signals and filter on those that are empirically the best. If you are an individual investor or a small fund thinking of purchasing something like this, first consider: if it really worked, why are the founders selling it when they could just use it themselves and profit from it? It's almost guaranteed not to work out of sample


$4,000 is a relatively small amount in the grand scheme of retirement. I think you should decide in general whether a Traditional or Roth makes more sense for you (with the intent that you will continue contributing to it in the future), and then treat the $4,000 like you would any other contribution.