query: Is there a more flexible stock chart service, e.g. permitting choice of colours when comparing multiple stocks?

positive: I don't think there are any web based tools that would allow you to do this. The efforts required to build vs the perceived benefit to users is less. All the web providers want the data display as simple as possible; giving more features at times confuses the average user.

negative: "The company itself doesn't benefit. In most cases, it's an expense as the match that many offer is going to cost the company some percent of salary.  As Mike said, it's part of the benefit package. Vacation, medical, dental, cafeteria plans (i.e. both flexible spending and dependent care accounts, not food), stock options, employee stock purchase plans, defined contribution or defined benefit pension, and the 401(k) or 403(b) for teachers. Each and all of these are what one should look at when looking at ""total compensation"". You allude to the lack of choices in the 401(k) compared to other accounts. Noted. And that lack of choice should be part of your decision process as to how you choose to invest for retirement. If the fess/selection is bad enough, you need to be vocal about it and request a change. Bad choices + no match, and maybe the account should be avoided, else just deposit to the match.  Note - Keith thanks for catching and fixing one typo, I just caught another."

negative: In the equity markets, the P/E is usually somewhere around 15.  The P/E can be viewed as the inverse of the rate of a perpetuity. Since the average is 15, and the E/P of that would be 6.7%, r should be 6.7% on average. If your business is growing, the growth rate can be incorporated like so: As you can see, a high g would make the price negative, in essence the seller should actually pay someone to take the business, but in reality, r is determined from the p and an estimated g. For a business of any growth rate, it's best to compare the multiple to the market, so for the average business in the market with your business's growth rate and industry, that P/E would be best applied to your company's income.

negative: The question lacks specificity, i.e. when does the initial investment occur, now or one period from now?  If now then it is a perpetuity due.   I  will consider under 2 scenarios, A and B, relating to the size of the initial investment. A. Assuming that the initial investment (C_0) occurs now and each payment thereafter has the relationship (1+g) with this investment then the relevant base equation is that for the present value of a growing perpetuity due, expressed in terms of C_0, i.e.  PVGPD=  [C_0*(1+g)*(1+i)]/(i-g). Now, to suit the question asked, we can see that i=fixed rate of return (f) and g = expected inflation rate (e) such that we can rewrite the equation as PVGPD = [C_0*(1+e)*(1+i)]/(i-e].   We know that f = is a fixed nominal rate and must be adjusted for e to calculate the real rate (r) according to the equation f=(1+r)*(1+e)-1. Therefore  PVGPD = [C_0*(1+e)(1+(1+r)(1+e)-1)]/((1+r)*(1+e)-1-e] Tidying up  PVGPD = {C_0*(1+r)(1+e)^2}/[r(1+e)] PVGPD = [C_0*(1+r)*(1+e)]/r B. Assuming that the initial investment (X) is not equal to each subsequent perpetual payment (C_1) then the relevant base equation is that for the the initial investment plus the present value of a growing perpetuity, i.e.  PVGP=  X + [C_1/(i-g)] Rewriting  PVGP = X + [C_1/(f-e)]    Substituting PVGPD = X + {C_1/[(1+r)*(1+e)-1-e]} Tidying up  PVGPD = X + C_1/[r*(1+e)]

negative: "I bought 1000 shares of Apple, when it was $5. And yet, while the purchase was smart, the sales were the dumbest of my life.  ""You can't go wrong taking a profit"" ""When a stock doubles sell half and let it ride"", etc.  It doubled, I sold half, a $5000 gain. Then it split, and kept going up. Long story short, I took gains of just under $50,000 as it rose, and had 100 shares left for the 7 to 1 split.  The 700 shares are worth $79,000. But, if I simply let it ride, 1000 shares split to 14,000. $1.4M. I suppose turning $5,000 into $130K is cause for celebration, but it will stay with me as the lost $1.3M opportunity.  Look at the chart and tell me the value of selling stocks at their 52 week high. Yet, if you chart stocks heading into the dotcom bubble, you'll see a history of $100 stocks crashing to single digits. But none of them sported a P/E of 12."

negative: For simplicity, I would subtract the expense from the gross income before accounting for taxes. Using your example, if g is gross income, r is your tax rate, and e is your deductible expense: You got the same answer because of the distributive property of multiplication, but I believe conceptually it makes more sense to deduct the expense before accounting for taxes.

negative: When credit locks up, junk bond prices fall rapidly, and you see more defaults. The opportunity to make money with junk is to buy a diversified collection of them when the market declines. Look at the charts from some of the mutual funds or ETFs like PIMCO High Yield Instl (PHIYX), or Northeast Investors (NTHEX). Very volatile stuff. Keep in mind that junk bonds are not representative of the economy as a whole -- they cluster in certain industries. Retail and financials are big industry segments for junk.  Also keep in mind that the market for these things is not as liquid as the stock market. If your investment choice is really a sector investment, you might be better served by investing in sector funds with stocks that trade every day versus bonds whose market price may be difficult to determine.

negative: But they beat most revenue estimates... should be a heavy down day tomorrow, even though the stock is already massively oversold, especially when compared to industry peers and average P/E ratios of tech companies.  Last 12 months of earnings: $44.16

negative: A moving average will act as support or resistance to a stock only when the stock is trending. The way it acts as support for instance is similar to a trend-line. Take the daily chart of CBA over the last 6 months: The first chart shows CBA with an uptrend support line.  The second chart shows CBA during the same period with 50 day EMA as a support.  Both can be used as support for the uptrend. Generally you can used these types of support (or resistance in a downtrend) to determine when to buy a stock and when to sell a stock. If I was looking to buy CBA whilst it was uptrending, one strategy I could use was to wait until it hit or got very close to the support trend-line and then buy as it re-bounces back up. If I already held the stock I could use a break down below the uptrend support line as a stop to exit out of the stock.

negative: ">The scales on the chart are not consistent, even in regards to stats the author purports to be comparable  Scales (and especially missing zero-points) are one of the easiest ways to manipulate the perception of viewers of charts & graphs.  Especially when we are dealing with exponential things -- even the choice of linear vs logarithmic can generate entirely different reactions to the same data.  Add in cherry-picking and ""normalization"" of data, and such things are rife with the possibility of being misleading (often in ways that the creators of the charts themselves are entirely unaware of)."

negative: The simple answer is technically bonds don't have earnings, hence no P/E. What I think the OP is really asking how do I compare stock and bond ETFs. Some mature stocks exhibit very similar characteristics to bonds, so at the margin if you are considering investing between 2 such investments that provide stable income in the form of dividends, you might want to use the dividend/price ratio (D/P) of the stock and compare it to the dividend yield of the bond. If you go down to the basics, both the bond and the stock can be considered  the present value of all future expected cashflows. The cash that accrues to the owner of the stock is future dividends and for the bond is the coupon payments. If a company were to pay out 100% of its earnings, then the dividend yield D/P would be conveniently E/P. For a company with P/E of 20 that paid out it's entire earnings, one would expect D/P = 1/20 = 5% This serves as a decent yard stick in the short term ~ 1 year to compare mature stock etfs with stable prospects vs bond funds since the former will have very little expected price growth (think utilities), hence they both compete on the cashflows they throw off to the investor. This comparison stops being useful for stock ETFs with higher growth prospects since expected future cashflows are much more volatile. This comparison is also not valid in the long term since bond ETFs are highly sensitive to the yield curve (interest rate risk) and they can move substantially from where they are now.

negative: "To calculate a sector (or index) P/E ratio you need to sum the market caps of the constituent stocks and divide it by the sum of the total earnings of the constituent stocks (including stocks that have negative earnings).  There are no ""per share"" figures used in the calculation. Beware when you include an individual stock that there may be multiple issues associated with the company that are not in the index.... eg. Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B is in the S&P 500 but BRK.A is not.  In contrast, Google has both GOOGL and GOOG included in the S&P 500 index but not its unlisted Class B shares.  All such shares need to be included in the market cap and figuring out the different share class ratios can be tricky."

negative: Firstly, you mean resistance not support, as a support is below the current price and resistance is above the price. Secondly using a MA as support or resistance would mean that that support or resistance level would move up or down as the price moved up or down and would not be static at $25. Generally stocks will range trade more often than they will be trending (either up or down), so a stock can be range trading between a support and resistance levels for months and even years, and usually the longer it range trades for, the bigger the outbreak (either up or down) will be when it does happen. Using a MA (especially shorter dated ones) as support or resistance (or as a up or down trend line) works better when a stock is already trending up or down. When a stock is moving sideways it will tend to keep crossing above and below the MA, and you will be whipsawed if you try to use them as your trigger for entry in these situations. Compare the two charts below:  In the first chart the stock is up-trending for over 6 months and the 50d EMA is being used as a support or up-trending line. As long as the price does not break through and close under the 50d EMA then the uptrend continues. You could use this EMA line as a means of entering the stock when prices move towards the EMA and bounce off it back up again. Or you could use it as your stop loss level, so if price closes below the EMA line you would sell your position.  In the second chart, the stock has been range trading between the support line at about $21.80 and the resistance line at about $25.50 for 10 months. In this case the price has been moving above and below the 50d EMA during these 10 months and you may have been whipsawed many times if you were trading each break above or below the 50d EMA. A better strategy here would be to buy the stock as it approached the support line and bounces up off it and then close and reverse your position (go short) when the price approached the resistance line and bounces down off it.  Edit: When range trading you would have your stops just below the support line when going long and just above the resistance line when going short, that way if it does break through support or resistance and starts trending you will be covered. So this shows that different strategies should be used when a stock is trending to when it is range trading. MAs are better used as entry signal during an established uptrend or downtrend than when a stock is range trading.

negative: "There are two primary reasons shares are sold short:  (1) to speculate that a stock's price will decline and (2) to hedge some other related financial exposure. The first is acknowledged by the question.  The second reason may be done for taxes (shorting ""against the box"" was once permitted for tax purposes), for arbitrage positions such as merger arbitrage and situations when an outright sale of stock is not permitted, such as owning restricted stock such as employer-granted shares. Why would a shareholder lend the investor the shares? The investor loaning his stock out to short-sellers earns interest on those shares that the borrower pays.  It is not unusual for the annualized cost of borrowing stock to be double digits when there is high demand for heavily shorted shares.  This benefit is however not available to all investors."

negative: Why do people buy them when they would be cheap to make for themselves? Convenience. While you could easily find some pictures and lay them out with a sentiment, buy some card stock, print in colour, trim it, and perhaps glue on some glitter or whatnot, and then find an envelope that fits it, it's likely to take you an hour or more to do so. And you'll invest far more than $6 on your printer and various inventories. I made cards for my kids- we had construction paper, glitter, coloured markers etc and there was no need for an envelope. But most people will find it quicker and simpler to buy one fully assembled. The cost of the online ones is weird I agree. Perhaps people are also not confident they can compose a good greeting? Why do stores stock $6 cards that they buy for $3 (retail markup is 50-100% and I'm sure it's closer to 100% for cards) when a different supplier might provide them for $2? Well, even if such a supplier existed, I'm sure the store would be happy to sell for $6 still (see: people buy them) so there would be no consumer impact. A store that sells cards for $5 isn't going to siphon customers from elsewhere because most of us just don't buy cards often enough for it to matter.  Why does nobody become that supplier who will sell them cheaper? Selling stuff is more expensive than making stuff, and getting your product into retail stores is hard. Hard means time and time means money and all of that contributes more to the card price than the ink and paper do. That said, dollar stores sell cards, for a dollar typically, and people do buy them. I find they have less colours and the artwork is cruder. Perhaps you even get what you pay for when it comes to design, layout, printing etc.

negative: "To perhaps better explain the ""why"" behind this rule of thumb, first think of what it means when the P/E ratio changes.  If the P/E ratio increases, then this means the stock has become more expensive (in relative terms)--for example, an increase in the price but no change in the earnings means you are now paying more for each cent of earnings than you previously were; or, a decrease in the earnings but no change in the price means you are now paying the same for less earnings. Keeping this in mind, consider what happens to the PE ratio when earnings increase (grow)-- if the price of the stock remains the same, then the stock has actually become relatively ""cheaper"", since you are now getting more earnings for the same price.  All else equal, we would not expect this to happen--instead, we would expect the price of the stock to increase as well proportionate to the earnings growth.  Therefore, a stock whose PE ratio is growing at a rate that is faster than its earnings are growing is becoming more expensive (the price paid per cent of earnings is increasing).  Similarly, a stock whose PE ratio is growing at a slower rate than its earnings is becoming cheaper (the price paid per cent of earnings is decreasing).  Finally, a stock whose P/E ratio is growing at the same rate as its earnings are growing is retaining the same relative valuation--even though the actual price of the stock may be increasing, you are paying the same amount for each cent of the underlying company's earnings."

negative: As per the chart pattern when ever a stock breaks its 52 week high. This information may differ for penny stocks,small caps and mid cap stocks

negative: It's safe to say that for mature companies, with profits that have been steady, and steadily growing, that a multiple of earnings can come into play. It's not identical between companies or even industries, but for consumer staples, for instance, you'll see a clustering around a certain P/E.  On the other hand, there are companies like FaceBook, 18 months ago, trading at 20, now at 70 with a 110 P/E. Did the guys valuing the stock simply get it wrong then or is it wrong now?  Contrast this with KO (Coca-cola) a 20 P/E and 3.2% dividend, PG (Proctor and Gamble) 21 P/E, 3% dividend.  Funny though, a $1M valuation for $50K in profit may be Shark ridiculous, but a $1B valuation on a $50M company with great prospects, i.e. a pipeline of new products in growing markets, is a steal.  Disclosure I have no positions in the mentioned stocks.

negative: Its Price/Earnings, or P/E, is at (roughly) 96 That means that for EVERY $1 that Amazon makes in profit, people are willing to pay $96 for it. This also means that for every $1 I invest in Amazon, I'll have to wait 96 years until I've collected on that - and that's assuming that 100% of their profit goes out through dividends, something that Amazon doesn't give out. This is either because the stock price is really high, or because its earnings is LOW.  Is this kind of ridiculous P/E common among the US stock (I'm not from the US)? Is there something going on in Amazon? Am I missing something (I'm a little new myself)?  I'm looking at [this graph](http://i.imgur.com/4YpDH.png). Return on Equity (aka RoE) has been going down. This is either because it has added more shareholders equity (equity issuance?), OR it's because net income has been falling. When you compare this to the rising P/E this recent year, something tells me that something is screwed up. People have been valuing Amazon *more and more*, while Amazon has been providing *less and less* to its shareholders!  [Here's more statistics](http://i.imgur.com/kJjPW.png) showing profit margin going down the last year, while the valuation went up (though it has been falling as it maxed at P/E 113).  So, either I've missed something (some awesome news or whatever), or I'm uneducated, or this stock has been overvalued. I'm assuming that it probably was a mix of the first and the last, and that this is just a correction. Correct *me* if I'm wrong.

negative: Decorative Balustrades are ideally suited for residential buildings where the aesthetics greatly matter.In premises where safety is a concern steel balustrades are better equipped to address these issues. Swimming pool fencing, railings for staircases and balconies can be fabricated out of aluminium. With coloured powder coating to match the building's exterior, aluminium balustrades are the perfect choice for every home.Several service providers offer top quality and low maintenance Balcony Railings.

negative: By coincidence, I entered this position today. Ignore the stock itself, I am not recommending a particular stock, just looking at a strategy. The covered call.  For this stock trading at $7.47, I am able, by selling an in-the-money call to be out of pocket $5.87/sh, and am obliged to let it go for $7.00 a year from now. A 19% return as long as the stock doesn't drop more than 6% over that time. The chart below shows maximum profit, and my loss starts if the stock trades 21% below current price.  The risk is shifted a bit, but in return, I give up potential higher gains. The guy that paid $1.60 could triple his money if the stocks goes to $12, for example. In a flat market, this strategy can provide relatively high returns compared to holding only stocks.

negative: PEG is Price/Earnings to Growth.  It is calculated as Price/Earnings/Annual EPS Growth.  It represents how good a stock is to buy, factoring in growth of earnings, which P/E does not.  Obviously when PEG is lower, a stock is more undervalued, which means that it is a better buy, and more likely to go up. Additional References:

negative: First off, I'd highly recommend looking at this nytimes rent vs buy calculator. This calculator gives you some great flexibility (for example, estimating what will happen with a 7% return in the stock market, and comparing renting vs buying). Secondly, I have personally gotten a lot out of this wall street journal book. Check it out at the library or buy it and read it cover to cover.  My personal opinion is that buying a house or condo is mostly a lifestyle choice.  Some specific caveats with your situation: A sidenote: One of my friends who bought a condo in chicago is considering moving to a different city and is very much regretting buying a condo, even though he got the $8k housing credit, because renting isn't as easy as it looks (you can do it and do it profitably but you darn well better consider that BEFORE buying a condo)

negative: While I've never used the service, there's also Amazon Flexible Payments Services (AFPS): (emphasis below is mine) Amazon Flexible Payments ServiceTM   (Amazon FPS) is the first payments   service designed from the ground up   for developers. It is built on top of   Amazon’s reliable and scalable   payments infrastructure and provides   developers with a convenient way to   charge Amazon’s tens of millions of   customers (with their permission, of   course!). Amazon customers can pay   using the same login credentials,   shipping address and payment   information they already have on file   with Amazon. [...] Considering Amazon.com is an e-commerce heavyweight, it might be worth a look.

negative: "Your question asks us to explain why a false statement is true.  From the point of view of an investor, a high price to earnings ratio is not necessarily desirable. From the point of view of an investor, a desirable stock is one that is likely to provide future dividends or price increases that more than compensates for the risk of the stock.  This information cannot be inferred from the P/E ratio. So what does the P/E ratio tell us? The P/E ratio measures a stock's current price (i.e., the market's belief about its future earnings) divided by its recent past earnings.  A high ratio means the market thinks earnings in the future will be higher than they are now and have therefore bid the price up.  These can thought of as expensive stocks, and are often called ""growth"" stocks because their price is driven by the market's belief in future growth. Some individual high P/E stocks do live up to or exceed the market's expectation, but there's no evidence that this happens enough that they are more desirable as a group than low P/E stocks. If anything, the empirical evidence goes the other way."

negative: "You're talking about money in a savings account, and avoiding the risks posed by an ongoing crisis, and avoiding risk. If you are risk-averse, and likely to need your money in the short term, you should not put your money in the stock market, even in ""safe"" stocks like P&G/Coca-Cola/etc. Even these safe stocks are at risk of wild price swings in the short- to intermediate-term, especially in the event of international crises such as major European debt defaults and the like. These stocks are suitable for long-term growth objectives, but they are not as a replacement for a savings account. Coca-Cola lost a third of its value between 2007 and 2009. (It's recovered, and is currently doing better than ever.) P&G went from $74/share to $46/share. (It's partially recovered and back at $63). On the other hand, these stocks may indeed be suitable as long-term investments to protect you against local currency inflation. And yes, they even pay dividends. If you're after this investment, a good option is probably a sector-specific exchange-traded fund, such as a consumer-staples ETF. It will likely be more diversified and safer than anything you could come up with using a list of individual stocks. You can also investigate recommendations that show up when you search for a ""defensive ETF"". If you do not wish to buy the ETF directly, you can also look at listings of the ETF's holdings. Read the prospectus for an idea of the risks associated with these funds. You can buy these funds with any brokerage that gives you access to US stock exchanges."

negative: "You can see how much of a percentage the S&P 500 is of the GDP over the past 10 years in this handy graph:  https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=oCZ  When the stock market was doing poorly (2009) it was only 0.06% of GDP. When it's doing well (now) it's 0.12% of the GDP.  It's also not useful to directly compare percentages like you're doing. Just because one averages 6% growth and one averages 3% growth, that doesn't mean that the 6% one will take over. It doesn't take much of a correction to wipe out decades of S&P vs GDP growth.  You might also be interested in knowing that this ratio is similar to the ""Buffet Indicator"", how Warren Buffet decides if stocks are overvalued as a whole:  https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/04/04/market-cap-to-gdp-an-updated-look-at-the-buffett-valuation-indicator"

negative: "Your question asks ""how"" but ""if"" may be your issue. Most companies will not permit an external transfer while still employed, or under a certain age, 55 or so.  If yours is one of the rare companies that permits a transfer, you simply open an IRA with the broker of your choice. Schwab, Fidelity, eTrade, or a dozen others. That broker will give you the paperwork you need to fill out, and they initiate the transfer.  I assume you want an IRA in which you can invest in stocks or funds of your choosing. A traditional IRA. The term ""self-directed"" has another meaning, often associated with the account that permits real estate purchases inside the account. The brokers I listed do not handle that, those custodians have a different business model and are typically smaller firms with fewer offices, not country-wide."

negative: "No. That return on equity number is a target that the regulators consider when approving price hikes. If PG&E tried to get a 20% RoE, the regulator would deny the request. Utilities are basically compelled to accept price regulation in return for a  monopoly on utility business in a geographic area. There are obviously no guarantees that a utility will make money, but these good utilities are good stable investments that generally speaking will not make you rich, but appreciate nicely over time. Due to deregulation, however, they are a more complex investment than they once were. Basically, the utility builds and maintains a bunch of physical infrastructure, buys fuel and turns it into electricity. So they have fixed costs, regulated pricing, market-driven costs for fuel, and market-driven demand for electricity.  Also consider that the marginal cost of adding capacity to the electric grid is incredibly high, so uneven demand growth or economic disruption in the utility service area can hurt the firms return on equity (and thus the stock price). Compare the stock performance of HE (the Hawaiian electric utlity) to ED (Consolidated Edison, the NYC utility) to SO (Southern Companies, the utility for much of the South). You can see that the severe impact of the recession on HE really damaged the stock -- location matters. Buying strategy is key as well -- during bad market conditions, money flows into these stocks (which are considered to be low-risk ""defensive"" investments) and inflates the price. You don't want to buy utilities at a peak... you need to dollar-cost average a position over a period of years and hold it. Focus on the high quality utilities or quality local utilities if you understand your local market. Look at Southern Co, Progress Energy, Duke Energy or American Electric Power as high-quality benchmarks to compare with other utilities."

negative: I second the Yahoo! Finance key stats suggestion, but I like Morningstar even better: http://quote.morningstar.com/stock/s.aspx?t=roic They show projected yield, based on the most recent dividend; the declared and ex-dividend dates, and the declared amount; and a table of the last handful of dividend payments. Back to Yahoo, if you want to see the whole dividend history, select Historical Prices, and from there, select Dividends Only. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=ROIC&a=10&b=3&c=2009&d=00&e=4&f=2012&g=v

negative: Asset Allocation serves many purposes, not just mitigating risk via a diversification of asset classes, but also allowing you to take a level of risk that is appropriate for a given investor at a given time by how much is allocated to which asset classes. A younger investor with a longer timeframe, may wish to take a lot more risk, investing heavily in equities, and perhaps managed funds that are of the 'aggressive growth' variety, seeking better than market returns. Someone a little older may wish to pull back a bit, especially after a bull market has brought them substantial gains, and begin to 'take money off the table' perhaps by starting to establish some fixed income positions, or pulling back to slightly less risky index,  'value' or 'balanced' funds. An investor who is near or in retirement will generally want even less risk, going to a much more balanced approach with half or more of their investments in fixed income, and the remainder often in income producing 'blue chip' type stocks, or 'income funds'.  This allows them to protect a good amount of their wealth from potential loss at a time when they have to be able to depend on it for a majority of their income. An institution such as Yale has very different concerns, and may always be in a more aggressive 'long term' mode since 'retirement' is not a factor for them.  They are willing to invest mostly in very aggressive ways, using diversification to protect them from one of those choices 'tanking' but still overall taking a pretty high level of risk, much more so than might be appropriate for an individual who will generally need to seek safety and to preserve gains as they get older.  For example look at the PDF that @JLDugger linked, and observe the overall risk level that Yale is taking, and in addition observe the large allocations they make to things like private equity with a 27%+ risk level compared to their very small amount of fixed income with a 10% risk level.  Yale has a very long time horizon and invests in a way that is atypical of the needs and concerns of an individual investor.  They also have as you pointed out, the economy of scale (with something like #17B in assets?) to afford to hire proven experts, and their own internal PHD level experts to watch over the whole thing, all of which very few individual investors have. For either class of investor, diversification, is a means to mitigate risk by not having all your eggs in one basket.  Via having multiple different investments (such as picking multiple individual stocks, or aggressive funds with different approaches, or just an index fund to get multiple stocks) you are protected from being wiped out as might happen if a single choice might fail.  For example imagine what would have happened if you had in 2005 put all your money into a single stock with a company that had been showing record profits  such as Lehman Brothers, and left it there until 2008 when the stock tanked. or even faster collapses such as Enron, etc that all 'looked great' up until shortly after they failed utterly.   Being allocated across multiple asset classes provides some diversification all on it's own, but you can also be diversified within a class. Yale uses the diversification across several asset classes to have lower risk than being invested in a single asset class such as private equity. But their allocation places much more of their funds in high risk classes and much less of their funds in the lowest risk classes such as fixed income.

negative: I can only imagine the regulatory difficulty you're going through, and for that I empathize. First, bankers everywhere mostly do not know if a bank policy is due to regulation or internal rules.  Other banks may be more flexible, but only the most reputable should be used. Re Paypal, they first deposit 1 USD and then withdraw it, but things may be different in Cyprus.  Also, Paypal now has debit cards, so if Paypal is permitted to issue cards in Russia then it could presumably be used in Cyprus.  Again, local regulation notwithstanding.  Paypal now has phone support at the very back of their site, so I suggest a call to them. In countries that permit, Western Union can be used to wire money into an account from cash. The Bitcoin route should be used as a last resort.  You could wake up tomorrow losting 25% easy.  The regulations are a distant second compared to this problem. With all of the above methods, there will be varying delays from days to weeks.

negative: The Winning Investor http://winninginvestor.quickanddirtytips.com/ This is a blog and a podcast. Load a bunch of these onto your iPod and start listening. Stikky Stock Charts http://www.amazon.com/Stikky-Stock-Charts-professionals-smart/dp/1932974008 This is a beginner's guide on how to read charts. Lots of charts, not too many words.


query: What fiscal scrutiny can be expected from IRS in early retirement?

positive: "IRS Pub 554 states (click to read full IRS doc):  ""Do not file a federal income tax return if you do not meet the filing requirements and are not due a refund. ... If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, you must file a return if your gross income for the year was at least the amount shown on the appropriate line in Table 1-1 below. "" You may not have wage income, but you will probably have interest, dividend, capital gains, or proceeds from sale of a house (and there is a special note that you must file in this case, even if you enjoy the exclusion for primary residence)"

negative: "The biggest and primary question is how much money you want to live on within retirement. The lower this is, the more options you have available. You will find that while initially complex, it doesn't take much planning to take complete advantage of the tax system if you are intending to retire early. Are there any other investment accounts that are geared towards retirement or long term investing and have some perk associated with them (tax deferred, tax exempt) but do not have an age restriction when money can be withdrawn?  I'm going to answer this with some potential alternatives. The US tax system currently is great for people wanting to early retire. If you can save significant money you can optimize your taxes so much over your lifetime! If you retire early and have money invested in a Roth IRA or a traditional 401k, that money can't be touched without penalty until you're 55/59. (Let's ignore Roth contributions that can technically be withdrawn) Ok, the 401k myth. The ""I'm hosed if I put money into it since it's stuck"" perspective isn't true for a variety of reasons. If you retire early you get a long amount of time to take advantage of retirement accounts. One way is to primarily contribute to pretax 401k during working years. After retiring, begin converting this at a very low tax rate. You can convert money in a traditional IRA whenever you want to be Roth. You just pay your marginal tax rate which.... for an early retiree might be 0%. Then after 5 years - you now have a chunk of principle that has become Roth principle - and can be withdrawn whenever. Let's imagine you retire at 40 with 100k in your 401k (pretax). For 5 years, you convert $20k (assuming married). Because we get $20k between exemptions/deduction it means you pay $0 taxes every year while converting $20k of your pretax IRA to Roth. Or if you have kids, even more. After 5 years you now can withdraw that 20k/year 100% tax free since it has become principle. This is only a good idea when you are retired early because you are able to fill up all your ""free"" income for tax conversions. When you are working you would be paying your marginal rate. But your marginal rate in retirement is... 0%. Related thread on a forum you might enjoy. This is sometimes called a Roth pipeline. Basically: assuming you have no income while retired early you can fairly simply convert traditional IRA money into Roth principle. This is then accessible to you well before the 55/59 age but you get the full benefit of the pretax money. But let's pretend you don't want to do that. You need the money (and tax benefit!) now! How beneficial is it to do traditional 401ks? Imagine you live in a state/city where you are paying 25% marginal tax rate. If your expected marginal rate in your early retirement is 10-15% you are still better off putting money into your 401k and just paying the 10% penalty on an early withdrawal. In many cases, for high earners, this can actually still be a tax benefit overall. The point is this: just because you have to ""work"" to get money out of a 401k early does NOT mean you lose the tax benefits of it. In fact, current tax code really does let an early retiree have their cake and eat it too when it comes to the Roth/traditional 401k/IRA question. Are you limited to a generic taxable brokerage account? Currently, a huge perk for those with small incomes is that long term capital gains are taxed based on your current federal tax bracket. If your federal marginal rate is 15% or less you will pay nothing for long term capital gains, until this income pushes you into the 25% federal bracket.  This might change, but right now means you can capture many capital gains without paying taxes on them. This is huge for early retirees who can manipulate income. You can have significant ""income"" and not pay taxes on it. You can also stack this with before mentioned Roth conversions. Convert traditional IRA money until you would begin owing any federal taxes, then capture long term capital gains until you would pay tax on those. Combined this can represent a huge amount of money per year. So littleadv mentioned HSAs but.. for an early retiree they can be ridiculously good. What this means is you can invest the maximum into your HSA for 10 years, let it grow 100% tax free, and save all your medical receipts/etc. Then in 10 years start withdrawing that money. While it sucks healthcare costs so much in America, you might as well take advantage of the tax opportunities to make it suck slightly less. There are many online communities dedicated to learning and optimizing their lives in order to achieve early retirement. The question you are asking can be answered superficially in the above, but for a comprehensive plan you might want other resources. Some you might enjoy:"

negative: "While I can appreciate you're coming from a strongly held philosophy, I disagree strongly with it.  I do not have any 401k or IRA I don't like that you need to rely on government and keep the money there forever. A 401k and an IRA allows you to work within the IRS rules to allow your gains to grow tax free. Additionally, traditional 401ks and IRAs allow you to deduct income from your taxes, meaning you pay less taxes. Missing out on these benefits because the rules that established them were created by the IRS is very very misguided. Do you refuse to drive a car because you philosophically disagree with speed limits?  I am planning on spending 20k on a new car (paying cash) Paying cash for a new car when you can very likely finance it for under 2% means you are loosing the opportunity to invest that money which can conservatively expect 4% returns annually if invested. Additionally, using dealership financing can often be additional leverage to negotiate a lower purchase price.  If for some reason, you have bad credit or are unable to secure a loan for under 4%, paying cash might be reasonable.  The best thing you have going for you is your low monthly expenses. That is commendable.  If early retirement is your goal, you should consider housing expenses as a part of your overall plan, but I would strongly suggest you start investing that money in stocks instead of a single house, especially when you can rent for such a low rate. A 3 fund portfolio is a classic and simple way to get a diverse portfolio that should see returns in good years and stability in bad years. You can read more about them here: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio You should never invest in individual stocks. People make lots of money to professionally guess what stocks will do better than others, and they are still very often wrong. You should purchase what are sometimes called ""stocks"" but are really very large funds that contain an assortment of stocks blended together. You should also purchase ""bonds"", which again are not individual bonds, but a blend of the entire bond market.  If you want to be very aggressive in your portfolio, go with 100-80% Stocks, the remainder in Bonds. If you are nearing retirement, you should be the inverse, 100-80% bonds, the remainder stocks.  The rule of thumb is that you need 25 times your yearly expenses (including taxes, but minus pension or social security income) invested before you can retire. Since you'll be retiring before age 65, you wont be getting social security, and will need to provide your own health insurance."

negative: Most investors vote with their wallets. I expect ZERO glitches from a trading platform. If someone was actually causing trades to fail maliciously, their reputation would immediately suffer and their business would dry up over night.  You can't just play dumb and not respond to a button click. I can watch and replay the traffic I'm sending out to their server and see if they are responding to verify this. If their system goes down and has no redundancy, that is their fault and opens them to lawsuits. No trading platform could withstand scrutiny from its users if it was dishonest in the scenario you imagine.

negative: Have the most desirable pay day loan fiscal products. We certainly have actually quite easy on the web program without credit assessment. You can expect reply in less than 10 minutes. Once your give is simply adequate, pay day loan can certainly help throughout urgent economical scenarios. Pay a visit to this web site should you need what seriously.

negative: The money your tenants spent on repairs and maintenance that is otherwise your responsibility is considered rent paid to you (and deductible to the extent you can deduct maintenance expenses, provided you have documentation etc etc). The money your tenants spent on utilities, which is their responsibility anyway, is not considered rent paid to you. Since in your question you seem to be mixing both together, it is hard to accept a claim that the additional $300 spent on utilities and maintenance is enough to bring the rent to the FMV level. Especially since the transaction is between related persons, it may bring additional scrutiny of the IRS.

negative: What is my best bet with the 401K? I know very little about retirement plans and don't plan to ever touch this money until I retire but could this money be of better use somewhere else?  You can roll over a 401k into an IRA. This lets you invest in other funds and stocks that were not available with your 401k plan. Fidelity and Vanguard are 2 huge companies that offer a number of investment opportunities. When I left an employer that had the 401k plan with Fidelity, I was able to rollover the investments and leave them in the existing mutual funds (several of the funds have been closed to new investors for years). Usually, when leaving an employer, I have the funds transferred directly to the place my IRA is at - this avoids tax penalties and potential pitfalls.   The student loans.... pay them off in one shot?  If the interest is higher than you could earn in a savings account, then it is smarter to pay them off at once. My student loans are 1.8%, so I can earn more money in my mutual funds. I'm suspicious and think something hinky is going to happen with the fiscal cliff negotiations, so I'm going to be paying off my student loans in early 2013.  Disclaimer: I have IRA accounts with both Fidelity and Vanguard. My current 401k plan is with Vanguard.

negative: Some aspect is legal some in grey area.  Please maintain proper documentation. Generally for amounts in question, there is less scrutiny from Income tax. Buying on behalf of your friends... First there is a limit of 250,000 USD, so fine on this point. Second is only licensed dealers can participate in FX. In your case, it can appear that you are acting as dealer.  On getting money back, this looks like gift and if it's more than 50,000 in a year it is taxable. Of course if you establish that it was convenience then no issues. So you need good amount of documentation, plus if you are getting paid after few months, tax can treat this as personal loan and arrive at deemed interest.  Edits: There is no guideline as to what the income tax will ask you, if there is a scrutiny. One would need to have paper work, a letter from friend requesting you to purchase things. You would have to keep a record of items ordered and match it with credit card statement. Proof that the goods were delivered to his address. Proof of equivalent credit entry from your friend into your bank statement. Reason why your friend could not do this himself. i.e. what is stopping him from getting a international debit/credit card?  So if you think you can convince that its convenience, yes, else taxes.

negative: IMHO your thinking is spot on.  More than likely, you are years away from retirement, like 22 if you retire somewhat early.  Until you get close keep it in aggressive growth.  Contribute as much as you can and you probably end up with 3 million in today's dollars.   Okay so what if you were retiring in a year or two from now, and you have 3M, and have managed your debt well.  You have no loans including no mortgage and an nice emergency fund.  How much would you need to live?  60 or 70K year would provide roughly the equivalent of 100K salary (no social security tax, no commute, and no need to save for retirement) and you would not have a mortgage. So what you decide to do is move 250K and move it to bonds so you have enough to live off of for the next 3.5 years or so.  That is less than 10% of your nest egg.  You have 3.5 years to go through some roller coaster time of the market and you can always cherry pick when to replenish the bond fund. Having a 50% allocation for bonds is not very wise.  The 80% probably good for people who have little or no savings like less than 250k and retired.   I think you are a very bright individual and have some really good money sense.

negative: From a tax perspective, it doesn't matter whether what you are doing is fraud, illegal, or perfectly legit.  If you make money, the IRS will want you to pay taxes on it.  Drug dealers, pimps, hobos, professional gamblers, extortionists, coupon collectors.  The IRS doesn't care.  They want their taxes. Now, where do you pay taxes?  There are two likely options:  I'm not a tax lawyer so I can't say which would be more correct.  My expectation is that the IRS would be fine with either.

negative: "> I think a the thing with depression and recession is just what he uses to define those economic statuses. He says at the begining that his thinking on the subject is what he uses and might not be conventional.   I see.  But if the severity of economic recessions/depressions can be categorized by, say, what % of debt defaults or is restructured in a certain period of time, that actually would be a convenient way to think about different recession events intuitively (instead of just the degree to which GDP goes up or down).  And I wonder if defaults/debt restructurings are a leading or lagging indicator of a recession.  >  For the different methods of depression recovery I beleive he was trying to say that the path to a ""beautiful devleraging"" requires balance. Certaintly the deflationary tactics have there own merits, and are not solely for the purpose of offsetting the inflationary methods, but a balance of everything is the most crucial factor for an efficient recovery.  Austerity is deflationary (and I'm not sure there are any mainstream/academic economists who support austerity during a recession...) but, again, I have serious doubts whether debt reduction and wealth distribution can be called deflationary.  Especially wealth distribution, which is basically the same thing as fiscal spending (which is included in the ""print money"" inflationary category in the video) combined with regressive taxes.    I would think that monetary easing and fiscal stimulus (both inflationary) help employment recover, and once employment recovers enough, inflation can rise.  Once inflation is expected to rise too much, then you can crank up interest rates/lower fiscal spending.  I don't think you really need to worry about adding in deflation for a ""balance"" when trying to recover an economy.  Hyperinflation happens only in extreme cases and stagflation, as far as I know, is a technical case that is hard to explain in a video like this.  Certainly, austerity is unlikely to help stagflation."

negative: It means $400m expected revenue, likely spread out over multiple years as it gets implemented, and not entirely guaranteed to happen as they still need to fulfill the contract. The impact on the stock price is complex - it should be positive, but nowhere close to a $400m increase in market cap. If the company is expected to routinely win such contracts, it may have no significant effect on the stock price, as it's already priced in - say, if analysts expect the company to win 1.2b contracts in this fiscal year, and now they've done 1/3 of that, as expected.

negative: I don't see countries switching to the USD, I see countries moving away from it. The US has the largest peace time debt ever, is not being even close to fiscally responsible (approving ~4 trillion budget!) and is faced with 100 trillion in future commitments (social security, medicare) with a workforce (tax base) that is decreasing as the baby boomers retire. When the US cannot meet those obligations (and most experts agree there is no hope of that anymore) they will have to print money and devalue the currency.

negative: "If you're looking for a well-rounded view into what it's like to actually own/manage real-estate investments, plus how you can scale things up & keep the management workload relatively low, have a look at the Bigger Pockets community.  There are blogs, podcasts, & interviews there from both full-time & part-time real estate investors. It's been a great resource for me in my investments. More generally, your goal of ""retiring"" within 20 years is very attainable even without getting extravagant investment returns.  A very underrated determinant in how quickly you build wealth is how much of your income you are contributing to investments. Have a look at this article: The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement"

negative: At your age, I don't think its a bad idea to invest entirely in stocks. The concern with stocks is their volatility, and at 40+ years from retirement, volatility does not concern you. Just remember that if you ever want to call upon your 401(k) for anything other than retirement, such as a down payment on a home (which is a qualified distribution that is not subject to early distribution penalties), then you should reconsider your retirement allocations. I would not invest 100% into stocks if I knew I were going to buy a house in five years and needed that money for a down payment. If your truly saving strictly for a retirement that could occur forty years in the future, first good for you, and second, put it all in an index fund. An S&P index has a ridiculously low expense ratio, and with so many years away from retirement, it gives you an immense amount of flexibility to choose what to do with those funds as your retirement date approaches closer every year.

negative: "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fiscal-contraction-boost-south-america-growth-by-andres-velasco-2017-06) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot) ***** > SANTIAGO - Europe&#039;s recent experience suggests that a fiscal contraction cannot be expansionary.  > Fiscal contraction can be expansionary if markets expect that tightening today will prevent larger and more disruptive budget cuts in the future.  > Despite the International Monetary Fund&#039;s mea culpa for underestimating the short-run adverse effects of fiscal austerity on European growth, over the longer term, Fund studies make clear, &quot;Reducing government debt is likely to raise output, as real interest rates decline and the lighter burden of interest payments permits cuts to distortionary taxes.&quot; One does not have to stick to the controversial 90%-of-GDP threshold identified by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff to believe that a stronger fiscal position can help long-term growth - especially in perennially low-savings, high-interest economies like Brazil.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6erhxk/can_fiscal_contraction_ever_boost_growth/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~134464 tl;drs so far."") | [Theory](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31bfht/theory_autotldr_concept/) | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **fiscal**^#1 **rate**^#2 **growth**^#3 **currency**^#4 **interest**^#5"

negative: "The entire idea of accountability in America has been in serious decline over the years.  Not to get on my high horse and preach, but this issue begins early on with child care and has branched it's way into our economics as well.  Kids get 9th place ribbons for races with 9 racers. Young post-college adults are struggling to survive on their own in the real world. CEO's are told to retire early as opposed to stepping down.  At the end of the day, everyone wants to credit themselves with a job well done and shift blame to others or outside forces.   However, this doesn't mean that there's no position left in the US with 'accountability.' For instance, the Fed Chairman has to be correct on their position or the entire economy can be destroyed in the process.   So what do we do instead? Those positions are the ones we blame for what's happening around us. So naturally, their response is to leave as delicately and unnoticed as possible.  If you ask me, those people at Equifax should be in jail. Not because of the hack, but because they waited so long to let everyone know. Stepping down and retiring shouldn't  mean they get away from it, the same way declaring bankruptcy doesn't mean I get away from my student loans.  If people started taking accountability for their own actions, America would be much more healthy in my opinion.  But then again, at the end of the day it is just my opinion, so you're free to believe whatever else you like. Cause you know what they say, 'opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one."""

negative: As others have explained defined contribution is when you (or your employer) contributes a specified amount and you reap all the investment returns.  Defined benefit is when your employer promises to pay you a specified amount (benefit) and is responsible for making the necessary investments to provide for it.   Is one better than the other? We can argue this either way.   Defined benefit would seem to be more predictable and assured.  The problem being of course that it is entirely reliant upon the employer to have saved enough money to pay that amount.  If the employer fails in that responsibility, then the only fallback is government guarantees.  And of course the government has limitations on what it can guarantee.  For example, from Wikipedia:   The maximum pension benefit guaranteed by PBGC is set by law and adjusted yearly. For plans that end in 2016, workers who retire at age 65 can receive up to $5,011.36 per month (or $60,136 per year) under PBGC's insurance program for single-employer plans. Benefit payments starting at ages other than 65 are adjusted actuarially, which means the maximum guaranteed benefit is lower for those who retire early or when there is a benefit for a survivor, and higher for those who retire after age 65. Additionally, the PBGC will not fully guarantee benefit improvements that were adopted within the five-year period prior to a plan's termination or benefits that are not payable over a retiree's lifetime. Other limitations also apply to supplemental benefits in excess of normal retirement benefits, benefit increases within the last five years before a plan's termination, and benefits earned after a plan sponsor's bankruptcy. By contrast, people tend to control their own defined contribution accounts.  So they control how much gets invested and where.  Defined contribution accounts are always 100% funded.   Defined benefit pension plans are often underfunded.  They expect the employer to step forward and subsidize them when they run short.  This allows the defined benefits to both be cheaper during the employment period and more generous in retirement.  But it also means that employers have to subsidize the plans later, when they no longer get a benefit from the relationship with the employee.   If you want someone else to make promises to you and aren't worried that they won't keep them, you probably prefer defined benefit.   If you want to have personal control over the money, you probably prefer defined contribution.   My personal opinion is that defined benefit plans are a curse.  They encourage risky behavior and false promises.  Defined contribution plans are more honest about what they provide and better match the production of employment with its compensation.  Others see defined benefit plans as the gold standard of pensions.

negative: So nothing preventing false ratings besides additional scrutiny from the market/investors, but there are some newer controls in place to prevent institutions from using them. Under the DFA banks can no longer solely rely on credit ratings as due diligence to buy a financial instrument, so that's a plus. The intent being that if financial institutions do their own leg work then *maybe* they'll figure out that a certain CDO is garbage or not.  Edit: lead in

negative: "Mathematically it seems like the expected rate of return, whatever that might be, is the same for both. An aggressive strategy is higher risk and higher reward. A conservative strategy is lower risk and lower reward. That is not true.  Roughly, the mathematical analogue of ""higher risk and higher reward"" is ""higher standard deviation and higher mean"".  In other words, the aggressive strategy does have a higher expected rate of return (higher mean).  Its disadvantage is that it has a higher likelihood of incurring intermediate losses (and/or higher magnitude of intermediate losses) on the way. This is classically illustrated with the following chart -  from Vanguard. You can see that the average return is greater the riskier the portfolio (i.e., the more allocated to stocks relative to bonds), but this higher average return comes at the price of a greater range of possible returns.  With an aggressive portfolio, you take a greater risk of losses at any given moment for a greater chance of gains over a long period. Given this, it should be obvious why the advice is to be aggressive early on.  Early in life, you don't care about whether your current position is up or down, because you're not taking the money out.  If your portfolio is down, you just leave the money in there until it goes back up again.  Later in life, you need to spend the money; you now care about whether your current position is up or down, because you can't afford to wait out a down market and may have to realize a loss by selling. It's important to note that the expected return is always greater for a higher-risk portfolio, as is the expected risk; the expected rate of return doesn't magically change as you age.  What changes is your ability to absorb losses to hold out for later gains."

negative: > Also, who the hell is Phillip Greenspun?  Clearly you weren't a web geek back in the mid '90s ;-)  Philip Greenspun was a professor at MIT and photography enthusiast who built [photo.net](http://photo.net) (one of the first big database-backed web sites) by wiring together AOLServer, Oracle, and TCL. The pages were rendered through a combination of static HTML and database content pulled from Oracle. It included a bunch of excellent photography tutorials with dynamic Q&A sections at the footer of each page along with online discussion forums. No big deal today, but this was shit-hot technology back then. He started a company to commercialize the technology, cashed in for a couple of million, and now writes about [early retirement](http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/).

negative: Congratulations on deciding to save for retirement. Since you cite Dave Ramsey as the source of your 15% number, what does he have to say about where to invest the money? If you want to have instantaneous penalty-free access to  your retirement money, all you need to do is set up one or more ordinary accounts that you think of  as your retirement money. Just be careful not to  put the money into CDs since Federal law requires a penalty of three months interest if you cash in the CD before its maturity date (penalty!) or put the money into those pesky mutual funds that charge a redemption fee (penalty!) if you take the money out within x months of investing it where x can be anywhere from 3 to 24 or more. In Federal tax law (and in most state tax laws as well) a retirement account has special privileges accorded to it in that the interest, dividends, capital gains, etc earned on the money in your retirement account are not taxed in the year earned (as they would be in a non-retirement account), but the tax is  either deferred till you withdraw money from the  account (Traditional IRAs, 401ks etc) or is waived completely (Roth IRAs, Roth 401ks etc). In return for this special treatment, penalties are imposed (in addition to tax) if you withdraw money from your retirement account before age 59.5 which presumably is on the distant horizon for you. (There are some exceptions (including first-time home buying and extraordinary medical expenses) to this rule that I won't bother going into). But You are not required to invest your retirement   money into such a specially privileged retirement   account. It is perfectly legal to keep your retirement money   in an ordinary savings account if you wish, and pay taxes on the   interest each year.  You can invest your retirement   money into municipal bonds whose interest is free of   Federal tax (and usually free of state tax as well   if the municipality is located in your state of   residence) if you like. You can keep your retirement money in a   sock under your mattress if you like, or buy a   collectible item (e.g. a painting) with it   (this is not permitted in an IRA), etc. In short, if you are concerned about the penalties imposed by retirement accounts on early withdrawals, forgo the benefits of these accounts and put your retirement money elsewhere where there is no penalty for instant access.  If you use a money management program such as Mint or Quicken, all you need to do is name one or more accounts or a portfolio as MyRetirementMoney and voila, it is done. But those accounts/portfolios don't have to be retirement accounts in the sense of tax law; they can be anything at all.

negative: You almost never want to repay a pre-2012 student loan early. As you've realised, you can put the money in an ISA instead and earn more interest than you're paying on the loan. If you withdrew money from the ISA each month to replace the repayments being taken from your salary, there'd be money left in the ISA when you finished repaying the loan. This is also the cheapest debt you'll ever have, so if you repay it now and then end up borrowing money elsewhere in the future, you'll probably be worse off. In particular, if you expect to have a mortgage at some point, you'll probably be better off keeping the money to add to a deposit rather than repaying it now and then borrowing more on the mortgage. You should also consider how long it'll take you to repay the loan normally. If you don't expect to finish repaying within 25 years, you'd be throwing money away by repaying early. This is more of an issue for the larger post-2012 loans.

negative: First, look at the local housing market, and the price to rent ratios. If you are comfortable that a house can be had for near to the cost of renting, and are not still dropping is price, then focus on the down-payment. I don't imagine housing prices to start picking up any time soon, so you don't be too rushed. If you feel like you have a longer time to save before you want to buy, I would focus as much money as I can into a retirement account while still saving for a down payment. Since you are young, you really want your retirement accounts working for you as soon as possible. You should not be investing in 3% stable funds, but the stock market index funds. Retirement is for 40 years in the future. Using funds for a down-payment from a retirement account should be a last resort. Remember this money is to provide you security later in life, not to get you into a house. When you take out money and put it into a house, it will not be appreciating nearly as fast. It is easy to say you will save later, but the money you save early in life will make up 50% or more of your funds when you retire. That is why it is critical to save for retirement as soon as possible.

negative: First, if you haven't seen it yet, check out the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service's I Don't Have My Refund page.  It discusses different things that can go wrong with receiving your refund and what to do about it. From your post, it sounds like you've tried all of the normal things to do, and you've tried calling in to the IRS.  What you might not know is that there are local IRS offices that you can visit and talk to a real person face-to-face.  Hopefully, you'll find someone helpful there who can either explain to you what is going on or put you in touch with someone who can help.  To find your local IRS office, go to the Contact Your Local IRS Office page and click on the Office Locator button.  Office visits are generally by appointment only, so you'll need to call the number for the office you want to visit and make an appointment. Alternatively, if you can't get anywhere with the IRS, you could contact the Taxpayer Advocate Service, which is an independent organization within the IRS that exists to help people with disputes with the IRS, and they have an office in every state.  You could try contacting them and seeing if they can help you with your issue. To answer your question about this year's tax return: At least for the federal return, your refund from last year does not really affect this year's tax return.  You should be able to file this year's return no matter what happens with last year's refund.  That having been said, you should get the refund matter straightened out as soon as you can. Good luck.

negative: Because stock markets don't always go up, sometimes they go down. Sometimes they go way down. Between 2007 and 2009 the S&P 500 lost over half its value. So if in 2007 you thought you had just enough to retire on, in 2009 you'd suddenly find you had only half of what you needed! Of course over the next few years, many of the stocks recovered value, but if you had retired in 2008 and depended on a 401k that consisted entirely of stocks, you'd have been forced to sell a bunch of stocks near the bottom of the market to cover your retirement living expenses. Bonds go up and down too, but usually not to the same extent as stocks, and ideally you aren't selling the bonds for your living expenses, just collecting the interest that's due you for the year. Of course, some companies and cities went bankrupt in the 2008 crisis too, and they stopped making interest payments.  Another risk is that you may be forced to retire before you were actually planning to. As you age you are at increasing risk for medical problems that may force an early retirement. Many businesses coped with the 2008 recession by laying off their older workers who were earning higher salaries. It wasn't an easy environment for older workers to find jobs in, so many folks were forced into early retirement. Nothing is risk free, so you need to make an effort to understand what the risks are, and decide which ones you are comfortable with.

negative: > Never said that.  Huh?  Did you NOT say:  * Governments **taxing** people people too much that's causing deflation.  I mean, there are some out there who claim that it's *inflation* that is fiscal. While I also think that's an interesting and particular theory, the theory that *deflation* is fiscal is a view that one just doesn't encounter often. Which is why I'm interested in seeing what sort of sources and/or evidence this theory flows from.   > You don't **believe** taxes are deflationary?  You're asking me what I believe in? I believe in the old-school, neoclassical view on the matter.

negative: >Mark Zuckerberg doesn't seem to think we can or should isolate and alienate 50% of the population because of their support of a political candidate, which I, the author, and Hastings seem to share a criticism of.   You mean alienate 26% of the population? (Probably less now, that was his support at election day.)   >Zuckerberg misses the point. Support of Trump has always been unpalatable to most on the left but now it's unforgivable.   He's also unpalatable to pretty much every real fiscal conservatives, nothing about hum is fiscally conservative.  >Pressure from all sides to erode his support is exactly what we should be doing; Facebook is one of the most powerful tools available in this effort.   Amen.

negative: Hi u/Sagiv1,  Short answer: Yes, you do have to pay taxes in Israel for all your worldincome.  Long answer: All countries within the OCDE consider you as a fiscal resident in the country where you spend over half a year in (183 days and up). If you do not spend that much time in any country, there are other tying measures to avoid people not being fiscal residents in any country.  Since you are living in Israel, you will have to pay all your worlwide generated income in Israel, following the tax regulation that is in place there. I am no Isarely Tax Lawyer so I cannot help you there.  Having a lot of business internationally brings other headaches with it. Taking for example the U.S. there is a possibility that they withold taxes in their payments. It is unlikely, though, as they have a Tax Treaty to prevent double taxation. You can ask for this witholded money to be returned from the U.S. or other countries through each country's internal process.  Another thing to take into account is that you can be taxed in other countries for any revenue you generate in said country. This is especially relevant for revenue that comes from Real Estate. The country where the real estate is will tax you in the country and you will have to deduct these taxes paid in your country, Israel in this case. If there is no tax treaty you might possibly be paying twice.  I know you said you do promotion, but I have to warn you about this, because I ignore what other countries tax or do not tax. So been giving more info won't hurt.  If the US is the main and/or only country you will be doing business with, I strongly recommend you real the Tax treaty with lots of love and patience. You can find it here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/israel.pdf or here:  Treaty:http://mfa.gov.il/Style%20Library/AmanotPdf/005118.pdf Amendment: http://mfa.gov.il/Style%20Library/AmanotPdf/005120.pdf  If you are from Israel and prefer it in Hebrew, here are the treaties in your language:  Treaty: http://mfa.gov.il/Style%20Library/AmanotPdf/005119.pdf Amendment: http://mfa.gov.il/Style%20Library/AmanotPdf/005121.pdf   Normally most IRS Departments have sections with very uselful help on these sort of matters. I'd recomment you to take a look at yours.   Last, what I've explained is the normal process that applies almost all over the world. But each country has their own distinctions and you need to look carefully. Take what I said as a starting point and do your own research or ideally try to find a tax consultant/lawyer who helps you.  Best of luck.

negative: It's not so much pros and cons as much as it is what are your savings goals? While it's best to start early to save money for retirement, you may have numerous short- to medium-term savings goals (school, down payment, etc). Here's a template you can consider. I would suggest that you open up an RRSP mutual fund or brokerage account and invest a certain amount that you feel free locking up for the next few decades and investing it in some sort of growth product (perhaps look at portfolios using the Couch Potato strategy). Then, also open up a TFSA mutual fund or brokerage account and use it to invest for medium-term goals (i.e. 5-10 years). Invest in products that will allow for some growth but with low chance of losing principle in that time frame. What I wouldn't do is open up a TFSA savings account and use it for day-to-day savings. The tax you save is negligible and you would need to keep track of deposits and withdrawals to ensure that you don't overcontribute for the tax year. Similarly, an RRSP savings account or GIC is far too conservative at your age, IMHO. Think of RRSP and TFSA as investment vehicles rather than accounts per se. Either type allows for you to invest in a vast array of products, including mutual funds, equities, some derivatives, gold, bonds, GICs, etc.  To conclude, my view is to use RRSP to invest for conventional retirement goals, and use the TFSA to invest for medium-term and early retirement goals.

negative: The Trinity study looked at 'safe' withdrawal rates from retirement portfolios. They found it was safe to withdraw 4% of a portfolio consisting of stocks and bonds. I cannot immediately find exactly what specific investment allocations they used, but note that they found a portfolio consisting largely of stocks would allow for the withdrawal of 3% - 4% and still keep up with inflation. In this case, if you are able to fund $30,000, the study claims it would be safe to withdraw $900 - $1200 a year (that is, pay out as scholarships) while allowing the scholarship to grow sufficiently to cover inflation, and that this should work in perpetuity. My guess is that they invest such scholarship funds in a fairly aggressive portfolio. Most likely, they choose something along these lines: 70 - 80% stocks and 20 - 30% bonds. This is probably more risky than you'd want to take, but should give higher returns than a more conservative portfolio of perhaps 50 - 60% stocks, 40 - 50% bonds, over the long term. Just a regular, interest-bearing savings account isn't going to be enough. They almost never even keep up with inflation. Yes, if the stock market or the bond market takes a hit, the investment will suffer. But over the long term, it should more than recover the lost capital. Such scholarships care far more about the very long term and can weather a few years of bad returns. This is roughly similar to retirement planning. If you expect to be retired for, say, 10 years, you won't worry too much about pulling out your retirement funds. But it's quite possible to retire early (say, at 40) and plan for an infinite retirement. You just need a lot more money to do so. $3 million, invested appropriately, should allow you to pull out approximately $90,000 a year (adjusted upward for inflation) forever. I leave the specifics of how to come up with $3 million as an exercise for the reader. :) As an aside, there's a Memorial and Traffic Safety Fund which (kindly and gently) solicited a $10,000 donation after my wife was killed in a motor vehicle accident. That would have provided annual donations in her name, in perpetuity. This shows you don't need $30,000 to set up a scholarship or a fund. I chose to go another way, but it was an option I seriously considered. Edit: The Trinity study actually only looked at a 30 year withdrawal period. So long as the investment wasn't exhausted within 30 years, it was considered a success. The Trinity study has also been criticised when it comes to retirement. Nevertheless, there's some withdrawal rate at which point your investment is expected to last forever. It just may be slightly smaller than 3-4% per year.

negative: > If you have a different currency from the U.S. Dollar, and it increases in value greatly, do you have to pay tax on that increased value relative to the U.S. dollar?  Technically, all profit you make as a US citizen or resident is subject to tax. It doesn't matter in what currency the profit takes place, and it doesn't matter if the profit never hits US dollars at all. You made profit, you owe tax.  Obviously the IRS is not going to bother with enforcing taxation on that Canadian twenty-dollar bill in your wallet from your last trip to Vancouver. But if you're sitting on a million dollars in Bitcoin profit, and the IRS finds out about it, expect them to start caring quite a bit.  > There isn't much of a transaction record, is there?  There is in fact a detailed and public transaction record. What there isn't is an easy way to match wallets to people; however, all similar machine learning projects seem to indicate that it wouldn't be hard at all to make these matchups.

negative: I believe it is because you can withstand a loss in your early life better than you can in your retirement. If you lose 25% in your 20s it is a lot less than 25% in your 60s. You, hopefully earn more in your 60s and you have a lot more already in the bank in your 60s.