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f5cb118c4b467a058dca55ea97a3f55e
Does Degiro charge per order or per transaction?
[ { "docid": "4cdfa5eb579e2b1f99667e415dc13ca6", "text": "An order is not a transaction. It is a request to make a transaction. If the transaction never occurs (e.g. because you cancel the order), then no fees should be charged. will I get the stamp duty back (the 0.5% tax I paid on the shares purchase) when I sell the shares? I'm not a UK tax expert, but accorging to this page is seems like you only pay stamp tax when you buy shares, and don't get it back when you sell (but may be responsible for capital gains taxes). That makes sense, because there's always a buyer and a seller, so if you got the tax back when you sold, the tax would effectively be transferred from the buyer to the seller, and the government would never collect anything.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "80519dc892a32a27903d0d13fdc93213", "text": "It comes down to liability - if a fraudulent transaction takes place with a debit card, you are out $$ until it is resolved - while as with a credit card, the credit lender is out $$ - the credit lender does not like losing $$, and therefore would like to be paid extra $$ for assuming this risk, and they found the merchant as the one most willing to pay. Sometimes the merchant will pass on this cost to the consumer, but often times the credit card company has a contract with the merchant preventing such a fee, because then they would be at a price disadvantage when compared to debit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b427ead79d6bc0ca641b104f8705fd3c", "text": "I would presume this goes entirely through the credit card network rather than the banking network. I am guessing that it's essentially the same operation as if you had returned something purchased on a card to the store for credit, but I'm not sure whether it really looks like a vendor credit to the network or if it is marked as a different type of transaction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "918130a1c8eeb5200beae8679af18034", "text": "Reading the plan documentation, yes, that is what it means. Each purchase by bank debit, whether one-time or automatic, costs $2 plus $0.06 per share; so if you invested $50, you would get slightly less than $48 in stock as a result (depending on the per-share price). Schedule of Fees Purchases – A one-time $15.00 enrollment fee to establish a new account for a non-shareholder will be deducted from the purchase amount. – Dividend reinvestment: The Hershey Company pays the transaction fee and per share* fee on your behalf. – Each optional cash purchase by one-time online bank debit will entail a transaction fee of $2.00 plus $0.06 per share* purchased. – Each optional cash purchase by check will entail a transaction fee of $5.00 plus $0.06 per share* purchased. – If funds are automatically deducted from your checking or savings account, the transaction fee is $2.00 plus $0.06 per share* purchased. Funds will be withdrawn on the 10th of each month, or the preceding business day if the 10th is not a business day. – Fees will be deducted from the purchase amount. – Returned check and rejected ACH debit fee is $35.00.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b1421909229fe6945dbe0cb1ff8c467", "text": "\"Etiquette or not, it is hurting the seller. The transaction fees have usually minimums, so if the actual transaction is below the minimum - they'll pay larger fee on the transaction (relatively). As an example, assume minimum fee for a debit card swipe is 20 cents, or 2% of the transaction. For a transaction of $10 and above, the fee will be 2% of the transaction. But for $1.67, the fee becomes 12% of the transaction. 6 times more expensive for the seller. Basically, the sale was most likely at a loss for them (they usually have very low margins, especially for a \"\"dollar\"\" store). So take that into account as well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "be77013d0fee1ef03a83383972fe04c5", "text": "Is that really a surprise? Merchant fees are typically around 2-3% (article says 1-4%) of the transaction sometimes with per transaction fees too. However, if you are paying 4% get a new CC processor. I am paying 2.75% for swiped/chip transactions for almost no volume with Square (I don't sell much, have it for convenience just in case). https://squareup.com/pricing I would be willing to bet that the ratio of overdrafts compared to not overdrafts is very low. I know I can't use my visa debit card when there is no money in the bank, and really, how many people use checks anymore?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f90bbdd90cafa17e1bed146d3546934", "text": "In addition to paypal, Amazon also offers a payment processing service that has micropayment pricing: For Transactions < $10:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa5888916091d16a9b14403dc22f162d", "text": "They do. The $260 already accounts for fees, I just left that out as I didn't believe it necessary info for the question of how to solve for group B. Edit : Oh, you mean accounting for the 1.5% interchange for group A? Yeah, I didn't do that. For group A we weren't given a number for monthly spend but we were told that they carry an average monthly balance of $3000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "abd4755517ae5ac8d79c1cb42bdf209a", "text": "I think something you might want to look at is a service called Dwolla. They charge $0.25 per transaction, and are free for transactions under $10.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "42d67907fdf339a103597d004144c9be", "text": "When my orders fill, I'll often see a 1000 shares go through over 4-6 transactions, with a few cents difference high to low, but totaling the transaction cost, it adds to one commission (say $10 for my broker). Are you sure a series of partial fills would result in as many as 20 commissions?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "11df2d48aade57748eb732849fd92870", "text": "Most bank registers (where you write down entries) show deposits (+) to account as a CREDIT. Payments, fees, and withdrawals are DEBITs to your bank accounnt. On loans such as credit card accounts, a credit to your loan account is a payment or other reductions of the amount you owe. A charge to your account is a DEBIT to you loan account. They did this just to confuse us!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3abf524688025b980ad223313b4ca8a", "text": "\"Not every American credit card charges Foreign Currency conversion fees. I won't mention the specific one I know about as I'm not interested in shilling for them. However, if you Google \"\"No foreign transaction fee\"\" you will find a couple of options.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d963b9d333cb1ac5e02fe08018a6873", "text": "\"I am not familiar with this broker, but I believe this is what is going on: When entering combination orders (in this case the purchase of stocks and the writing of a call), it does not make sense to set a limit price on the two \"\"legs\"\" of the order separately. In that case it may be possible that one order gets executed, but the other not, for example. Instead you can specify the total amount you are willing to pay (net debit) or receive (net credit) per item. For this particular choice of a \"\"buy and write\"\" strategy, a net credit does not make sense as JoeTaxpayer has explained. Hence if you would choose this option, the order would never get executed. For some combinations of options it does make sense however. It is perhaps also good to see where the max gain numbers come from. In the first case, the gain would be maximal if the stock rises to the strike of the call or higher. In that case you would be payed out $2,50 * 100 = $250, but you have paid $1,41*100 for the combination, hence this leaves a profit of $109 (disregarding transaction fees). In the other case you would have been paid $1,41 for the position. Hence in that case the total profit would be ($1,41+$2,50)*100 = $391. But as said, such an order would not be executed. By the way, note that in your screenshot the bid is at 0, so writing a call would not earn you anything at all.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "464e3ae477e3950b605f238bc0de4589", "text": "\"An order is your command to the broker to, say, \"\"sell 100 shares of AAPL\"\". An executed order (or partially executed order) is when all (or some) of that command is successfully completed. A transaction is an actual exchange of shares for money, and there may be one or more transactions per executed order. For example, the broker might perform all of the following 5 transactions in order to do what you asked: On the other hand, if the broker cannot execute your order, then 0 transactions have taken place. The fee schedule you quote is saying that no matter how many transactions the broker has to perform in order to fill your order -- and no matter what the share prices are -- they're only going to charge you $0.005 per share ($0.50 in this example of 100 shares), subject to certain limits. However, as it says at the top of the page you linked, Our Fixed pricing for stocks, ETFs (Exchange Traded Products, or ETPs) and warrants charges a fixed amount per share or a set percent of trade value, and includes all IB commissions, exchange and most regulatory fees with the exception of the transaction fees, which are passed through on all stock sales. certain transaction fees are passed through to the client. The transaction fee you included above is the SEC fee on sales. Many (but not all) transaction fees DO depend on the prices of the shares involved; as a result they cannot be called \"\"fixed\"\" fees. For example, if you sell 100 shares of AAPL at $150 each, But if you sell 100 shares of AMZN at $940 each, So the broker will charge you the same $0.50 on either of those orders, but the SEC will charge you more for the expensive AMZN shares than for the cheaper AAPL shares. The reason this specific SEC fee mentions aggregate sales rather than trade value is because this particular SEC fee applies only to the seller and not to the buyer. So they could have written aggregate trade value, but they probably wanted to highlight to the reader that the fee is only charged on sells.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "935f5ac442c79704da7ecf6c26687900", "text": "With a paypal micropayment he pays 61k (6.1%) (5% of sale price + .05 cents per transaction) With a regular paypal he pays 95k (9.5%) (2.9% of sale price + .30 cents per transaction) In case anybody was wondering what the poster is talking about. Either way he got hosed by using PayPal. Note: I'm working off 220,000 units sold at 1 million dollars (which I know aren't the exact figures).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "50b54ee0f2d50fba4547d1c2c497b452", "text": "A debit card takes the funds right from your account. There's no 'credit' issued along the way. The credit card facilitates a short term loan. If you are a pay-in-full customer, as I am, there's a cost to lend the money, but we're not paying it. It's part of the fee charged to the merchant. Thus the higher transaction cost.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
406cf1bbead32a90b6a2c5ea35b1ce36
Feasibility of using long term pattern on short term investments
[ { "docid": "5d9685b927b92b8d056c3264e56cf9e4", "text": "\"When structures recur at different scales, they're called \"\"fractals\"\", and there is something called the \"\"fractal markets hypothesis\"\" which attempts to analyse stock market movements as fractals and in terms of (related) chaos theory. Whether you can profit from it I have no idea. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Many of the non-academic pages linked in the search results (previous link) remind me of technical analysis/chartist stuff (which - to me - always seems to be a lot better at explaining things after the event than actually predicting things).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f872a71d23c1c891d80c07b39da115a6", "text": "Most patterns can be used on various time frames. For example you could use candle stick reversal patterns on monthly charts, weekly charts, daily charts or intra-day charts like one hour, or even one minute charts. Obviously if you are looking for longer term positions you would be looking at daily, weekly or monthly charts and if you are looking for shorter term positions you would be looking at intra-day to daily charts. You can also use a combination of time frames - for example, if you are trying to enter a trade over a long-term uptrend you could use a weekly chart to determine if the stock is currently uptrending and then use a daily chart to time your entry into the trade. Most patterns in general don't really determine how long you will be in the trade but instead usually can provide an entry trigger, a stop loss location and possibly a profit target. So in general a pattern which is being used to enter into longer term trades on weekly charts can also be used to enter shorter term trades on intra-day charts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "464f8325d26e0675c5b7458a4f9fdcfa", "text": "There are Patterns inside of Patterns. You will see short term patterns (flags / pennants) inside of long term patterns (trend lines, channels) and typically you want to trade those short term patterns in line with the direction of the long term pattern. Take a look at the attached chart of GPN. I would like to recommend two excellent books on Chart Patterns. Richard W. Schabacker book he wrote in the 1930's. It is the basis for modern technical pattern analysis. Technical Analysis and Stock Market Profits Peter Brandt Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader. He takes you through analysis and trades.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "92c9301f6148be2b3f14b088581243d3", "text": "Just to clarify Short Team Goals & Long Term Goals... Long Term goals are for something in future, your retirement fund, Children’s education etc. Short Term goals are something in the near future, your down payment for car, house, and holiday being planned. First have both the long and short terms goals defined. Of Couse you would need to review both these goals on a ongoing basis... To meet the short term goals you would need to make short term investments. Having arrived at a short term goal value, you would now need to make a decision as to how much risk you are willing [also how much is required to take] to take in order to meet your goal. For example if you goal is to save Rs 100,000 by yearend for the car, and you can easily set aside Rs 8,000 every month, you don't really need to take a risk. A simple Term / Fixed Deposit would suffice you to meet your goal. On the other hand if you can only save Rs 6,000 a year, then you would need to invest this into something that would return you around 35%. You would now need to take a risk. Stocks market is one option, there are multiple types of trades [day trades, shorts, options, regular trades] that one can do ... however the risk can wipe out even your capital. As you don't know these types of investments, suggest you start with dummy investing using quite a few free websites, MoneyControl is one such site, you get pseudo money and can buy sell and see how things actually move. This should teach you something about making quick gains or losses without actually gaining or loosing real money. Once you reach some confidence level, you can start trading using real money by opening a trading account almost every other bank in India offers online trading linked to bank account. Never lose sight of risk appetite, and revise if every now and then. When you don't have dependents, you can easily risk money for potential bumper, however after you have other commitments, you may want to tone down... Edit: http://moneybhai.moneycontrol.com/moneybhai-rules.html is one such site, there are quite a few others as well that offer you to trade on virtual money. Try this for few months and you will understand whether you are making right decissions or not.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bbeb862496110b094cc1321832a0fff5", "text": "\"IMO: If you look long and hard enough at your data you're going to bump into these kinds of \"\"patterns\"\". There is no \"\"curse of 7\"\". “Looking at the chart makes you want to hide under your desk when you see it, but remember this is only a sample size of 11, and the average performance is greatly skewed by big drops late in 1907, 1937, 1957, and 1987. Also, consider that 1907, 1937, and 1957 were all recessionary years, and equities had run up 40% for the year in August 1987, so a pullback was not surprising.\"\" [Quote](https://lplresearch.com/2017/08/11/the-curse-of-years-ending-in-7/)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1107626b9d56e20a0d0a6074e897b4d8", "text": "If they are truly long term investments I would not put a stop loss on them. The recent market dive related to the Brexit vote is a prime example of why not to have one. That was a brief dive that may have stopped you out of any or all of your positions and it was quite short lived. You would likely have bought your positions back (or new positions entirely) and run the risk of experiencing a loss over what turned out to be a non event. That said, I would recommend evaluating your positions periodically to see if they still make sense and are performing the way you want.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d849e6342a1478e971674313bc8184a", "text": "\"TBF - Proshares short 20+ Year Treasury The TBF fund is designed to track (hopefully) 100 percent of the inverse daily returns of the Barclays Capital 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Index. there's some risk of tracking error, and also a compounding effect if it's down several days in a row. (invest with care) There's also a TBT fund, but the risks are even greater since it is leveraged, potentially you could make the right long term call, but lose a lot in the short term due to tracking error and effect of compounding) (that would tend to make this one more appropriate for short term 'bets' on interest rates, and less so for a long term investor) There are also quite a few floating rate closed-end funds (Click here, then click on \"\"loan participation funds\"\") that should do well in a rising rate environment. Just beware that these funds seem to incorporate a substantial amount of credit risk as well as floating interest rate exposure. Closed end funds trade a lot like securities, since the fund is closed, you have to buy shares from another owner that is selling (just like with stocks), that means the shares can sometimes trade above or below the underlying value of the actual assets held by the fund depending on buying/selling pressure and the relative liquidity of a given fund.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd0cdb33bb16c2cd9885660a2f39574d", "text": "The article links to William Bernstein’s plan that he outlined for Business Insider, which says: Modelling this investment strategy Picking three funds from Google and running some numbers. The international stock index only goes back to April 29th 1996, so a run of 21 years was modelled. Based on 15% of a salary of $550 per month with various annual raises: Broadly speaking, this investment doubles the value of the contributions over two decades. Note: Rebalancing fees are not included in the simulation. Below is the code used to run the simulation. If you have Mathematica you can try with different funds. Notice above how the bond index (VBMFX) preserves value during the 2008 crash. This illustrates the rationale for diversifying across different fund types.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4146082e5f8044c92c427f46a333df1", "text": "In India, as suggested above, short/long position can be taken either in F&O or Spot market. The F&O segment short/long can be kept open for appx. 3 months by taking position on the far contract. In intra-day/Spot market, usually the position has to be squared at the end of day or the broker will square it during expiry (forcibly). However, having said that, it is a broker specific feature, as per National Stock Exchange (NSE) or Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) any transaction has to be settled at the end of T+2 days (T being the trade day). Some brokers allow intra-day positions to be open for T+1 or T+2 days as long as the margin is provided. This is a broker specific discretion as the actual settlement is on T+2 (or in some cases as the exchange specifies). So, in general, to short a stock for a longer time, F&O segment should be used.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a657750c12ad24f753f130ba5bff9636", "text": "For long periods of time a short ETF's performance will not match the negative of the long ETF, e.g. funding costs and the fact that they 'only' match daily returns will result in a suboptimal performance. If possible use other derivatives like a put on a long gold etf (fgriglesnickerseven)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0701647bcc7ed2194b069134c6b73b93", "text": "Algorithmic trading essentially banks on the fact that a price will fluctuate in tiny amounts over short periods of time, meaning the volatility is high in that given time frame. As the time frame increases the efficiency of algorithmic trading decreases and proper investment strategies such as due diligence, stock screening, and technical analysis become the more efficient methods. Algorithms become less effective as the time frame increases due to the smoothing effect of volatility over time. Writing an algorithm that could predict future long-term prices would be an impossible feat because as the time frame is scaled up there are far less price fluctuations and trends (volatility smooths out) and so there is little to no benchmark for the formulas. An algorithm simply wouldn't make sense for a long-term position. A computer can't predict, say, the next quarter, an ousted CEO, a buyout, or anything else that could effect the price of the security, never mind the psychology behind it all. Vice versa, researching a company's fundamentals just to bank on a 0.25% daily swing would not be efficient. Tax advantages or not, it is the most efficient methods that are preferred for a given time-scale of trading.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee81a90148d0f963fa707fa0e5631b6c", "text": "\"The standard low-risk/gain very-short-term parking spot these days tends to be a money market account. However, you have only mentioned stock. For good balance, your portfolio should consider the bond market too. Consider adding a bond index fund to diversify the basic mix, taking up much of that 40%. This will also help stabilize your risk since bonds tend to move opposite stocks (prperhaps just because everyone else is also using them as the main alternative, though there are theoretical arguments why this should be so.) Eventually you may want to add a small amount of REIT fund to be mix, but that's back on the higher risk side. (By the way: Trying to guess when the next correction will occur is usually not a winning strategy; guesses tend to go wrong as often as they go right, even for pros. Rather than attempting to \"\"time the market\"\", pick a strategic mix of investments and rebalance periodically to maintain those ratios. There has been debate here about \"\"dollar-cost averaging\"\" -- see other answers -- but that idea may argue for investing and rebalancing in more small chunks rather than a few large ones. I generally actively rebalance once a year or so, and between those times let maintainng the balance suggest which fund(s) new money should go into -- minimal effort and it has worked quite well enough.,)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95c440a3ea760230e65be9f6b8d00d70", "text": "\"In general, yes. If interest rates go higher, then any existing fixed-rate bonds - and hence ETFs holding those bonds - become less valuable. The further each bond is from maturity, the larger the impact. As you suggest, once the bonds do mature, the fund can replace them at a market price, so the effect tails off. The bond market has a concept known as \"\"duration\"\" that helps reason about this effect. Roughly, it measures the average time from now to each payout of the bond, weighted by the payout. The longer the duration, the more the price will change for a given change in interest rates. The concept is just an approximation, and there are various slightly different ways of calculating it; but very roughly the price of a bond will reduce by a percentage equal to the duration times the increase in interest rates. So a bond with a duration of 5 years will lose 5% of its value for a 1% rise in interest rates (and of course vice-versa). For your second question, it really depends on what you're trying to achieve by diversifying - this might be best as a different question that gives more detail, as it's not very related to your first question. Short-term bonds are less risky. But both will lose value if the underlying company is in trouble. Gilts (government bonds) are less risky than corporate bonds.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7aec2e5d1480a09c5e8c8671d32c6e8d", "text": "\"A bit strange but okay. The way I would think about this is again that you need to determine for what purpose you're computing this, in much the same way you would if you were to build out the model. The IPO valuation is not going to be relevant to the accretion/dilution analysis unless you're trying to determine whether the transaction was net accretive at exit. But that's a weird analysis to do. For longer holding periods like that you're more likely to look at IRR, not EPS. EPS is something investors look at over the short to medium term to get a sense of whether the company is making good acquisition decisions. And to do that short-to-medium term analysis, they look at earnings. Damodaran would say this is a shitty way of looking at things and that you should probably be looking at some measure of ROIC instead, and I tend to agree, but I don't get paid to think like an investor, I get paid to sell shit to them (if only in indirect fashion). The short answer to your question is that no, you should not incorporate what you are calling liquidation value when determining accretion/dilution, but only because the market typically computes accretion/dilution on a 3-year basis tops. I've never put together a book or seen a press release in my admittedly short time in finance that says \"\"the transaction is estimated to be X% accretive within 4 years\"\" - that just seems like an absurd timeline. Final point is just that from an accounting perspective, a gain on a sale of an asset is not going to get booked in either EBITDA or OCF, so just mechanically there's no way for the IPO value to flow into your accretion/dilution analysis there, even if you are looking at EBITDA/shares. You could figure the gain on sale into some kind of adjusted EBITDA/shares version of EPS, but this is neither something I've ever seen nor something that really makes sense in the context of using EPS as a standardized metric across the market. Typically we take OUT non-recurring shit in EPS, we don't add it in. Adding something like this in would be much more appropriate to measuring the success of an acquisition/investing vehicle like a private equity fund, not a standalone operating company that reports operational earnings in addition to cash flow from investing. And as I suggest above, that's an analysis for which the IRR metric is more ideally situated. And just a semantic thing - we typically wouldn't call the exit value a \"\"liquidation value\"\". That term is usually reserved for dissolution of a corporate entity and selling off its physical or intangible assets in piecemeal fashion (i.e. not accounting for operational synergies across the business). IPO value is actually just going to be a measure of market value of equity.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4dfed756f982e10aeba6622ffc054226", "text": "Is that indicator can only be used for short-term trade? First of all, indicator works perfect during trends and oscillator works perfectly in the range market(or flat market). So, indicator can be used for long term, as well as short term. I mean if it is a range market, using this or any other indicator will not help much, so it you should consider market direction first. If it can be used to long-term trade, is there something I need to change from the parameters used? like, only using SMMA(5,8,13)? The parameters are there to change them. Of course you can change them based on your trading style. Considering my statement above does not mean that trading is very easy. I never use indicators alone to make trading decisions. It is always good to use oscillator to filter out bad trading signals.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "707b7a5a7259093c1d03ce2ee737eda1", "text": "CFDs should not be used as a buy and hold strategy (which is risky enough doing with shares directly). However, with proper money and risk management and the proper use of stop losses, a medium term strategy is very plausible. I was using CFDs in the past over a short time period of usually between a couple of days to a couple is weeks, trying to catch small swings with very tight stops. I kept getting wipsawed due to my stops being too tight so had too many small loses for my few bigger wins. And yes I lost some money, almost $5k in one year. I have recently started a more medium term strategy with wider stops trying to catch trending stocks. I have only recently started this strategy and so far have 2 loses and 3 wins. Just remember that you do get charged a financing fee for holding long position overnight, buy for short position you actually get paid the funding fee for overnight positions. My broker charges the official interest rate + 2.5% for long positions and pays the official rate - 2.5% for short positions. So yes CFDs can be used for the longer term as long as you are implementing proper money and risk management and use stop losses. Just be aware of the implications of using margin and all the costs involved.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e147ee4363530039831bfe67c3df9573", "text": "Yes though I'd likely put a caveat on that. If you take short-term investments and extrapolate the results to get an annual result this can be misleading. For example, if a stock goes up 10% in a month, assuming this will continue for the next 11 months may not be a great idea. Thus, beware of how much data do you have in making these calculations. When looking at long-term investments, the compound annual growth rate can be quite useful for comparison.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d1babfc30d5ff74831c9c3ab4156b3c", "text": "\"If you want to make a profit from long term trading (whatever \"\"long term\"\" means for you), the best strategy is to let the good performers in your portfolio run, and cull the bad ones. Of course that strategy is hard to follow, unless you have the perfect foresight to know exactly how long your best performing investments will continue to outperform the market, but markets don't always follow the assumption that perfect information is available to all participants, and hence \"\"momentum\"\" has a real-world effect on prices, whether or not some theorists have chosen to ignore it. But a fixed strategy of \"\"daily rebalancing\"\" does exactly the opposite of the above - it continuously reduces the holdings of good performers and increases the holdings of bad. If this type of rebalancing is done more frequently than the constituents of benchmark index are adjusted, it is very likely to underperform the index in the long term. Other issues in a \"\"real world\"\" market are the impact of increased dealing costs on smaller parcels of securities, and the buy/sell spreads incurred in the daily rebalancing trades. If the market is up and down 1% on alternate days with no long tern trend, quite likely the fund will be repeatedly buying and selling small parcels of the same stocks to do its daily balancing.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
be9a60cdd99e55385671bf5b98cf72f1
In a reverse split, what happens to odd lots?
[ { "docid": "2a77a8dbaf8b3e7646f8946e1be9dede", "text": "Usually five shares and some cash.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "492e7cd78ea37b067613afee7ab4b19c", "text": "There are two reasons to do a reverse split. Those partial shares will then be turned into cash and returned to the investors. For large institutional investors such as mutual funds or pension funds it results in only a small amount of cash because the fund has merged all the investors shares together. If the company is trying to meet the minimum price level of the exchange they have little choice. If they don't do the reverse split they will be delisted. If the goal is to reduce the number of investors they are using one of the methods of going private: A publicly held company may deregister its equity securities when they are held by less than 300 shareholders of record or less than 500 shareholders of record, where the company does not have significant assets. Depending on the facts and circumstances, the company may no longer be required to file periodic reports with the SEC once the number of shareholders of record drops below the above thresholds. A number of kinds of transactions can result in a company going private, including:", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d32151d5001aad8890853e80ac7c273a", "text": "You can't own fractional shares. If the Reverse Split resulted in you having less a full share (for example, if you had 500 shares, and they did a 1000:1 reverse split), your fractional share was cashed in (sold). That could be that 'money market' activity shown on the next day? It is your responsibility to be prepared for a reverse split, by either selling at your desired price, or buying more shares, so you end with an integer number of shares after the reverse split.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "030f29cadee50e5a1c625fc0750411e6", "text": "This IS a stock split. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_split Ratios of 2-for-1, 3-for-1, and 3-for-2 splits are the most common, but any ratio is possible. Splits of 4-for-3, 5-for-2, and 5-for-4 are used, though less frequently. Investors will sometimes receive cash payments in lieu of fractional shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "354b30beb9a55fa25cc1a12b002fd1ca", "text": "This is how capital shares in split capital investment trusts work they never get any dividend they just get the capital when the company is wound up", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2062d8a92e3151241257c925fd0c2a15", "text": "One way that is common is to show the value over time of an initial investment, say $10,000. The advantage of this is that it doesn't show stock price at all, so handles splits well. It can also take into account dividend reinvestment. Fidelity uses this for their mutual funds, as can be seen here. Another option would be to compute the stock price as if the split didn't happen. So if a stock does a 2:1 split, you show double the actual price starting at that point.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e6d01e0013c0462160dddf726125ad0", "text": "If you had an agreement with your friend such that you could bring back a substantially similar car, you could sell the car and return a different one to him. The nature of shares of stock is that, within the specified class, they are the same. It's a fungible commodity like one pound of sand or a dollar bill. The owner doesn't care which share is returned as long as a share is returned. I'm sure there's a paragraph in your brokerage account terms of service eluding to the possibility of your shares being included in short sale transactions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfea65956e6385a78c8890560327b685", "text": "/ in relative to the Tesla's performance, and current inflation. They can split and reverse split at anytime the board decides without any regard to inflation or performance. OP points to Tesla at 350- he doesn't point to PE. It makes no differences what the price of one share is. If they split 10 for 1 it would be 35- but what difference does that make- the PE remains the same. OP does not understand value- only price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b45f126f3c25dce1dc0fadc80c469012", "text": "GT BIOPHARMA, INC. ANNOUNCES REVERSE STOCK SPILT AS PART OF OXIS-GEORGETOWN PLANNED MERGER LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2017 / GT Biopharma Inc. (formerly known as Oxis International, Inc.) announced today a 1-for-300 reverse stock split. Shareholders of GT Biopharma Inc. (OTCQB: OXIS and Euronext Paris: OXI.PA) will be issued 1 share of common stock for every 300 shares common stock that they owned. If you owned fewer than 300 shares, they cashed you out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1fb94e8d47ea5630d5154ec36535c97f", "text": "\"The margin money you put up to fund a short position ($6000 in the example given) is simply a \"\"good faith\"\" deposit that is required by the broker in order to show that you are acting in good faith and fully intend to meet any potential losses that may occur. This margin is normally called initial margin. It is not an accounting item, meaning it is not debited from you cash account. Rather, the broker simply segregates these funds so that you may not use them to fund other trading. When you settle your position these funds are released from segregation. In addition, there is a second type of margin, called variation margin, which must be maintained while holding a short position. The variation margin is simply the running profit or loss being incurred on the short position. In you example, if you sold 200 shares at $20 and the price went to $21, then your variation margin would be a debit of $200, while if the price went to $19, the variation margin would be a credit of $200. The variation margin will be netted with the initial margin to give the total margin requirement ($6000 in this example). Margin requirements are computed at the close of business on each trading day. If you are showing a loss of $200 on the variation margin, then you will be required to put up an additional $200 of margin money in order to maintain the $6000 margin requirement - ($6000 - $200 = $5800, so you must add $200 to maintain $6000). If you are showing a profit of $200, then $200 will be released from segregation - ($6000 + $200 = $6200, so $200 will be release from segregation leaving $6000 as required). When you settle your short position by buying back the shares, the margin monies will be release from segregation and the ledger postings to you cash account will be made according to whether you have made a profit or a loss. So if you made a loss of $200 on the trade, then your account will be debited for $200 plus any applicable commissions. If you made a profit of $200 on the trade then your account will be credited with $200 and debited with any applicable commissions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acb69647e0fc0d0aae8bd5df389f1bbb", "text": "Your broker should make you whole by adjusting the quantity of the underlying (see: http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/education/options-basics/key-option-concepts/dividends-stock-splits-and-other-option-contract-adjustments) but I would check with them that this will happen. You will then have an option on 4 times the underlying for each option. Unless the price has risen in the interim or you bought them after the split was announced you should not make a loss.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fb7f63577c30378b44879d1bd601330", "text": "You will have to rebalance every time your Boolean Buy flag is true. You buy 20% of each fund then next week you have to sell down to 10% of your first 5 funds and buy 10% of the second 5.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "feae5f3aa40dfb43e15750d27198b468", "text": "From Investopedia, A stock split is usually done by companies that have seen their share price increase to levels that are either too high or are beyond the price levels of similar companies in their sector. The primary motive is to make shares seem more affordable to small investors even though the underlying value of the company has not changed. From Wikipedia, It is often claimed that stock splits, in and of themselves, lead to higher stock prices; research, however, does not bear this out. What is true is that stock splits are usually initiated after a large run up in share price...stock splits do increase the liquidity of a stock; there are more buyers and sellers for 10 shares at $10 than 1 share at $100. Some companies have the opposite strategy: by refusing to split the stock and keeping the price high, they reduce trading volume. Berkshire Hathaway is a notable example of this. Something more to munch on, Why Warren Buffett Is Against Stock Splits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6438aff03037653c65cb500fab84db1c", "text": "There is a technique called the Elliott wave which explains these 'shocks'. The reversal directions you are questioning are part of the pattern, it is known as corrections. The Elliott wave is an indicator based on psychology of investors. Think about it this way, if you see a huge up trend what are you most likely to do, sell and make profit or continue, this is why there is a shock before it continues. Many people will sell to be safe, especially after hearing the bad news they won't risk it. By learning the Elliott wave you'll be able to make an educated decision on whether or not to stay or leave. Here are websites on the Elliott wave: http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:market_analysis:elliott_wave_theory http://www.swing-trade-stocks.com/elliott-wave.html The Elliott wave is helpful in any time frame and works well with momentum. Hope this helps.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3923c963dd1ef3e1bea249001af5c433", "text": "\"If I held stock in these companies yesterday, would I have profited by these gains? No. For DZSI, your 5 shares at $1.10 would now be 1 share at $5.50, so you would have the same total amount. For SGY, they closed at $6.95, and opened at $32.80, so your five shares at $6.95 would now be one share at $32.80, so you would have actually lost money (not purely because of the split, but because the \"\"new\"\" shares are trading lower then the expected 1:5 split price). A split in general does not affect market cap (how much your total shares are worth) but there may be residual effects that cause the market value to fluctuate after a split that affect the price.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b9d51d78fc361b76ac4c53ebdb00e57", "text": "Scrip dividends are similar to stock splits. With a stock split, 100 shares can turn into 200 shares; with scrip dividends they might turn into 105 shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "09b48a9451787d6330c32cdb45fff1de", "text": "If your primary goal is no / minimized fees, there are 3 general options, as I see it: Based on the fact that you want some risk, interest-only investments would not be great. Consider - 2% interest equals only $1,500 annually, and since the trust can only distribute income, that may be limited. Based on the fact that you seem to have some hesitation on risk, and also limited personal time able to govern the trust (which is understandable), I would say keep your investment mix simple. By this I mean, creating a specific portfolio may seem desirable, but could also become a headache and, in my opinion, not desirable for a trust executor. You didn't get into the personal situation, but I assume you have a family / close connection to a young person, and are executor of a trust set up on someone's death. That not be the case for you, but given that you are asking for advice rather than speaking with those involved, I assume it is similar enough for this to be applicable: you don't want to set yourself up to feel emotionally responsible for taking on too much risk, impacting the trustee(s)'s life negatively. Therefore, investing in a few limited index funds seems to match what you're looking for in terms of risk, reward, and time required. One final consideration - if you want to maximize annual distributions to the trustee(s)'s, consider that you may be best served by seeking high-dividend paying stock (although again, probably don't do this on a stock-by-stock basis unless you can commit the time to fully manage it). Returns in the form of stock increases are good, but they will not immediately provide income that the trust can distribute. If you also wish to grow the corpus of the trust, then stock growth is okay, but if you want to maximize immediate distributions, you need to focus on returns through income (dividends & interest), rather than returns through value increase.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a11290744c3e6346d81003fb76444c23
Why do stocks gap up after a buyout is announced?
[ { "docid": "be34b632b21a464f625e2f315d38beba", "text": "The price gaps up because the offer is for a price above the current price. Therefore people want to buy now before the price jumps to the offer level. Of course it does depend on the tone of the announcement, which party is making the announcement, and are they announcing an offer or a deal. If the price is $10, and the offer is for $12; then the price may quickly jump. The early buyers will make the most quick money. They hope that the deal is done quickly, or if not the final price ends up higher. There are risks. The company could reject the offer. The due diligence could expose a problem. The regulators could reject the deal based on anti-trust issues. The deal could take many months to complete. Or the final deal could be for shares in the new company. The risks are one reason people sell after the deal/offer is announced. In other cases the seller finally is seeing a profit, or a smaller loss and wants out while they can.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c0181979f92ee71a72352910947e00d", "text": "\"The \"\"random walk\"\" that you describe reflects the nature of the information flow about the value of a stock. If the flow is just little bits of relatively unimportant information (including information about the broader market and the investor pool), you will get small and seemingly random moves, which may look like a meander. If an important bit of information comes out, like a merger, you will see a large and immediate move, which may not look as random. However, the idea that small moves are a meander of search and discovery and large moves are immediate agreements is incorrect. Both small moves and large moves are instantaneous agreements about the value of a stock in the form of a demand/supply equilibrium. As a rule, neither is predictable from the point of view of a single investor, but they are not actually random. They look different from each other only because of the size of the movement, not because of an underlying difference in how the consensus price is reached.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "aa8a751d2ab770960a9a404ff8225cf8", "text": "The stock market is generally a long term investment platform. The share prices reflect more the companies potential to be profitable in the future rather than its actual value. Companies that have good potential can over perform their actual value. We saw this regularly in the early days of the internet prior to the .com bust. Companies would go up exponentially based on their idea's and potential. Investors learned from that and are demanding more these days. As a result companies that do not show growth potential go down. Companies that show growth and potential (apple and google for 2 easy examples) continue to go up. Many companies have specific days where employees can buy and sell stocks. there are minor ripples in the market on these days as the demand and supply are temporarily altered by a large segment of the owner base making trades. For this reason some companies have a closed pool that is only open to inside trades that then executes the orders over time so that the effect is minimized on the actual stock price. This is not happening with face book. Instead many of the investors are dumping their stock directly into the market. These are savvy investors and if there was potential for profit remaining you would not see the full scale exodus from the stock. The fact that it is visible is scaring off investors itself. I can not think of another instance that has gone like facebook, especially one that was called so accurately by many industry pundits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e0d392ac4a2a2360895cf6d0ba3cf28", "text": "You can, in theory, have the stock price go up without any trading actually occurring. It depends on how the price is quoted. The stock price is not always quoted as the last price someone paid for it. It can also be quoted as the ask price, which is the price a seller is willing to sell at, and the price youd pay if you bought at market. If I am a seller, I can raise the asking price at any time. And if there are no other sellers, or at least none that are selling lower than me, it would look like the price is going up. Because it is, it now costs more to buy it. But no trading has actually occurred.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "672067a3a9979708817228320dc670ec", "text": "The trades after that date were Ex-DIV, meaning after 5 pm Dec 12, new trades did not include the shares that were to be spun out. The process is very orderly, no one pays $60 without getting the spinoff, and no one pays $30 but still gets it. The real question is why there's that long delay nearly three weeks to make the spinoff shares available. I don't know. By the way, the stock options are adjusted as well. Someone owning a $50 put isn't suddenly in the money on 12/13. Edit - (I am not a hoarder. I started a fire last night and realized I had a few Barron's in the paper pile) This is how the ABT quote appeared in the 12/24 issue of Barron's. Both the original quote, and the WI (when issued) for the stock less the spin off company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d841e056b929642b5c6a6ecd27239fd", "text": "Should go up because of a company is doing better than the market previously expected it to do, the implication is that it's undervalued at the current price and you buy now you're getting it for less than what it's worth. If Trump was wrong, then the stock would trade up for a bit before ultimately finishing up where it started when the market realises there's nothing in what he said.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7432ecb42e62b915bdadef23c4d37402", "text": "I think it's because there are a lot of retail investors in this stock. They are the ones that tend to overreact on news cycles, so creating bad press or over-hyping bad press really makes the stock price swing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a02db1438babc2f423868a9c0a75f42", "text": "\"There's an old adage in the equities business - \"\"buy on rumor, sell on fact\"\". Sometimes the strategy is to buy as soon as the rumor is out about a potential merger and then sell off into the news when it is actually announced, since this is normally when the biggest bounce occurs as part of a merger. The other part of the analysis you should do is to understand which of the companies benefits most (or is hurt the worst) by the merger and then make your play accordingly. Sometimes the company being acquired will see a bounce while the acquiring firm takes a hit, which is an indication the experts think the acquisition will be a drag on the acquiring company (perhaps because it is taking on a great deal of debt to make the acquisition, or because the acquiring firm is paying too much of a premium for what it's getting in return). Other times the exact opposite is true, where the company being acquired takes a hit while the buyer bounces, and again, the reasons for this can vary widely. If you wait until the merger is actually announced then by the time you get in, most of the premium from the announcement will likely have already been realized, and you'll be buying near the top of the market for the stock. The key is to be ahead of the other sellers by seeing the opportunities before they do and then knowing when to get out before everyone else does. Not an easy thing to pull off when you're trying to anticipate the markets, but it can be done if you do the right research and have patience. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c0f4d3144474b9d0a1a7381620979cc", "text": "It depends on the timing of the events. Sometimes the buying company announces their intention but the other company doesn't like the deal. It can go back and forth several times, before the deal is finalized. The specifics of the deal determine what happens to the stock: The deal will specify when the cutoff is. Some people want the cash, others want the shares. Some will speculate once the initial offer is announced where the final offer (if there is one) will end up. This can cause a spike in volume, and the price could go up or down. Regarding this particular deal I did find the following: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/expedia-to-acquire-orbitz-worldwide-for-12-per-share-in-cash-300035187.html Additional Information and Where to Find It Orbitz intends to file with the SEC a proxy statement as well as other relevant documents in connection with the proposed transaction with Expedia. The definitive proxy statement will be sent or given to the stockholders of Orbitz and will contain important information about the proposed transaction and related matters. SECURITY HOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT CAREFULLY WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC, AS WELL AS ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THOSE DOCUMENTS, BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. The proxy statement and other relevant materials (when they become available), and any other documents filed by Expedia or Orbitz with the SEC, may be obtained free of charge at the SEC's website, at www.sec.gov. In addition, security holders will be able to obtain free copies of the proxy statement from Orbitz by contacting Investor Relations by mail at ATTN: Corporate Secretary, Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., 500 W. Madison Street, Suite 1000, Chicago, Illinois 60661.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e8d94c657d16106d3755564d7398b58", "text": "\"As others have pointed out, there are often many factors that are contributing to a stock's movement other than the latest news. In particular, the overall market sentiment and price movement very often is the primary driver in any stock's change on a given day. But in this case, I'd say your anecdotal observation is correct: All else equal, announcements of layoffs tend to drive stock prices upwards. Here's why: To the public, layoffs are almost always a sign that a company is willing to do whatever is needed to fix an already known and serious problem. Mass layoffs are brutally hard decisions. Even at companies that go through cycles of them pretty regularly, they're still painful every time. There's a strong personal drain on the chain of executives that has to decide who loses their livelihood. And even if you think most execs don't care (and I think you'd be wrong) it's still incredibly distracting. The process takes many weeks, during which productivity plummets. And it's demoralizing to everyone when it happens. So companies very rarely do it until they think they have to. By that point, they are likely struggling with some very publicly known problems - usually contracting (or negative) margins. So, the market's view of the company at the time just before layoffs occur is almost always, \"\"this company has problems, but is unable or unwilling to solve them.\"\". Layoffs signal that both of those possibilities are incorrect. They suggest that the company believes that layoffs will fix the problem, and that they're willing to make hard calls to do so. And that's why they usually drive prices up.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd80bd4bbb567bb4dd7ffaf39b6d6e0b", "text": "Usually when a stock is up-trending or down-trending the price does not go up or down in a straight line. In an uptrend the price may go up over a couple of days then it could go down the next day or two, but the general direction would be up over the medium term. The opposite for a downtrend. So if the stock has been generally going up over the last few weeks, it may take a breather for a week or two before prices continue up again. This breather is called a retracement in the uptrend. The Fibonacci levels are possible amounts by which the price might retract before it continues on its way up again. By the way 50% is not actually a Fibonacci Retracement level but it is a common retracement level which is usually used in combination with the Fibonacci Retracement levels.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7bd84d772424b223ce8d4c1a696eb77c", "text": "It might be clearer to think of it as price going up when a dividend is expected, since that's money you'll get right back. As the delay before the next dividend payment increases, that becomes less of a factor,", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5c08b35cfcbd50dd86e92a143e7f99e", "text": "Stock prices reflect future expectations of large groups of people, and may not be directly linked to traditional valuations for a number of reasons (not definitive). For example, a service like Twitter is so popular that even though it has no significant revenue and loses money, people are simply betting that it is deeply embedded enough that it will eventually find some way to make money. You can also see a number of cases of IPOs of various types of companies that do not even have a revenue model at all. Also, if there is rapid sales growth in A but B sales are flat, no one is likely to expect future profit growth in B such that the valuation will remain steady. If sales in A are accelerating, there may be anticipation that future profits will be high. Sometimes there are also other reasons, such as if A owns valuable proprietary assets, that will hold the values up. However, more information about these companies' financials is really needed in order to understand why this would be the case.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fbb3d32ea4121d054ca4956be87ef97", "text": "You might be right about that, but your previous posts don't say that. In just the last one you said: &gt;Because buyback decreases shares outstanding it **also decreases the company's total future dividend payouts as well** This is indicating that you believe there is a difference somehow, no?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6b0353eb5873769de175d7620734fdfe", "text": "A stock's price does not move in a completely continuous fashion. It moves in discrete steps depending on who is buying/selling at given prices. I'm guessing that by opening bell the price for buying/selling a particular stock has changed based on information obtained overnight. A company's stock closes at $40. Overnight, news breaks that the company's top selling product has a massive defect. The next morning the market opens. Are there any buyers of the stock at $40? Probably not. The first trade of the stock takes place at $30 and is thus, not the same as the previous day's close.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a217cbaefeb85839cd9f343a46cad2d9", "text": "\"The simple answer could be that one or more \"\"people\"\" decided to buy. By \"\"people,\"\" I don't mean individual buyers of 100 shares like you or me, but typically large institutional investors like Fidelity, who might buy millions of shares at a time. Or if you're talking about a human person, perhaps someone like Warren Buffett. In a \"\"thinly\"\" traded small cap stock that typically trades a few hundred shares in a day, an order for \"\"thousands\"\" could significantly move the price. This is one situation where more or less \"\"average\"\" people could move a single stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cbdedbf2a7a73dfb9dae5366bc38387f", "text": "The other answer has some good points, to which I'll add this: I believe you're only considering a company's Initial Public Offering (IPO), when shares are first offered to the public. An IPO is the way most companies get a public listing on the stock market. However, companies often go to market again and again to issue/sell more shares, after their IPO. These secondary offerings don't make as many headlines as an IPO, but they are typical-enough occurrences in markets. When a company goes back to the market to raise additional funds (perhaps to fund expansion), the value of the company's existing shares that are being traded is a good indicator of what they may expect to get for a secondary offering of shares. A company about to raise money desires a higher share price, because that will permit them to issue less shares for the amount of money they need. If the share price drops, they would need to issue more shares for the same amount of money – and dilute existing owners' share of the overall equity further. Also, consider corporate acquisitions: When one company wants to buy another, instead of the transaction being entirely in cash (maybe they don't have that much in the bank!), there's often an equity component, which involves swapping shares of the company being acquired for new shares in the acquiring company or merged company. In that case, the values of the shares in the public marketplace also matter, to provide relative valuations for the companies, etc.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
28cfbfba09e7a5a71793450287f2432b
At what price are dividends re-invested?
[ { "docid": "a0e2a2f41d82ff2d75e030d004646764", "text": "Keep in mind the ex-dividend date is different from the payable date (the day the dividend is paid). That means the market price will already have adjusted lower due to the dividend. Short answer: you get the lower price when reinvesting. So here's Vanguard's policy, it should be similar to most brokers: When reinvesting dividends, Vanguard Brokerage Services combines the cash distributions from the accounts of all clients who have requested reinvestment in the same security, and then uses that combined total to purchase additional shares of the security in the open market. Vanguard Brokerage will attempt to purchase the reinvestment shares by entering a market order at the market opening on the payable date. The new shares are divided proportionately among the clients' accounts, in whole and fractional shares rounded to three decimal places. If the total purchase can't be completed in one trade, clients will receive shares purchased at the weighted average price paid by Vanguard Brokerage Services.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "188c35f2cf0a3c4db73b1b2821dc442b", "text": "\"If a stock is trading for $11 per share just before a $1 per share dividend is declared, then the share price drops to $10 per share immediately following the declaration. If you owned 100 shares (valued at $1100) before the dividend was declared, then you still own 100 shares (now valued at $1000). Generally, if the dividend is paid today, only the owners of shares as of yesterday evening (or the day before maybe) get paid the dividend. If you bought those 100 shares only this morning, the dividend gets paid to the seller (who owned the stock until yesterday evening), not to you. You just \"\"bought a dividend:\"\" paying $1100 for 100 shares that are worth only $1000 at the end of the day, whereas if you had just been a little less eager to purchase right now, you could have bought those 100 shares for only $1000. But, looking at the bright side, if you bought the shares earlier than yesterday, you get paid the dividend. So, assuming that you bought the shares in timely fashion, your holdings just lost value and are worth only $1000. What you do have is the promise that in a couple of days time, you will be paid $100 as the dividend, thus restoring the asset value back to what it was earlier. Now, if you had asked your broker to re-invest the dividend back into the same stock, then, assuming that the stock price did not change in the interim due to normal market fluctuations, you would get another 10 shares for that $100 dividend making the value of your investment $1100 again (110 shares at $10 each), exactly what it was before the dividend was paid. If you didn't choose to reinvest the dividend, you would still have the 100 shares (worth $1000) plus $100 cash. So, regardless of what other investors choose to do, your asset value does not change as a result of the dividend. What does change is your net worth because that dividend amount is taxable (regardless of whether you chose to reinvest or not) and so your (tax) liability just increased.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "cfea65956e6385a78c8890560327b685", "text": "/ in relative to the Tesla's performance, and current inflation. They can split and reverse split at anytime the board decides without any regard to inflation or performance. OP points to Tesla at 350- he doesn't point to PE. It makes no differences what the price of one share is. If they split 10 for 1 it would be 35- but what difference does that make- the PE remains the same. OP does not understand value- only price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e699a0816100fcf20f7554246ab75094", "text": "Dividends are actually a very stable portion of equity returns, the Great recession and Great Depression notwithstanding: However, dividends, with lower variance have lower returns. Most of the return is due to the more variant price: So while dividends fell by 25% during the worst drop since the Great Depression, prices fell almost by 2/3. If one can accumulate enough wealth to live only off of dividend income, the price risk becomes much more manageable. This is the ideal circumstance for retirement.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95bd051eec913747fac08c2007034758", "text": "\"Dividends can also be automatically reinvested in your stock holding through a DRIP plan (see the wikipedia link for further details, wiki_DRIP). Rather than receiving the dividend money, you \"\"buy\"\" additional stock shares your with dividend money. The value in the DRIP strategy is twofold. 1) your number of shares increases without paying transaction fees, 2) you increase the value of your holding by increasing number of shares. In the end, the RIO can be quite substantial due to the law of compounding interest (though here in the form of dividends). Talk with your broker (brokerage service provider) to enroll your dividend receiving stocks in a DRIP.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c0a6a7b35ac9112eed32eb54bc897d7", "text": "Ex-Dividend Price Behavior of Common Stocks would be a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and University of Minnesota if you want a source for some data. Abstract This study examines common stock prices around ex-dividend dates. Such price data usually contain a mixture of observations - some with and some without arbitrageurs and/or dividend capturers active. Our theory predicts such mixing will result in a nonlinear relation between percentage price drop and dividend yield - not the commonly assumed linear relation. This prediction and another important prediction of theory are supported empirically. In a variety of tests, marginal price drop is not significantly different from the dividend amount. Thus, over the last several decades, one-for-one marginal price drop have been an excellent (average) rule of thumb.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4fd3346b362b43bc4afa5ecfc367ae3", "text": "\"I'd agree that this can seem a little unfair, but it's an unavoidable consequence of the necessary practicality of paying out dividends periodically (rather than continuously), and differential taxation of income and capital gains. To see more clearly what's going on here, consider buying stock in a company with extremely simple economics: it generates a certain, constant earnings stream equivalent to $10 per share per annum, and redistributes all of that profit as periodic dividends (let's say once annually). Assume there's no intrinsic growth, and that the firm's instrinsic value (which we'll say is $90 per share) is completely neutral to any other market factors. Under these economics, this stock price will show a \"\"sawtooth\"\" evolution, accruing from $90 to $100 over the course of a year, and resetting back down to $90 after each dividend payment. Now, if I am invested in this stock for some period of time, the fair outcome would be that I receive an appropriately time-weighted share of the $10 annual earnings per share, less my tax. If I am invested for an exact calendar year, this works as I'd expect: the stock price on any given day in the year will be the same as it was exactly one year earlier, so I'll realise zero capital gain, but I'll have collected a $10 taxed dividend along the way. On the other hand, what if I am invested for exactly half a year, spanning a dividend payment? I receive a dividend payment of $10 less tax, but I make a capital loss of -$5. Overall, pre-tax, I'm up $5 per share as expected. However, the respective tax treatment of the dividend payment (which is classed as income) and the capital gains is likely to be different. In particular, to benefit from the \"\"negative\"\" taxation of the capital loss I need to have some positive capital gain elsewhere to offset it - if I can't do that, I'm much worse off compared to half the full-year return. Further, even if I can offset against a gain elsewhere the effective taxation rates are likely to be different - but note that this could work for or against me (if my capital gains rate is greater than my income tax rate I'd actually benefit). And if I'm invested for half a year, but not spanning a dividend, I make $5 of pure capital gains, and realise a different effective taxation rate again. In an ideal world I'd agree that the effective taxation rate wouldn't depend on the exact timing of my transactions like this, but in reality it's unavoidable in the interests of practicality. And so long as the rules are clear, I wouldn't say it's unfair per se, it just adds a bit of complexity.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b9bfb10de69c54f7c139930dad20943", "text": ".INX (the S&P 500 index itself) does not include reinvested dividens. You can figure total return by going to Yahoo finance, historical data. Choose the start year, and end year. You should find that data for SPY (going back to 1993) will show an adjusted close, and takes dividends into account. This isn't perfect as SPY has a .09% expense ratio, but it's better than just the S&P index. One of the more popular Dow ETF is DIA, this will let you similarly track the Dow while accounting for dividends.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "289270da721e0e136ede814135c932bf", "text": "\"Re. question 2 If I buy 20 shares every year, how do I get proper IRR? ... (I would have multiple purchase dates) Use the money-weighted return calculation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return#Internal_rate_of_return where t is the fraction of the time period and Ct is the cash flow at that time period. For the treatment of dividends, if they are reinvested then there should not be an external cash flow for the dividend. They are included in the final value and the return is termed \"\"total return\"\". If the dividends are taken in cash, the return based on the final value is \"\"net return\"\". The money-weighted return for question 2, with reinvested dividends, can be found by solving for r, the rate for the whole 431 day period, in the NPV summation. Now annualising And in Excel\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d14fb27da79fc6cbf91391e62d5f4610", "text": "Ok so I used Excel solver for this but it's on the right track. Latest price = $77.19 Latest div = $1.50 3-yr div growth = 28% g = ??? rs = 14% So we'll grow out the dividend 3 years @ 28%, and then capitalize them into perpetuity using a cap rate of [rs - g], and take the NPV using the rs of 14%. We can set it up and then solve g assuming an NPV of the current share price of $77.19. So it should be: NPV = $77.19 = [$1.50 / (1+0.14)^0 ] + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^1 / (1+0.14)^1 ] + ... + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^3 / (1+0.14)^3 ] + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^3 x (1+g) / (0.14-g) / (1+0.14)^4 ] Which gives an implied g of a little under 9%. Let me know if this makes sense, and definitely check the work...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c0db525e29b179ccc16e47e332b7f84", "text": "Numerous studies have actually shown that companies who pay dividends are much more reckless financially with returning capital to shareholders because they want to save face and maintain/grow the dividend. Buybacks are much more flexible and probably lead to better capital allocation decisions, in my opinion.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf0c9b4874c0abd6793911216f8c490b", "text": "A one year period of study - Stock A trades at $100, and doesn't increase in value, but has $10 in dividends over the period. Stock B starts at $100, no dividend, and ends at $105. However you account for this, it would be incorrect to ignore stock A's 10% return over the period. To flip to a real example, MoneyChimp shows the S&P return from Jan 1980 to Dec 2012 as +3264% yet, the index only rose from 107.94 to 1426.19 or +1221%. The error expands with greater time and larger dividends involved, a good analysis won't ignore any dividends or splits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1af8f838d7041ba6c1066ea564d306ff", "text": "\"In the case of mutual funds, Net Asset Value (NAV) is the price used to buy and sell shares. NAV is just the value of the underlying assets (which are in turn valued by their underlying holdings and future earnings). So if a fund hands out a billion dollars, it stands to reason their NAV*shares (market cap?) is a billion dollars less. Shareholder's net worth is equal in either scenario, but after the dividend is paid they are more liquid. For people who need investment income to live on, dividends are a cheap way to hold stocks and get regular payments, versus having to sell part of your portfolio every month. But for people who want to hold their investment in the market for a long long time, dividends only increase the rate at which you have to buy. For mutual funds this isn't a problem: you buy the funds and tell them to reinvest for free. So because of that, it's a prohibited practice to \"\"sell\"\" dividends to clients.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9d1f9f5a85ec48476c0dbfa5eef30e1", "text": "There is a basis for that if you consider the power of compounding. So, the sooner you re-invest the dividends the sooner the time will give you results (through compounding). There is also the case of the commissions, if they are paid with a percentage of the amount invested they automatically gain more from you. Just my 2cents, though the other answers are probably more complete.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7553ec5eb20542eb4373ca7b51a490fa", "text": "Edit: I a in the United States, seek advice from someone who is also in Australia. I am getting about 5.5% per year by investing in a fund (ticker:PGF) that, in turn, buys preferred stock in banks. Preferred stock acts a bit like a bond and a bit like a stock. The price is very stable. However, a bank account is FDIC insured (in the USA) and an investment is not. I use the Reinvestment program at Scottrade so that the monthly dividends are automatically reinvested with no commission. However I do not know if this is available outside of the United States. Investing yealds greater returns but exposes you to greater risk. You have to know your risk tolerance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc596ab411b839e7fddc66f3efd63334", "text": "Various types of corporate actions will precipitate a price adjustment. In the case of dividends, the cash that will be paid out as a dividend to share holders forms part of a company's equity. Once the company pays a dividend, that cash is no longer part of the company's equity and the share price is adjusted accordingly. For example, if Apple is trading at $101 per share at the close of business on the day prior to going ex-dividend, and a dividend of $1 per share has been declared, then the closing price will be adjusted by $1 to give a closing quote of $100. Although the dividend is not paid out until the dividend pay date, the share price is adjusted at the close of business on the day prior to the ex-dividend date since any new purchases on or after the ex-dividend date are not entitled to receive the dividend distribution, so in effect new purchases are buying on the basis of a reduced equity. It will be the exchange providing the quote that performs the price adjustment, not Google or Yahoo. The exchange will perform the adjustment at the close prior to each ex-dividend date, so when you are looking at historical data you are looking at price data that includes each adjustment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b91c2a5e1ef4d44ef284683e67465e84", "text": "Yes, as long as you write a call against your stock with a strike price greater than or equal to the previous day's closing price, with 30 or more days till experation there will be no effect on the holding period of your stock. Like you mentioned, unqualified covered calls suspend the holding period of your stock. For example you sell a deep in the money call (sometimes called the last write) on a stock you have held for 5 years, the covered call is classified as unqualified, the holding period is suspened and the gain or loss on the stock will be treated as short-term. Selling out of the money calls or trading in an IRA account keeps things simple. The details below have been summarized from an article I found at investorsguide.com. The article also talks about the implications of rolling a call forward and tax situations where it may be advantageous to write unqualified covered calls (basically when you have a large deferred long term loss). http://www.investorguide.com/article/12618/qualified-covered-calls-special-rules-wo/ Two criterion must be met for a covered call to be considered a qualified covered call (QCC). 1) days to expiration must be greater than 30 2) strike price must be greater than or equal to the first available in the money strike price below the previous day's closing price for a particular stock. Additionally, if the previous day's closing price is $25 or less, the strike price of the call being sold must be greater than 85% of yesterday's closing price. 2a) If the previous day's closing price is greater than 60.01 and less than or equal to $150, days to experation is between 60-90, as long as the strike price of the call is greater than 85% of the previous days close and less than 10 points in the money, you can write a covered call two strikes in the money 2c) If the previous day's closing price is greater than $150 and days till expiration is greater than 90, you can write a covered call two strikes in the money.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
27d48aaad17af1e4e29759fd4a1a2caa
Can anyone help me figure out what my monthly take-home salary will be?
[ { "docid": "e505253f6d683d30095ba66857bee16a", "text": "\"If you are not taking any of the options in the Flexible Benefit Plan, then everything is taxable. Check about \"\"Retirals\"\", the practise differs from organization to organization. Some pay it out annually and some only pay on completion of certain duration on exit. So Deduct 47K from 7 lacs. Gross of around 653,000. Total tax for this around 53,000. After tax yearly around 600,000. Individual contribution to PF@ 12% of basic around 33,600. Net Yearly around 567,225. So net take home would be around 47,268. You can easily take items 3,6,7,8 around 62,400. Thus you will save tax of around 13,000. So take home will increase 1,080.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e24013fc2d8a69a7b3cba05a99e5eb8f", "text": "When you enter your expected gross income into the worksheet - just enter $360000 and leave everything else as is. That should give you the right numbers. Same for State (form DE-4).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94c395ca34857ffc3bbd9d17f8bc8c7d", "text": "I think you are trying to figure out what will be a break-even rental rate for you, so that then you can decide whether renting at current market rates is worth it for you. This is tricky to determine because future valuations are uncertain. You can make rough estimates though. The most uncertain component is likely to be capital appreciation or depreciation (increase or decrease in the value of your property). This is usually a relatively large number (significant to the calculation). The value is uncertain because it depends on predictions of the housing market. Future interest rates or economic conditions will likely play a major role in dictating the future value of your home. Obviously there are numerous other costs to consider such as maintenance, tax and insurance some of which may be via escrow and included in your mortgage payment. Largest uncertainty in terms of income are the level of rent and occupancy rate. The former is reasonably predictable, the latter less so. Would advise you make a spreadsheet and list them all out with margins of error to get some idea. The absolute amount you are paying on the mortgage is a red herring similar to when car dealers ask you what payment you can afford. That's not what's relevant. What's relevant is the Net Present Value of ALL the payments in relation to what you are getting in return. Note that one issue with assessing your cost of capital is, what's your opportunity cost. ie. if you didn't have the money tied up in real estate, what could you be earning with it elsewhere? This is not really part of the cost of capital, but it's something to consider. Also note that the total monthly payment for the mortgage is not useful to your calculations because a significant chunk of the payment will likely be to pay down principal and as such represents no real cost to you (its really just a transfer - reducing your bank balance but increasing your equity in the home). The interest portion is a real cost to you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ad0028567b8dc2822bbcb30238ef587a", "text": "\"Concise answers to your questions: Depends on the loan and the bank; when you \"\"accelerate\"\" repayment of a loan by applying a pre-payment balance to the principal, your monthly payment may be reduced. However, standard practice for most loan types is that the repayment schedule will be accelerated; you'll pay no less each month, but you'll pay it off sooner. I can neither confirm nor deny that an internship counts as job experience in the field for the purpose of mortgage lending. It sounds logical, especially if it were a paid internship (in which case you'd just call it a \"\"job\"\"), but I can't be sure as I don't know of anyone who got a mortgage without accruing the necessary job experience post-graduation. A loan officer will be happy to talk to you and answer specific questions, but if you go in today, with no credit history (the student loan probably hasn't even entered repayment) and a lot of unknowns (an offer can be rescinded, for instance), you are virtually certain to be denied a mortgage. The bank is going to want evidence that you will make good on the debt you have over time. One $10,000 payment on the loan, though significant, is just one payment as far as your credit history (and credit score) is concerned. Now, a few more reality checks: $70k/yr is not what you'll be bringing home. As a single person without dependents, you'll be taxed at the highest possible withholdings rate. Your effective tax rate on $70k, depending on the state in which you live, can be as high as 30% (including all payroll/SS taxes, for a 1099 earner and/or an employee in a state with an income tax), so you're actually only bringing home 42k/yr, or about $1,600/paycheck if you're paid biweekly. To that, add a decent chunk for your group healthcare plan (which, as of 2014, you will be required to buy, or else pay another $2500 - effectively another 3% of gross earnings - in taxes). And even now with your first job, you should be at least trying to save up a decent chunk o' change in a 401k or IRA as a retirement nest egg. That student loan, beginning about 6 months after you leave school, will cost you about $555/mo in monthly payments for the next 10 years (if it's all Stafford loans with a 50/50 split between sub/unsub; that could be as much as $600/mo for all-unsub Stafford, or $700 or more for private loans). If you were going to pay all that back in two years, you're looking at paying a ballpark of $2500/mo leaving just $700 to pay all your bills and expenses each month. With a 3-year payoff plan, you're turning around one of your two paychecks every month to the student loan servicer, which for a bachelor is doable but still rather tight. Your mortgage payment isn't the only payment you will make on your house. If you get an FHA loan with 3.5% down, the lender will demand PMI. The city/county will likely levy a property tax on the assessed value of land and building. The lender may require that you purchase home insurance with minimum acceptable coverage limits and deductibles. All of these will be paid into escrow accounts, managed by your lending bank, from a single check you send them monthly. I pay all of these, in a state (Texas) that gets its primary income from sales and property tax instead of income, and my monthly payment isn't quite double the simple P&I. Once you have the house, you'll want to fill the house. Nice bed: probably $1500 between mattress and frame for a nice big queen you can stretch out on (and have lady friends over). Nice couch: $1000. TV: call it $500. That's probably the bare minimum you'll want to buy to replace what you lived through college with (you'll have somewhere to eat and sleep other than the floor of your new home), and we're already talking almost a month's salary, or payments of up to 10% of your monthly take-home pay over a year on a couple of store credit cards. Plates, cookware, etc just keeps bumping this up. Yes, they're (theoretically) all one-time costs, but they're things you need, and things you may not have if you've been living in dorms and eating in dining halls all through college. The house you buy now is likely to be a \"\"starter\"\", maybe 3bed/2bath and 1600 sqft at the upper end (they sell em as small as 2bd/1bt 1100sqft). It will support a spouse and 2 kids, but by that point you'll be bursting at the seams. What happens if your future spouse had the same idea of buying a house early while rates were low? The cost of buying a house may be as little as 3.5% down and a few hundred more in advance escrow and a couple other fees the seller can't pay for you. The cost of selling the same house is likely to include all the costs you made the seller pay when you bought it, because you'll be selling to someone in the same position you're in now. I didn't know it at the time I bought my house, but I paid about $5,000 to get into it (3.5% down and 6 months' escrow up front), while the sellers paid over $10,000 to get out (the owner got married to another homeowner, and they ended up selling both houses to move out of town; I don't even know what kind of bath they took on the house we weren't involved with). I graduated in 2005. I didn't buy my first house until I was married and pretty much well-settled, in 2011 (and yes, we were looking because mortgage rates were at rock bottom). We really lucked out in terms of a home that, if we want to or have to, we can live in for the rest of our lives (only 1700sqft, but it's officially a 4/2 with a spare room, and a downstairs master suite and nursery/office, so when we're old and decrepit we can pretty much live downstairs). I would seriously recommend that you do the same, even if by doing so you miss out on the absolute best interest rates. Last example: let's say, hypothetically, that you bite at current interest rates, and lock in a rate just above prime at 4%, 3.5% down, seller pays closing, but then in two years you get married, change jobs and have to move. Let's further suppose an alternate reality in which, after two years of living in an apartment, all the same life changes happen and you are now shopping for your first house having been pre-approved at 5%. That one percentage point savings by buying now, on a house in the $200k range, is worth about $120/mo or about $1440/yr off of your P&I payment ($921.42 on a $200,000 home with a 30-year term). Not chump change (over 30 years if you had been that lucky, it's $43000), but it's less than 5% of your take-home pay (month-to-month or annually). However, when you move in two years, the buyer's probably going to want the same deal you got - seller pays closing - because that's the market level you bought in to (low-priced starters for first-time homebuyers). That's a 3% commission for both agents, 1% origination, 0.5%-1% guarantor, and various fixed fees (title etc). Assuming the value of the house hasn't changed, let's call total selling costs 8% of the house value of $200k (which is probably low); that's $16,000 in seller's costs. Again, assuming home value didn't change and that you got an FHA loan requiring only 3.5% down, your down payment ($7k) plus principal paid (about another $7k; 6936.27 to be exact) only covers $14k of those costs. You're now in the hole $2,000, and you still have to come up with your next home's down payment. With all other things being equal, in order to get back to where you were in net worth terms before you bought the house (meaning $7,000 cash in the bank after selling it), you would need to stay in the house for 4 and a half years to accumulate the $16,000 in equity through principal payments. That leaves you with your original $7,000 down payment returned to you in cash, and you're even in accounting terms (which means in finance terms you're behind; that $7,000 invested at 3% historical average rate of inflation would have earned you about $800 in those four years, meaning you need to stick around about 5.5 years before you \"\"break even\"\" in TVM terms). For this reason, I would say that you should be very cautious when buying your first home; it may very well be the last one you'll ever buy. Whether that's because you made good choices or bad is up to you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "54139234f8eeb4b6433bb070d1b594fa", "text": "I'm pretty sure this isn't a /r/personalfinance question. Sounds like you have that on lock. You are asking some existential questions. Maybe find a way to travel or vacation for a month. Don't sacrifice what you have worked for in a temporary feeling of doing the wrong thing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d490c9d90a246d57c38d959aa8024770", "text": "This is assuming that you are now making some amount X per month which is more than the income you used to have as a student. (Otherwise, the question seems rather moot.) All figures should be net amounts (after taxes). First, figure out what the difference in your cost of living is. That is, housing, electricity, utilities, the basics that you need to have to have a place in which to live. I'm not considering food costs here unless they were subsidized while you were studying. Basically, you want to figure out how much you now have to spend extra per month for basic sustenance. Then, figure out how much more you are now making, compared to when you were a student. Subtract the sustenance extra from this to get your net pay increase. After that is when it gets trickier. Basically, you want to set aside or invest as much of the pay increase as possible, but you probably have other expenses now that you didn't before and which you cannot really do that much about. This mights be particular types of clothes, commute fares (car keepup, gas, bus pass, ...), or something entirely different. Anyway, decide on a savings goal, as a percentage of your net pay increase compared to when you were a student. This might be 5%, 10% or (if you are really ambitious) 50% or more. Whichever number you pick, make sure it's reasonable giving your living expenses, and keep in mind that anything is better than nothing. Find a financial institution that offers a high-interest savings account, preferably one with free withdrawals, and sign up for one. Each and every time you get paid, figure out how much to save based on the percentage you determined (if your regular case is that you get the same payment each time, you can simply set up an automated bank transfer), put that in the savings account and, for the moment, forget about that money. Try your best to live only on the remainder, but if you realize that you set aside too much, don't be afraid to tap into the savings account. Adjust your future deposits accordingly and try to find a good balance. At the end of each month, deposit whatever remains in your regular account into your savings account, and if that is a sizable amount of money, consider raising your savings goal a little. The ultimate goal should be that you don't need to tap into your savings except for truly exceptional situations, but still keep enough money outside of the savings account to cater to some of your wants. Yes, bank interest rates these days are often pretty dismal, and you will probably be lucky to find a savings account that (especially after taxes) will even keep up with inflation. But to start with, what you should be focusing on is not to make money in terms of real value appreciation, but simply figuring out how much money you really need to sustain a working life for yourself and then walking that walk. Eventually (this may take anywhere from a couple of months to a year or more), you should have settled pretty well on an amount that you feel comfortable with setting aside each month and just letting be. By that time, you should have a decently sized nest egg already, which will help you get over rough spots, and can start thinking about other forms of investing some of what you are setting aside. Whenever you get a net pay raise of any kind (gross pay raise, lower taxes, bonus, whichever), increase your savings goal by a portion of that raise. Maybe give yourself 60% of the raise and bank the remaining 40%. That way, you are (hopefully!) always increasing the amount of money that you are setting aside, while also reaping some benefits right away. One major upside of this approach is that, if you lose your job, not only will you have that nest egg, you will also be used to living on less. So you will have more money in the bank and less monthly expenses, which puts you in a significantly better position than if you had only one of those, let alone neither.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2cfeada7a458040c3b683316ec66c21", "text": "\"There is no magic formula to this, quite simply: earn, cut expenses, and pay. It sounds like you can use a little bit of help in the earning area. While it sounds like you are career focused (which is great) what else can you do to earn? Can you start a low cost of entry side business? Examples would include tutoring, consulting, or even baby sitting. Can you work a part time job that is outside of your career field (waiter, gas station, etc...)? One thing that will help greatly is a written budget each and every month. Have a plan on where to spend your money. Then as you pay off a loan throw that money at the next one. No matter if you use the smallest loan first or highest interest rate first method if you do that your debt payments will \"\"snowball\"\", and you will gain momentum. I'd encourage you to keep good records and do projections. Keeping good records will give you hope when you begin to feel discouraged (it happens to just about everyone). Doing projections will give you goals to meet and then exceed. The wife and I had a lot of success using the cash envelope system and found that we almost always had money left over at the end of the pay cycle. For us that money went to pay off more debt. Do you contribute to a 401K? I'd cut that to at least the match, and if you want to get crazy cut it to zero. The main thing to know is that you can do it. I'd encourage you to pay off all your loans not just the high interests ones.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb3ecfb14beec853e9a1bf84bf19d800", "text": "If you set a savings amount now and leave it totally fixed you're likely to massively undershoot or overshoot. What is more likely is that you will adjust either your savings or your retirement expectations as things go along. If it turns out you have $10M (2010 dollars) at age 50 perhaps you'll retire early, and if you have $10k perhaps you'll buckle down and work much longer or save much more. So I think what you are looking for is an assurance that if you budget to save x% of your salary over n years, and you get an after-inflation after-tax return of y% pa, you will eventually be able to retire on an income equivalent to z% of your working income. It's pretty easy to calculate that through a future-value formula. For instance, one set of values that works is saving 20% of income, 5% real return, 30 years = final income of 66% of working income. Or save half your income and within 14 years you can retire and keep spending the amount you were previously spending. Resist the temptation to crank up the assumed return until you get the value you want. I think it would be great hubris to try to make this very precise. Yes, probably you will get raises, of course there are taxes to take into account (probably higher while you're saving), inflation and returns will vary from year to year, et. You can guess at them. But they'll change, and there are bigger things that are unpredictable: your personal life, your health, the economic future of your career or industry. I reckon this simple formula is about as good as you will get.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37528e2711eafb0e0573772a2bf49083", "text": "The equation is the same one used for mortgage amortization. You first want to calculate the PV (present value) for a stream of $50K payments over 20 years at a10% rate. Then that value is the FV (future value) that you want to save for, and you are looking to solve the payment stream needed to create that future value. Good luck achieving the 10% return, and in knowing your mortality down to the exact year. Unless this is a homework assignment, which need not reflect real life. Edit - as indicated above, the first step is to get that value in 20 years: The image is the user-friendly entry screen for the PV calculation. It walks you though the need to enter rate as per period, therefore I enter .1/12 as the rate. The payment you desire is $50K/yr, and since it's a payment, it's a negative number. The equation in excel that results is: =PV(0.1/12,240,-50000/12,0) and the sum calculated is $431,769 Next you wish to know the payments to make to arrive at this number: In this case, you start at zero PV with a known FV calculated above, and known rate. This solves for the payment needed to get this number, $568.59 The excel equation is: =PMT(0.1/12,240,0,431769) Most people have access to excel or a public domain spreadsheet application (e.g. Openoffice). If you are often needing to perform such calculations, a business finance calculator is recommended. TI used to make a model BA-35 finance calculator, no longer in production, still on eBay, used. One more update- these equations whether in excel or a calculator are geared toward per period interest, i.e. when you state 10%, they assume a monthly 10/12%. With that said, you required a 20 year deposit period and 20 year withdrawal period. We know you wish to take out $4166.67 per month. The equation to calculate deposit required becomes - 4166.67/(1.00833333)^240= 568.59 HA! Exact same answer, far less work. To be clear, this works only because you required 240 deposits to produce 240 withdrawals in the future.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a67b84670a97379f11e967c438782974", "text": "I call bullshit. $7 an hour, both parents working 40 hours a week. Assume they pay no federal income tax (is this a govt hand out?) so they take home say... $500 a week, combined, to be generous. That's $2000 a month. Daycare for two young kids, you did say a family right? That's $1000 a month. Now, shelter and heat. Are you working in a city where you can ride the bus, and pay $1000 a month for a small apartment, or in the country where you can get a house for $650 a month, but then have to own two cars and pay for gas? Do I need to go much further?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "72444a1e64993e7ab98a68200e75d954", "text": "Your total salary deferral cannot exceed $18K (as of 2016). You can split it between your different jobs as you want, to maximize the matching. You can contribute non-elective contribution on top of that, which means that your self-proprietorship will commit to paying you that portion regardless of your deferral. That would be on top of the $18K. You cannot contribute more than 20% of your earnings, though. So if you earn $2K, you can add $400 on top of the $18K limit (ignoring the SE tax for a second here). Keep in mind that if you ever have employees, the non-elective contribution will apply to them as well. Also, the total contribution limit from all sources (deferral, matching, non-elective) cannot exceed $53K (for 2016).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34df5ec1c05afd8af852ecb3db4b3b77", "text": "\"I got $3394.83 The first problem with this is that it is backwards. The NPV (Net Present Value) of three future payments of $997 has to be less than the nominal value. The nominal value is simple: $2991. First step, convert the 8% annual return from the stock market to a monthly return. Everyone else assumed that the 8% is a monthly return, but that is clearly absurd. The correct way to do this would be to solve for m in But we often approximate this by dividing 8% by 12, which would be .67%. Either way, you divide each payment by the number of months of compounding. Sum those up using m equal to about .64% (I left the calculated value in memory and used that rather than the rounded value) and you get about $2952.92 which is smaller than $2991. Obviously $2952.92 is much larger than $2495 and you should not do this. If the three payments were $842.39 instead, then it would about break even. Note that this neglects risk. In a three month period, the stock market is as likely to fall short of an annualized 8% return as to beat it. This would make more sense if your alternative was to pay off some of your mortgage immediately and take the payments or yp pay a lump sum now and increase future mortgage payments. Then your return would be safer. Someone noted in a comment that we would normally base the NPV on the interest rate of the payments. That's for calculating the NPV to the one making the loan. Here, we want to calculate the NPV for the borrower. So the question is what the borrower would do with the money if making payments and not the lump sum. The question assumes that the borrower would invest in the stock market, which is a risky option and not normally advisable. I suggest a mortgage based alternative. If the borrower is going to stuff the money under the mattress until needed, then the answer is simple. The nominal value of $2991 is also the NPV, as mattresses don't pay interest. Similarly, many banks don't pay interest on checking these days. So for someone facing a real decision like this, I'd almost always recommend paying the lump sum and getting it over with. Even if the payments are \"\"same as cash\"\" with no premium charged.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1d662b8c52df021205c3ee3346a9c52", "text": "\"I'm going to answer your questions out of order. Emergency fund: Depending on how conservative you are and how much insurance you have, you may want anywhere from 3-12 months of your expenses on hand. I like to keep 6 months worth liquid in a \"\"high-yield\"\" savings account. For your current expenses that would be $24k, but when this transaction completes, you will have a mortgage payment (which usually includes home-owners insurance and property taxes in addition to your other expenses) so a conservative guess might be an additional $3k/month, or a total of $42k for six months of expenses. So $40-$100k for an emergency fund depending on how conservative you are personally. Down payment: You should pay no less than 20% down ($150k) on a loan that size, particularly since you can afford it. My own philosophy is to pay as much as I can and pay the loan off as soon as possible, but there are valid reasons not to do that. If you can get a higher rate of return from that money invested elsewhere you may wish to keep a mortgage longer and invest the other money elsewhere. Mortgage term: A 15-year loan will generally get you the best interest rate available. If you paid $400k down, financing $350k at a 3.5% rate, your payment would be about $2500 on a 15-year loan. That doesn't include property taxes and home-owners insurance, but without knowing precisely where you live, I have no idea whether those would keep you inside the $3000 of additional monthly home expenses I mentioned above when discussing the emergency fund. That's how I would divide it up. I'd also pay more than the $2500 toward the mortgage if I could afford to, though I've always made that decision on a monthly basis when drawing up the budget for the next month.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82bf4b0c0eda031fb2c6a4eb4f3674df", "text": "Since you brought up the salary thing a few times; yes, if the manager was hired at a 50k salary, he should still be taking home his 50k, plus his tips. That's the difference between being an owner and just an employee. If you want your managers more invested, try a small salary + % over profits each month as a bonus. $400/week + 10% of profits, defined as over X amount in sales each month. Or something more appropriate pay and expectation wise for your location.a", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c20caa866e1e2694a2da247c5e9f80a9", "text": "A common rule of thumb is the 28/36 ratio. It's described here. In your case, with a gross (?) salary of £50,000, that means that you should spend no more than 28% of it, or £1,167 per month on housing. You may be able to swing a bit more because you have no debts and a modest amount in your savings. The 36% part comes in as the amount you can spend servicing all your debt, including mortgage. In your case, based on a gross (?) salary of £50,000, that'd be £1,500 per month. Again, that is to cover your housing costs and any additional debt you are servicing. So, you need to figure out how much you could bring in through rent to make up the rest. As at least one other person has commented, the rule of thumb is that your mortgage should be no more than 2.5 - 3 times your income. I personally think you are not a good candidate for a mortgage of the size you are discussing. That said, I no longer live in England. If you could feel fairly secure getting someone to pay you enough in rent to bring down your total mortgage and loan repayment amounts to £1,500 or so a month, you may want to consider it. Remember, though, that it may not always be easy to find renters.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7590aea80f2cd8829cf78274c86e97e", "text": "In general you will take home more in the US than in Canada. There are so many variables that is is impossible to provide a comprehensive answer that will cover all bases: so here are a few hand-waving statements. Two example calculator web sites for Canada and the US (chosen somewhat at random through Google, show that making $50,000 of either currency for the upcoming tax year in Canada you would expect to pay about $9,100 and for the US $5,900. Missing there are the state taxes, however, which also vary wildly. The deductions, adjustment and credits in both countries can really add up, so if you have specific questions, you should consult a tax specialist. Similarly, both countries provide various tax sheltered investment structures that change the game somewhat over the long term.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
57afa617c7841b2055cecb0bb23d561a
Day trading definition
[ { "docid": "2317c3ed8e078885f5a21b928db1cb73", "text": "If I buy 10 stocks on Monday and sell the same on Tuesday (different trading day) would I be considered a day trader? No. It is only counting if you buy something and then sell that same something during the same trading session. And that counter only lasts for 5 days, things that happened outside of that time period get removed from the counter. If the counter reaches a number (three to five, depending on the broker), then you are labelled as a pattern day trader, and will have your trading capabilities severely restricted unless you have an account size greater than $25,000", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "134b7b196dd9faf19c2261b310b50eb8", "text": "you need minimum of 25k otherwise youll reach a limit. you have to wait 3 days for the sale to clear unless youre on margin. dont buy anything based on idiots on twitter or the internet. however, theres some good people to follow though that know what theyre doing. dont listen to this guy saying that etrade or those platforms arent fast enough. they all offer level 2 prices so i dont know what hes talking about. successful day traders arent buying and selling a stock every single day. theres not always something to buy and sell...unless youre just gambling, and in that case just go to the casino and lose your money there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1cd39845c4506ace1ae07aecdfa65a9c", "text": "Opening - is the price at which the first trade gets executed at the start of the trading day (or trading period). High - is the highest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Low - is the lowest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Closing - is the price at which the last trade gets executed at the end of the trading day (or trading period). Volume - is the amount of shares that get traded during the trading day (or trading period). For example, if you bought 1000 shares during the day and another 9 people also bought 1000 shares each, then the trading volume for the day would be 10 x 1000 = 10,000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bcc2a70daed4014de388c1cd026b754a", "text": "\"Trading at the start of a session is by far higher than at any other time of the day. This is mostly due to markets incorporating news into the prices of stocks. In other words, there are a lot of factors that can affect a stock, 24 hours a day, but the market trades for only 6.5 hours a day. So, a lot of news accumulates during the time when people cannot trade on that news. Then when markets finally open, people are able to finally trade on that news, and there is a lot of \"\"price discovery\"\" going on between market participants. In the last minutes of trading, volumes increase as well. This can often be attributed to certain kinds of traders closing out their position before the end of the day. For example, if you don't want to take the risk a large price movement at the start of the next day affecting you, you would need to completely close your position.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd9a98455fed7756d4b3f2fb56ea0aca", "text": "How long is a piece of string? This will depend on many variables. How many trades will you make in a day? What income would you be expecting to make? What expectancy do you need to achieve? Which markets you will choose to trade? Your first step should be to develop a Trading Plan, then develop your trading rules and your risk management. Then you should back test your strategy and then use a virtual account to practice losing on. Because one thing you will get is many losses. You have to learn to take a loss when the market moves against you. And you need to let your profits run and keep your losses small. A good book to start with is Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van Tharp. It will teach you about Expectancy, Money Management, Risk Management and the Phycology of Trading. Two thing I can recommend are: 1) to look into position and trend trading and other types of short term trading instead of day trading. You would usually place your trades after market close together with your stops and avoid being in front of the screen all day trying to chase the market. You need to take your emotion out of your trading if you want to succeed; 2) don't trade penny stocks, trade commodities, FX or standard stocks, but keep away from penny stocks. Just because you can buy them for a penny does not mean they are cheap.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e099d517205c95a3ac1034ee4d581c7a", "text": "I don't call myself a daytrader. My ideal timeframe is from a few days to a couple weeks, sometimes even longer. So swings will always be my priority, but I do daytrade futures/forex outside of regular hours and equities when I'm not doing a swing. Platform is really only important when you realize what you need from it. If you're doing plenty of tickets, commissions will play a larger role the more you trade. Some brokers are more bare-bones, some have more technology/tools. If you're just learning, you typically don't want to put on extra expenses, but as you start making money, you'll want to go with a broker that minimizes your costs while using a third party for whatever tools you need.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c757f433d42a99e8a9f068418b9247da", "text": "While that sounds reasonable, it looks like most of the actual trading is done on the basis of changes rather than value. At a guess, this is because computing the balance sheet anew with every change inhibits the speed with which transactions can be processed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb54ab11238ad586241ec0fa1c95968d", "text": "The futures market trades 24 hours a day, 5.5 days a week. S&P 500 futures market continues trading, and this gives pricing exposure and influences the individual stocks when they resume trading in US session.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1623a2eb8a76a355435bac24727d8667", "text": "\"The T+3 \"\"rule\"\" relates only to accounting and not to trading. It does not prevent you from day trading. It simply means that the postings in you cash account will not appear until three business days after you have executed a trade. When you execute a trade and the order has been filled, you have all of the information you need to know the cash amounts that will hit your account three business days later. In a cash account, cash postings that arise from trading are treated as unsettled (for three days), but this does not mean that these funds are available for further trading. If you have $25,000 in your account on day 1, this does not mean that you will be able to trade more than $25,000 because your cash account has not yet been debited. Most cash accounts will include an item detailing \"\"Cash available for trading\"\". This will net out any unsettled business transacted. For example, if you have a cash account balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you purchase $10,000 worth of shares, then pending settlement in your cash account you will only have $15,000 \"\"Cash available for trading\"\". Similarly, if you have a cash balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you \"\"day trade\"\", purchasing $15,000 and selling $10,000 worth of shares, then you will have the net of $20,000 \"\"Cash available for trading\"\" ($20,000 = $25,000 - $15,000 + $10,000). If by \"\"prop account\"\" you mean an account where you give discretion to a broker to trade on your behalf, then I think the issues of accounting will be the least of your worries. You will need to be worried about not being fleeced out of your hard earned savings by someone far more interested in lining their own pockets than making money for you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc2ce9aa4157bdbf143a442b23fb0430", "text": "You are asking 'what if', do you have some anticipated answers? Having volume smaller than open interest is the norm. As far as I can tell, having only one trading day and no previous open interest only affects someone trying to sell a contract they are holding. Meaning that if you only have one day to sell your contract then you need to offer it 'at market' or at the bid price (or even lower than the bid price). If you cannot sell your contract then you have to let it expire worthless or you have to exercise it. Those are your three options: let it expire, sell it (perhaps at a loss), and exercise it. Edit: be careful about holding an in-the-money option. Many brokers will automatically exercise an in-the-money contract if you hold it till expiration date.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "495399b295f2a543d63c1288582a78bb", "text": "\"A \"\"stock price\"\" is nothing but the price at which some shares of that stock were sold on an exchange from someone willing to sell those shares at that price (or more) to someone willing to buy them at that price (or less). Pretty much every question about how stock prices work is answered by the paragraph above, which an astonishingly large number of people don't seem to be aware of. So there is no explicit \"\"tracking\"\" mechanism at all. Just people buying and selling, and if the current going price on two exchanges differ, then that is an opportunity for someone to make money by buying on one exchange and selling on the other - until the prices are close enough that the fees and overhead make that activity unprofitable. This is called \"\"arbitrage\"\" and a common activity of investment banks or (more recently) hedge funds and specialized trading firms spun off by said banks due to regulation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d49a4e5f015ac0b5769238ec8257d36", "text": "In day trading, you're trying to predict the immediate fluctuations of an essentially random system. In long-term investing, you're trying to assess the strength of a company over a period of time. You also have frequent opportunities to assess your position and either add to it or get out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ad8418650fe7cfc39be19ab4024a45d5", "text": "\"FINRA Description of Day Trading rules The rules adopt a new term \"\"pattern day trader,\"\" which includes any margin customer that day trades (buys then sells or sells short then buys the same security on the same day) four or more times in five business days, provided the number of day trades are more than six percent of the customer's total trading activity for that same five-day period. So, there's several ways to avoid being labeled a pattern day trader:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0b8a316de1395303b95c0c860191c913", "text": "High frequency trades are intra day. The would buy a stock for 100 and sell for 100.10 multiple times. So If you start with 100 in your broker account, you buy something [it takes 2-3 days to settle], you sell for 100.10 [it takes 2-3 days to settle]. You again buy something for 100. It is the net value of both buys and sells that you need to look at. Trading on Margin Accounts. Most brokers offer Margin Accounts. The exact leverage ratios varies. What this means is that if you start with 10 [or 15 or 25] in your broker you can buy stock of 100. Of course legally you wont own the stock unless you pay the broker balance, etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2dc4fec57148f221da98f849fa2699b5", "text": "\"....causes loses [sic] to others. Someone sells you a stock. The seller receives cash. You receive a stock certificate. This doesn't imply a loss by either party especially if the seller sold the stock for more than his purchase price. A day trading robot can make money off of the price changes of a stock only if there are buyers and sellers of the stock at certain prices. There are always two parties in any stock transaction: a buyer and a seller. The day trading robot can make money off of an investment for 20 years and you could still make money if the investment goes up over the 20 years. The day trading robot doesn't \"\"rob\"\" you of any profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2e7fa2cff773fce251baa01ef94778ef", "text": "We have custom software written in mostly C# for the long term strategies. Day trading is done on multiple platforms. Currently using ToS scripts for some futures and equities strategies to great success, and sierra charts for a few futures exclusively. I just moved into a position to work with day trading so I'm still learning more about the systems he uses", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d0d70a9a528e0a6ba0f1d2b3df4a0c6a
How (or is it necessary) to rebalance a 401k with only one index fund?
[ { "docid": "021fc085f132c2a17051d3a92ab42551", "text": "\"There's nothing to rebalance, the index fund rebalances itself to continue matching the index. However, you need to understand that such an investment is not diversified and you only invest in a very specific market, and very specific stocks on that market. S&P 500 is large (500 different companies, most of the time), but still not as broadly diversified as your retirement investment portfolio should be. You should talk to a financial adviser (CFP for example), many companies provide access to these for 401k plan participants. But in any case, I'd suggest considering \"\"target date\"\" funds - funds that are investing based on your expected retirement year, and become more conservative as you get closer to that year.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "05382e355d7e1a52e94efbadb6a72ebd", "text": "Rebalance is across asset-classes which are mutually independent [like stocks and bonds; they may be inversely correlated at times as when stocks go down, bonds go up] 80%-20% (stock-bond) split is good for a young investor [say in 30s, some suggest 110-age as a good stock allocation percentage]. Here rebalance is done when say the asset-allocation(AA) strays away more than say 3 to 5% (again just a rule of thumb). E.g. if due to a recent run-up in stocks, AA could become 85%-15%. Then you sell stocks to buy bonds to make the AA 80%-20% And since this method always sells the winner -- you automatically make gains [selling high and buying low] S&P 500 index gives decent diversification within stocks; you want a total-bond-fund to take care of the bond side of your AA.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "a4eda5d941ef9f38511d2d191b1803f8", "text": "Taxes Based on the numbers you quoted (-$360) it doesn't appear that you would have a taxable event if you sell all the shares in the account. If you only sell some of the shares, to fund the new account, you should specify which shares you want to sell. If you sell only the shares that you bought when share prices were high, then every share you sell could be considered a loss. This will increase your losses. These losses can be deducted from your taxes, though there are limits. Fees Make sure that you understand the fee structure. Some fund families look at the balance of all your accounts to determine your fee level, others treat each fund separately. Procedure If you were able to get the 10K into the new account in the next few months I would advise not selling the shares. Because it will be 6 to 18 months before you are able to contribute the new funds then rebalancing by selling shares makes more sense. It gets you to your goal quicker. All the funds you mentioned have low expense ratios, I wouldn't move funds just to chase a the lowest expense ratio. I would look at the steps necessary to get the mix you want in the next few weeks, and then what will be needed moving forward. If the 60/40 or 40/60 split makes you comfortable pick one of them. If you want to be able to control the balance via rebalancing or changing your contribution percentage, then go with two funds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac22618341c07a2678f24e43e1aad47a", "text": "Personally I'm not a huge fan of rebalancing within an asset class. I would vote for leaving the HD shares alone and buying other assets until you get to the portfolio you want. Frequent buying and selling incurs costs and possible tax consequences that can really hurt your returns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fdf6d44b9b633d26c622da16169598a4", "text": "They can rebalance and often times at a random manager's discretion. ETF's are just funds, and funds all have their own conditions, read the prospectus, thats the only source of truth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a68a6190f8f1909ef9cf515c36ca5e0d", "text": "\"The goal of the single-fund with a retirement date is that they do the rebalancing for you. They have some set of magic ratios (specific to each fund) that go something like this: Note: I completely made up those numbers and asset mix. When you invest in the \"\"Mutual-Fund Super Account 2025 fund\"\" you get the benefit that in 2015 (10 years until retirement) they automatically change your asset mix and when you hit 2025, they do it again. You can replace the functionality by being on top of your rebalancing. That being said, I don't think you need to exactly match the fund choices they provide, just research asset allocation strategies and remember to adjust them as you get closer to retirement.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76111de6de2f2ba150bc424f08767301", "text": "The benefit of the 401K and IRAs are that reallocating and re balancing are easy. They don't want you to move the funds every day, but you are not locked in to your current allocations. The fact that you mentioned in a comment that you also have a Roth IRA means that you should look at all retirements as a whole. Look at what options you have in the 401K and also what options you have with the IRA. Then determine the overall allocation between bonds, stocks, international, REIT, etc. Then use the mix of funds in the IRA and 401K to meet that goal. Asking if the 401K should be small and mid cap only can't be answered without knowing not just your risk tolerances but the total money in the 401K and IRA. Pick an allocation, map the available funds to that allocation. Rebalance every year. But review the allocation in a few years or after a life event such as: change of job, getting married, having kids, or buying a house.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a06e2230f0a32d5ad721d1d6602a9af", "text": "\"In case other people arrive at this page wondering whether they should enable automatic reinvestment of dividends and capital gains for taxable (non-retirement) accounts (which is what I was searching for when I first arrived on this page): You might want to review https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Reinvesting_dividends_in_a_taxable_account and http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2011/01/26/why-you-shouldnt-automatically-reinvest-dividends/. The general idea is that--assuming you plan to regularly manually rebalance your portfolio to ensure that all of the \"\"pieces of the pie\"\" are the relative sizes that you want--there are approaches you can use to minimize taxes (and also fees, although at Vanguard I don't think that's a concern) if you choose a \"\"SpecID cost basis\"\" and manual reinvestment. Then you can go to \"\"Change your dividends and capital gains distribution elections\"\" at https://personal.vanguard.com/us/DivCapGainAccountSelection.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fbd7141c4bc604e0757f190f9e0f26c9", "text": "\"I assume by that you mean gradually buying the same mix of funds over time. If that's the case, there is no rational reason to do this. Dollar-cost averaging is an artifact of the way most people fund their 401(k). I would not consider it a viable \"\"strategy\"\". (Neither does Wikipedia) Let's say you have $100,000 that you add $10,000 at a time. When you add money, one of three things can happen: Since you can't predict the future, there's no mathematical justification for buying in segments. There's just as much chance that your funds will be worth more or less, so on average it should make little to no difference. In fact, given the time value of money there is a slight advantage to investing it all now so you can capture any future returns. You can always rebalance later to capture gains on some funds and purchase funds that are down to (hopefully) catch them on a rebound.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "07879fbd5435f8dae93d0837a5e1bb5e", "text": "As a general rule, diversification means carrying sufficient amounts in cash equivalents, stocks, bonds, and real estate. An emergency fund should have six months income (conservative) or expenses (less conservative) in some kind of cash equivalent (like a savings account). As you approach retirement, that number should increase. At retirement, it should be something like five years of expenses. At that time, it is no longer an emergency fund, it's your everyday expenses. You can use a pension or social security to offset your effective monthly expenses for the purpose of that fund. You should five years net expenses after income in cash equivalents after retirement. The normal diversification ratio for stocks, bonds, and real estate is something like 60% stocks, 20% bonds, and 20% real estate. You can count the equity in your house as part of the real estate share. For most people, the house will be sufficient diversification into real estate. That said, you should not buy a second home as an investment. Buy the second home if you can afford it and if it makes you happy. Then consider if you want to keep your first home as an investment or just sell it now. Look at your overall ownership to determine if you are overweighted into real estate. Your primary house is not an investment, but it is an ownership. If 90% of your net worth is real estate, then you are probably underinvested in securities like stocks and bonds. 50% should probably be an upper bound, and 20% real estate would be more diversified. If your 401k has an employer match, you should almost certainly put enough in it to get the full match. I prefer a ratio of 70-75% stocks to 25-30% bonds at all ages. This matches the overall market diversification. Rebalance to stay in that range regularly, possibly by investing in the underweight security. Adding real estate to that, my preference would be for real estate to be roughly a quarter of the value of securities. So around 60% stocks, 20% bonds, and 20% real estate. A 50% share for real estate is more aggressive but can work. Along with a house or rental properties, another option for increasing the real estate share is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). These are essentially a mutual fund for real estate. This takes you out of the business of actively managing properties. If you really want to manage rentals, make sure that you list all the expenses. These include: Also be careful that you are able to handle it if things change. Perhaps today there is a tremendous shortage of rental properties and the vacancy rate is close to zero. What happens in a few years when new construction provides more slack? Some kinds of maintenance can't be done with tenants. Also, some kinds of maintenance will scare away new tenants. So just as you are paying out a large amount of money, you also aren't getting rent. You need to be able to handle the loss of income and the large expense at the same time. Don't forget the sales value of your current house. Perhaps you bought when houses were cheaper. Maybe you'd be better off taking the current equity that you have in that house and putting it into your new house's mortgage. Yes, the old mortgage payment may be lower than the rent you could get, but the rent over the next thirty years might be less than what you could get for the house if you sold it. Are you better off with minimal equity in two houses or good equity with one house? I would feel better about this purchase if you were saying that you were doing this in addition to your 401k. Doing this instead of your 401k seems sketchy to me. What will you do if there is another housing crash? With a little bad luck, you could end up underwater on two mortgages and unable to make payments. Or perhaps not underwater on the current house, but not getting much back on a sale either. All that said, maybe it's a good deal. You have more information about it than we do. Just...be careful.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb03f6138adbaa94717ac50bc9a5fc1b", "text": "\"When you hear advice to buy index funds, that usually comes with two additional pieces of investment discipline advice that are important: These two elements are important to give you relative predictability in your outcome 20 years from now. In this old blog post of mine I linked to Warren Buffett talking about this, also mentioned it in a comment on another answer: http://blog.ometer.com/2008/03/27/index-funds/ It's perfectly plausible to do poorly over 20 years if you buy 100% stocks at once, without dollar-cost averaging or rebalancing. It's very very very plausible to do poorly over 10 years, such as the last 10 in fact. Can you really say you know your financial situation in 20-30 years, and for sure won't need that money? Because predictability is important, I like buying a balanced fund and not \"\"pure stocks\"\": http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund/ (feel a little bad linking to my blog, but retyping all that into this answer seems dumb!) Here's another tip. You can go one step past dollar cost averaging and try value averaging: http://www.amazon.com/Value-Averaging-Strategy-Investment-Classics/dp/0470049774 However, chances are you aren't even going to be good about rebalancing if it's done \"\"by hand,\"\" so personally I would not do value averaging unless you can find either a fund or a financial advisor to do it for you automatically. (Finance Buff blog makes a case for a financial advisor, in case you like that more than my balanced fund suggestion: http://thefinancebuff.com/the-average-investor-should-use-an-investment-advisor-how-to-find-one.html) Like rebalancing, value averaging makes you buy more when you're depressed about the market and less when it's exciting. It's hard. (Dollar cost averaging is easily done by setting up automatic investment, of course, so you don't have to do it manually in the way you would with value averaging.) If you read the usual canonical books on index funds and efficient markets it's easy to remember the takeaway that nobody knows whether the market will go up or down, and yes you won't successfully time the market. But what you can do successfully is use an investment discipline with risk control: assume that the market will fluctuate, that both up and down are likely and possible, and optimize for predictability in light of that. Most importantly, optimize to take your emotions and behavior out of the picture. Some disciplines for example are: there are dozens out there, many of them snake oil, I think these I mentioned are valid. Anyway, you need some form of risk control, and putting all your money in stocks at once doesn't give you a lot of risk control. There's no real need to get creative. A balanced fund that uses index funds for equity and bond portions is a great choice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "000c45b503d857f5f81da23d773a0aae", "text": "(a) 5 funds for $15K is not too many or too few ? A bit high as I'd wonder if you've thought of how you'll rebalance the funds over time so you aren't investing too much in a particular market segment. I'd also question if you know what kinds of fees you may have with those funds as some of Vanguard's index funds had fees if the balance is under $10K that may change how much you'll be paying. From Vanguard's site: We charge a $20 annual account service fee for each Vanguard fund with a balance of less than $10,000 in an account. This fee doesn’t apply if you sign up for account access on Vanguard.com and choose electronic delivery of statements, confirmations, and Vanguard fund reports and prospectuses. This fee also doesn’t apply to members of Flagship®, Voyager Select®, and Voyager Services®. So, if you don't do the delivery this would be an extra $100/year that I wonder if you factored that into things here. (b) Have I diversified my portfolio too much or not enough ? Perhaps I am missing something that would be recommended for the portfolio of this kind with this goal. Both, in my opinion. Too much in the sense that you are looking at Morningstar's style box to pick a fund for this box and that which I'd consider consolidating on one hand yet at the same time I notice that you are sticking purely to US stocks and ignoring international funds. I do think taxes may be something you haven't considered too much as stocks will outgrow most of those funds and trigger capital gains that you don't mention at all. (c) If not my choice of my portfolio, where would you invest $15K under similar circumstances and similar goals. What is the goal here? You state that this is your first cash investment but don't state if this is for retirement, a vacation in 10 years, a house in 7 years or a bunch of other possibilities which is something to consider. If I consider this as retirement investments, I'd like pick 1 or 2 funds known for being tax-efficient that would be where I'd start. So, if a fund goes down 30%, that's OK? Do you have a rebalancing strategy of any kind? Do you realize what taxes you may have even if the fund doesn't necessarily have gains itself? In not stating a goal, I wonder how well do you have a strategy worked out for how you'll sell off these funds down the road at some point as something to ponder.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cb7eb913f9f29b9425752068c1fd065", "text": "\"From http://blog.ometer.com/2008/03/27/index-funds/ , Lots of sensible advisers will tell you to buy index funds, but importantly, the advice is not simply \"\"buy index funds.\"\" There are at least two other critical details: 1) asset allocation across multiple well-chosen indexes, maintained through regular rebalancing, and 2) dollar cost averaging (or, much-more-complex-but-probably-slightly-better, value averaging). The advice is not to take your single lump sum and buy and hold a cap-weighted index forever. The advice is an investment discipline which involves action over time, and an initial choice among indexes. An index-fund-based strategy is not completely passive, it involves some active risk control through rebalancing and averaging. If you'd held a balanced portfolio over the last ten years and rebalanced, and even better if you'd dollar cost averaged, you'd have done fine. Your reaction to the last 10 years incidentally is why I don't believe an almost-all-stocks allocation makes sense for most people even if they're pretty young. More detail in this answer: How would bonds fare if interest rates rose? I think some index fund advocacy and books do people a disservice by focusing too much on the extra cost of active management and why index funds are a good deal. That point is true, but for most investors, asset allocation, rebalancing, and \"\"autopilotness\"\" of their setup are more important to outcome than the expense ratio.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "338626ea8f640e3e473a95c5587d7eb9", "text": "Yours two funds are redundant. Both are designed to have a mix of bonds and stocks and allow you to put all your money in them. Pick the one that has the lowest fees and stick with that (I didn't look at the funds you didn't select...they didn't look great either). Although all your funds have high fees, some are higher than others, so don't ignore fees. When you have decided on your portfolio weights, prioritize your money thus: Contribute enough to your 401(k) to get the full match from your employer Put everything else toward paying off that credit card until you have 0 balance. It's ok to use the card, but let it be little enough that you pay your statement balance off each month so you pay no interest. Then set aside some savings and invest any retirement money into a Roth IRA. At your income level your taxes are low so Roth is better than traditional IRA or 401(k). If you max out your Roth, put any other retirement savings in your 401(k).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74a1089bb1d601ec2114c0ed79ffc620", "text": "I still don't see the point of this software; rebalancing frequently is a waste of money (through fees). If you invest in index funds, you don't have to rebalance at all--effectively, the fund is doing it for you, and since they can generally trade more efficiently than individual investors can, that's a win. The Coverdell ESA is a great example. There's a maximum contribution amount, just as there are for almost any tax-exempt account. A decent financial adviser could help you plan how much to contribute to which accounts, at what time, and when you can/should start to withdraw from them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0e35575aa64bebb6e39286109ddf921", "text": "\"Having worked for a financial company for years, my advice is to stay away from all the \"\"Freedom Funds\"\" offered. They're a new way for Fidelity to justify charging a higher management fee on those particular funds. That extra 1% or so a year is great for making the company money; it will kill your rate of return over the next 25+ years you're putting money into your retirement account. All these funds do is change the percentage of your funds in stocks vs. more fixed investments (bonds, etc.) so you have a higher percentage in stocks while you're young and slowly move the percentage more towards fixed as you get older. If you take a few hours every 5 years to re-balance your portfolio and just slowly shift more money towards fixed investments, you'll achieve the same thing WITHOUT the extra annual fee. So how much difference are we talking here? Let's do a quick example. Based on your salary of $70k and a 4% match by your company, you'll have $5,600 a year to put in your 401(k) (your 4% plus matched 4%). I'll also assume an 8% annual return for both funds. Here is what that 1% extra service charge will cost you: Fund with a 1% service charge: Annual Fee Paid Year 1 - $60.00 Annual Fee Paid Year 25 (assuming 8% growth in assets) - $301.00 Total Fees Year 1 through 25: $3,782 Fund with a 2% service charge: Annual Fee Paid Year 1 - $121.00 Annual Fee Paid Year 25 (assuming 8% growth in assets) - $472.00 Total Fees Year 1 through 25: $6,489 That's a total of $2,707 in extra fees over 25 years on just the investment you make this year! Next year if you invest the same amount in your 401k that will be another $2,707 paid over 25 years to the management company. This pattern repeats EACH year you pay the higher management fee. Trust me, if you invest that money in stock instead of paying it as fees, you'll have a whole lot more money saved when it's time to retire. My advice, pick a percentage you're comfortable with in stocks at your age, maybe 85 - 90%, and pick the stock funds with the lowest management fees (the remaining 10 - 15% should go into a fixed fund). Make sure you pick at least some of your stock money, I do 20 - 25%, and select a diverse (lots of different countries) international fund. For any retirement money you plan to save above the 4% getting matched by your company, set up a Roth IRA. That will give you the freedom to invest in any stocks or funds you want. Find some low-cost index funds (such as VTI for stocks, and BND for bonds) and put your money in those. Invest the same amount every month, automatically, and your cost average will work itself out through up markets and down. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7129104fb2ab770f186c5882f2e6074c", "text": "\"when the index is altered to include new players/exclude old ones, the fund also adjusts The largest and (I would say) most important index funds are whole-market funds, like \"\"all-world-ex-US\"\", or VT \"\"Total World Stock\"\", or \"\"All Japan\"\". (And similarly for bonds, REITS, etc.) So companies don't leave or enter these indexes very often, and when they do (by an initial offering or bankruptcy) it is often at a pretty small value. Some older indices like the DJIA are a bit more arbitrary but these are generally not things that index funds would try to match. More narrow sector or country indices can have more of this effect, and I believe some investors have made a living from index arbitrage. However well run index funds don't need to just blindly play along with this. You need to remember that an index fund doesn't need to hold precisely every company in the index, they just need to sample such that they will perform very similarly to the index. The 500th-largest company in the S&P 500 is not likely to have all that much of an effect on the overall performance of the index, and it's likely to be fairly correlated to other companies in similar sectors, which are also covered by the index. So if there is a bit of churn around the bottom of the index, it doesn't necessarily mean the fund needs to be buying and selling on each transition. If I recall correctly it's been shown that holding about 250 stocks gives you a very good match with the entire US stock market.\"", "title": "" } ]
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Can buying REIT's be compared to investing in Real Estate?
[ { "docid": "7463e6b01c2f38e523cd6ba482a29b8a", "text": "\"A couple of distinctions. First, if you were to \"\"invest in real estate\"\" were you planning to buy a home to live in, or buy a home to rent out to someone else? Buying a home as a primary residence really isn't \"\"investing in real estate\"\" per se. It's buying a place to live rather than renting one. Unless you rent a room out or get a multi-family unit, your primary residence won't be income-producing. It will be income-draining, for the most part. I speak as a homeowner. Second, if you are buying to rent out to someone else, buying a single home is quite a bit different than buying an REIT. The home is a lot less liquid, the transaction costs are higher, and all of your eggs are in one basket. Having said that, though, if you buy one right and do your homework it can set you on the road for a very comfortable retirement.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e2514f7b41ead8b0f37d702fcf7fbd2", "text": "well yes but you should also begin to understand the sectoral component of real estate as a market too in that there can be commercial property; industrial property and retail property; each of which is capable of having slightly (tho usually similar of course) different returns, yields, and risks. Whereas you are saving to buy and enter into the residential property market which is different again and valuation principles are often out of kilter here because Buying a home although exposing your asset base to real estate risk isnt usually considered an investment as it is often made on emotional grounds not strict investment criteria.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "2669fc66733ed6fbfa361a18d255cba9", "text": "Besides the long-term concern about which is cheaper, which has already been addressed by other answers, consider your risk exposure. Owning property has financial risks associated with it, just like owning stocks or bonds. The risk-related downsides of owning a home as an asset include: The risk-related upsides of owning a home as an asset include: Taking on some risk can save you (or earn you) money in the long run (that's why people buy risky stocks, after all) but consider how well you're equipped to handle that risk before you rush out to buy on a naive analysis of what's cheaper.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d18af34075798769df46f3517dde7d05", "text": "To round out something that @Chris W. Rea pointed out, the business that a REIT is in will be either A) Equity REIT... property management, B) mortgage REIT... lending, or C) hybrid REIT (both). A very key point about why REITs broadly have been struggling lately, (and this would show up in the REIT indices/ETFs you've linked to,) is linked to the REIT business models. For an Equity REIT, they borrow money at the going rate (let's say ~4.5% for commercial-scale loans), and use that to take out mortgages on physical properties. If a property rents for $15K per month, and they can take out a $1.8 million loan at $9,000 per month, then their business is around managing maintenance, operating expenses, and taxes on that $6,000 per month margin. For a mortgage REIT, they borrow funds as a highly qualified borrower, (again let's say ~4.5%), and lend those funds back out at a higher rate. The basic concept is that if you borrow $10 million at 4.5% for 30 years, you need to pay it back at $50,668 per month. If you can lend it out reliably at 5%, you collect $53,682 per month... a handy $3,000 per month. The cheaper you can get money at (below 4.5%) and the higher you can lend it at (above 5%), the better your margin is. The worry is that both REIT business models are very highly dependent on the cost of borrowing money. With the US Fed changing its bond-buying/QE/stimulus activity, the prevailing interest rates are likely to go up. While this has its benefits (inflation), it also will make it more expensive for these types of companies to do business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f954722876bfa4acb9331c336341e5db", "text": "As other answers have pointed out, professional real estate investors do own residential investment properties. However, small residential units typically are not owned by professional real estate investors as your experience confirms. This has a fairly natural cause. The size of the investment opportunity is insufficient to warrant the proper research/due diligence to which a large investment firm would have to commit if it wanted to properly assess the potential of a property. For a small real estate fund managing, say, $50 MM, it would take 100 properties at a $500K valuation in order to fully invest the funds. This number grows quickly as we decrease the average valuation to reflect even smaller individual units. Analogously, it is unlikely that you will find large institutional investors buying stocks with market caps of $20 MM. They simply cannot invest a large enough portion of total AUM to make the diligence make economic sense. As such, institutional real estate money tends to find its way into large multi-family units that provide a more convenient purchase size for a fund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d16189759e51343e7ecb4ac89cf8ce81", "text": "would buying the stock of a REIT qualify as a 'Like-Kind' exchange? Short answer, no. Long answer, a 1031 (Starker) exchange only applies to real estate. From the Wikipedia page on the topic: To qualify for Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, the properties exchanged must be held for productive use in a trade or business, or for investment. Stocks, bonds, and other properties are listed as expressly excluded by Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, although securitized properties are not excluded. A REIT, being stock in a real estate company, is excluded from Section 1031.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e0db68e6cc4cd7e8486bf6496e30c1b", "text": "With out a doubt: commercial real estate. Those that have significant amounts of money, and want to make lots more usually end up investing a chunk of their portfolio in commercial real estate. Everyone finds a way to make money elsewhere, but there’s no comparison to the incentives and returns in real estate when you have tens or hundreds of millions of $ at your disposal. Have money, make money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "31c5ac8c41c0019f73a79c19208dd61e", "text": "Have you considered a self-directed IRA to invest, rather than the stock market or publicly traded assets? Your IRA can actually own direct title to real estate, loan money via secured or unsecured promissory notes much like a hard money loan or invest into shares of an entity that invests in real estate. The only nuance is that the IRA holder is responsible for finding and deciding upon the investment vehicle. Just an option outside of the normal parameters, if you have an existing IRA or old 401(k) or other qualified plan, this might be an option for you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efbb304b34f82e85b8b06a3c4e46874f", "text": "\"Okay. An ETF is an \"\"Exchange Traded Fund\"\". It trades like a stock, on the stock market. Basically by buying one ETF, you can have ownership in the underlying companies that make up the ETF. So, if you buy QCLN, a green energy ETF, you own Tesla, First Solar Inc, SunPower Corporation, Vivint Solar, Advanced energy industries and a bunch of other companies that are involved in clean energy. It allows you to gain exposure to a sector without having to buy individual companies. There are ETFs for lots of different things. Technology ETFs, Healthcare ETFs, Consumer Staples ETFs, Utilities ETFs, etc. REITS are essentially the same thing, except they own real estate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "526b49773d4cadf21e72433fba36f526", "text": "It's not an easy calculation so I made this demonstration that compares a fixed investment with a 100% mortgage, for a simple case. (Obviously if you lessen the mortgage with a deposit it's somewhere between the extremes.) The demonstrations shows some definite differences at higher interest rates. You can probably decipher the calculations in the code if you're interested. It's intended to be legible. http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/BuyOrRentInvestmentReturnCalculator/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e725542c1d026fca1da7d80aedc71bca", "text": "I plotted your figures in my Buy or Rent app. It compares the equity of buying or renting by calculating what your mortgage payment would be and comparing the alternative case if you rented and invested an equivalent amount. Clearly for the amounts you specified it is better to buy, but if you change the amounts and interest or property appreciation you can see the equity effects.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46c9f0d3d1b4ccabea1124258eda375c", "text": "\"You're \"\"onto\"\" something. Investing in real estate was not a bad idea about 10-15 years ago, when stocks were high, and real estate was not. On the other hand, by about 2006, BOTH stocks and real estate were high, and should have been avoided. And around 1980, both were LOW, and should have been bought. I expand this construct to include gold and oil. Around 2005, these were relatively low, and should have been bought over stocks and real estate. On the other hand, ALL FOUR are high right now, and offer comparable dangers.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d006258069669f318941d0f314281530", "text": "Your experience is anecdotal (outside Australia things are different). There are many companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs) that own residential properties (as well as commercial in many cases to have a balanced portfolio). They are probably more common in higher-density housing like condos, apartment buildings, flats, or whatever you like to call them, but they are certainly part of the market for single family units in the suburbs as well. What follows is all my own opinion. I have managed and rented a couple of properties that I had lived in but wasn't ready to sell yet when I moved out. In most cases, I wish I would have sold sooner, rather than renting them out. I think that there are easier/less risky ways to get a good return on your money. Sometimes the market isn't robust enough to quickly sell when it's time to move, and some people like the flexibility of having a property that a child could occupy instead of moving back in at home. I understand those points of view even if I disagree with them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3da43b5fef21f1219c04418d4457f804", "text": "\"I work for an international real estate consulting firm in Shanghai. After graduation I worked in their Research Department for two years before switching to Commercial Brokerage 3 months ago. Since my background was in Economics, I had to learn a lot about how the industry worked. I found this book to be very helpful: \"\"Commercial Real Estate Analysis &amp; Investments\"\" by David Geltner. I will admit that it's probably more than what you want to know, but it seriously gives an in depth breakdown of the entire industry. About one year into starting, a major Real Estate iBank commissioned our company to due diligence on an office building acquisition in Shanghai. I was the only person capable of doing it as everyone else was either busy or couldn't speak English properly. With 1 year under my belt in Research and that book, I took the entire thing on. Had to walk into that meeting by myself with all the big wigs from New York, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai questioning every single number and assumption. I fucking nailed it. While credit towards understanding the market through work is deserved, a lot of the development of that report came from constantly consulting that book. It's worth every penny if your interested in commercial real estate investment. That being said, if you want to track deals, the best place is called Real Estate Capital Analytics. Unfortunately you have to fork over a decent amount of cash to get access. For your situation I would recommend the following: - \"\"The Urban Land Institute &amp; PwC Emerging Trends in Real Estate\"\": I believe you need to be a member but I can always find it online for free. - Brokerage firms: I work in one and we cover residential, commercial and retail reports on cities throughout the world (I actually wrote the ones for China for two years). You can find a wealth of information in them. If you are seriously looking at buying with capital, call up the research department and ask if they have some time to discuss the market face to face; if you don't have capital, they won't talk to you. Fortunately however, most let you download their reports for free from their website so here's the list of the major ones in the US: CBRE, Colliers, CRESA, Cushman &amp; Wakefield, Jones Lang LaSalle, etc. - The Loop - www.loopnet.com has a wealth of information from Commercial properties on the market to previous deals. Please let me know if I can further advise.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8ad733f3555fc53581d86d18951d3956", "text": "\"If you're trying to hedge the ups and downs of your local residential real estate market, a REIT fund holding commercial properties across the country is not the ideal match. Here's a comparison of an index tracking single-family home prices in one region (Los Angeles) and VNQ (another popular REIT fund). There's some correlation but there's clearly different magnitudes and sometimes different directions. With a national home price index, the correlation is only 68%, and it would be lower for individual cities. You could still use it for hedging, but there's significant \"\"tracker error\"\" risk to be considered. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with any investment that would be a better match for individual residential markets. So, if you decide to use this, I'd also adjust the level of exposure to get a closer result. E.g. using approx. 50% VNQ and 50% cash results in a closer result after 2 years (compared to national single-family home price changes) than either 0% VNQ and 100% cash, or 100% VNQ and 0% cash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0cd7730d095a4ebac6e95aabb354f31", "text": "Buying a property and renting it out can be a good investment if it matches your long term goals. Buying an investment property is a long term investment. A large chunk of your money will be tied up with the property and difficult to access. If you put your money into dividend producing stocks you can always sell the stock and have your money back in a matter of days this is not so with a property. (But you can always do a Home equity line of credit (HELOC)) I would also like to point out landlording is not a passive endeavor as JohnFx stated dealing with a tenant can be a lot of work. This is not work you necessarily have to deal with, it is possible to contract with a property management company that would place tenants and take care of those late night calls. Property management companies often charge 10% of your monthly rent and will eat a large portion of your profits. It could be worth the time and headache of tenant relations. You should build property management into you expenses anyway in case you decide to go that route in the future. There are good things about owning an investment property. It can produce returns in a couple of ways. If you choose this route it can be lucrative but be sure to do your homework. You must know the area you are investing very well. Know the rent, and vacancy rates for Single family homes, look at multifamily homes as a way of mitigating risk(if one unit is vacant the others are still paying).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bcc297d2ceaa81a2066b4adbf028eab", "text": "\"Other individuals answered how owning an REIT compares to an individual real estate investment, but did not answer your second question as readily, \"\"are REITs a good option to generate passive income for awhile?\"\". The \"\"awhile\"\" part is quite important in answering this question. If your intentions are to invest for a relatively short time period (say, 7 years or less), it may be especially advantageous to invest in a REIT. The foremost advantage comes from significantly lower transaction fees (stock/ETF trades are practically/potentially free today) compared to purchasing real estate, which involves inspection+titling fees/taxes/broker fees, which in a round-trip transaction (purchase and sale) would come to ~10%. The secondary advantage to owning a REIT is they are much more liquid than a property. If you wanted to sell your investment at a given point in time, you can easily log into your brokerage and execute your transaction, while liquidating an investment property will take time on market/potentially tossing tenants/fixing up place, etc. On the other hand, illiquid investments have generally yielded higher historical returns according to past research.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
753708abd2b9e01c127eb7b2c6056e27
Is there a widely recognized bond index?
[ { "docid": "631a51f311776fed607cd64ae31816d9", "text": "Multiple overlapping indices exist covering various investment universes. Almost all of the widely followed indices were originally created by Lehman Brothers and are now maintained by Barclays. The broadest U.S. dollar based bond index is known as the Universal. The Aggregate (often abbreviated Agg), which is historically the most popular index, more or less includes all bonds in the Universal rated investment grade. The direct analog to the S&P 500 would be the U.S. Corporate Investment Grade index, which is tracked by the ETF LQD, and contains exactly what it sounds like. Citigroup (formerly Salomon Brothers) also has a competitor index to the Aggregate known as Broad Investment Grade (BIG), and Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America) has the Domestic Master. Multiple other indices also exist covering other bond markets, such as international (non-USD) bonds, tax-exempts (municipal bonds), securitized products, floating rate, etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89cc2b6694f315a40c76c1cee002a052", "text": "\"The iShares Barclays Aggregate Bond - ticker AGG, is a ETF that may fit the bill for you. It's an intermediate term fund with annual expenses of .20%. It \"\"seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d156356356a6817ede7064657b1d9b6d", "text": "Keep in mind that the bond market is dominated by US Treasury securities... if there were an S&P 500 for bonds, the US would take positions 1-400. Be careful that you understand what's in your bond funds -- you may not be as diversified as you think.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d6b8944581bb291c1e2b63f38afbdb03", "text": "\"Yes, the \"\"effective\"\" and \"\"market\"\" rates are interchangeable. The present value formula will help make it possible to determine the effective interest rate. Since the bond's par value, duration, and par interest rate is known, the coupon payment can be extracted. Now, knowing the price the bond sold in the market, the duration, and the coupon payment, the effective market interest rate can be extracted. This involves solving large polynomials. A less accurate way of determining the interest rate is using a yield shorthand. To extract the market interest rate with good precision and acceptable accuracy, the annual coupon derived can be divided by the market price of the bond.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "580b87fa9582f0ad27639ac85955d59a", "text": "\"Looking at the list of bonds you listed, many of them are long dated. In short, in a rate rising environment (it's not like rates can go much lower in the foreseeable future), these bond prices will drop in general in addition to any company specific events occurred to these names, so be prepared for some paper losses. Just because a bond is rated highly by credit agencies like S&P or Moody's does not automatically mean their prices do not fluctuate. Yes, there is always a demand for highly rated bonds from pension funds, mutual funds, etc. because of their investment mandates. But I would suggest looking beyond credit ratings and yield, and look further into whether these bonds are secured/unsecured and if secured, by what. Keep in mind in recent financial crisis, prices of those CDOs/CLOs ended up plunging even though they were given AAA ratings by rating agencies because some were backed by housing properties that were over-valued and loans made to borrowers having difficulties to make repayments. Hence, these type of \"\"bonds\"\" have greater default risks and traded at huge discounts. Most of them are also callable, so you may not enjoy the seemingly high yield till their maturity date. Like others mentioned, buying bonds outright is usually a big ticket item. I would also suggest reviewing your cash liquidity and opportunity cost as oppose to investing in other asset classes and instruments.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c37c24f30645f6131887178f02722dc", "text": "FINRA lets you view recent trades, but as stated in the other answer bonds are illiquid and often do not trade frequently. Therefore recent trades prices are only a rough estimate of the current price that would be accepted. http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter/Default.jsp", "title": "" }, { "docid": "11d7b3a389522f80d9d899b9bff4ec81", "text": "\"You quickly run into issues of what denotes \"\"similar\"\", and how to construct an appropriate index methodology. For example, do you group all CB arb funds together globally or separate them by country? Is long-bias equity long-short different to no-bias and variable-bias? Is a fund that concentrates on sovereign debt more like a macro fund or a fixed income fund? And so on. By definition, hedge funds try not to mimic their peers, with varying degrees of success. Even if you get through that problem, how do you create the index? You may not be able to get return numbers for all the \"\"similar\"\" funds, and even if you do, how do you weight them? By AUM, or equal weight? There are commercial indices out there (CSFB, Eurekahedge, Marhedge, Barclays, MSCI, etc) but there's no one accepted standard, and it's unlikely that there ever will be as a result. It's certainly interesting to look at your performance versus one of these indices, and many investors do monitor fund performance this way, but to demand strict benchmarking to one of them is a big ask...\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82ea0d1ce78d1bcdea1963a057b8a119", "text": "I wrote one to check against the N3 to N6 bonds: http://capitalmind.in/2011/03/sbi-bond-yield-calculator/ Things to note:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8b09becad77e75ae4672acfab2fd135", "text": "From wikipedia: In finance, a high-yield bond (non-investment-grade bond, speculative-grade bond, or junk bond) is a bond that is rated below investment grade at the time of purchase. These bonds have a higher risk of default or other adverse credit events, but typically pay higher yields than better quality bonds in order to make them attractive to investors. In terms of your second question, you have the causality backwards. They are called junk bonds because they have a higher risk of default.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d97bf4bb1460ad297443f840144b63f", "text": "To my knowledge, the only bond ever issued by a notable state into perpetuity was the Bank of England...and it was a miserable mess for all the obvious reasons. Edit : They were called consuls, and it appears i was wrong about them being catastriphic for the BOE. I'm sorry, i guess i must be cruising the permabear backwoods or something. Here's some interesting links i found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols http://www.immediateannuities.com/annuitymuseum/annuitycertificatesofthebankofengland/consolidatedannuities/ http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2012/03/debt-crisis-0?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/hundredyearsofsolvency", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96c20301e3d9cce0e80714e7dbe7ede1", "text": "You could look up the P/E of an equivalent ETF, or break the ETF into components and look those up. Each index has its own methodology, usually weighted by market cap. See here: http://www.amex.com/etf/prodInf/EtAllhold.jsp?Product_Symbol=DIA", "title": "" }, { "docid": "090ed6997c691d1e11adbbeebebc1a50", "text": "Dow Jones is a meaningless index that is only ever referenced in the media. It’s fundamentally flawed because the index constituents are weighted by share price, which is nonsensical (ie a $100 stock has a bigger impact on the index than a $50 stock) as opposed to the S&amp;P500 which is market cap weighted (a $100 billion company has a bigger impact than a $50 billion company). People in the investment industry focus on the S&amp;P index and pay zero attention to the Dow.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96802f64aee75a2dff0c7b4c113c4323", "text": "John Bogle never said only buy the S&P 500 or any single index Q:Do you think the average person could safely invest for retirement and other goals without expert advice -- just by indexing? A: Yes, there is a rule of thumb I add to that. You should start out heavily invested in equities. Hold some bond index funds as well as stock index funds. By the time you get closer to retirement or into your retirement, you should have a significant position in bond index funds as well as stock index funds. As we get older, we have less time to recoup. We have more money to protect and our nervousness increases with age. We get a little bit worried about that nest egg when it's large and we have little time to recoup it, so we pay too much attention to the fluctuations in the market, which in the long run mean nothing. How much to pay Q: What's the highest expense ratio that one should pay for a domestic equity fund? A: I'd say three-quarters of 1 percent maybe. Q: For an international fund? A: I'd say three-quarters of 1 percent. Q: For a bond fund? A: One-half of 1 percent. But I'd shave that a little bit. For example, if you can buy a no-load bond fund or a no-load stock fund, you can afford a little more expense ratio, because you're not paying any commission. You've eliminated cost No. 2....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "12c634220fc3e2dc46fc247bc28c4557", "text": "I couldn't find historical data either, so I contacted Vanguard Canada and Barclays; Vanguard replied that This index was developed for Vanguard, and thus historical information is available as of the inception of the fund. Unfortunately, that means that the only existing data on historical returns are in the link in your question. Vanguard also sent me a link to the methodology Barclay's uses when constructing this index, which you might find interesting as well. I haven't heard from Barclays, but I presume the story is the same; even if they've been collecting data on Canadian bonds since before the inception of this index, they probably didn't aggregate it into an index before their contract with Vanguard (and if they did, it might be proprietary and not available free of charge).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d8ce6cb85bbe08d91f8b2fd2803b45e", "text": "well, you know the problem lies with bonds maturing. The issue is not the function COMP but the security itself. You have to use existing total return indices that reflect a constant 10yr maturity position. &gt;perpetually rolled the principal once the bond matured until the present? That would mean your 10y becomes 7y, 5y, 3y, 1y, matured then you reinvest. Not the same. Use SECF to find something like MLT1US10 Index or go to the IND page to see Merrill Lynch's bond indices. They're some of the best.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc7a11ffe10bae183558cb1ee4887bd4", "text": "Well, define shitty. The assumption of perfect competition should imply that only the firms that can manage to breakeven while still owing outstanding bonds will continue to issue bonds in the first place, as the competing monetary systems themselves will become a competitive market of their own. Information on the specific bond you're using as a medium of exchange/legal tender should be easily be easy to find or public information. If it's kind of bondnote has existed for five years with no substantial changes, my safe bet is on that bond being worth something.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2dc8c9f027bfc2cc21bc6b1d146bfccf", "text": "Apple is currently the most valuable company in the world by market capitalisation and it has issued bonds for instance. Amazon have also issued bonds in the past as have Google. One of many reasons companies may issue bonds is to reduce their tax bill. If a company is a multinational it may have foreign earnings that would incur a tax bill if they were transferred to the holding company's jurisdiction. The company can however issue bonds backed by the foreign cash pile. It can then use the bond cash to pay dividends to shareholders. Ratings Agencies such as Moody's, Fitch and Standard & Poor's exist to rate companies ability to make repayments on debt they issue. Investors can read their reports to help make a determination as to whether to invest in bond issues. Of course investors also need to determine whether they believe the Ratings Agencies assesments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7ac0e1168515e6446b54b437506ecba4", "text": "\"Are you on Twitter? If so, the first thing I'd do is tweet this question to @Orbitz and/or @AmericanAir (AA). I'll edit it to be a bit nicer english-wise. Tweeting (or Facebooking or Instgramming or ...) is one of the most effective ways to get customer service in 'edge' cases. Explain your case in a nice, tight narrative that has the pertinent facts, why you should get an exception. Social media tends to get results that you can't get just talking on the phone; in part because you're effectively talking with a higher-up person, and because you can make your case a bit more clearly. You can actually tweet this StackExchange question directly, or word it yourself in a tweet/FB post/etc. On Twitter i'd link to here or somewhere else (too short), with something like \"\"@Orbitz @AmericanAir, you changed our trip and now it doesn't work with our special needs child. Any way you can help us out? [link to this q or a blog post somewhere]\"\". As far as a merchant dispute; it would realistically depend on the agreement you signed with Orbitz when you bought the tickets. Likely it includes some flexibility for them to change your plans if the airline cancels the flight. If it does, and they followed all of their policies correctly, then technically you shouldn't dispute the charge. It is possible that Chase might have some recourse on your behalf, though I don't think this qualifies for Trip Cancellation Insurance (Which you have through your Sapphire card ). It might be worth calling them, just to see. In the future, I would recommend booking through their site - not only do you get 25% bonus rewards when you use miles through there, which often is enough to offset the advantages of discount travel sites, but they're quite good at helping deal with these sorts of problems (as Sapphire is one of their top cards).\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
4363e7ad50157e49a199ff7a0160bc6a
Does a bond etf drop by the amount of the dividend just like an equity etf
[ { "docid": "c8e6b1e733931958f9180e8ad4a2b7d7", "text": "No, they do not. Stock funds and bonds funds collect income dividends in different ways. Stock funds collect dividends (as well as any capital gains that are realized) from the underlying stocks and incorporates these into the funds’ net asset value, or daily share price. That’s why a stock fund’s share price drops when the fund makes a distribution – the distribution comes out of the fund’s total net assets. With bond funds, the internal accounting is different: Dividends accrue daily, and are then paid out to shareholders every month or quarter. Bond funds collect the income from the underlying bonds and keep it in a separate internal “bucket.” A bond fund calculates a daily accrual rate for the shares outstanding, and shareholders only earn income for the days they actually hold the fund. For example, if you buy a bond fund two days before the fund’s month-end distribution, you would only receive two days’ worth of income that month. On the other hand, if you sell a fund part-way through the month, you will still receive a partial distribution at the end of the month, pro-rated for the days you actually held the fund. Source Also via bogleheads: Most Vanguard bond funds accrue interest to the share holders daily. Here is a typical statement from a prospectus: Each Fund distributes to shareholders virtually all of its net income (interest less expenses) as well as any net capital gains realized from the sale of its holdings. The Fund’s income dividends accrue daily and are distributed monthly. The term accrue used in this sense means that the income dividends are credited to your account each day, just like interest in a savings account that accrues daily. Since the money set aside for your dividends is both an asset of the fund and a liability, it does not affect the calculated net asset value. When the fund distributes the income dividends at the end of the month, the net asset value does not change as both the assets and liabilities decrease by exactly the same amount. [Note that if you sell all of your bond fund shares in the middle of the month, you will receive as proceeds the value of your shares (calculated as number of shares times net asset value) plus a separate distribution of the accrued income dividends.]", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b962d0c6c11e5ca3e77f09acaddf793b", "text": "Most bond ETFs have switched to monthly dividends paid on the first of each month, in an attempt to standardize across the market. For ETFs (but perhaps not bond mutual funds, as suggested in the above answer) interest does accrue in the NAV, so the price of the fund does drop on ex-date by an amount equal to the dividend paid. A great example of this dynamic can be seen in FLOT, a bond ETF holding floating rate corporate bonds. As you can see in this screenshot, the NAV has followed a sharp up and down pattern, almost like the teeth of a saw. This is explained by interest accruing in the NAV over the course of each month, until it is paid out in a dividend, dropping the NAV sharply in one day. The effect has been particularly pronounced recently because the floating coupon payments have increased significantly (benchmark interest rates are higher) and mark-to-market changes in credit spreads of the constituent bonds have been very muted.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c73f3efee233cebf09efa70a897dd2c", "text": "It may be true for a bond fund. But it is not true for bond etf. Bond etf will drop by the same amount when it distribute dividend on ex-dividend date.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "a6ee4e5de0eaac8cd605fe3bd7730482", "text": "\"You seem to be assuming that ETFs must all work like the more traditional closed-end funds, where the market price per share tends—based on supply and demand—to significantly deviate from the underlying net asset value per share. The assumption is simplistic. What are traditionally referred to as closed-end funds (CEFs), where unit creation and redemption are very tightly controlled, have been around for a long time, and yes, they do often trade at a premium or discount to NAV because the quantity is inflexible. Yet, what is generally meant when the label \"\"ETF\"\" is used (despite CEFs also being both \"\"exchange-traded\"\" and \"\"funds\"\") are those securities which are not just exchange-traded, and funds, but also typically have two specific characteristics: (a) that they are based on some published index, and (b) that a mechanism exists for shares to be created or redeemed by large market participants. These characteristics facilitate efficient pricing through arbitrage. Essentially, when large market participants notice the price of an ETF diverging from the value of the shares held by the fund, new units of the ETF can get created or redeemed in bulk. The divergence quickly narrows as these participants buy or sell ETF units to capture the difference. So, the persistent premium (sometimes dear) or discount (sometimes deep) one can easily witness in the CEF universe tend not to occur with the typical ETF. Much of the time, prices for ETFs will tend to be very close to their net asset value. However, it isn't always the case, so proceed with some caution anyway. Both CEF and ETF providers generally publish information about their funds online. You will want to find out what is the underlying Net Asset Value (NAV) per share, and then you can determine if the market price trades at a premium or a discount to NAV. Assuming little difference in an ETF's price vs. its NAV, the more interesting question to ask about an ETF then becomes whether the NAV itself is a bargain, or not. That means you'll need to be more concerned with what stocks are in the index the fund tracks, and whether those stocks are a bargain, or not, at their current prices. i.e. The ETF is a basket, so look at each thing in the basket. Of course, most people buy ETFs because they don't want to do this kind of analysis and are happy with market average returns. Even so, sector-based ETFs are often used by traders to buy (or sell) entire sectors that may be undervalued (or overvalued).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e68cfb5a28d39979c5839becde274e73", "text": "\"First, it's an exaggeration to say \"\"every\"\" dollar. Traditional mutual funds, including money-market funds, keep a small fraction of their assets in cash for day-to-day transactions, maybe 1%. If you invest $1, they put that in the cash bucket and issue you a share. If you and 999 other people invest $100 each, not offset by people redeeming, they take the aggregated $100,000 and buy a bond or two. Conversely, if you redeem one share it comes out of cash, but if lots of people redeem they sell some bond(s) to cover those redemptions -- which works as long as the bond(s) can in fact be sold for close enough to their recorded value. And this doesn't mean they \"\"can't fail\"\". Even though they are (almost totally) invested in securities that are thought to be among the safest and most liquid available, in sufficiently extreme circumstances those investments can fall in market value, or they can become illiquid and unavailable to cover \"\"withdrawals\"\" (redemptions). ETFs are also fully invested, but the process is less direct. You don't just send money to the fund company. Instead: Thus as long as the underlyings for your ETF hold their value, which for a money market they are designed to, and the markets are open and the market maker firms are operating, your ETF shares are well backed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund for more.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39039f0f18b9a5f0ebc766f87a502934", "text": "In the past 10 years there have been mutual funds that would act as a single bucket of stocks and bonds. A good example is Fidelity's Four In One. The trade off was a management fee for the fund in exchange for having to manage the portfolio itself and pay separate commissions and fees. These days though it is very simple and pretty cheap to put together a basket of 5-6 ETFs that would represent a balanced portfolio. Whats even more interesting is that large online brokerage houses are starting to offer commission free trading of a number of ETFs, as long as they are not day traded and are held for a period similar to NTF mutual funds. I think you could easily put together a basket of 5-6 ETFs to trade on Fidelity or TD Ameritrade commission free, and one that would represent a nice diversified portfolio. The main advantage is that you are not giving money to the fund manager but rather paying the minimal cost of investing in an index ETF. Overall this can save you an extra .5-1% annually on your portfolio, just in fees. Here are links to commission free ETF trading on Fidelity and TD Ameritrade.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8ec31c8e05e9102812438ff56dd99ca", "text": "The answer, for me, has to do with compounding. That drop in price post-ex-div is not compounded. But if you reinvest your dividends back into the stock then you buy on those post-ex-div dips in price and your money is compounded because those shares you just bought will, themselves, yeald dividends next quarter. Also, with my broker, I reinvest the dividend incurring no commission. My broker has a feature to reinvest dividends automatically and he charges no commission on those buys. Edit:I forgot to mention that you do not incurr the loss from a drop in price until you sell the security. If you do not sell post-ex-div then you have no loss. As long as the dividend remains the same (or increases) then the theoretical ROI on that security goes up. The drop in price is actually to your benefit because you are able to acquire more shares with the money you just received in the dividend So the price coming down post-ex-div is a good thing (if you buy and hold).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6cea60b302b70be03bb12fc814eafffe", "text": "SPY does not reinvest dividends. From the SPY prospectus: No Dividend Reinvestment Service No dividend reinvestment service is provided by the Trust. Broker-dealers, at their own discretion, may offer a dividend reinvestment service under which additional Units are purchased in the secondary market at current market prices. SPY pays out quarterly the dividends it receives (after deducting fees and expenses). This is typical of ETFs. The SPY prospectus goes on to say: Distributions in cash that are reinvested in additional Units through a dividend reinvestment service, if offered by an investor’s broker-dealer, will be taxable dividends to the same extent as if such dividends had been received in cash.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "593d3f385dbb52c6f01b17d9c60e39a2", "text": "One of the often cited advantages of ETFs is that they have a higher liquidity and that they can be traded at any time during the trading hours. On the other hand they are often proposed as a simple way to invest private funds for people that do not want to always keep an eye on the market, hence the intraday trading is mostly irrelevant for them. I am pretty sure that this is a subjective idea. The fact is you may buy GOOG, AAPL, F or whatever you wish(ETF as well, such as QQQ, SPY etc.) and keep them for a long time. In both cases, if you do not want to keep an on the market it is ok. Because, if you keep them it is called investment(the idea is collecting dividends etc.), if you are day trading then is it called speculation, because you main goal is to earn by buying and selling, of course you may loose as well. So, you do not care about dividends or owning some percent of the company. As, ETFs are derived instruments, their volatility depends on the volatility of the related shares. I'm wondering whether there are secondary effects that make the liquidity argument interesting for private investors, despite not using it themselves. What would these effects be and how do they impact when compared, for example, to mutual funds? Liquidity(ability to turn cash) could create high volatility which means high risk and high reward. From this point of view mutual funds are more safe. Because, money managers know how to diversify the total portfolio and manage income under any market conditions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "86187aff29a5958bb1351d248820ce19", "text": "NO. All the leveraged ETFs are designed to multiply the performance of the underlying asset FOR THAT DAY, read the prospectus. Their price is adjusted at the end of the day to reflect what is called a NAV unit. Basically, they know that their price is subject to fluctuations due to supply and demand throughout the day - simply because they trade in a quote driven system. But the price is automatically corrected at the end of the day regardless. In practice though, all sorts of crazy things happen with leveraged ETFs that will simply make them more and more unfavorable to hold long term, the longer you look at it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cb549009ae9d2f1a8976238da587253", "text": "\"My knowledge relates to ETFs only. By definition, an ETF's total assets can increase or decrease based upon how many shares are issued or redeemed. If somebody sells shares back to the ETF provider (rather than somebody else on market) then the underlying assets need to be sold, and vice-versa for purchasing from the ETF provider. ETFs also allow redemptions too in addition to this. For an ETF, to determine its total assets, you need to you need to analyze the Total Shares on Issue multipled by the Net Asset Value. ETFs are required to report shares outstanding and NAV on a daily basis. \"\"Total assets\"\" is probably more a function of marketing rather than \"\"demand\"\" and this is why most funds report on a net-asset-value-per-share basis. Some sites report on \"\"Net Inflows\"\" is basically the net change in shares outstanding multiplied by the ETF price. If you want to see this plotted over time you can use a such as: http://www.etf.com/etfanalytics/etf-fund-flows-tool which allows you to see this as a \"\"net flows\"\" on a date range basis.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec6a3464c58d2dafda4f0dc6ea41e07e", "text": "\"If anything, the price of an ETF is more tightly coupled to the underlying holdings or assets than a mutual fund, because of the independent creation/destruction mechanism. With a mutual fund, the price is generally set once at the end of each day, and the mutual fund manager has to deal with investments and redemptions at that price. By the time they get to buying or selling the underlying assets, the market may have moved or they may even move the market with those transactions. With an ETF, investment and redemption is handled by independent \"\"authorized participants\"\". They can create new units of the ETF by buying up the underlying assets and delivering them to the ETF manager, and vice versa they can cancel units by requesting the underlying assets from the ETF manager. ETFs trade intraday (i.e. at any time during trading hours) and any time the price diverges too far from the underlying assets, one of the authorized participants has an incentive to make a small profit by creating or destroying units of the ETF, also intraday.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "633f12b72b94b8c2b1f01afeba5ecc19", "text": "The S&P 500 is an index, you can't buy shares of an index, but you can find index funds to invest in. Each company in that fund that pays dividends will do so on their own schedule, and the fund you've invested in will either distribute dividends or accumulate them (re-invest), this is pre-defined, not something they'd decide quarter to quarter. If the fund distributes dividends, they will likely combine the dividends they receive and distribute to you quarterly. The value you've referenced represents the total annual dividend across the index, dividend yield for S&P500 is currently ~1.9%, so if you invested $10,000 a year ago in a fund that matched the S&P 500, you'd have ~$190 in dividend yield.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf11a18f0b61c31cae4772b7d6a1112e", "text": "Vanguard has low cost ETFs that track the S&P 500. The ticker is VOO, its expense ratio is 0.05%, which is pretty low compared to others in the market. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you won't have to pay tax on the dividends if it's in a retirement account such as a Traditional(pay taxes when you withdraw) or Roth IRA(pay income/federal/fica etc, but no taxes on withdrawal)...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bbda2280304228ee54efc1f6aa7d9d0b", "text": "No. Investors purchase ETFs' as they would any other stock, own it under the same circumstances as an equity investment, collecting distributions instead of dividends or interest. The ETF takes care of the internal operations (bond maturities and turnover, accrued interest, payment dates, etc.).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71e70c6c3d426e2f03e616d2b9f7092d", "text": "\"Let me provide a general answer, that might be helpful to others, without addressing those specific stocks. Dividends are simply corporate payouts made to the shareholders of the company. A company often decides to pay dividends because they have excess cash on hand and choose to return it to shareholders by quarterly payouts instead of stock buy backs or using the money to invest in new projects. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by \"\"dividend yield traps.\"\" If a company has declared an dividend for the upcoming quarter they will almost always pay. There are exceptions, like what happened with BP, but these exceptions are rare. Just because a company promises to pay a dividend in the approaching quarter does not mean that it will continue to pay a dividend in the future. If the company continues to pay a dividend in the future, it may be at a (significantly) different amount. Some companies are structured where nearly all of there corporate profits flow through to shareholders via dividends. These companies may have \"\"unusually\"\" high dividends, but this is simply a result of the corporate structure. Let me provide a quick example: Certain ETFs that track bonds pay a dividend as a way to pass through interest payments from the underlying bonds back to the shareholder of the ETF. There is no company that will continue to pay their dividend at the present rate with 100% certainty. Even large companies like General Electric slashed its dividend during the most recent financial crisis. So, to evaluate whether a company will keep paying a dividend you should look at the following: Update: In regards to one the first stock you mentioned, this sentence from the companies of Yahoo! finance explains the \"\"unusually\"\" dividend: The company has elected to be treated as a REIT for federal income tax purposes and would not be subject to income tax, if it distributes at least 90% of its REIT taxable income to its share holders.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0d570729d6309ccf9878653379d3654", "text": "The literal answer to your question 'what determines the price of an ETF' is 'the market'; it is whatever price a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept. But if the market price of an ETF share deviates significantly from its NAV, the per-share market value of the securities in its portfolio, then an Authorized Participant can make an arbitrage profit by a transaction (creation or redemption) that pushes the market price toward NAV. Thus as long as the markets are operating and the APs don't vanish in a puff of smoke we can expect price will track NAV. That reduces your question to: why does NAV = market value of the holdings underlying a bond ETF share decrease when the market interest rate rises? Let's consider an example. I'll use US Treasuries because they have very active markets, are treated as risk-free (although that can be debated), and excluding special cases like TIPS and strips are almost perfectly fungible. And I use round numbers for convenience. Let's assume the current market interest rate is 2% and 'Spindoctor 10-year Treasury Fund' opens for business with $100m invested (via APs) in 10-year T-notes with 2% coupon at par and 1m shares issued that are worth $100 each. Now assume the interest rate goes up to 3% (this is an example NOT A PREDICTION); no one wants to pay par for a 2% bond when they can get 3% elsewhere, so its value goes down to about 0.9 of par (not exactly due to the way the arithmetic works but close enough) and Spindoctor shares similarly slide to $90. At this price an investor gets slightly over 2% (coupon*face/basis) plus approximately 1% amortized capital gain (slightly less due to time value) per year so it's competitive with a 3% coupon at par. As you say new bonds are available that pay 3%. But our fund doesn't hold them; we hold old bonds with a face value of $100m but a market value of only $90m. If we sell those bonds now and buy 3% bonds to (try to) replace them, we only get $90m par value of 3% bonds, so now our fund is paying a competitive 3% but NAV is still only $90. At the other extreme, say we hold the 2% bonds to maturity, paying out only 2% interest but letting our NAV increase as the remaining term (duration) and thus discount of the bonds decreases -- assuming the market interest rate doesn't change again, which for 10 years is probably unrealistic (ignoring 2009-2016!). At the end of 10 years the 2% bonds are redeemed at par and our NAV is back to $100 -- but from the investor's point of view they've forgone $10 in interest they could have received from an alternative investment over those 10 years, which is effectively an additional investment, so the original share price of $90 was correct.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "332c0e2dd0ab9fe874874b49d36618da", "text": "Protest opinions aside. Will taking this away from the team's actually help? The article mentions rent payments they make. Are they actually renting space he owns or do they subsidize it as a sort of here's some extra money type thing? According to the article excluding what they call rent payments leaves about 12 million. Would the economic stimulus from that not out weigh what they would get from cutting him off?", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
e7178b3b97452eeb528daf1791fd41f9
Why exercise ISO/QSO early?
[ { "docid": "9c5f3fa9c403ed07a04f73d4794e2a74", "text": "\"You are thinking about it this way: \"\"The longer I wait to exericse, the more knowledge and information I'll have, thus the more confidence I can have that I'll be able to sell at a profit, minimizing risk. If I exercise early and still have to wait, there may never be a chance I can sell at a profit, and I'll have lost the money I paid to exercise and any tax I had to pay when I exercised.\"\" All of that is true. But if you exercise early: The fair market value of the stock will probably be lower, so you may pay less income tax when you exercise. (This depends on your tax situation. Currently, ISO exercises affect your AMT.) If the company goes through a phase where the value is unusually high, you'll be able to sell and still get the tax benefits because you exercised earlier. You avoid the nightmare scenario where you leave the company (voluntarily or not) and can't afford to exercise your options because of the tax implications. In many realistic cases, exercising earlier means less risk. Imagine if you're working at a company that is privately held and you expect to be there for another year or so. You are very optimistic about the company, but not sure when it will IPO or get acquired and that may be several years off. The fair market value of the stock is low now, but may be much higher in a year. In this case, it makes a lot of sense to exercise now. The cost is low because the fair market value is low so it won't result in a huge tax bill. And then when you leave in a year, you won't have to choose between forfeiting your options or borrowing money to pay the much higher taxes due to exercise them then.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "afb3d2d163cda01d550de068316d767b", "text": "\"You have a Solo 401(k). You can fund it with cash, or I believe, with shares of your own company. You can't pull in other assets such as the ISOs from another employer. I see why that's desirable, but it's not allowed. You wrote \"\"this will mitigate all tax complications with employee stock options.\"\" But - you can't transfer the ISOs from your job into your Solo 401(k). As littleadv notes, it's self dealing. Once the ISO is exercised there's no hiding the gain into that 401(k).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dcbaac0fc87e4020f573ccdc19177f29", "text": "The general rule with stock options is that it's best to wait until expiration to exercise them. The rationale depends on a few factors and there are exceptions. Reasons to wait: There would be cases to exercise early: Tax implications should be checked with a professional advisor specific to your situation. In the employee stock option plans that I have personally seen, you get regular income tax assessed between exercise price and current price at the time you exercise. Your tax basis is then set to the current price. You also pay capital gains tax when you eventually sell, which will be long or short term based on the time that you held the stock. (The time that you held the options does not count.) I believe that other plans may be set up differently.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf7ccbc105437f3d6bfe35d321e0db6c", "text": "Really all you need to know is that American style can be exercised at any point, European options cannot be exercised early. Read on if you want more detail. The American style Call is worth more because it can be exercised at any point. And when the company pays a dividend, and your option is in the money, if the extrinsic value is worth less than the dividend you can be exercised early. This is not the case for a European call. You cannot be exercised until expiration. I trade a lot of options, you wont be exercised early unless the dividend scenario I mentioned happens. Or unless the extrinsic value is nothing, but even then, unless the investor really wants that position, he is more likely to just sell the call for an equivalent gain on 100 shares of stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1b26e4fdb718d4896257f694c9bf7c5", "text": "I would expect that your position will be liquidated when the option expires, but not before. There's probably still some time value so it doesn't make sense for the buyer to exercise the option early and take your stock. Instead they could sell the option to someone else and collect the remaining time value. Occasionally there's a weird situation for whatever reason, where an option has near-zero or negative time value, and then you might get an early exercise. But in general if there's time value someone would want to sell rather than exercise. If the option hasn't expired, maybe the stock will even fall again and you'll keep it. If the option just expired, maybe the exercise just hasn't been processed yet, it may take overnight or so.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0315bd1936a6266908a8860a20c83429", "text": "Think of it this way, if you traveled back through time one month - with perfect knowledge of AAPL's stock price over that period - which happens to peak viciously then return to its old price at the end of the period - wouldn't you pay more for an American option? Another way to think about options is as an insurance policy. Wouldn't you pay more for a policy that covered fire and earthquake losses as opposed to just losses from earthquakes? Lastly - and perhaps most directly - one of the more common reasons people exercise (as opposed to sell) an American option before expiration is if an unexpected dividend (larger than remaining time value of the option) was just announced that's going to be paid before the option contract expires. Because only actual stockholders get the dividends, not options holders. A holder of an American option has the ability to exercise in time to grab that dividend - a European option holder doesn't have that ability. Less flexibility (what you're paying for really) = lower option premium.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e29195a125f800f05e4931e59d0e7e93", "text": "\"It's impossibly difficult to time the market. Generally speaking, you should buy low and sell high. Picking 25% as an arbitrary ceiling on your gains seems incorrect to me because sometimes you'll want to hold a stock for longer or sell it sooner, and those decisions should be based on your research (or if you need the money), not an arbitrary number. To answer your questions: If the reasons you still bought a stock in the first place are still valid, then you should hold and/or buy more. If something has changed and you can't find a reason to buy more, then consider selling. Keep in mind you'll pay capital gains taxes on anything you sell that is not in a tax-deferred (e.g. retirement) account. No, it does not make sense to do a wash sale where you sell and buy the same stock. Capital gains taxes are one reason. I'm not sure why you would ever want to do this -- what reasons were you considering? You can always sell just some of the shares. See above (and link) regarding wash sales. Buying more of a stock you already own is called \"\"dollar cost averaging\"\". It's an effective method when the reasons are right. DCA minimizes variance due to buying or selling a large amount of shares at an arbitrary single-day price and instead spreads the cost or sale basis out over time. All that said, there's nothing wrong with locking in a gain by selling all or some shares of a winner. Buy low, sell high!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b695a228ad727cfc00caaabc8c7e15fe", "text": "OK, my fault for not doing more research. Wikipedia explains this well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_style#Difference_in_value Basically, there are some cases where it's advantageous to exercise an American option early. For non-gold currency options, this is only when the carrying cost (interest rate differential aka swap rate or rollover rate) is high. The slight probability that this may occur makes an American option worth slightly more.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82563d9338f0325f339f1d01260121ea", "text": "There's no best strategy. Options are just pieces of paper, and if the stock price goes below the strike price - they're worthless. Stocks are actual ownership share, whatever the price is - that's what they're worth. So unless you expect the company stock prices to sky-rocket soon, RSU will probably provide better value. You need to do some math and decide whether in your opinion the stock growth in the next few years justifies betting on ESOP. You didn't say what country you're from, but keep in mind that stock options and RSUs are taxed differently and that can affect your end result as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "604d6e6632bbe79b43c46d666b062db5", "text": "TL;DR: The date they were granted. (Usually, this follows both an offer and acceptance.) It's not uncommon for a new vesting clock to start when there's a new round of funding coming in, because the investors want to make sure the key people are going to be engaged and incentivized going forward from that point. They don't lower their expectations for how long they want folks engaged based on the person having started earlier. Non-institutional investors may have the same concerns as institutional investors here and use the same vesting strategy to address them. Primary recognition of the benefits from having had people start earlier or be there longer (so long as it correlates with having gotten more done) is embedded in the valuation (which affects how much founders' shares are diluted in the raise).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7233de6ba124e2371d6e3d98cfe9d292", "text": "\"Your interpretation is *reasonable*, yes. But I think the author -- here, at least -- has an alternative interpretation that applies just as frequently. In a large and/or public company, especially one that is not in a strong growth period, there is an *incredible* incentive to not get blamed -- and therefore, fired or undesirably transferred -- if something goes wrong. The CYA approach may lead to a better decision by seeking best practices, or it may not. A given situation may be better served by some variation on best practicies. But the author is right in that CYA is top-of-mind in decision-making for many. If something fails, but the decision-maker has done sufficient CYA -- \"\"We followed best practices but we hit a perfect storm of headwinds...\"\" -- then failure doesn't matter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f73c56e9094278b08acb8dfd5295358", "text": "Conceptually, yes, you need to worry about it. As a practical matter, it's less likely to be exercised until expiry or shortly prior. The way to think about paying a European option is: [Odds of paying out] = [odds that strike is in the money at expiry] Whereas the American option can be thought of as: [Odds of paying out] = [odds that strike price is in the money at expiry] + ( [odds that strike price is in the money prior to expiry] * [odds that other party will exercise early] ). This is just a heuristic, not a formal financial tool. But the point is that you need to consider the odds that it will go into the money early, for how long (maybe over multiple periods), and how likely the counterparty is to exercise early. Important considerations for whether they will exercise early are the strategy of the other side (long, straddle, quick turnaround), the length of time the option is in the money early, and the anticipated future movement. A quick buck strategy might exercise immediately before the stock turns around. But that could leave further gains on the table, so it's usually best to wait unless the expectation is that the stock will quickly reverse its movement. This sort of counter-market strategy is generally unlikely from someone who bought the option at a certain strike, and is equivalent to betting against their original purchase of the option. So most of these people will wait because they expect the possibility of a bigger payoff. A long strategy is usually in no hurry to exercise, and in fact they would prefer to wait until the end to hold the time value of the option (the choice to get out of the option, if it goes back to being unprofitable). So it usually makes little sense for these people to exercise early. The same goes for a straddle, if someone is buying an option for insurance or to economically exit a position. So you're really just concerned that people will exercise early and forgo the time value of the American option. That may include people who really want to close a position, take their money, and move on. In some cases, it may include people who have become overextended or need liquidity, so they close positions. But for the most part, it's less likely to happen until the expiration approaches because it leaves potential value on the table. The time value of an option dwindles at the end because the implicit option becomes less likely, especially if the option is fairly deep in the money (the implicit option is then fairly deep out of the money). So early exercise becomes more meaningful concern as the expiration approaches. Otherwise, it's usually less worrisome but more than a nonzero proposition.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6910613137c444c85fb4e476e25872dc", "text": "I have heard of this, but then the broker is short the shares if they weren't selling them out of inventory, so they still want to accumulate the shares or a hedge before EOD most likely - In that case it may not be the client themselves, but that demand is hitting the market at some point if there isn't sufficient selling volume. Whether or not the broker ends up getting all of them below VWAP is a cost of marketing for them, how they expect to reliably get real size below vwap is my question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d05eec50ca1f8a73a7bc81e46cb175e1", "text": "Short answer: Liquidity. Well, you have to see it from an exchange's point of view. Every contract they put up is a liability to them. You have to allocate resources for the order book, the matching engine, the clearing, etc. But only if the contract is actually trading they start earning (the big) money. Now for every new expiry they engage a long term commitment and it might take years for an option chain to be widely accepted (and hence before they're profitable). Compare the volumes and open interests of big chains versus the weeklies and you'll find that weeklies can still be considered illiquid compared to their monthly cousins. Having said that, like many things, this is just a question of demand. If there's a strong urge to trade July weeklies one day, there will be an option chain. But, personally I think, as long as there are the summer doldrums there will be no rush to ask for Jul and Aug chains.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90512f4200d2dbfe7388c6c55dcfd14a", "text": "ISOs (incentive stock options) can be closed out in a cashless transaction. Say the first round vests, 25,000 shares. The stock is worth $7 but your option is to buy at $5 as you say. The broker executes and sells, you get $50,000, with no up front money. Edit based on comment below - you know they vest over 4 years, but how long before they expire? It stands to reason the longer you are able to hold them, the better a chance the company succeeds, and the price rises. The article Understanding employer-granted stock options (PDF) offers a nice discussion of different scenarios supporting my answer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7075e33c922159b54d3a00ce2738b205", "text": "Early stage investors by their nature prefer opportunities which are disruptive to existing technologies. They look for a ‘big idea’ in a relatively small but rapidly expanding market. They don’t tend to be attracted to marginal improvements which yield marginal returns. They’re in the business of betting on the nature of the next new world.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
57b9c146b7cf2a17fbd7cf980704a136
why would closing price of a stock be different from different sources, and which would you take as the real price?
[ { "docid": "0a047aaa5d65764f7aab0f630f8b0167", "text": "\"There is more than one exchange where stock can be traded. For example, there is the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. In fact, if you look at all the exchanges, there is essentially continuous trading 24/7 for many financial instruments (eg US government bonds). The closing price quoted in papers is usually the price at the close on the NYSE. However, options close after that and so there is after-the-close trading in many stocks with active options, so the price at the close of options trading at CBOE is often used. The \"\"real\"\" price is always changing. But for the purpose of discussion, using the closing price in NYSE (for NYSE listed stocks) is pretty standard and unlikely to be questioned. Likewise, using Bloomberg's price makes sense. Using some after-hours or small market quote could lead to differences with commonly accepted numbers - until tomorrow :)\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "013065f67d464e130ca06a9831fe8fca", "text": "Everything would depend on whether the calculation is being done using the company's all-time high intraday trading price or all-time high closing price. Further, I've seen calculations using non-public pricing data, such as bid-offer numbers from market makers, although this wouldn't be kosher. The likelihood is that you're seeing numbers that were calculated using different points in time. For the record, I think Apple has overtaken Microsoft's all-time highest market cap with a figure somewhere north of $700 billion (nominal). Here's an interesting article link on the subject of highest-ever valuations: comparison of highest market caps ever", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f1dae4b69e97c78b54205f926d8983c4", "text": "I'd add, this is actually the way any stock opens every day, i.e. the closing price of the prior day is what it is, but the opening price will reflect whatever news there was prior to the day's open. If you watch the business news, you'll often see that some stock has an order imbalance and has not opened yet, at the normal time. So, as Geo stated, those who were sold shares at the IPO price paid $38, but then the stock could open at whatever price was the point where bid and ask balanced. I snapped a screen capture of this chart on the first day of trading, the daily charts aren't archived where I can find them. This is from Yahoo Finance. You can see the $42 open from those who simply wanted in but couldn't wait, the willingness of sellers to grab their profit right back to what they paid, and then another wave of buying, but then a sell-off. It closed virtually unchanged from the IPO price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "38c61a1e9dcbb334505f61f3722a6d15", "text": "The Wikipedia has an article on money flow index. The article which you link to correctly uses the typical price. You state that you are comparing the closing prices, which is incorrect. I'm making no statement on the validity of the money flow index itself, just answering your question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b04e1cc171182a103c9df4a5b8c04f3c", "text": "\"Stock prices are set by bidding. In principle, a seller will say, \"\"I want $80.\"\" If he can't find anyone willing to buy at that price, he'll either decide not to sell after all, or he'll lower his price. Likewise, a buyer will say, \"\"I'll pay $70.\"\" If he can't find anyone willing to pay that price, he'll either decide not to buy or he'll increase his price. For most stocks there are many buyers and many sellers all the time, so there's a constant interplay. The typical small investor has VERY little control of the price. You say, \"\"I want to buy 10 shares of XYZ Corporation and my maximum price is $20.\"\" If the current trending price is below $20, your broker will buy it for you. If not, he won't. You normally have some time limit on the order, so if the price falls within your range within that time period, your broker will buy. That is, your choice is basically to buy or not buy, or sell or not sell, at the current price. You have little opportunity to really negotiate a better price. If you have a significant percentage of a company's total stock, different story. In real life, most stocks are being traded constantly, so buyers and sellers both have a pretty good idea of the current price. If the last sale was ten minutes ago for $20, it's unlikely anyone's going to now bid $100. They're going to bid $20.50 or $19.25 or some such. If the last sale was for $20 and your broker really came to the floor and offered to buy for $100, I suppose someone would sell to him very quickly before he realized what an outrageous price this was. I use TD Ameritrade, and on their web site, if I give a price limit on a buy that's more than a small percentage above the last sale, they reject it as an error. I forget the exact number but they won't even accept a bid of $80 if the stock is going for $40. They might accept $41 or $42, something like that.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd3a39f62b2c1d88d7d979fe0bea2df1", "text": "In addition to D. Stanley's very fine answer, the price of stocks change as a result of changing market conditions and the resulting investor estimation of its effect on the company's future earnings. Take these examples. Right now, in the USA, there is a housing shortage; that is, there are fewer houses available for purchase than there are willing buyers. Investors will correctly assume that the future earnings of home builders will be higher than they were, say ten years ago. Seeking to capitalize on these higher earnings, they will try to buy the stocks. However, the current owners of the stock, potentially the sellers, know the same thing as the investor-buyer and therefore demand a premium to entice a sale. The price of the stock has risen. The reverse is true, also. Brick and mortar retailers are declining as more consumers prefer on-line retail shopping. The current owners of these stocks will probably want to sell their stock before it is worth even less. The investor-buyer also knows the same facts; that future earnings will most likely be less for these companies. The potential buyer offers a very low price to entice a sale. The price of the stock has fallen. Finally, the price of stocks rise and fall with general market conditions. As an example, assume that next months jobs report is released showing that 350,000 new jobs were created in July. Investors will believe that if companies are hiring, then the companies are doing well; they are selling products and services at a higher than expected rate, requiring that they add new employees. They will also conclude that those 350,000 new employees will be spending their salaries to buy not just food, clothing and shelter, but also a few luxuries like a newer car, a TV, perhaps even a new home (please see paragraph 2!). All of these companies will have more business, more earnings and, likely, a higher stock price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a386bedbf0f63f354370e49ebbe1d777", "text": "I still can't understand why there is a price discrepancancy. There isn't. It's the same stock and price differences between such major exchanges will always be minimal. I think you simply haven't paid attention to the date range. It seems Google finance only has data for FRA:BMW reaching back to 2011, so if you try to look at the development of your investment since 2009, you're not getting comparable data.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "10eb73ad36ad882760546e1c2d65b48a", "text": "As stock prices have declined, the net worth of people has come down. Imagine owning a million shares of a stock worth $100/share. This is worth $100,000,000. Now, if the stock is suddenly trading at $50/share then some would say you have lost $50,000,000. The value of the stock is less. The uncertainty is always there as there are differences between one day's close and another day's open possibly. The sale price is likely to be near the last trade is what is being used here. If you place a market order to sell your stock, the price may move between the time the order is placed and when it is filled. There are limit orders that could be used if you want to control the minimum price you get though you give up that the order has to be filled as otherwise people could try to sell shares for millions of dollars that wouldn't work out well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "314149557c2f2f525dece63d54443849", "text": "Prices are adjusted for return and not payout. So if you take the ratio of the close price and the adjusted close price, it should remain constant. The idea behind a total return (back-)adjustment is to give you a feeling how much money you would have needed back then to reach the price today under the premise that all distributions (dividends, spin-offs, etc.) are reinvested instantly and that reinvestment doesn't cost anything.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c91dbcb174171eab32c85abaddec8f3", "text": "\"What most of these answers here seem to be missing is that a stock \"\"price\"\" is not exactly what we typically expect a price to be--for example, when we go in to the supermarket and see that the price of a gallon of milk is $2.00, we know that when we go to the cash register that is exactly how much we will pay. This is not, however, the case for stocks. For stocks, when most people talk about the price or quote, they are really referring to the last price at which that stock traded--which unlike for a gallon of milk at the supermarket, is no guarantee of what the next stock price will be. Relatively speaking, most stocks are extremely liquid, so they will react to any information which the \"\"market\"\" believes has a bearing on the value of their underlying asset almost (if not) immediately. As an extreme example, if allegations of accounting fraud for a particular company whose stock is trading at $40 come out mid-session, there will not be a gradual decline in the price ($40 -> $39.99 -> $39.97, etc.)-- instead, the price will jump from $40 to say, $20. In the time between the the $40 trade and the $20 trade, even though we may say the price of the stock was $40, that quote was actually a terrible estimate of the stock's current (post-fraud announcement) price. Considering that the \"\"price\"\" of a stock typically does not remain constant even in the span of a few seconds to a few minutes, it should not be hard to believe that this price will not remain constant over the 17.5 hour period from the previous day's close to the current day's open. Don't forget that as Americans go to bed, the Asian markets are just opening, and by the time US markets have opened, it is already past 2PM in London. In addition to the information (and therefore new knowledge) gained from these foreign markets' movements, macro factors can also play an important part in a security's price-- perhaps the ECB makes a morning statement that is interpreted as negative news for the markets or a foreign government before the US markets open. Stock prices on the NYSE, NASDAQ, etc. won't be able to react until 9:30, but the $40 price of the last trade of a broad market ETF at 4PM yesterday probably isn't looking so hot at 6:30 this morning... don't forget either that most individual stocks are correlated with the movement of the broader market, so even news that is not specific to a given security will in all likelihood still have an impact on that security's price. The above are only a few of many examples of things that can impact a stock's valuation between close and open: all sorts of geopolitical events, announcements from large, multi-national companies, macroeconomic stats such as unemployment rates, etc. announced in foreign countries can all play a role in affecting a security's price overnight. As an aside, one of the answers mentioned after hours trading as a reason--in actuality this typically has very little (if any) impact on the next day's prices and is often referred to as \"\"amateur hour\"\", due to the fact that trading during this time typically consists of small-time investors. Prices in AH are very poor predictors of a stock's price at open.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d21510e020a4614e78e632825b4328fa", "text": "It does sometimes open one day the same as it closed the previous day. Take a look at ESCA, it closed October 29th at 4.50, at opened November 1st at 4.50. It's more likely to change prices overnight than it is between two successive ticks during the day, because a lot more time passes, in which news can come out, and in which people can reevaluate the stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0be66ae4d5867a95e9bfae09448c360a", "text": "\"Probably the best way to investigate this is to look at an example. First, as the commenters above have already said, the log-return from one period is log(price at time t/price at time t-1) which is approximately equal to the percentage change in the price from time t-1 to time t, provided that this percentage change is not big compared to the size of the price. (Note that you have to use the natural log, ie. log to the base e -- ln button on a calculator -- here.) The main use of the log-return is that is a proxy for the percentage change in the price, which turns out to be mathematically convenient, for various reasons which have mostly already been mentioned in the comments. But you already know this; your actual question is about the average log-return over a period of time. What does this indicate about the stock? The answer is: if the stock price is not changing very much, then the average log-return is about equal to the average percentage change in the price, and is very easy and quick to calculate. But if the stock price is very volatile, then the average log-return can be wildly different to the average percentage change in the price. Here is an example: the closing prices for Pitchfork Oil from last week's trading are: 10, 5, 12, 5, 10, 2, 15. The percentage changes are: -0.5, 1.4, -0.58, 1, -0.8, 6.5 (where -0.5 means -50%, etc.) The average percentage change is 1.17, or 117%. On the other hand, the log-returns for the same period are -0.69, 0.88, -0.88, 0.69, -1.6, 2, and the average log-return is about 0.068. If we used this as a proxy for the average percentage change in the price over the whole seven days, we would get 6.8% instead of 117%, which is wildly wrong. The reason why it is wrong is because the price fluctuated so much. On the other hand, the closing prices for United Marshmallow over the same period are 10, 11, 12, 11, 12, 13, 15. The average percentage change from day to day is 0.073, and the average log-return is 0.068, so in this case the log-return is very close to the percentage change. And it has the advantage of being computable from just the first and last prices, because the properties of logarithms imply that it simplifies to (log(15)-log(10))/6. Notice that this is exactly the same as for Pitchfork Oil. So one reason why you might be interested in the average log-return is that it gives a very quick way to estimate the average return, if the stock price is not changing very much. Another, more subtle reason, is that it actually behaves better than the percentage return. When the price of Pitchfork jumps from 5 to 12 and then crashes back to 5 again, the percentage changes are +140% and -58%, for an average of +82%. That sounds good, but if you had bought it at 5, and then sold it at 5, you would actually have made 0% on your money. The log-returns for the same period do not have this disturbing property, because they do add up to 0%. What's the real difference in this example? Well, if you had bought $1 worth of Pitchfork on Tuesday, when it was 5, and sold it on Wednesday, when it was 12, you would have made a profit of $1.40. If you had then bought another $1 on Wednesday and sold it on Thursday, you would have made a loss of $0.58. Overall, your profit would have been $0.82. This is what the average percentage return is calculating. On the other hand, if you had been a long-term investor who had bought on Tuesday and hung on until Thursday, then quoting an \"\"average return\"\" of 82% is highly misleading, because it in no way corresponds to the return of 0% which you actually got! The moral is that it may be better to look at the log-returns if you are a buy-and-hold type of investor, because log-returns cancel out when prices fluctuate, whereas percentage changes in price do not. But the flip-side of this is that your average log-return over a period of time does not give you much information about what the prices have been doing, since it is just (log(final price) - log(initial price))/number of periods. Since it is so easy to calculate from the initial and final prices themselves, you commonly won't see it in the financial pages, as far as I know. Finally, to answer your question: \"\"Does knowing this single piece of information indicate something about the stock?\"\", I would say: not really. From the point of view of this one indicator, Pitchfork Oil and United Marshmallow look like identical investments, when they are clearly not. Knowing the average log-return is exactly the same as knowing the ratio between the final and initial prices.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4790ea74aca7de852479ef515061a8c3", "text": "If you download the historical data from Yahoo, you will see two different close prices. The one labeled 'Close' is simply the price that was quoted on that particular day. The one labeled 'Adj Close' is the close price that has been adjusted for any splits and dividends that have occurred after that date. For example, if a stock splits 10:1 on a particular date, then the adjusted close for all dates prior to that split will have been divided by 10. If a dividend is paid, then all dates prior will have that amount subtracted from their adjusted quote. Using the adjusted close allows you to compare any two dates and see the true relative return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb40365ea193ef944818cd92378da144", "text": "He said he's using MSCI World as a benchmark. MSCI World is not an exchange. The point is the same security listed in different places has different prices, so how do you describe the equity beta of the company to MSCI World if you have multiple and different return streams? This is a real problem to consider and you just dismiss it entirely.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5c08b35cfcbd50dd86e92a143e7f99e", "text": "Stock prices reflect future expectations of large groups of people, and may not be directly linked to traditional valuations for a number of reasons (not definitive). For example, a service like Twitter is so popular that even though it has no significant revenue and loses money, people are simply betting that it is deeply embedded enough that it will eventually find some way to make money. You can also see a number of cases of IPOs of various types of companies that do not even have a revenue model at all. Also, if there is rapid sales growth in A but B sales are flat, no one is likely to expect future profit growth in B such that the valuation will remain steady. If sales in A are accelerating, there may be anticipation that future profits will be high. Sometimes there are also other reasons, such as if A owns valuable proprietary assets, that will hold the values up. However, more information about these companies' financials is really needed in order to understand why this would be the case.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41b8448b9dce13fb97c83db49a381253", "text": "Anyone who wants to can use any method they want. Ultimately, the price of the stock will settle on the valuation that people tend to agree on. If you think the priced in numbers are too low, buy the stock as that would mean that its price will go up as the future earnings materialize. If you think it's too high, short the stock, as its price will go down as future earnings fail to materialize. The current price represents the price at which just as much pressure pushes the price up as down. That means people agree it's reasonably approximating the expected future value. Imagine if I needed money now and sold at auction whatever salary I make in 2019. How much will I make in 2019? I might be disabled. I might be a high earner. Who knows? But if I auction off those earnings, whatever price it sells for represents everyone's best estimate of that value. But each participant in the auction can estimate that value however they want. If you want to know what something is worth, you see what you can sell it for.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
1c72afa3c25fadfc0e240fb38f6ccdaf
Calculating profits on a covered call. What method do you use?
[ { "docid": "ca79662e35a8967e8928ef6b4e487cd4", "text": "yes, you are double counting. Your profit is between ($7.25 and $8) OR ($7.75 and $8.50). in other words, you bought the stock at $7.75 and sold at $8.00 and made $0.50 on top. Profit = $8.00-$7.75+$0.50 (of course all this assumes that the stock is at or above $8.00 when the option expires. If it's below, then your profit = market price - $7.75 + $0.50 by the way the statement won't call me away until the stock reaches $8.50 is wrong. They already paid $0.50 for the right to buy the stock at $8.00. If the stock is $8.01 on the day of expiration your options will be executed(automatically i believe).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9343d55d9c40a3883063ddba8f15f63", "text": "\"at $8.50: total profit = $120.00 *basis of stock, not paid in cash, so not included in \"\"total paid\"\" at $8.50: total profit = $75.00\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "329675bf2c9692f2f78d55243aa4920e", "text": "\"Yes, long calls, and that's a good point. Let's see... if I bought one contract at the Bid price above... $97.13 at expiry of $96.43 option = out of the money =- option price(x100) = $113 loss. $97.13 at expiry of $97.00 option = out of the money =- option price(x100) = $77 loss. $97.13 at expiry of $97.14 option = in the money by 1-cent=$1/contract profit - option price(x100) = $1-$58 = $57 loss The higher strike prices have much lower losses if they expire with the underlying stock at- or near-the-money. So, they carry \"\"gentler\"\" downside potential, and are priced much higher to reflect that \"\"controlled\"\" risk potential. That makes sense. Thanks.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0af13625a8bea1d18a009d4c8ad44a5", "text": "There are many ways to calculate the return, and every way will give you a different results in terms of a percentage-value. One way to always get something meaningful - count the cash. You had 977 (+ 31) and in the end you have 1.370, which means you have earned 363 dollars. But what is your return in terms of percentage? One way to look at it, is by pretending that it is a fund in which you invest 1 dollar. What is the fund worth in the beginning and in the end? The tricky part in your example is, you injected new capital into the equation. Initially you invested 977 dollars which later, in the second period became worth 1.473. You then sold off 200 shares for 950 dollars. Remember your portfolio is still worth 1.473, split between 950 in cash and 523 in Shares. So far so good - still easy to calculate return (1.473 / 977 -1 = 50.8% return). Now you buy share for 981 dollars, but you only had 950 in cash? We now need to consider 2 scenarios. Either you (or someone else) injected 31 dollars into the fund - or you actually had the 31 dollars in the fund to begin with. If you already had the cash in the fund to begin with, your initial investment is 1.008 and not 977 (977 in shares and 31 in cash). In the end the value of the fund is 1.370, which means your return is 1.370 / 1.007 = 36%. Consider if the 31 dollars was paid in to the fund by someone other than you. You will then need to recalculate how much you each own of the fund. Just before the injection, the fund was worth 950 in cash and 387 in stock (310 - 200 = 110 x 3.54) = 1.339 dollars - then 31 dollars are injected, bringing the value of the fund up to 1.370. The ownership of the fund is split with 1.339 / 1.370 = 97.8% of the value for the old capital and 2.2% for the new capital. If the value of the fund was to change from here, you could calculate the return for each investor individually by applying their share of the funds value respective to their investment. Because the value of the fund has not changed since the last period (bullet 3), the return on the original investment is (977 / 1.339 - 1 = 37.2%) and the return on the new capital is (31 / 31 = 0%). If you (and not someone else) injected the 31 dollar into the fund, you will need to calculate the weight of each share of capital in each period and get the average return for each period to get to a total return. In this specific case you will still get 37.2% return - but it gets even more comlex for each time you inject new capital.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "890ebd558615ec24ba3165200de6ee83", "text": "\"I've traded covered calls now and then. This is a recent trade. Bought 1000 shares of RSH (Radio Shack) and sold 10 calls. So, I own the stock at a cost of $6.05, but have to let it go for $7.50. There's a 50c dividend in November, so the call buyer will call it away even if the stock trades below the strike. So, I'm expecting this is a 10 month trade for a 24% return. This is one strategy where options clearly take down the risk (of course, I did not say 'remove', just lessens). The stock can be 10% lower a year out, and I'm still ahead by 8% plus the dividend if it's not canceled. Note - it's a rare case for a one year trade to return 20% or more at a flat stock price. More common is 10-12%. (I hope this example is acceptable as an example of this type of trade. If not, I can edit to \"\"XYZ corp\"\" to remove the stock name. (So if anyone comments, please do not repeat name in case I need to remove)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c289a96ce11b904b67bfafb42f5a1aa", "text": "If the buyer exercises your option, you will have to give him the stock. If you already own the stock, the worst that can happen is you have to give him your stock, thus losing the money you spend to buy it. So the most you can lose is what you already spent to buy the stock (minus the price the buyer paid for your option). If you don't own the stock, you will have to buy it. But if the stock skyrockets in value, it will be very expensive to buy it. If for instance you buy the stock when it is worth $100, sell your covered call, and the next day the stock shoots to $1000, you will lose the $100 you got from the purchase of the stock. But if you had used a naked call, you would have to buy the stock at $1000, and you would lose $900. Since there is no limit to how high the stock can go, there is no limit to how much money you may lose.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fcc31591b34e898d6a5aa473f7b6a16e", "text": "One answer in four days tells you this is a niche, else there should be many replies by now. The bible is McMillan on Options Note - I link to the 1996 edition which starts at 39 cents, the latest revision will set you back $30 used. The word bible says it all, it offers a great course in options, everything you need to know. You don't get a special account for option trading. You just apply to your regular broker, so depending what you wish to do, the amount starts at You sell calls against stock you own in your IRA. You see, selling covered calls always runs the risk of having your stock called away, and you'd have a gain, I'd hope. By doing this within the IRA, you avoid that. Options can be, but are not always, speculative. Covered calls just change the shape of your return curve. i.e. you lower your cost by the option premium, but create a fixed maximum gain. I've created covered calls on the purchase of a stock or after holding a while depending on the stock. Here's the one I have now: MU 1000 shares bought at $8700, sold the $7.50 call (jan12) for $3000. Now, this means my cost is $5700, but I have to let it go for $7500, a 32% return if called. (This was bought in mid 2010, BTW.) On the flip side, a drop of up to 35% over the time will still keep me at break even. The call seemed overpriced when I sold it. Stock is still at $7.20, so I'm close to maximum gain. This whole deal was less risky than just owning one risky stock. I just wrote a post on this trade Micron Covered Call, using today's numbers for those actually looking to understand this as new position. (The article was updated after the expiration. The trade resulted in a 42% profit after 491 days of holding the position, with the stock called away.) On the other hand, buying calls, lots of them, during the tech bubble was the best and worst thing I did. One set of trades' value increased by a factor of 50, and in a few weeks blew up on me, ended at 'only' triple. I left the bubble much better off than I went in, but the peak was beautiful, I'd give my little toe to have stayed right there. From 99Q2 to 00Q2, net worth was up by 3X our gross salary. Half of that (i.e. 1.5X) was gone after the crash. For many, they left the bubble far far worse than before it started. I purposely set things up so no more than a certain amount was at risk at any given time, knowing a burst would come, just not when. If nothing else, it was a learning experience. You sell calls against stock you own in your IRA. You see, selling covered calls always runs the risk of having your stock called away, and you'd have a gain, I'd hope. By doing this within the IRA, you avoid that. Options can be, but are not always, speculative. Covered calls just change the shape of your return curve. i.e. you lower your cost by the option premium, but create a fixed maximum gain. I've created covered calls on the purchase of a stock or after holding a while depending on the stock. Here's the one I have now: MU 1000 shares bought at $8700, sold the $7.50 call (jan12) for $3000. Now, this means my cost is $5700, but I have to let it go for $7500, a 32% return if called. (This was bought in mid 2010, BTW.) On the flip side, a drop of up to 35% over the time will still keep me at break even. The call seemed overpriced when I sold it. Stock is still at $7.20, so I'm close to maximum gain. This whole deal was less risky than just owning one risky stock. I just wrote a post on this trade Micron Covered Call, using today's numbers for those actually looking to understand this as new position. (The article was updated after the expiration. The trade resulted in a 42% profit after 491 days of holding the position, with the stock called away.) On the other hand, buying calls, lots of them, during the tech bubble was the best and worst thing I did. One set of trades' value increased by a factor of 50, and in a few weeks blew up on me, ended at 'only' triple. I left the bubble much better off than I went in, but the peak was beautiful, I'd give my little toe to have stayed right there. From 99Q2 to 00Q2, net worth was up by 3X our gross salary. Half of that (i.e. 1.5X) was gone after the crash. For many, they left the bubble far far worse than before it started. I purposely set things up so no more than a certain amount was at risk at any given time, knowing a burst would come, just not when. If nothing else, it was a learning experience.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "01bc163dafeb74461141b9a95710d206", "text": "\"A covered call risks the disparity between the purchase price and the potential forced or \"\"called\"\" sale price less the premium received. So buy a stock for $10.00 believing it will drop you or not rise above $14.00 for a given period of days. You sell a call for a $1.00 agreeing to sell your stock for $14.00 and your wrong...the stock rises and at 14.00 or above during the option period the person who paid you the $1.00 premium gets the stock for a net effective price of $15.00. You have a gain of 5$. Your hypothecated loss is unlimited in that the stock could go to $1mil a share. That loss is an opportunity loss you still had a modest profit in actual $. The naked call is a different beast. you get the 1.00 in commission to sell a stock you don't own but must pay for that right. so lets say you net .75 in commission per share after your sell the option. as long as the stock trades below $14.00 during the period of the option you sold your golden. It rises above the strike price you must now buy that stock at market to fill the order when the counter party choses to exercise the option which results in a REAL loss of 100% of the stocks market price less the .75 a share you made. in the scenarios a 1000 shares that for up $30.00 a share over the strike price make you $5,000 in a covered call and lose you $29,250 in a naked call.Naked calls are speculative. Covered calls are strategic.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ffe8ab536e991492536dd5471efba9d", "text": "Just a few observations within the Black-Scholes framework: Next, you can now use the Black-Scholes framework (stock price is a Geometric Brownian Motion, no transaction costs, single interest rate, etc. etc.) and numerical methods (such as a PDE solver) to price American style options numerically, but not with a simple closed form formula (though there are closed-form approximations).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c5b5925153a18d5096370e6a655ef1d", "text": "\"Covered calls, that is where the writer owns the underlying security, aren't the only type of calls one can write. Writing \"\"uncovered calls,\"\" wherein one does NOT own the underlying, are a way to profit from a price drop. For example, write the call for a $5 premium, then when the underlying price drops, buy it back for $4, and pocket the $1 profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d85cbd49a26fad0d5e4d4c03fe7a962", "text": "I sell a put for a strike price at the market. The stock rises $50 over the next couple months. I've gotten the premium, but lost the rest of the potential gain, yet had the downside risk the whole time. There's no free lunch. Edit - you can use a BS (Black-Scholes) calculator to create your own back testing. The calculator shows a 1% interest rate, 2% yield, and 15% volatility produce a put price almost identical to the pricing I see for S&P (the SPY ETF, specifically) $205 put. No answer here, including mine, gave any reference to a study. If one exists, it will almost certainly be on an index, not individual stocks. Note that Jack's answer referencing PUTX does exactly that. The SPY ETF and it put options. My suggestion here would, in theory, let you analyze this strategy for individual stock options as well. For SPY - With SPY at 204.40, this is the Put you'd look at - 12 times the premium is $33.36 or 16% the current price. The next part of the exercise is to see how the monthly ups and downs impact this return. A drop to $201 wipes out that month's premium. It happens that it now March 18th, and despite a bad start to the year, we are at break-even YTD. A peek back shows In Dec you picked up $2.87 premium, (1.4% the current price then) but in Jan, it closed for a loss of $12. Ouch. Now, if you started in January, you'd have picked up 2 month's premiums and today or Monday sell the 3rd. You'd have 2.8% profit so far, vs the S&P break even. Last, for now, when selling a naked put, you have to put up margin money. Not sure how much, but I use percent of the value of underlying stock to calculate returns. That choice is debatable, it just keeps percents clean. Else you put up no money and have infinite return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c5e4cc3f975021d306cac2f5730af64", "text": "It's very simple. Use USDSGD. Here's why: Presenting profits/losses in other currencies or denominations can be useful if you want to sketch out the profit/loss you made due to foreign currency exposure but depending on the audience of your app this may sometimes confuse people (like yourself).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e216977de5a27ef791d6d21d696ed8e", "text": "\"Here are some things to consider if you want to employ a covered call strategy for consistent returns. The discussion also applies to written puts, as they're functionally equivalent. Write covered calls only on fairly valued stock. If the stock is distinctly undervalued, just buy it. By writing the call, you cap the gains that it will achieve as the stock price gravitates to intrinsic value. If the stock is overvalued, sell it, or just stay away. As the owner of a covered call position, you have full exposure to the downside of the stock. The premium received is normally way too small to protect against much of a drop in price. The ideal candidate doesn't change in price much over the life of the position. Yes, this is low volatility, which brings low option premiums. As a seller you want high premiums. But this can't be judged in a vacuum. No matter how high the volatility in absolute terms, as a seller you're betting the market has overpriced volatility. If volatility is high, so premiums are fat, but the market is correct, then the very real risk of the stock dropping over the life of the position offsets the premium received. One thing to look at is current implied volatility for the at-the-money (ATM), near-month call. Compare it to the two-year historical volatility (Morningstar has this conveniently displayed). Moving away from pure volatility, consider writing calls about three months out, just slightly out of the money. The premium is all time value, and the time value decay accelerates in the final few months. (In theory, a series of one-month options would be higher time value, but there are frictional costs, and no guarantee that today's \"\"good deal\"\" will be repeatable twelve time per year.) When comparing various strikes and expirations, compare time value per day. To compare the same statistic across multiple companies, use time value per day as a percent of capital at risk. CaR is the price of the stock less the premium received. If you already own the stock, track it as if you just bought it for this strategy, so use the price on the day you wrote the call. Along with time value per day, compare the simple annualized percent return, again, on capital at risk, measuring the return if a) the stock is called away, and b) the stock remains unchanged. I usually concentrate more on the second scenario, as we get the capital gain on the stock regardless, without the option strategy. Ideally, you can also calculate the probability (based on implied volatility) of the stock achieving these price points by expiration. Measuring returns at many possible stock prices, you can develop an overall expected return. I won't go into further detail, as it seems outside the scope here. Finally, I usually target a minimum of 25% annualized if the stock remains unchanged. You can, of course, adjust this up or down depending on your risk tolerance. I consider this to be conservative.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6750caf3b3fe1f4073faf6793ceaa7f3", "text": "There are different perspectives from which to calculate the gain, but the way I think it should be done is with respect to the risk you've assumed in the original position, which the simplistic calculation doesn't factor in. There's a good explanation about calculating the return from a short sale at Investopedia. Here's the part that I consider most relevant: [...] When calculating the return of a short sale, you need to compare the amount the trader gets to keep to the initial amount of the liability. Had the trade in our example turned against you, you (as the short seller) would owe not only the initial proceeds amount but also the excess amount, and this would come out of your pocket. [...] Refer to the source link for the full explanation. Update: As you can see from the other answers and comments, it is a more complex a Q&A than it may first appear. I subsequently found this interesting paper which discusses the difficulty of rate of return with respect to short sales and other atypical trades: Excerpt: [...] The problem causing this almost uniform omission of a percentage return on short sales, options (especially writing), and futures, it may be speculated, is that the nigh-well universal and conventional definition of rate of return involving an initial cash outflow followed by a later cash inflow does not appear to fit these investment situations. None of the investment finance texts nor general finance texts, undergraduate or graduate, have formally or explicitly shown how to resolve this predicament or how to justify the calculations they actually use. [...]", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cbe2602216d25f7f2f97e3625c46ea0b", "text": "\"(Value of shares+Dividends received)/(Initial investment) would be the typical formula though this is more of a percentage where 1 would indicate that you broke even, assuming no inflation to be factored. No, you don't have to estimate the share price based on revenues as I would question how well did anyone estimate what kind of revenues Facebook, Apple, or Google have had and will have. To estimate the value of shares, I'd likely consider what does my investment strategy use as metrics: Is it discounted cash flow, is it based on earnings, is it something else? There are many ways to determine what a stock \"\"should be worth\"\" that depending on what you want to believe there are more than a few ways one could go.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f5014ca6d5e1582d914c4400f4a7023", "text": "This is a note from my broker, CMC Markets, who use Morningstar: Morningstar calculate the P/E Ratio using a weighted average of the most recent earnings and the projected earnings for the next year. This may result in a different P/E Ratio to those based solely on past earnings as reported on some sites and other publications. They show the P/E as being 9.93. So obviously past earnings would usually be used but you would need to check with your source which numbers they are using. Also, as BHP's results just came out yesterday it may take a while for the most recent financial details to be updated.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d57b94528708b873e6c4f0334140a20", "text": "\"SELL -10 VERTICAL $IYR 100 AUG 09 32/34 CALL @.80 LMT 1) we are talking about options, these are a derivative product whose price is based on 6 variables. 2) options allow you to create risk out of thin air, and those risks come with shapes, and the only limit is your imagination (and how much your margin/borrowing costs are). Whereas a simple asset like the shares for $IYR only has a linear risk profile. stock goes up, you make money, stock goes down, you lose money, and that risk graph looks linear. a \"\"vertical\"\" has a nonlinear risk profile 3) a vertical is a type of \"\"spread\"\" that requires holding options that expire at the same time, but at different strike prices. 3b) This particular KIND of vertical is called a bear call spread (BCS). Since you are bearish (this makes money if the stock goes down, or stays in a very specific range) but are using calls which are a bullish options product. 4) -10 means you are selling the vertical. +10 means you are buying the vertical. A \"\"long\"\" vertical is initiated by buying an option closer to the money, and selling an option at a higher strike price. This would be +X A \"\"short\"\" vertical is initiated by selling an option closer to the money and buying an option at a higher strike price. The quantity would be -X 5) 32/34 stands for the strike prices. so you would be selling 10 call options at the 32 strike price, and buying 10 call options at the 34 strike price, both options expire in August 6) LMT stands for limit order, and $.80 is the limit order price that is desired. OPENING a vertical spread requires knowledge of options as well as how to send orders. MANAGING a vertical requires even more finesse, as you can \"\"leg-in\"\" and \"\"leg-out\"\" of spreads, without sending the entire order to the exchange floor at once. There is much to learn.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
e04774d8873151ce556e9acdd9fd5e92
How can I determine if my portfolio's rate of return has been “good”, or not?
[ { "docid": "62c2505b9c73061efe7702f188ad3fbd", "text": "It's important to realize that any portfolio, if sufficiently diversified should track overall GDP growth, and anything growing via a percentage per annum is going to double eventually. (A good corner-of-napkin estimate is 70/the percentage = years to double). Just looking at your numbers, if you initially put in the full $7000, an increase to $17000 after 10 years represents a return of ~9.3% per annum (to check my math $7000*1.09279^10 ≈ $17000). Since you've been putting in the $7000 over 10 years the return is going to be a bit more than that, but it's not possible to calculate based on the information given. A return of 9.3% is not bad (some rules of thumb: inflation is about 2-4% so if you are making less than that you're losing money, and 6-10% per annum is generally what you should expect if your portfolio is tracking the market)... I wouldn't consider that rate of return to be particularly amazing, but it's not bad either, as you've done better than you would have if you had invested in an ETF tracking the market. The stock market being what it is, you can't rule out the possibility that you got lucky with your stock picks. If your portfolio was low-risk, a return of 9%ish could be considered amazing, but given that it's about 5-6 different stocks what I'd consider amazing would be a return of 15%+ (to give you something to shoot for!) Either way, for your amount of savings you're probably better off going with a mutual fund or an ETF. The return might be slightly lower, but the risk profile is also lower than you picking your stocks, since the fund/ETF will be more diversified. (and it's less work!)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d37a5bec434f81123ee2dc78271aab3", "text": "There isn't really enough information here to go on. Without knowing when you invested that money we can't find your rate of return at all, and it's important to measure your rate against risk. If you take on significantly more risk than the overall market but only just barely outperform it, you probably got a lousy rate of return. If you underperform the market but your risk is significantly lower then you might have gotten a very good rate of return. A savings account earning a guaranteed 4% might be a better return than gambling on the roulette wheel and making 15%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "380f21f9edb7c7516ee980b8661608fa", "text": "\"Historically, the market's average rate of return has been about 8%. (Serakfalcon's \"\"6% to 10%\"\" is essentially the same number.) You should be able to get into that range for long-term investments with minimal risk. \"\"5 or 6 companies\"\", unless you know a heck of a lot about those companies, is fairly high risk. If any one of those runs into trouble, a considerable amount of your net investment is riding on it. Of course if any of them invents the Next Big Thing you could hit it big; that's the tradeoff. Diversification isn't sexy, but it buffers you from single-company disasters, and if you diversify across kinds of investment that buffers you from single-sector disasters. Index funds aren't sexy, but they're a low-cost way to diversify, especially if you go with a mix of funds in different categories (large cap, small cap, bond, international, real estate) or a fund which has that mix built into it such as a target date fund.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3e29cffd92873ce7bd0d57d81102cb04", "text": "You need to do a few things to analyze your results. First, look at the timing of the deposits, and try to confirm the return you state. If it's still as high as you think, can you attribute it to one lucky stock purchase? I have an account that's up 863% from 1998 till 2013. Am I a genius? Hardly. That account, one of many, happened to have stocks that really outperformed, Apple among them. If you are that good, a career change may be in order. Few are that good. Joe", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0943e45e3c60536cea418a843e1c6250", "text": "There are at least a couple of ways you could view this to my mind: Make an Excel spreadsheet and use the IRR function to compute the rate of return you are having based on money being added. Re-invested distributions in a mutual fund aren't really an additional investment as the Net Asset Value of the fund will drop by the amount of the distribution aside from market fluctuation. This is presuming you want a raw percentage that could be tricky to compare to other funds without doing more than a bit of work in a way. Look at what is the fund's returns compared to both the category and the index it is tracking. The tracking error is likely worth noting as some index funds could lag the index by a sizable margin and thus may not be that great. At the same time there may exist cases where an index fund isn't quite measuring up that well. The Small-Growth Indexing Anomaly would be the William Bernstein article from 2001 that has some facts and figures for this that may be useful.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "198ed04523c8fccd9e40079232c52c8f", "text": "There is no typical return for an IRA. Understand that an IRA is not an investment type, it is just an account that gets special tax treatment by the Federal Government. The money in the IRA could be invested in almost anything including Gold, Stocks, Bonds, Cash, CDs, etc. So the question as phrased isn't exactly meaningful. It is kind of like asking what is the typical price of things if I use $10 bills. As for a 10.6% annualized return on your portfolio. That's not a bad return. At that rate you will double your investment (with compounding) every 7.2 years. Again, however, some context is needed. You can really only evaluate investment returns with your risk profile in mind. If you are invested in super safe investments like CDs, that is an absolutely incredible return. You compare it to several indexes, which is a good way to do it if you are investing in the types of investments tracked by those indexes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6bb6cc39fc29a550c12b6215f91af9d9", "text": "\"I was going to ask, \"\"Do you feel lucky, punk?\"\" but then it occurred to me that the film this quote came from, Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, is 43 years old. And yet, the question remains. The stock market, as measured by the S&P has returned 9.67% compounded over the last 100 years. But with a standard deviation just under 20%, there are years when you'll do better and years you'll lose. And I'd not ignore the last decade which was pretty bad, a loss for the decade. There are clearly two schools of thought. One says that no one ever lost sleep over not having a mortgage payment. The other school states that at the very beginning, you have a long investing horizon, and the chances are very good that the 30 years to come will bring a return north of 6%. The two decades prior to the last were so good that these past 30 years were still pretty good, 11.39% compounded. There is no right or wrong here. My gut says fund your retirement accounts to the maximum. Build your emergency fund. You see, if you pay down your mortgage, but lose your job, you'll still need to make those payments. Once you build your security, think of the mortgage as the cash side of your investing, i.e. focus less on the relatively low rate of return (4.3%) and more on the eventual result, once paid, your cash flow goes up nicely. Edit - in light of the extra information you provided, your profile reads that you have a high risk tolerance. Low overhead, no dependents, and secure employment combine to lead me to this conclusion. At 23, I'd not be investing at 4.3%. I'd learn how to invest in a way I was comfortable with, and take it from there. Disclosure (Updated) - I am older, and am semi-retired. I still have some time left on the mortgage, but it doesn't bother me, not at 3.5%. I also have a 16 year old to put through college but her college account i fully funded.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c0a93a2864c882c0bd2a61c81dce41d0", "text": "I like to look at Alpha, Beta, St. Dev., Sharpe Ratio, and R-Squared. It's also good to know how they work together. i.e.: Say you're comparing a fund to an index and the fund has a low beta, but the r-squared is low (&lt;70 is low for my usage). The beta loses some significance in that instance. You want to be able to look at these 5 metrics, know what they mean on their own, and what they say about each other. Sorry if that was poorly worded, Mondays...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15e9d51f5d01bddba46fc1ea96a54e20", "text": "\"When you invest in a property, you pay money to purchase the property. You didn't have to spend the money on the property though - you could have invested it in the stock market instead, and expected to make a 4% annualized real rate of return or thereabouts. So if you want to know whether something's a \"\"good investment\"\", ask whether your annual net income will be more or less than 4% of the money you put into it, and whether it is more or less risky than the stock market, and try to judge accordingly. Predicting the net income, though, is a can of worms, doubly so when some of your expenses aren't dollar-denominated (e.g. the time you spend dealing with the property personally) and others need to be amortized over an unpredictable period of time (how long will that furnace repair really last?). Moreover your annualized capital gain and rental income is also unpredictable; rent increases in a given area cannot be expected to conform to a predetermined mathematical formula. Ultimately it is impossible to predict in the general case - if it were possible we probably would have skipped that last housing bubble, so no single simple formula exists.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b138a5fa6a06ef00012efc7b4a477e3", "text": "I don't know, maybe saving for 30+ years you'd want to see how your investments are doing to plan for retirement? Or should I just use an interest calc on google and expect that average market return on my deposits will be there in 2045. Looking at the statements builds trust with the advisor. What makes them trusted?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f5601bc847b9b759754505aebe97c44", "text": "Unfortunately I believe there is not a good answer to this because it's not a well posed problem. It sounds like you are looking for a theoretically sound criteria to decide whether to sell or hold. Such a criteria would take the form of calculating the cost of continuing to hold a stock and comparing it to the transactions cost of replacing it in your portfolio. However, your criteria for stock selection doesn't take this form. You appear to have some ad hoc rules defining whether you want the stock in your portfolio that provide no way to calculate a cost of having something in your portfolio you don't want or failing to have something you do want. Criteria for optimally rebalancing a portfolio can't really be more quantitative than the rules that define the portfolio.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0905df12631772350b672e32f143dc23", "text": "Here are a few things I've already done, and others reading this for their own use may want to try. It is very easy to find a pattern in any set of data. It is difficult to find a pattern that holds true in different data pulled from the same population. Using similar logic, don't look for a pattern in the data from the entire population. If you do, you won't have anything to test it against. If you don't have anything to test it against, it is difficult to tell the difference between a pattern that has a cause (and will likely continue) and a pattern that comes from random noise (which has no reason to continue). If you lose money in bad years, that's okay. Just make sure that the gains in good years are collectively greater than the losses in bad years. If you put $10 in and lose 50%, you then need a 100% gain just to get back up to $10. A Black Swan event (popularized by Nassim Taleb, if memory serves) is something that is unpredictable but will almost certainly happen at some point. For example, a significant natural disaster will almost certainly impact the United States (or any other large country) in the next year or two. However, at the moment we have very little idea what that disaster will be or where it will hit. By the same token, there will be Black Swan events in the financial market. I do not know what they will be or when they will happen, but I do know that they will happen. When building a system, make sure that it can survive those Black Swan events (stay above the death line, for any fellow Jim Collins fans). Recreate your work from scratch. Going through your work again will make you reevaluate your initial assumptions in the context of the final system. If you can recreate it with a different medium (i.e. paper and pen instead of a computer), this will also help you catch mistakes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d22eb12a1a71861cce34e25a62856f18", "text": "I've used prosper for a while and have a pretty good return based purely on shotgun approach. I recently invested a few thousand with their automated tool. Some people will default, but that's expected and part of their expected return calculation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b16542ff6aa0d91ed303490a3691bc1", "text": "You could use the Gordon growth model implied expected return: P = D/(r-g) --&gt; r = D/P (forward dividend yield) + g (expected dividend growth). But obviously there is no such thing as a good market return proxy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53b6b1913a3f7ad27e53d3412cdfb93b", "text": "\"The key to evaluating book value is return on equity (ROE). That's net profit divided by book value. The \"\"value\"\" of book value is measured by the company's ROE (the higher the better). If the stock is selling below book value, the company's assets aren't earning enough to satisfy most investors. Would you buy a CD that was paying, say two percentage points below the going rate for 100 cents on the dollar? Probably not. You might be willing to buy it only by paying 2% less per year, say 98 cents on the dollar for a one year CD. The two cent discount from \"\"book value\"\" is your compensation for a low \"\"interest\"\" rate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d7f81b996bf1dc02be851206dfcc3183", "text": "\"Unfortunately for investors, returns for equity-based investments are not linear - you'll see (semi-random) rises and dips as you look at the charted per-share price. Without knowing what the investments are in the target date retirement fund that you've invested in, you could see a wide range of returns (including losses!) for any given period of time. However, over the long term (usually 10+ years), you'll see the \"\"average\"\" return for your fund as your gains and losses accumulate/compound over that period.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8eaa1beac198c1174558a938a1f6a71f", "text": "I think that's a bad way to look at it. What if the price of that asset never fails below that value again? Do you just never buy? I think a better way to operate is to do your due diligence, and if the asset you're looking at holds value for you at its current price, then jump in. Otherwise - look somewhere else.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0fd5f580d29bb7dc0d3a235d31ffdf2", "text": "\"All of these frameworks, Markowitz, Mean/CVaR, CARA, etc sit inside a more general framework which is that \"\"returns are good\"\" and \"\"risk/lack of certainty in the returns is bad\"\", and there's a tradeoff between the two encoded as some kind of risk aversion number. You can measure \"\"lack of certainty in returns\"\" by vol, CVaR, weighted sum of higher moments, but even sector/region concentration. Similarly do I want more \"\"returns\"\" or \"\"log returns\"\" or \"\"sqrt returns\"\" in the context of this tradeoff? You don't need any formal notion of utility at that point - and I don't know what formal ideas of utility beyond \"\"I want more returns and less risk\"\" really buys you. The Sharpe ratio only really gets its meaning because you've got some formal asset-pricing notion of utility. In my view the moment that you're putting constraints on the portfolio (e.g. long only, max weights, don't deviate too much from the benchmark ...) - really you're operating in this more general framework anyway and you're not in \"\"utility-land\"\" anymore.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
7a08c335526d1617809339439814ec72
How can I find a report of dividend earned in a FY?
[ { "docid": "2f60e9abbe4ad0a75271938671911ca7", "text": "I know this question is old. I also have a kotak trading account. There is no way to get the dividend report from the trading account. The dividend is directly credited to your bank account by the companies through registrar. There is no involvement of trading account in there. So the best possible way will be to get the bank account statement for the financial year and filter out the dividend transactions manually. I know it is tedious, but there doesn't seem to be any easy way out there for this. Few days back I started using portfolio manager provided by economic times. It lists all the dividend earned in my stocks automatically.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0d208b70366c997e730081aa27d0fe0", "text": "Log in to kotak securities demat account. THere, you can find statement of your sell purchase and dividend received.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4abb004cd0c36e66aa7992fff17d8e99", "text": "\"The full holdings will be listed in the annual report of the fund, obviously the holdings would only be completely accurate as of the date of the reporting. This is the most recent annual report for FMAGX. I got it from my Schwab research section under \"\"All Fund Documents\"\" but I'm sure you can find it other ways. When I use google to search for \"\"fmagx annual report\"\" this link was the first result.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbc54297aa25d0a851d8421cd7854b7c", "text": "\"In the Income Statement that you've linked to, look for the line labeled \"\"Net Income\"\". That's followed by a line labeled \"\"Preferred Dividends\"\", which is followed by \"\"Income Available to Common Excl. Extra Items\"\" and \"\"Income Available to Common Incl. Extra Items\"\". Those last two are the ones to look at. The key is that these lines reflect income minus dividends paid to preferred stockholders (of which there are none here), and that's income that's available to ordinary shareholders, i.e., \"\"earnings for the common stock\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "752fe43fec044c6a3eeae40070f42528", "text": "You may be able to find the answers to your question on the IRS web site: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98263,00.html Specifically, using this form to estimate taxes for salary: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1120w.pdf and this form to estimate taxes for dividends: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34e4ff8c31dc911644bb906c3fa47495", "text": "No - there are additional factors involved. Note that the shares on issue of a company can change for various reasons (such as conversion/redemption of convertible securities, vesting of restricted employee shares, conversion of employee options, employee stock purchase programs, share placements, buybacks, mergers, rights issues etc.) so it is always worthwhile checking SEC announcements for the company if you want an exact figure. There may also be multiple classes of shares and preferred securities that have different levels of dividends present. For PFG, they filed a 10Q on 22 April 2015 and noted they had 294,385,885 shares outstanding of their common stock. They also noted for the three months ended March 31 2014 that dividends were paid to both common stockholders and preferred stockholders and that there were Series A preferred stock (3 million) and Series B preferred stock (10 million), plus a statement: In February 2015, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program of up to $150.0 million of our outstanding common stock. Shares repurchased under these programs are accounted for as treasury stock, carried at cost and reflected as a reduction to stockholders’ equity. Therefore the exact amount of dividend paid out will not be known until the next quarterly report which will state the exact amount of dividend paid out to common and preferred shareholders for the quarter.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "caf4adfd21859c172926d3c5efe935fd", "text": "\"You're missing a very important thing: YEAR END values in (U.S.) $ millions unless otherwise noted So 7098 is not $7,098. That would be a rather silly amount for Coca Cola to earn in a year don't you think? I mean, some companies might happen upon random small income amounts, but it seems pretty reasonable to assume they'll earn (or lose) millions or billions, not thousands. This is a normal thing to do on reports like this; it's wasteful to calculate to so many significant digits, so they divide everything by 1000 or 1000000 and report at that level. You need to look on the report (usually up top left, but it can vary) to see what factor they're dividing by. Coca Cola's earnings per share are $1.60 for FY 2014, which is 7,098/4450 (use the whole year numbers, not the quarter 4 numbers; and here they're both in millions, so they divide out evenly). You also need to understand that \"\"Dividend on preferred stock\"\" is not the regular dividend; I don't see it explicitly called out on the page you reference. They may not have preferred stock and/or may not pay dividends on it in excess of common stock (or at all).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5800f63f0c10a1e5baba7f2a38d43ef", "text": "From the hover text of the said screen; Latest dividend/dividend yield Latest dividend is dividend per share paid to shareholders in the most recent quarter. Dividend yield is the value of the latest dividend, multiplied by the number of times dividends are typically paid per year, divided by the stock price. So for Ambev looks like the dividend is inconsistantly paid and not paid every quarter.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d304e33e18f5f22766283a4d16a7ca8b", "text": "http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=EDV+Historical+Prices shows this which matches Vanguard: Mar 24, 2014 0.769 Dividend Your download link doesn't specify dates which makes me wonder if it is a cumulative distribution or something else as one can wonder how did you ensure that the URL is specifying to list only the most recent distribution and not something else. For example, try this URL which specifies date information in the a,b,c,d,e,f parameters: http://real-chart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=EDV&a=00&b=29&c=2014&d=05&e=16&f=2014&g=v&ignore=.csv", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f546a579450b87a61ba2b7d0f2569303", "text": "\"I have 3 favorite sites that I use. http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/mcd/dividend-history - lists the entire history of dividends and what dates they were paid so you can predict when future dividends will be paid. http://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/services/restaurants/mcd-mcdonalds/ - this site lists key stats like dividend yield, and number of years dividend has increased. If the next dividend is announced, it shows the number of days until the ex-dividend date, the next ex-div and payment date and amount. If you just want to research good dividend stocks to get into, I would highly recommend the site seekingalpha.com. Spend some time reading the articles on that site under the dividends section. Make sure you read the comments on each article to make sure the author is not way off base. Finally, my favorite tool for researching good dividend stocks is the CCC Lists produced by Seeking Alpha's David Fish. It is a giant spreadsheet of stocks that have been increasing dividends every year for 5+, 10+, or 25+ years. The link to that spreadsheet is here: http://dripinvesting.org/tools/tools.asp under \"\"U.S. Dividend Champions\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fab78c04a66a89ee0cd7467bfa6429fa", "text": "In the context of EDV, 4.46 is the indicated dividend rate. The indicated dividend rate is the rate that would be paid per share throughout the next year, assuming dividends stayed the same as prior payment. sources:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d94891f7db8bc509b8384492dbb6104", "text": "according to the SEC: Shareholder Reports A mutual fund and a closed-end fund respectively must provide shareholders with annual and semi-annual reports 60 days after the end of the fund’s fiscal year and 60 days after the fund’s fiscal mid-year. These reports contain updated financial information, a list of the fund’s portfolio securities, and other information. The information in the shareholder reports will be current as of the date of the particular report (that is, the last day of the fund’s fiscal year for the annual report, and the last day of the fund’s fiscal mid-year for the semi-annual report). Other Reports A mutual fund and a closed-end fund must file a Form N-Q each quarter and a Form N-PX each year on the SEC’s EDGAR database, although funds are not required to mail these reports to shareholders. Funds disclose portfolio holdings on Form N-Q. Form N-PX identifies specific proposals on which the fund has voted portfolio securities over the past year and discloses how the fund voted on each. This disclosure enables fund shareholders to monitor their funds’ involvement in the governance activities of portfolio companies. which means that sixty days after the end of each quarter they will tell you what they owned 60 days ago. This makes sense; why would they want to tell the world what companies they are buying and selling.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "468f1945e30dd4d58e90a92d1a6d3953", "text": "\"The way the post is worded, coca cola wouldn't count towards either, although it's not entirely clear. If the dividends are considered under capital gains (which isn't technically an appropriate term) he's earning only 500Million a year from his stake in coca cola. If he sold his shares, he'd receive capital gains of ~15Billion, which would probably outpace his operations business. The best graph would probably be something like \"\"net worth of operations vs net worth of equity in other companies\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f5707476dff29e1c64892d4c4ab68be", "text": "Check out the NASDAQ and NYSE websites(the exchange in which the stock is listed) for detailed information. Most of the websites which collate dividend payments generally have cash payments history only e.g. Dividata. And because a company has given stock dividends in the past doesn't guarantee such in the future, I believe you already know that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8ee07f460a8a1fe9480e40afe4f4815", "text": "Profit after tax can have multiple interpretations, but a common one is the EPS (Earnings Per Share). This is frequently reported as a TTM number (Trailing Twelve Months), or in the UK as a fiscal year number. Coincidentally, it is relatively easy to find the total amount of dividends paid out in that same time frame. That means calculating div cover is as simple as: EPS divided by total dividend. (EPS / Div). It's relatively easy to build a Google Docs spreadsheet that pulls both values from the cloud using the GOOGLEFINANCE() function. I suspect the same is true of most spreadsheet apps. With a proper setup, you can just fill down along a column of tickers to get the div cover for a number of companies at once.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74f1a239bcc0d9bbad7d9f5ed35dbb9c", "text": "Dividends are normally paid in cash, so don't generally affect your portfolio aside from a slight increase to 'cash'. You get a check for them, or your broker would deposit the funds into a money-market account for you. There is sometimes an option to re-invest dividends, See Westyfresh's answer regarding Dividend Re-Investment Plans. As Tom Au described, the dividends are set by the board of directors and announced. Also as he indicated just before the 'record' date, a stock which pays dividends is worth slightly more (reflecting the value of the dividend that will be paid to anyone holding the stock on the record date) and goes down by the dividend amount immediately after that date (since you'd now have to hold the stock till the next record date to get a dividend) In general unless there's a big change in the landscape (such as in late 2008) most companies pay out about the same dividend each time, and changes to this are sometimes seen by some as 'indicators' of company health and such news can result in movement in the stock price. When you look at a basic quote on a ticker symbol there is usually a line for Div/yeild which gives the amount of dividend paid per share, and the relative yeild (as a percentage of the stock price). If a company has been paying dividends, this field will have values in it, if a company does not pay a dividend it will be blank or say NA (depending on where you get the quote). This is the easiest way to see if a company pays a dividend or not. for example if you look at this quote for Google, you can see it pays no dividend Now, in terms of telling when and how much of a dividend has been paid, most financial sites have the option when viewing a stock chart to show the dividend payments. If you expand the chart to show at least a year, you can see when and how much was paid in terms of dividends. For example you can see from this chart that MSFT pays dividends once a quarter, and used to pay out 13 cents, but recently changed to 16 cents. if you were to float your mouse over one of those icons it would also give the date the dividend was paid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ef9589f70c394dd722cea35986d83a7", "text": "Many things I buy from Amazon I could get cheaper from Walmart but I pay more from Amazon just so I don't have to go to Walmart. It isn't the company itself that keeps me away, its the people that frequent the establishment and the lines. Funny you should mention the locker. I remember when they first started rolling this out and until just now, I had no idea I actually have 2 in my area.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
6b87355bf70b727c9a7f342cdb2fc997
Buy Php in Malaysia and sell to Philippines
[ { "docid": "b36f4593a562c7419d44757c8d067e94", "text": "I noticed the buy/sell board table. Where did you notice this. Generally for a pair of currencies, there is Unit associated along with direction. The Unit is generally constant. These are only revised when there is large devaluation of a particular currency. Buying Php for MYR 8.52, Selling MYR 8.98. So in this case the Unit of PHP is 100, so Bank is Buying 100 PHP from you [you are selling PHP] and will give you MYR 8.52. If you now want to buy 100 PHP [so the Bank is selling you], you have to pay MYR 8.98. So you loose MYR 0.46 Why are they selling it way beyond the exchange rate? Why is this? As explained above, they are not. Its still within the range. The quote on internet are average price. This means before going back to Philippines, I can buy a lot of peso that I can buy and exchange it for higher price right? Generally an individual cannot make money by buying in one currency and selling in other. There are specialist who try and find arbitrage between multiple pair of currencies and make money out of it. Its a continuous process, if they start making profit, the market will react and put pressure on a pair and the prices would move to remove the arbitrage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "78bbc8793f5582d6416f7c29a1969548", "text": "basically the selling (for banks) means you will exchange PHP to MYR buying simply MYR to PHP the bank will buy your MYR in exchange to PHP. and you will sell your MYR to PHP. I think it has something to do with processing fee..", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "6bb5409ce375190d4102c600b999193c", "text": "First decide if the best route is to distribute as a middle man (eg.land an Amazon or Walmart contract), or to distribute it through yourself (your own company). Is it more profitable to form your own corporation or have the mother company establish a international entity in N.A? (fees apply but they could be minuscule to your projected margins(eg.$5000 fee to open up a market of $1,000,000+ GP)) If you decide you want to establish your own means of distribution, you will have to decide if your going to build physical locations or do online distribution. Depending on what the product or service your providing, you generally have more possibilities and opportunities with online market. You can run an online website, incorporate an online store that accept online payments, and shipping products for less than $5000 a year. (Monthly payments for the services provided, excluding any shipping/import costs) This would be done with the means of website hosts such as GoDaddy, or retail hosts like Shopify.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fdc05017bf72e9d071694448159aa6c", "text": "If you prefer the stock rather than cash, you might find it easier to take the cash, report it, and then buy the same stock from within your own country.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a51983803160439f6066f0ef2c496667", "text": "The Hong Kong Dollar has been pegged to the USD for nearly 30 years and the Hong Kong authorities have fairly strong means to defend the peg. So at first glance it would appear that there is really no difference as long as you are getting 7.75 HKD for each USD that you used to receive. However, the peg is arbitrary and could be lifted at any time like the removal of the CHF peg to EUR surprised a lot of people in early 2015. As mainland China becomes more integrated it is unclear what will happen to the HKD in the long run. Whether this matters really depends on your contracts. if your contracts are short dated you may only take a discount relative to USD for a few payments before you can try to renegotiate. It's also worth noting trading HKD for your local INR can be more expensive. Check your local rates.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e6c723d9270816257b82bf1b4ecf93d7", "text": "\"If I buy the one from NSY, is it the \"\"real\"\" Sinopec? No - you are buying an American Depository Receipt. Essentially some American bank or other entity holds a bunch of Sinopec stock and issues certificates to the American exchange that American investors can trade. This insulates the American investors from the cost of international transactions. The price of these ADRs should mimic the price of the underlying stock (including changes the currency exchange rate) otherwise an arbitrage opportunity would exist. Other than that, the main difference between holding the ADR and the actual stock is that ADRs do not have voting rights. So if that is not important to you then for all intents and purposes trading the ADR would be the same as trading the underlying stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c393b2a11daf7865f68881dbb8913a11", "text": "Wiring is the best way to move large amounts of money from one country to another. I am sure Japanese banks will allow you to exchange your Japanese Yen into USD and wire it to Canada. I am not sure if they will be able to convert directly from JPY to CND and wire funds in CND. If you can open a USD bank account in Canada, that might make things easier.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5985a7c041ca425986510e782c5f88bc", "text": "\"This page from TripAdvisor may be of interest. Look at what fees are charged on your ATM cards and credit cards, and consider overpaying your credit card so you have a credit balance that you can draw on for cash \"\"advances\"\" from ATMs that will dispense in local currency. Depending on what fees your bank charges, you may get a better rate than the forex cash traders at the airport. Edit: Cards may not always have the best rate. I recently heard from a traveler who was able to use a locally but not globally dominant currency to buy cash of a major currency at a shopping mall (with competitive forex traders) at rates even better than the mid-market rates posted at xe.com and similar places; I don't think you'll have that experience going from Australia to Malaysia (but another traveler reading this might have a different pair). In my experience the card rates are slightly worse than those and the airport forex traders significantly worse.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28409171ea6205d636f9f30e07fba1f0", "text": "\"Yes and no. There are two primary ways to do this. The first is known as \"\"cross listing\"\". Basically, this means that shares are listed in the home country are the primary shares, but are also traded on secondary markets using mechanisms like ADRs or Globally Registered Shares. Examples of this method include Vodafone and Research in Motion. The second is \"\"dual listing\"\". This is when two corporations that function as a single business are listed in multiple places. Examples of this include Royal Dutch Shell and Unilever. Usually companies choose this method for tax purposes when they merge or acquire an international company. Generally speaking, you can safely buy shares in whichever market makes sense to you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a43868c11cef3decde5fc0f457434ab", "text": "Hi there. I think China is recommended for premanufactured products given their GDP output. The specific products may exist in the US too. The key is networking. Starting online retail, you are essentially ecommerce and or sales. There may be people seeking sales reps for their products. You should have a specific business plan targetting the niche you plan to sell and cater to. Thomasnet has US manufacturers. You may have to get clever and work out deals selling manufactured goods but with work it can be done. I personally have seen way too many issues result of dealing with imports and know of many rookie mistakes in business where people have gone this route due to price. Sources: MBA, marketing apprentice for multi millionaire, business apprentice working with manufacturing operations director with civil and military experience; former freelance design, project management and product manufacturing experience.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a41efbee5c826099835787e354a813b0", "text": "I just tried doing that on my PP which is in the Netherlands, I have added a USD bank account (from my dutch bank) and they sent the verification amount in Euros, I called the bank and wonder why they didn't let me choose account currency they said it's not possible and if I cashout Dollars that I have in my PP (cause we usually do international business so we set it to dollars) it will be changed to Euros, So we decided to keep the dollars in account to pay our bills instead of getting ripped off by PayPal in xchange rates.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3dda95b6fe5e60b7c1a455d81fc346f", "text": "\"I cannot speak for Paypal specifically and I doubt anyone who doesn't actually work on their internal automated payment systems could. However, I can speak from experiencing in working on automated forex transaction systems and tell you what many institutions do and it is often NOT based on live rates. There is no law stating an institution must honor a specific market exchange rate. Institutions can determine their own rates how and when they want to. However, there is some useful information on their website: https://www.paypal.com/an/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/sell/mc/mc_convert-outside \"\"The most readily available information on currency exchange rates is based on interbank exchange rates. Interbank exchange rates are established in the course of currency trading among a global network of over 1,000 banks, and are not available through consumer or retail channels.\"\" This leads me to believe they pull exchange rates from either Oanda or XE periodically and then use these rates throughout the day to conduct business. Paypal does not disclose who they use to determine rates. And it's highly doubtful they do this for every transaction (using live rates). Even if they did, there would be no way for you to check and be certain of a particular exchange rate as paypal states: \"\" Consumers may use these rates as a reference, but should not expect to use interbank rates in transactions that involve currency conversion. To obtain actual retail rates, contact your local financial institution or currency exchange, or check the rate displayed in your PayPal transaction.\"\" This is partly because rates can change by the second just like stock prices or anything else which is susceptible to the open market's variables of supply, demand news events etc. So, even if you check the rates on Oanda (which you can do here: http://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/) you are not going to get a 100% accurate representation of what you would get by doing an exchange immediately afterwards from Paypal or any other financial institution. However, if you want to estimate, using Oanda's currency converter will likely get you close in most scenarios. That is assuming Paypal doesn't charge a premium for the exchange, which they may. That is also assuming they use live rates, it's also possible they only update their rates based on market rates periodically and not for every transaction. You may want to test this by checking the exchange rate on your transaction and comparing that to the Oanda rates at the same time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7195053464f2555973061c1a472f0ed3", "text": "You should probably get a professional tax advice, as it is very specific to the Philipines tax laws and the US-Philippine tax treaty. What I know, however, is that if it was the other way around - you paying a foreigner coming to the US to consult you - you would be withholding 30% of their pay for the IRS which they would be claiming for refund on their own later. So if the US does it to others - I'm not surprised to hear that others do it to the US. Get a professional advice on what and how you should be doing. In any case, foreign taxes paid can be used to offset your US taxes using form 1116 up to some extent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "597e6d04eba8bbeb3344b750e7fe1092", "text": "\"This is my two cents (pun intended). It was too long for a comment, so I tried to make it more of an answer. I am no expert with investments or Islam: Anything on a server exists 'physically'. It exists on a hard drive, tape drive, and/or a combination thereof. It is stored as data, which on a hard drive are small particles that are electrically charged, where each bit is represented by that electric charge. That data exists physically. It also depends on your definition of physically. This data is stored on a hard drive, which I deem physical, though is transferred via electric pulses often via fiber cable. Don't fall for marketing words like cloud. Data must be stored somewhere, and is often redundant and backed up. To me, money is just paper with an amount attached to it. It tells me nothing about its value in a market. A $1 bill was worth a lot more 3 decades ago (you could buy more goods because it had a higher value) than it is today. Money is simply an indication of the value of a good you traded at the time you traded. At a simplistic level, you could accomplish the same thing with a friend, saying \"\"If you buy lunch today, I'll buy lunch next time\"\". There was no exchange in money between me and you, but there was an exchange in the value of the lunch, if that makes sense. The same thing could have been accomplished by me and you exchanging half the lunch costs in physical money (or credit/debit card or check). Any type of investment can be considered gambling. Though you do get some sort of proof that the investment exists somewhere Investments may go up or down in value at any given time. Perhaps with enough research you can make educated investments, but that just makes it a smaller gamble. Nothing is guaranteed. Currency investment is akin to stock market investment, in that it may go up or down in value, in comparison to other currencies; though it doesn't make you an owner of the money's issuer, generally, it's similar. I find if you keep all your money in U.S. dollars without considering other nations, that's a sort of ignorant way of gambling, you're betting your money will lose value less slowly than if you had it elsewhere or in multiple places. Back on track to your question: [A]m I really buying that currency? You are trading a currency. You are giving one currency and exchanging it for another. I guess you could consider that buying, since you can consider trading currency for a piece of software as buying something. Or is the situation more like playing with the live rates? It depends on your perception of playing with the live rates. Investments to me are long-term commitments with reputable research attached to it that I intend to keep, through highs and lows, unless something triggers me to change my investment elsewhere. If by playing you mean risk, as described above, you will have a level of risk. If by playing you mean not taking it seriously, then do thorough research before investing and don't be trading every few seconds for minor returns, trying to make major returns out of minor returns (my opinion), or doing anything based on a whim. Was that money created out of thin air? I suggest you do more research before starting to trade currency into how markets and trading works. Simplistically, think of a market as a closed system with other markets, such as UK market, French market, etc. Each can interact with each other. The U.S. [or any market] has a set number of dollars in the pool. $100 for example's sake. Each $1 has a certain value associated with it. If for some reason, the country decides to create more paper that is green, says $1, and stamps presidents on them (money), and adds 15 $1 to the pool (making it $115), each one of these dollars' value goes down. This can also happen with goods. This, along with the trading of goods between markets, peoples' attachment of value to goods of the market, and peoples' perception of the market, is what fluctates currency trading, in simple terms. So essentially, no, money is not made out of thin air. Money is a medium for value though values are always changing and money is a static amount. You are attempting to trade values and own the medium that has the most value, if that makes sense. Values of goods are constantly changing. This is a learning process for me as well so I hope this helps answers your questions you seem to have. As stated above, I'm no expert; I'm actually quite new to this, so I probably missed a few things here and there.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "007ae90ae22f4b3fdc02e55709c5873c", "text": "You might what to check out Interactive Brokers. If your India stock is NSE listed they might be able to do it since they support trading on that exchange. I would talk to a customer service rep there first. https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=exchanges&p=asia", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ffdf27fb9f7077c4a6d7ea0ba512f87f", "text": "Three ideas: PayPal is probably the best/cheapest way to transfer small/medium amounts of money overseas.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "020ad80d3596a499aeea83cada4b529c", "text": "You will find Joe.E, that rents have increased considerably over the last 4 to 5 years in Australia. You can probably achieve rental yields of above 5% more than 20km from major Cities, however closer to cities you might get closer to 5% or under. In Western Sydney, we have been able to achieve rental yields close to 7%. We bought mainly in 2007 and 2008 when no one was buying and we were getting properties for 15% to 20% below market rates. As we bought cheap and rents were on the increase we were able to achieve higher rental yields. An example of one particular deal where we bought for $225K and rented for $300/wk giving us a yield of 6.9%. The rent is now $350/wk giving us a current yield of 8%, and with our interest rate at 6.3% and possibly heading down further, this property is positively geared and pays for itself plus provides us with some additional income. All our properties are yielding between 7.5% to 8.5% and are all positively geared. The capital gains might not be as high as with properties closer to the city, but even if we stopped working we wouldn't have to sell as they all provide us income after paying all expenses on associated with the properties. So in answer to your question I would be aiming for a property with a yield above 5% and preferably above 6%, as this will enable your property/ies to be positively geared at least after a couple of years if not straight away.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
257e921d144a645a2d4d5b83dc2ca340
Should I fund retirement with a static asset allocation or an age based glide path?
[ { "docid": "08b7eac4258132d5822ce91ed957babb", "text": "I think not. I think a discussion of optimum mix is pretty independent of age. While a 20 year old may have 40 years till retirement, a 60 year old retiree has to plan for 30 years or more of spending. I'd bet that no two posters here would give the same optimum mix for a given age, why would anyone expect the Wall Street firms to come up with something better than your own gut suggests?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82c7493b748407a298bceb7eb6c7650f", "text": "\"The thing about the glide path is that the closer you're to the retirement age, the less risk you should be taking with your investments. All investments carry risk, but if you invest in a volatile stock market at the age of 20 and lose all your retirement money - it will not have the same effect on your retirement as if you'd invest in a volatile stock market at the age of 65 and then lose all your retirement money. Static allocation throughout your life without changing the risk factor, will lead you to a very conservative investment path, which would mean you're not likely to lose your investments, but you're not likely to gain much either. The point of the glide path is to allow you taking more risks early with more chances of higher gains, but to limit your risks down the road, also limiting your potential gains. That is why it is always suggested to start your retirement funds early in your life, to make sure you have enough time to invest in potentially high return stocks (with high risk), but when you get close to your retirement age, it is advised to do exactly the opposite. The date-targeted funds do that for you, but you can do it on your own as well. As to the academic research - you don't need to go that far. Just look at the graphs to see that over long period investments in stocks give much better return than \"\"conservative\"\" bonds and treasuries (especially when averaging the investments, as it usually is with the retirement funds), but over a given short period, investments in stocks are much more likely to significantly lose in value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69e661b4e1154b9542f9d63bc5d62bbb", "text": "So I did some queries on Google Scholar, and the term of art academics seem to use is target date fund. I notice divided opinions among academics on the matter. W. Pfau gave a nice set of citations of papers with which he disagrees, so I'll start with them. In 1969, Paul Sameulson published the paper Lifetime Portfolio Selection By Dynamic Stochaistic Programming, which found that there's no mathematical foundation for an age based risk tolerance. There seems to be a fundamental quibble relating to present value of future wages; if they are stable and uncorrelated with the market, one analysis suggests the optimal lifecycle investment should start at roughly 300 percent of your portfolio in stocks (via crazy borrowing). Other people point out that if your wages are correlated with stock returns, allocations to stock as low as 20 percent might be optimal. So theory isn't helping much. Perhaps with the advent of computers we can find some kind of empirical data. Robert Shiller authored a study on lifecycle funds when they were proposed for personal Social Security accounts. Lifecycle strategies fare poorly in his historical simulation: Moreover, with these life cycle portfolios, relatively little is contributed when the allocation to stocks is high, since earnings are relatively low in the younger years. Workers contribute only a little to stocks, and do not enjoy a strong effect of compounding, since the proceeds of the early investments are taken out of the stock market as time goes on. Basu and Drew follow up on that assertion with a set of lifecycle strategies and their contrarian counterparts: whereas a the lifecycle plan starts high stock exposure and trails off near retirement, the contrarian ones will invest in bonds and cash early in life and move to stocks after a few years. They show that contrarian strategies have higher average returns, even at the low 25th percentile of returns. It's only at the bottom 5 or 10 percent where this is reversed. One problem with these empirical studies is isolating the effect of the glide path from rebalancing. It could be that a simple fixed allocation works plenty fine, and that selling winners and doubling down on losers is the fundamental driver of returns. Schleef and Eisinger compare lifecycle strategy with a number of fixed asset allocation schemes in Monte Carlo simulations and conclude that a 70% equity, 30% long term corp bonds does as well as all of the lifecycle funds. Finally, the earlier W Pfau paper offers a Monte Carlo simulation similar to Schleef and Eisinger, and runs final portfolio values through a utility function designed to calculate diminishing returns to more money. This seems like a good point, as the risk of your portfolio isn't all or nothing, but your first dollar is more valuable than your millionth. Pfau finds that for some risk-aversion coefficients, lifecycles offer greater utility than portfolios with fixed allocations. And Pfau does note that applying their strategies to the historical record makes a strong recommendation for 100 percent stocks in all but 5 years from 1940-2011. So maybe the best retirement allocation is good old low cost S&P index funds!", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e0181b5b73cc89e56d3146f077981403", "text": "You need a find a financial planner that will create a plan for you for a fixed fee. They will help you determine the best course of action taking into account the pension, the 403B, and any other sources of income you have, or will have. They will know how to address the risk that you have that that particular pension. They will help you determine how to invest your money to produce the type of retirement you want, while making sure you are likely to not outlive your portfolio.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "188dd86c3c336b20a110fb5413285e31", "text": "\"Answers: 1. Is this a good idea? Is it really risky? What are the pros and cons? Yes, it is a bad idea. I think, with all the talk about employer matches and tax rates at retirement vs. now, that you miss the forest for the trees. It's the taxes on those retirement investments over the course of 40 years that really matter. Example: Imagine $833 per month ($10k per year) invested in XYZ fund, for 40 years (when you retire). The fund happens to make 10% per year over that time, and you're taxed at 28%. How much would you have at retirement? 2. Is it a bad idea to hold both long term savings and retirement in the same investment vehicle, especially one pegged to the US stock market? Yes. Keep your retirement separate, and untouchable. It's supposed to be there for when you're old and unable to work. Co-mingling it with other funds will induce you to spend it (\"\"I really need it for that house! I can always pay more into it later!\"\"). It also can create a false sense of security (\"\"look at how much I've got! I got that new car covered...\"\"). So, send 10% into whatever retirement account you've got, and forget about it. Save for other goals separately. 3. Is buying SPY a \"\"set it and forget it\"\" sort of deal, or would I need to rebalance, selling some of SPY and reinvesting in a safer vehicle like bonds over time? For a retirement account, yes, you would. That's the advantage of target date retirement funds like the one in your 401k. They handle that, and you don't have to worry about it. Think about it: do you know how to \"\"age\"\" your account, and what to age it into, and by how much every year? No offense, but your next question is what an ETF is! 4. I don't know ANYTHING about ETFs. Things to consider/know/read? Start here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp 5. My company plan is \"\"retirement goal\"\" focused, which, according to Fidelity, means that the asset allocation becomes more conservative over time and switches to an \"\"income fund\"\" after the retirement target date (2050). Would I need to rebalance over time if holding SPY? Answered in #3. 6. I'm pretty sure that contributing pretax to 401k is a good idea because I won't be in the 28% tax bracket when I retire. How are the benefits of investing in SPY outweigh paying taxes up front, or do they not? Partially answered in #1. Note that it's that 4 decades of tax-free growth that's the big dog for winning your retirement. Company matches (if you get one) are just a bonus, and the fact that contributions are tax free is a cherry on top. 7. Please comment on anything else you think I am missing I think what you're missing is that winning at personal finance is easy, and winning at personal finance is hard\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acd6ecb60230cccbe47d3f7ed7d5ef80", "text": "Take the easy approach - as suggested by John Bogle (founder of Vanguard - and a man worthy of tremendous respect). Two portfolios consisting of 1 index fund each. Invest your age% in the Fixed Income index fund. Invest (1-age)% in the stock index fund. Examples of these funds are the Total Market Index Fund (VTSMX) and the Total Bond Market Index (VBMFX). If you wish to be slightly more adventurous, blend (1-age-10)% as the Total Market Index Fund and a fixed 10% as Total International Stock Index (VGTSX). You will sleep well at night for most of your life.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a36d9368212653a50c5ae5401a3f8d41", "text": "Here would be the general steps to my mind for creating such a plan: Write out the final desired outcome. Is it $x in y years to fund your retirement? Is it $a in b years to put as a house down payment? This is the first step in defining how much money you want at what point in time. Consider what is your risk tolerance and how much time do you plan on spending in this plan. Is it rebalancing once a quarter and that's it or do you plan on doing monthly research and making tweaks all the time? This is slightly different from the first where one has to be mindful of how much volatility would one handle and what time commitment does one have for an investing strategy. Also, how much money would you be adding to the investments on what kind of time table would also be worth noting here. Construct the asset allocation based on the previous two steps along with historical returns averaged out to be a first draft of what you are buying in general. Is it US stocks? Is it a short-term bond fund? There are more than a few choices here that may make sense and it is worth considering based on the first couple of responses that determine what this will look like. Retirement in 40 years may be quite different than a house down payment in 2 years for example. Determine what brokerages or fund companies would offer such funds along with what types of accounts you'd want to have as in some countries there may be tax-advantaged accounts that may be useful to use here. This is where you're almost ready to start by doing the homework of figuring out how will things work. This may vary depending on one's jurisdiction. Get the applications from whatever institutions you'll be using and run with the desired asset allocation across various funds and accounts. Note that in the first few steps there were points of being aware of how much would you have, how aggressive are you investing and so forth. This is where you actually send in the money and get things rolling. Run with the plan and make tweaks as needed to achieve result, hopefully desired or better.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b814e2e4f943f77864610939f302e619", "text": "\"I find it interesting that you didn't include something like [Total Bond Market](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBMFX), or [Intermediate-Term Treasuries](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBIIX), in your graphic. If someone were to have just invested in the DJI or SP500, then they would have ignored the tenants of the Modern Portfolio Theory and not diversified adequately. I wouldn't have been able to stomach a portfolio of 100% stocks, commodities, or metals. My vote goes for: 1.) picking an asset allocation that reflects your tolerance for risk (a good starting point is \"\"age in bonds,\"\" i.e. if you're 30, then hold 30% in bonds); 2.) save as if you're not expecting annualized returns of %10 (for example) and save more; 3.) don't try to pick the next winner, instead broadly invest in the market and hold it. Maybe gold and silver are bubbles soon to burst -- I for one don't know. I don't give the \"\"notion in the investment community\"\" much weight -- as it always is, someday someone will be right, I just don't know who that someone is.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3a90085114bcdc92d97809050fef1f2", "text": "I'm going to diverge from most of the opinions expressed here. It is common for financial advisors to assume that your portfolio should become less risky as you get older. Explanations for this involve hand-waving and saying that you can afford to lose money when young because you have time to make up for it later. However, the idea that portfolios should become less risky as you get older is not well-grounded in finance theory. According to finance theory, regardless of your age and wealth, returns are desirable and risk is undesirable. Your risk aversion is the only factor that should decide how much risk you put in your portfolio. Do people become more risk averse as they get older? Sometimes. Not always. In fact, there are theoretical reasons why people might want more aggressive portfolios as they age. For example: As people become wealthier they generally become less risk averse. Young people are not normally very wealthy. When you are young, most of your wealth is tied up in the value of your human capital. This wealth shifts into your portfolio as you age. Depending on your field, human capital can be extremely risky--much riskier than the market. Therefore to maintain anything like a constant risk profile over your life, you may want very safe investments when young. You mention being a hedge fund manager. If we enter a recession, your human capital will take a huge hit because you will have a hard time raising money or getting/keeping a job. No one will value your skills and your future career prospects will fall. You will not want the double whammy of large losses in your portfolio. Hedge fund managers are clear examples of people who will want a very safe personal portfolio during their early working years and may be willing to invest very aggressively in their later working and early retirement years. In short, the received wisdom that portfolios should start out risky and get safer as we age is not always, and perhaps not even usually, true. A better guide to how much risk you should have in your portfolio is how you respond to questions that directly measure your risk aversion. This questions ask things like how much you would pay to avoid the possibility of a 20% loss in your portfolio with a certain probability.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a68a6190f8f1909ef9cf515c36ca5e0d", "text": "\"The goal of the single-fund with a retirement date is that they do the rebalancing for you. They have some set of magic ratios (specific to each fund) that go something like this: Note: I completely made up those numbers and asset mix. When you invest in the \"\"Mutual-Fund Super Account 2025 fund\"\" you get the benefit that in 2015 (10 years until retirement) they automatically change your asset mix and when you hit 2025, they do it again. You can replace the functionality by being on top of your rebalancing. That being said, I don't think you need to exactly match the fund choices they provide, just research asset allocation strategies and remember to adjust them as you get closer to retirement.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b82b747d9970443247e234207d2758ca", "text": "While the Vanguard paper is good, it doesn't do a very good job of explaining precisely why each level of stocks or bonds was optimal. If you'd like to read a transparent and quantitative explanation of when and why a a glide path is optimal, I'd suggest the following paper: https://www.betterment.com/resources/how-we-construct-portfolio-allocation-advice/ (Full disclosure - I'm the author). The answer is that the optimal risk level for any given holding period depends upon a combination of: Using these two factors, you construct a risk-averse decision model which chooses the risk level with the best expected average outcome, where it looks only at the median and lower percentile outcomes. This produces an average which is specifically robust to downside risk. The result will look something like this: The exact results will depend on the expected risk and return of the portfolio, and the degree of risk aversion specified. The result is specifically valid for the case where you liquidate all of the portfolio at a specific point in time. For retirement, the glide path needs to be extended to take into account the fact that the portfolio will be liquidated gradually over time, and dynamically take into account the longevity risk of the individual. I can't say precisely why Vanguard's path is how it is.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6550eb8b1f267dd995068f20e63ae48f", "text": "My super fund and I would say many other funds give you one free switch of strategies per year. Some suggest you should change from high growth option to a more balance option once you are say about 10 to 15 years from retirement, and then change to a more capital guaranteed option a few years from retirement. This is a more passive approach and has benefits as well as disadvantages. The benefit is that there is not much work involved, you just change your investment option based on your life stage, 2 to 3 times during your lifetime. This allows you to take more risk when you are young to aim for higher returns, take a balanced approach with moderate risk and returns during the middle part of your working life, and take less risk with lower returns (above inflation) during the latter part of your working life. A possible disadvantage of this strategy is you may be in the higher risk/ higher growth option during a market correction and then change to a more balanced option just when the market starts to pick up again. So your funds will be hit with large losses whilst the market is in retreat and just when things look to be getting better you change to a more balanced portfolio and miss out on the big gains. A second more active approach would be to track the market and change investment option as the market changes. One approach which shouldn't take much time is to track the index such as the ASX200 (if you investment option is mainly invested in the Australian stock market) with a 200 day Simple Moving Average (SMA). The concept is that if the index crosses above the 200 day SMA the market is bullish and if it crosses below it is bearish. See the chart below: This strategy will work well when the market is trending up or down but not very well when the market is going sideways, as you will be changing from aggressive to balanced and back too often. Possibly a more appropriate option would be a combination of the two. Use the first passive approach to change investment option from aggressive to balanced to capital guaranteed with your life stages, however use the second active approach to time the change. For example, if you were say in your late 40s now and were looking to change from aggressive to balanced in the near future, you could wait until the ASX200 crosses below the 200 day SMA before making the change. This way you could capture the majority of the uptrend (which could go on for years) before changing from the high growth/aggressive option to the balanced option. If you where after more control over your superannuation assets another option open to you is to start a SMSF, however I would recommend having at least $300K to $400K in assets before starting a SMSF, or else the annual costs would be too high as a percentage of your total super assets.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28b5ddd17e812c9911fc68a3d4514b2b", "text": "I really like keshlam's answer. Your age is also a consideration. If you make your own target fund by matching the allocations of whatever Vanguard offers, I'd suggest re-balancing every year or every other year. But if you're just going to match the allocations of their target fund, you might as well just invest in the target fund itself. Most (not all, just most) target funds do not charge an additional management fee. So you just pay the fees of the underlying funds, same as if you mirrored the target fund yourself. (Check the prospectus to see if an additional fee is charged or not.) You may want to consider a more aggressive approach than the target funds. You can accomplish this by selecting a target fund later than your actual retirement age, or by picking your own allocations. The target funds become more conservative as you approach retirement age, so selecting a later target is a way of moving the risk/reward ratio. (I'm not saying target funds are necessarily the best choice, you should get professional advice, etc etc.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eee03650200f5d1f81afdedae2ae5dfb", "text": "At 22 years old, you can afford to be invested 100% in the stock market. Like many others, I recommend that you consider low cost index funds if those are available in your 401(k) plan. Since your 401(k) contributions are usually made with each paycheck this gives you the added benefit of dollar cost averaging throughout your career. There used to be a common rule that you should put 100 minus your age as the percentage invested in the stock market and the rest in bonds, but with interest rates being so low, bonds have underperformed, so many experts now recommend 110 or even 120 minus your age for stocks percentage. My recommendation is that you wait until you are 40 and then move 25% into bonds, then increase it to 40% at 55 years old. At 65 I would jump to a 50-50 stock/bonds mix and when you start taking distributions I would move to a stable-value income portfolio. I also recommend that you roll your funds into a Vanguard IRA when you change jobs so that you take advantage of their low management fee index mutual funds (that have no fees for trading). You can pick whatever mix feels best for you, but at your age I would suggest a 50-50 mix between the S&P 500 (large cap) and the Russell 2000 (small cap). Those with quarterly rebalancing will put you a little ahead of the market with very little effort.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ca387b896dec855ad681eb1d9ab8944", "text": "First, you should diversify your portfolio. If your entire portfolio is in the Roth IRA, then you should eventually diversify that. However, if you have an IRA and a 401k, then it's perfectly fine for the IRA to be in a single fund. For example, I used my IRA to buy a riskier REIT that my 401k doesn't support. Second, if you only have a small amount currently invested, e.g. $5500, it may make sense to put everything in a single fund until you have enough to get past the low balance fees. It's not uncommon for funds to charge lower fees to someone who has $8000, $10,000, or $12,000 invested. Note that if you deposit $10,000 and the fund loses money, they'll usually charge you the rate for less than $10,000. So try to exceed the minimum with a decent cushion. A balanced fund may make sense as a first fund. That way they handle the diversification for you. A targeted fund is a special kind of balanced fund that changes the balance over time. Some have reported that targeted funds charge higher fees. Commissions on those higher fees may explain why your bank wants you to buy. I personally don't like the asset mixes that I've seen from targeted funds. They often change the stock/bond ratio, which is not really correct. The stock/bond ratio should stay the same. It's the securities (stocks and bonds) to monetary equivalents that should change, and that only starting five to ten years before retirement. Prior to that the only reason to put money into monetary equivalents is to provide time to pick the right securities fund. Retirees should maintain about a five year cushion in monetary equivalents so as not to be forced to sell into a bad market. Long term, I'd prefer low-load index funds. A bond fund and two or three stock funds. You might want to build your balance first though. It doesn't really make sense to have a separate fund until you have enough money to get the best fees. 70-75% stocks and 25-30% bonds (should add to 100%, e.g. 73% and 27%). Balance annually when you make your new deposit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf1d1ea0e3677666ea9f6e49220977f5", "text": "\"RED FLAG. You should not be invested in 1 share. You should buy a diversified ETF which can have fees of 0.06% per year. This has SIGNIFICANTLY less volatility for the same statistical expectation. Left tail risk is MUCH lower (probability of gigantic losses) since losses will tend to cancel out gains in diversified portfolios. Moreover, your view that \"\"you believe these will continue\"\" is fallacious. Stocks of developed countries are efficient to the extent that retail investors cannot predict price evolution in the future. Countless academic studies show that individual investors forecast in the incorrect direction on average. I would be quite right to objectively classify you as a incorrect if you continued to hold the philosophy that owning 1 stock instead of the entire market is a superior stategy. ALL the evidence favours holding the market. In addition, do not invest in active managers. Academic evidence demonstrates that they perform worse than holding a passive market-tracking portfolio after fees, and on average (and plz don't try to select managers that you think can outperform -- you can't do this, even the best in the field can't do this). Direct answer: It depends on your investment horizon. If you do not need the money until you are 60 then you should invest in very aggressive assets with high expected return and high volatility. These assets SHOULD mainly be stocks (through ETFs or mutual funds) but could also include US-REIT or global-REIT ETFs, private equity and a handful of other asset classes (no gold, please.) ... or perhaps wealth management products which pool many retail investors' funds together and create a diversified portfolio (but I'm unconvinced that their fees are worth the added diversification). If you need the money in 2-3 years time then you should invest in safe assets -- fixed income and term deposits. Why is investment horizon so important? If you are holding to 60 years old then it doesn't matter if we have a massive financial crisis in 5 years time, since the stock market will rebound (unless it's a nuclear bomb in New York or something) and by the time you are 60 you will be laughing all the way to the bank. Gains on risky assets overtake losses in the long run such that over a 20-30 year horizon they WILL do much better than a deposit account. As you approach 45-50, you should slowly reduce your allocation to risky assets and put it in safe haven assets such as fixed income and cash. This is because your investment horizon is now SHORTER so you need a less risky portfolio so you don't have to keep working until 65/70 if the market tanks just before retirement. VERY IMPORTANT. If you may need the savings to avoid defaulting on your home loan if you lose your job or something, then the above does not apply. Decisions in these context are more vague and ambiguous.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "07f7202017432ca3558e5ec9494595bc", "text": "Current evidence is that, after you subtract their commission and the additional trading costs, actively managed funds average no better than index funds, maybe not as well. You can afford to take more risks at your age, assuming that it will be a long time before you need these funds -- but I would suggest that means putting a high percentage of your investments in small-cap and large-cap stock indexes. I'd suggest 10% in bonds, maybe more, just because maintaining that balance automatically encourages buy-low-sell-high as the market cycles. As you get older and closer to needing a large chunk of the money (for a house, or after retirement), you would move progressively more of that to other categories such as bonds to help safeguard your earnings. Some folks will say this an overly conservative approach. On the other hand, it requires almost zero effort and has netted me an average 10% return (or so claims Quicken) over the past two decades, and that average includes the dot-bomb and the great recession. Past results are not a guarantee of future performance, of course, but the point is that it can work quite well enough.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe51e686735147f0c35b913477796fe9", "text": "\"Its important to note that aggression, or better yet volatility, does not necessarily offer higher returns. One can find funds that have a high beta (measure of volatility) and lower performance then stock funds with a lower beta. Additionally, to Micheal's point, better performance could be undone by higher fees. Age is unimportant when deciding the acceptable volatility. Its more important as to when the money is to be available. If there might be an immediate need, or even less than a year, then stick to a savings account. Five years, some volatility can be accepted, if 10 years or more seek to maximize rate of return. For example assume a person is near retirement age. They are expected to have 50K per year expenses. If they have 250K wrapped up in CDs and savings, and another 250K in some conservative investments, they can, and should, be \"\"aggressive\"\" with any remaining money. On the contrary a person your age that is savings for a house intends to buy one in three years. Savings for the down payment should be pretty darn conservative. Something like 75% in savings accounts, and maybe 25% in some conservative investments. As the time to buy approaches they can pull the money out of the conservative investments at a optimal time. Also you should not be investing without an emergency fund in place. Get that done first, then look to invest. If your friend does not understand these basic concepts there is no point in paying for his advice.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
90de90f852a25aea7c4db0fce9958e18
Can I get a dumbed down explanation of risk measures used for evaluating stocks?
[ { "docid": "17f38c31a0e4926f6d8060a3b997e667", "text": "\"Standard deviation from Wikipedia : In statistics and probability theory, the standard deviation (represented by the Greek letter sigma, σ) shows how much variation or dispersion from the average exists.1 A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean (also called expected value); a high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values. In the case of stock returns, a lower value would indicate less volatility while a higher value would mean more volatility, which could be interpreted as high much change does the stock's price go through over time. Mean would be interpreted as if all the figures had to be the same, what would they be? So if a stock returns 10% each year for 3 years in a row, then 10% would be the mean or average return. Now, it is worth noting that there are more than a few calculations that may be done to derive a mean. First, there is the straight forward sum and division by the number of elements idea. For example, if the returns by year were 0%, 10%, and 20% then one may take the sum of 30% and divide by 3 to get a simple mean of 10%. However, some people would rather look at a Compound Annual Growth Rate which in this case would mean multiplying the returns together so 1*(1+.1)*(1+.2)=1.1*1.2=1.32 or 32% since there is some compounding here. Now, instead of dividing a cubic root is taken to get approximately 9.7% average annual return that is a bit lower yet if you compound it over 3 years it will get up to 32% as 10% compounded over 3 years would be 33.1% as (1.1)^3=1.331. Sharpe Ratio from Investopedia: A ratio developed by Nobel laureate William F. Sharpe to measure risk-adjusted performance. The Sharpe ratio is calculated by subtracting the risk-free rate - such as that of the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond - from the rate of return for a portfolio and dividing the result by the standard deviation of the portfolio returns. Thus, this is a way to think about given the volatility how much better did the portfolio do than the 10 year bond. R-squared, Alpha and Beta: These are all around the idea of \"\"linear regression\"\" modelling. The idea is to take some standard like say the \"\"S & P 500\"\" in the case of US stocks and see how well does the portfolio follow this and what if one were to use a linear model are the multipliers and addition components to it. R-squared can be thought of it as a measure as to how good is the fit on a scale of 0 to 1. An S & P 500 index fund may well have an R-squared of 1.00 or 0.99 to the index as it will track it extremely closely while other investments may not follow that well at all. Part of modern portfolio theory would be to have asset classes that move independently of each other and thus would have a lower R-squared so that the movement of the index doesn't indicate how an investment will do. Now, as for alpha and beta, do you remember the formula for a line in slope-intercept form, where y is the portfolio's return and x is the index's return: y=mx+b In this situation m is beta which is the multiple of the return, and b is the alpha or how much additional return one gets without the multiple. Going back to an index fund example, m will be near 1 and b will be near 0 and there isn't anything being done and so the portfolio's return computed based on the index's return is simply y=x. Other mutual funds may try to have a high alpha as this is seen as the risk-free return as there isn't the ups and downs of the market here. Other mutual funds may go for a high beta so that there is volatility for investors to handle.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "72105a8c2e27b34cc9735d02a2b58f63", "text": "If a market is efficient then risk/reward should be linear. In simple markets like stocks and bonds, everyone thinks the same way and the risk/reward calculation is simple, so everyone can have an accurate idea of the risk/reward ratio, unless the company has serious undisclosed problems. But in other markets like derivatives and mortgage bonds, few people understand what they're buying so the risks remain hidden. Someone might think a company will do well, so they buy an derivative on that company. But no one understands risk/reward calculations on derivatives, so the risk/reward on the derivative could be way off the price on the derivative.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58d12be977589164580793608e7d3fea", "text": "Also a layman, and I didnt read the article because it did the whole 'screw you for blocking my ads' thing. But judging from the title, I'd guess someone bought a massive amount of call options for VIX, the stock that tracks volatility in the market. Whenever the market crashes or goes through difficult times, the VIX fund prospers. The 'by october' part makes me think it was call options that he purchased: basically he paid a premium for each share (a fraction of the shares cost) for the right to buy that share at today's price, from now until october. So if the share increases in value, for each call option he has, he can buy one share at todays price, and sell it at the price it is that day. Options can catapult your profit into the next dimension but if the share decreases in value or even stays the same price, he loses everything. Vicious redditors, please correct the mistakes ive made here with utmost discrimination", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a542f5a5340c9199f4b22c4bd526ec4", "text": "\"The question is: how do you quantify investment risk? As Michael S says, one approach is to treat investment returns as a random variable. Bill Goetzmann (Yale finance professor) told me that if you accept that markets are efficient or that the price of an asset reflects it's underlying value, then changes in price represent changes in value, so standard deviation naturally becomes the appropriate measure for riskiness of an asset. Essentially, the more volatile an asset, the riskier it is. There is another school of thought that comes from Ben Graham and Warren Buffett, which says that volatility is not inherently risky. Rather, risk should be defined as the permanent loss of capital, so the riskiness of an asset is the probability of a permanent loss of capital invested. This is easy to do in casino games, based on basic probability such as roulette or slots. But what has been done with the various kinds of investment risks? My point is saying that certain bonds are \"\"low risk\"\" isn't good enough; I'd like some numbers--or at least a range of numbers--and therefore one could calculate expected payoff (in the statistics sense). Or can it not be done--and if not, why not? Investing is more art than science. In theory, a Triple-A bond rating means the asset is riskless or nearly riskless, but we saw that this was obviously wrong since several of the AAA mortgage backed securities (MBS) went under prior to the recent US recession. More recently, the current threat of default suggests that bond ratings are not entirely accurate, since US Treasuries are considered riskless assets. Investors often use bond ratings to evaluate investments - a bond is considered investment grade if it's BBB- or higher. To adequately price bonds and evaluate risk, there are too many factors to simply refer to a chart because things like the issuer, credit quality, liquidity risk, systematic risk, and unsystematic risk all play a factor. Another factor you have to consider is the overall portfolio. Markowitz showed that adding a riskier asset can actually lower the overall risk of a portfolio because of diversification. This is all under the assumption that risk = variance, which I think is bunk. I'm aware that Wall Street is nothing like roulette, but then again there must be some math and heavy economics behind calculating risk for individual investors. This is, after all, what \"\"quants\"\" are paid to do, in part. Is it all voodoo? I suspect some of it is, but not all of it. Quants are often involved in high frequency trading as well, but that's another note. There are complicated risk management products, such as the Aladdin system by BlackRock, which incorporate modern portfolio theory (Markowitz, Fama, Sharpe, Samuelson, etc) and financial formulas to manage risk. Crouhy's Risk Management covers some of the concepts applied. I also tend to think that when people point to the last x number of years of stock market performance, that is of less value than they expect. Even going back to 1900 provides \"\"only\"\" 110 years of data, and in my view, complex systems need more data than those 40,500 data points. 10,000 years' worth of data, ok, but not 110. Any books or articles that address these issues, or your own informed views, would be helfpul. I fully agree with you here. A lot of work is done in the Santa Fe Institute to study \"\"complex adaptive systems,\"\" and we don't have any big, clear theory as of yet. Conventional risk management is based on the ideas of modern portfolio theory, but a lot of that is seen to be wrong. Behavioral finance is introducing new ideas on how investors behave and why the old models are wrong, which is why I cannot suggest you study risk management and risk models because I and many skilled investors consider them to be largely wrong. There are many good books on investing, the best of which is Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Although not a book on risk solely, it provides a different viewpoint on how to invest and covers how to protect investments via a \"\"Margin of Safety.\"\" Lastly, I'd recommend Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein, which covers the history of risk and risk analysis. It's not solely a finance book but rather a fascinating historical view of risk, and it helps but many things in context. Hope it helps!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bedb312ce400331910fcd7c5eccf3b41", "text": "My reaction to this is that your observation @D.W. is spot on correct: It sounds like long-term market timing: trying to do a better job than the rest of the market at predicting, based upon a simple formula, whether the market is over-priced or under-priced. I read the post by the founder of Valuation Informed Indexing, Rob Bennet. Glance at the comments section. Rob clearly states that he doesn't even use his own strategy, and has not owned, nor traded, any stocks since 1996! As another commenter summarizes it, addressing Rob: This is 2011. You’ve been 100% out of stocks — including indexes — since 1996? That’s 15 years of taking whatever the bond market, CDs or TIPS will yield (often and currently less than 2%)... I’m curious how you defend not following your own program even as you recommend it for others? Rob basically says that stocks haven't shown the right signals for buying since 1996, so he's stuck with bonds, CD's and fixed-income instead. This is a VERY long-term horizon point of view (a bit of sarcasm edges in from me). Answering your more general question, what do I think of this particular Price/ Earnings based ratio as a way to signal asset allocation change i.e. Valuation Informed Investing? I don't like it much.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9031cd641767c4fa0b9f66906157836f", "text": "I think by definition there aren't, generally speaking, any indicators (as in chart indicators, I assume you mean) for fundamental analysis. Off the top of my head I can't think of one chart indicator that I wouldn't call 'technical', even though a couple could possibly go either way and I'm sure someone will help prove me wrong. But the point I want to make is that to do fundamental analysis, it is most certainly more time consuming. Depending on what instrument you're investing in, you need to have a micro perspective (company specific details) and a macro perspective (about the industry it's in). If you're investing in sector ETFs or the like, you'd be more reliant on the macro analysis. If you're investing in commodities, you'll need to consider macro analysis in multiple countries who are big producers/consumers of the item. There's no cut and dried way to do it, however I personally opt for a macro analysis of sector ETFs and then use technical analysis to determine my entry and/or exit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "140316a651354cc2875c8679cdd3187d", "text": "\"With every caveat that Rick said plus many many more lets have some fun. One common way to measure risk is volatility of returns roughly how much the value of your asset jumps around. Interestingly, the following ordering is fairly similar for many other common measures of risk. The first three on the list would be mostly interchangeable. Generally, putting your money in \"\"cash\"\" investments has no real day-to-day price variability and the main risk is that the bank won't give you your money back at the end. Money market funds are last as they can \"\"Break the buck\"\". To get a feel for the next few on the list I'm using previous 360 day volatility numbers for representative broad indices (asof 2014-10-27). While these volatility values can move around quite a bit, the order is actually remarkably stable. Hedge funds might seem out of place here, but remember that hedge funds can hold be long and short at the same time and this can cancel out daily variation. However, Hedge funds do have plenty of risks that may not be well accounted for by this measure. For derivatives I'll refer to back to Rick's answer. This is a measure for broad investment in these categories your particular investment in Long-term Capital Management or Argentine Bonds may vary. It is important to note that your return on your investment generally grows as you go toward more risky investments down this list as people generally expect to be rewarded in the long term for risky investments.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f70e124bf017400421257713171e9b1", "text": "\"Beta is the correct answer. It is THE measure of the risk relationship of a stock with the broad market. R squared is incorrect unless you mean something very odd by \"\"co-efficiency.\"\" A stock that goes up each time the market goes down has very low co-efficiency (negative risk as you have defined it) but very high R squared. A stock that goes the same direction as the market but twice as far (with a lot of noise) has a very low R squared but contains a lot of market risk. A stock that always goes in the same direction as the market but only a 100th as far is very safe but has a very high R squared. You can calculate beta using \"\"slope\"\" in excel or doing a regression, but the easiest thing is just to look up the beta in yahoo finance or elsewhere. You don't need to calculate it for yourself normally.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f40ce647ec1934ec570d35784baa2775", "text": "James Roth provides a partial solution good for stock picking but let's speed up process a bit, already calculated historical standard deviations: Ibbotson, very good collection of research papers here, examples below Books", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f214c7896e53e4033f83168ea3ed4c4", "text": "The value of a share depends on the value of the company, which involves a lot more than the value of its assets -- it requires making decisions about what you think will happen to the company in the future. That's inherently not something that can be reduced to a single formula, at least not unless you can figure out how to represent your guesses and your confidence in them in the formula ... and even if you could do all that it would only say what you think the stock is worth; others will be using different numbers and legitimately get different results. Disagreement over value is what the stock market is all about, I'm afraid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe9921a7843fe5fe58cfc9155f83a271", "text": "\"Modern portfolio theory dramatically underestimates the risk of the recommended assets. This is because so few underlying assets are in the recommended part of the curve. As investors identify such assets, large amounts of money are invested in them. This temporarily reduces measured risk, and temporarily increases measured return. Sooner or later, \"\"the trade\"\" becomes \"\"crowded\"\". Eventually, large amounts of money try to \"\"exit the trade\"\" (into cash or the next discovered asset). And so the measurable risk suddenly rises, and the measured return drops. In other words, modern portfolio theory causes bubbles, and causes those bubbles to pop. Some other strategies to consider:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7034b1830c9bba00e0fa8ff154ab84d5", "text": "\"Here's a dump from what I use. Some are a bit more expensive than those that you posted. The second column is the expense ratio. The third column is the category I've assigned in my spreadsheet -- it's how I manage my rebalancing among different classes. \"\"US-LC\"\" is large cap, MC is mid cap, SC is small cap. \"\"Intl-Dev\"\" is international stocks from developed economies, \"\"Emer\"\" is emerging economies. These have some overlap. I don't have a specific way to handle this, I just keep an eye on the overall picture. (E.g. I don't overdo it on, say, BRIC + Brazil or SPY + S&P500 Growth.) The main reason for each selection is that they provide exposure to a certain batch of securities that I was looking for. In each type, I was also aiming for cheap and/or liquid like you. If there are substitutes I should be looking at for any of these that are cheaper and/or more liquid, a comment would be great. High Volume: Mid Volume (<1mil shares/day): Low Volume (<50k shares/day): These provide enough variety to cover the target allocation below. That allocation is just for retirement accounts; I don't consider any other savings when I rebalance against this allocation. When it's time to rebalance (i.e. a couple of times a year when I realize that I haven't done it in several months), I update quotes, look at the percentages assigned to each category, and if anything is off the target by more than 1% point I will buy/sell to adjust. (I.e. if US-LC is 23%, I sell enough to get back to 20%, then use the cash to buy more of something else that is under the target. But if US-MC is 7.2% I don't worry about it.) The 1% threshold prevents unnecessary trading costs; sometimes if everything is just over 1% off I'll let it slide. I generally try to stay away from timing, but I do use some of that extra cash when there's a panic (after Jan-Feb '09 I had very little cash in the retirement accounts). I don't have the source for this allocation any more, but it is the result of combining a half dozen or so sample allocations that I saw and tailoring it for my goals.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1885e147e142cd6a0fdf6862afa5b80a", "text": "\"Specifically, what does my broker mean when they say an asset or investment strategy is high risk? In this context, it is a statement based on past events and probability. It is based on how confident s/he is that the investment will perform to certain benchmarks. This is a math question, primarily (with some opinion mixed in, granted). This is where the Sharpe ratio and others fit well. How am I supposed to answer a question like \"\"rate your risk tolerance from low to high\"\"? This is the hard question, as you have seen. In this context, risk tolerance is derived from your current position and future plans (goals). This is a planning, goal setting, and strategy question, primarily (with some math mixed in, granted). How vulnerable is your current position and future plans to an under-performing investment? If you answer \"\"very\"\", then you choose investments that have a lower probability of under-performing. The Sharpe ratio has little to do with answering this question. It is a tool to find investments that better match your answer to this question.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3221ea586106f111e68b463d6aeb1d53", "text": "Efficient Frontier has an article from years ago about the small-cap and value premiums out there that would be worth noting here using the Fama and French data. Eugene Fama and Kenneth French (F/F) have shown that one can explain almost all of the returns of equity portfolios based on only three factors: market exposure, market capitalization (size), and price-to-book (value). Wikipedia link to the factor model which was the result of the F/F research.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8731161a6898273a53243c67883b083f", "text": "That's exactly what immunofort is saying, and it lines up with established financial theory (well, some of it). The general argument is that stocks are priced according to what risks they're exposed to. Several (although not all) of the major financial economics theories propose (and find empirical evidence for this) that the market as whole is a risk factor, so individual stocks would be priced in part based on how correlated they are with the market. Strictly speaking, the risk free rate is purely theoretical and can't be directly observed, but the US T-bill yield is usually considered to be a pretty good proxy for it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9daac524bddb7ad59fcf8b78ff44ab6f", "text": "Since you seem determined to consider this, I'd like to break down for you why I believe it is an incredibly risky proposition: 1) In general, picking individual stocks is risky. Individual stocks are by their nature not diversified assets, and a single company-wide calamity (a la Volkswagen emissions, etc.) can create huge distress to your investments. The way to mitigate this risk is of course to diversify (invest in other types of assets, such as other stocks, index funds, bonds, etc.). However, you must accept that this first step does have risks. 2) Picking stocks on the basis of financial information (called 'fundamental analysis') requires a very large amount of research and time dedication. It is one of the two main schools of thought in equity investing (as opposed to 'technical analysis', which pulls information directly from stock markets, such as price volatility). This is something that professional investors do for a living - and that means that they have an edge you do not have, unless you dedicate similar resources to this task. That information imbalance between you and professional traders creates additional risk where you make determinations 'against the grain'. 3) Any specific piece of public information (and this is public information, regardless of how esoteric it is) may be considered to be already 'factored into' public stock prices. I am a believer in market efficiency first and foremost. That means I believe that anything publically known related to a corporation ['OPEC just lowered their oil production! Exxon will be able to increase their prices!'] has already been considered by the professional traders currently buying and selling in the market. For your 'new' information to be valuable, it would need to have the ability to forecast earnings in a way not already considered by others. 4) I doubt you will be able to find the true nature of the commercial impact of a particular event, simply by knowing ship locations. So what if you know Alcoa is shipping Aluminium to Cuba - is this one of 5 shipments already known to the public? Is this replacement supplies that are covering a loss due to damaged goods previously sent? Is the boat only 1/3 full? Where this information gets valuable, is when it gets to the level of corporate espionage. Yes, if you had ship manifests showing tons of aluminum being sold, and if this was a massive 'secret' shipment about to be announced at the next shareholders' meeting, you could (illegally) profit from that information. 5) The more massive the company, the less important any single transaction is. That means the super freighters you may see transporting raw commodities could have dozens of such ships out at any given time, not to mention news of new mine openings and closures, price changes, volume reports, etc. etc. So the most valuable information would be smaller companies, where a single shipment might cover a month of revenue - but such a small company is (a) less likely to be public [meaning you couldn't buy shares in the company and profit off of the information]; and (b) less likely to be found by you in the giant sea of ship information. In summary, while you may have found some information that provides insight into a company's operations, you have not shown that this information is significant and also unknown to the market. Not to mention the risks associated with picking individual stocks in the first place. In this case, it is my opinion that you are taking on additional risk not adequately compensated by additional reward.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
130935d96fbef4872fca91506d60bf5a
How do credit union loans and dividends vs interest work?
[ { "docid": "0a81e54ec0466d649d099e38a3d04afc", "text": "\"A credit Union makes loans exactly the same ways a bank does. A portion of the money deposited in checking, savings, money market, Certificate of Deposit, or IRA is then used to make loans for cars, boats, school, mortgages, 2nd mortgages, lines of credit... The government dictates the percentage of each type of deposit that must be held in reserve for non-loan transactions. The Credit Union members are the share holders of the \"\"company\"\". There are no investors in the \"\"company\"\" because the goal is not to make money. In general the entire package is better because there is no pressure to increase profits. Fees are generally lower because they are there to discourage bad behavior, not as a way to make a profit off of the bad behavior. Dividends/interest are treated the same way as bank interest. The IRS forms are the same, and it is reported the same way. Some of bizarre rules they have to follow: maximum number of transactions between accounts, membership rules, are there because banks want to make it harder to be a member of a credit union.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "ae148a4b9aca1e2103a1c57a04f56f16", "text": "This is great, thank you. Can you think of any cases where expected return is greater than interest payments (like in #2) but the best choice would still be raise money through equity issuing? My intuition tells me this may be possible for an expensive company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "564005dc162c72c98e107c637b036256", "text": "For bonds bought at par (the face value of the bond, like buying a CD for $1000) the payment it makes is the same as yield. You pay $1000 and get say, $40 per year or 4%. If you buy it for more or less than that $1000, say $900, there's some math (not for me, I use a finance calculator) to tell you your return taking the growth to maturity into account, i.e. the extra $100 you get when you get the full $1000 back. Obviously, for bonds, you care about whether the comp[any or municipality will pay you back at all, and then you care about how much you'll make when then do. In that order. For stocks, the picture is abit different as some companies give no dividend but reinvest all profits, think Berkshire Hathaway. On the other hand, many people believe that the dividend is important, and choose to buy stocks that start with a nice yield, a $30 stock with a $1/yr dividend is 3.3% yield. Sounds like not much, but over time you expect the company to grow, increase in value and increase its dividend. 10 years hence you may have a $40 stock and the dividend has risen to $1.33. Now it's 4.4% of the original investment, and you sit on that gain as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7515b32ac0cc666f93929353cfda8291", "text": "\"A) Yes, it does accomplish the goal of adding more money, but the money is in lieu of any return you can earn while the loan is outstanding. If you somehow knew exactly which periods where going to run negative, and you took a 401k loan during that time, you'd be in pretty good shape, but if you had that information you'd probably be ruling the world in short order and wouldn't care much about a measly 401k. B) It's a nice idea, but unfortunately you are not allowed to set your own interest rate. (If you could your idea would work perfectly.) The interest rate is bank specific, and is typically 1-2 points over prime. But if your plan was to leave your money sitting in cash or low interest bearing accounts anyway, the loan does actually achieve the goal of \"\"getting more money in there\"\". Though it's your money; you aren't \"\"earning\"\" it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c43154ddb4e4be53ad9e90ed10a0d33", "text": "My understanding of Muslim finance is that you may not lend money at interest, including investing in in things that pay interest. However you may still make investments: it just has to be in places where you get a share of profit, rather than a fixed rate of return. You would be better asking the Muslim community specifically for more details. The benefits of compound interest apply, more or less, to other non-fixed-interest investments. If you invest $1000 in a business and get a 10% rate of return, you have $1100 to invest in your next venture, which means it will be more profitable and so on. That's why the growth happens, not specifically because it is interest. Stocks do not pay interest, and the 'magic' applies to them too. The fact that you might lose as well as win complicates things, but doesn't change the principle.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f065b8be944fd034e311cad20e89a83e", "text": "I hear this a lot but how does it work exactly? Is it the more money you have in your share (savings) account the more weight your vote carries? Or does each member get one vote? I've been a credit union member for 15 years and have never had any say in anything. I also work for a small bank and both institutions are basically the same. My bank has better rates than my credit union on lended money but my CU pays higher rates on my money. My bank is also a publicly traded company and has regular meetings in which any shareholders can come voice their opinion, I've never heard anything about such activity with my credit union.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "99cc8912af7bb550771b1a511771da1d", "text": "The way I usually make this decision is to answer the following question: Do I think that I can earn a better return on my savings than the interest rate I would get on the loan? Yes= Get a loan No= Use the savings If you have your savings in a fixed income investment like a CD or bond, then it is just simple math to answer the question, for more volatile investments like stocks you just have to make an educated guess based on the direction of the markets and past performance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "390afd4dabff9fdbde3d42a41d0007ca", "text": "What the comments above say is true, but one more thing is there. FD rates are directly proportional to loan rates. However, banks make money because loan rates will always be higher than FD rates.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ebd1e3d7ec751240beb5d60f4ad6a05", "text": "\"In both cases, you have a bunch of assets that pay into a trust, and a set of rules determining how the payments are distributed to bond holders. Typically, the bonds are split up by \"\"Seniority\"\" where any losses from the underlying assets gets recognized by the least senior bond holder first, and the most senior is protected until those below in seniority are wiped out. In the case of mortgage backed securities, you have a lot of early payoffs (sales and refinances), and those payoffs tend to pay off the senior bonds first (though in practice, quite a bit more complicated than that) CDOs tend to have bonds as assets that pay into the trust, and CMOs have mortgages. CDOs used to be more likely to be things like corporate debt, or junk-rated debt. But during the housing bubble you did have CDOs backed by some form of mortgage backed bonds. If you build a CDO out of tranches of CMOs, you are going through multiple stages of tranching, and things 'get weird' when you have highly-correlated loss behavior in your underlying assets. The Equity position or the residual, as it is sometimes called, is whatever money coming from the underlying assets isn't owed to any bond after all of the structuring rules are followed. This would be interest received in excess to interest owed + money required to make up for lost principal. Typically goes back to the issuing bank. There is something called a NIM bond that gets carved out of the residual and pays to the investment bank, I gather. Residuals and NIMs of mortgage bonds are pretty worthless in a high loss environment like this.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1af8f838d7041ba6c1066ea564d306ff", "text": "\"In the case of mutual funds, Net Asset Value (NAV) is the price used to buy and sell shares. NAV is just the value of the underlying assets (which are in turn valued by their underlying holdings and future earnings). So if a fund hands out a billion dollars, it stands to reason their NAV*shares (market cap?) is a billion dollars less. Shareholder's net worth is equal in either scenario, but after the dividend is paid they are more liquid. For people who need investment income to live on, dividends are a cheap way to hold stocks and get regular payments, versus having to sell part of your portfolio every month. But for people who want to hold their investment in the market for a long long time, dividends only increase the rate at which you have to buy. For mutual funds this isn't a problem: you buy the funds and tell them to reinvest for free. So because of that, it's a prohibited practice to \"\"sell\"\" dividends to clients.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c0081f11b746bf57c7e9a1076671560", "text": "Basically, what you describe exists in many countries - not in the USA though. In Europe, people have checking accounts with allowed overdraft, typically three month net salaries. You can just this money any day as you like, and pay it back - completely or partially - any day as you like. Interest is calculated for each day on the amount used that day; and the collateral is 'future income', predicted / expected from previous income. In the USA, credit cards have taken its place, with stricter different rules and limitations. In addition, many of the extra rules in loans were invented to take advantage of the ignorance or situation of the borrower to make even more money. For example, applying extra payments to future due payments instead of to the principal makes that principal produce more interest while the extra payments just sit around.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7da8771edbf816b4663db5e5ab68588d", "text": "Stock basically implies your ownership in the company. If you own 1% ownership in a company, the value of your stake becomes equal to 1% of the valuation of the entire company. Dividends are basically disbursal of company's profits to its shareholders. By holding stocks of a company, you become eligible to receiving dividends proportional to your ownership in the company. Dividends though are not guaranteed, as the company may incur losses or the management may decide to use the cash for future growth instead of disbursing it to the shareholders. For example, let's say a company called ABC Inc, is listed on NYSE and has a total of 1 million shares issued. Let's say if you purchase 100 stocks of ABC, your ownership in ABC will become Let's say that the share price at the time of purchase was $10 each. Total Investment = Stock Price * Number of Stocks Purchased = $10 * 100 = $1,000 Now, let's say that the company declares a dividend of $1 per share. Then, Dividend Yield = Dividend/Stock Price = $1/$10 = 10% If one has to draw analogy with other banking products, one can think of stock and dividend as Fixed Deposits (analogous to stock) and the interest earned on the Fixed Deposit (analogous to dividend).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8be3295f5907cd4f9ef6088b87b6f3b4", "text": "Well for a start funds don't pay interest. If you pick an income-paying fund (as opposed to one that automatically reinvests any income for you) you will receive periodic income based on the dividends paid by the underlying stocks, but it won't be the steady predictable interest payment you might get from a savings account or fixed-rate security. This income is not guaranteed and will vary based on the performance of the companies making up the fund. It's also quite likely that the income by itself won't cover the interest on your mortgage. The gains from stock market investment come from a mixture of dividends and capital growth (i.e. the increase in the price of the shares). So you may have to sell units now and again or cover part of the interest payments from other income. You're basically betting that the after-tax returns from the fund will be greater than the mortgage interest rate you're paying. 3 facts: If you're comfortable with these 3 facts, go for it. If they're going to keep you awake at night, you might not want to take the risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa908a8d6e858642e3071789fcc63f55", "text": "This is a great question for understanding how futures work, first let's start with your assumptions The most interesting thing here is that neither of these things really matters for the price of the futures. This may seem odd as a futures contract sounds like you are betting on the future price of the index, but remember that the current price already includes the expectations of future earnings as well! There is actually a fairly simple formula for the price of a futures contract (note the link is for forward contracts which are very similar but slightly more simple to understand). Note, that if you are given the current price of the underlying the futures price depends essentially only on the interest rate and the dividends paid during the length of the futures contract. In this case the dividend rate for the S&P500 is higher than the prevailing interest rate so the futures price is lower than the current price. It is slightly more complicated than this as you can see from the formula, but that is essentially how it works. Note, this is why people use futures contracts to mimic other exposures. As the price of the future moves (pretty much) in lockstep with the underlying and sometimes using futures to hedge exposures can be cheaper than buying etfs or using swaps. Edit: Example of the effect of dividends on futures prices For simplicity, let's imagine we are looking at a futures position on a stock that has only one dividend (D) in the near term and that this dividend happens to be scheduled for the day before the futures' delivery date. To make it even more simple lets say the price of the stock is fairly constant around a price P and interest rates are near zero. After the dividend, we would expect the price of the stock to be P' ~ P - D as if you buy the stock after the dividend you wouldn't get that dividend but you still expect to get the rest of the value from additional future cash flows of the company. However, if we buy the futures contract we will eventually own the stock but only after the dividend happens. Since we don't get that dividend cash that the owners of the stock will get we certainly wouldn't want to pay as much as we would pay for the stock (P). We should instead pay about P' the (expected) value of owning the stock after that date. So, in the end, we expect the stock price in the future (P') to be the futures' price today (P') and that should make us feel a lot more comfortable about what we our buying. Neither owning the stock or future is really necessarily favorable in the end you are just buying slightly different future expected cash flows and should expect to pay slightly different prices.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c163002346e1c9b0d7922bbf4de10d4", "text": "I wrote about this a while back: http://blog.investraction.com/2006/10/mutual-funds-dividend-option-or-growth.html In short: Growth options of a mutual fund scheme don't pay out any money, they reinvest the dividend they receive. Dividend options pay out some money, at different intervals, based on the surplus they accumulate. In India, the options have very similar underlying portfolios, so HDFC Equity Fund (Growth) and HDFC Equity Fund (dividend) will have the same percentage allocation to each stock. Update: I also have a video you might want to see on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx8QtnccfZk", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04870e2e53ff714d4ec85e6dec4a22ee", "text": "One big difference: Interest is contracted. They can change the rate in the future but for any given time period you know what you're going to get. Dividends are based on how the company did, there is no agreed-upon amount.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
3851a0dbb852137cfae9a846e76c6b65
Main source of the shares/stocks data on the web
[ { "docid": "b94340d7663d11665594ef07fe307ca5", "text": "The main source is a direct feed from the stock market itself. The faster the feed, the more expensive. 15-minute delay is essentially free... and for those of us who do long-term investment is more than adequate. If you want data sooner, sign up with a brokerage that provides that service as part of what you're paying them for... and remember that every bit you spend on services is that much more profit you have to make just to break even, so there's a real tradeoff.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2e7091ecfe304bce4558075d5b464b1c", "text": "\"To expand on keshlam's answer: A direct feed does not involve a website of any kind. Each exchange publishes its order/trade feed(s) onto a packet network where subscribers have machines listening and reacting. Let's call the moment when a trade occurs inside an exchange's matching engine \"\"T0\"\". An exchange then publishes the specifics of that trade as above, and the moment when that information is first available to subscribers is T1. In some cases, T1 - T0 is a few microseconds; in other (notorious) cases, it can be as much as 100 milliseconds (100,000x longer). Because it's expensive for a subscriber to run a machine on each exchange's network -- and also because it requires a team of engineers devoted to understanding each exchange's individual publication protocols -- it seems unlikely that Google pays for direct access. Instead Google most likely pays another company who is a subscriber on each exchange around the world (let's say Reuters) to forward their incoming information to Google. Reuters then charges Google and other customers according to how fast the customer wants the forwarded information. Reuters has to parse the info it gets at T1, check it for errors, and translate it into a format that Google (and other customers) can understand. Let's say they finish all that work and put their new packets on the internet at time T2. Then the slow crawl across the internet begins. Some 5-100 milliseconds later your website of choice gets its pre-processed data at time T3. Even though it's preprocessed, your favorite website has to unpack the data, store it in some sort of database, and push it onto their website at time T4. A sophisticated website might then force a refresh of your browser at time T4 to show you the new information. But this forced refresh involves yet another slow crawl across the internet from where your website is based to your home computer, competing with your neighbor's 24/7 Netflix stream, etc. Then your browser (with its 83 plugins and banner ads everywhere) has to refresh, and you finally see the update at T5. So, a thousand factors come into play, but even assuming that Google is doing the most expensive and labor-intensive thing it can and that all the networks between you and Google and the exchange are as short as they can be, you're not going to hear about a trade -- even a massive, market-moving trade -- for anywhere from 500 milliseconds to 5 seconds after T0. And in a more realistic world that time will be 10-30 seconds. This is what Google calls \"\"Realtime\"\" on that disclaimer page, because they feel they're getting that info to you as fast as they possibly can (for free). Meanwhile, the computers that actually subscribe to an exchange heard about the trade way back at time T1 and acted on that information in a few microseconds. That's almost certainly before T2 and definitely way way before T3. The market for a particular instrument could change direction 5 times before Google even shows the first trade. So if you want true realtime access, you must subscribe to the exchange feed or, as keshlam suggests, sign up with a broker that provides its own optimized market feeds to you. (Note: This is not an endorsement of trading through brokers.)\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e5e09133cbc43f68cf3491c9243f3fac", "text": "The best source of financial statements would be from the company in question. On corporate websites of public listed companies, you can find such financial statements uploaded in the Investor's Relations section of their website. If their company does not have an online presence, another alternative would be to go to the website of the exchange the company is trading in (e.g. NYSE or NASDAQ) for financial data.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6785de13ddb0dbb31dddee8e6ca16c9", "text": "Reuters has a service you can subscribe to that will give you lots of Financial information that is not readily available in common feeds. One of the things you can find is the listing/delist dates of stocks. There are tools to build custom reports. That would be a report you could write. You can probably get the data for free through their rss feeds and on their website, but the custom reports is a paid feature. FWIW re-listing(listings that have been delisted but return to a status that they can be listed again) is pretty rare. And I can not think of too many(any actually) penny stocks that have grown to be listed on a major exchange.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e9f78b304262a787f28122f0e2865ff", "text": "I haven't seen one of these in quite some time. Back in the 1970s, maybe the 1980s, stock brokers would occasionally send their retail clients a complimentary copy once in a while. Also, I remember the local newspaper would offer a year-end edition for a few dollars (maybe $3) and that edition would include the newspaper company's name on the cover. They were very handy little guides measuring 5 1/2 x 8 (horizontal) with one line devoted to each company. They listed hundreds of publicly traded companies and had basic info on each company. As you stated, for further info you needed to go to the library and follow-up with the big S&P and/or Moody's manuals. That was long before the internet made such info available at the click of a button on a home computer!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5d52f458009e1d55a880e53e2925556", "text": "\"This functionality is widely available, not only on brokerage sites, but also financial management and even financial information sites. For instance, two of the latter are Google Finance and Yahoo Finance. If you are logged in, they let you create \"\"portfolios\"\" listing your stocks and, optionally, the size of your holdings in that stock (which you don't need if you are just \"\"watching\"\" a stock). Then you can visit the site at any time and see the current valuations.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6614c80a1bfd3d9994c53dd2e02b2ba", "text": "Try Google Finance Screener ; you will be able to filter for NASDAQ and NYSE exchanges.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf39c3a9e8e02af032360611ed716696", "text": "You're only counting one year. Let's say 30 years of data, minutewise, for 2,000 stocks, and 50 characters per data line. That's 1.5TB of data. Since the market has grown, that's an overestimate - 30 years ago there weren't 2,000 stocks in the NYSE - but it still gives us ballpark of roughly 1 TB. Not an easy download.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "244082b525c3e0b52022e26c339e7810", "text": "\"In the US, stocks are listed on one exchange but can be traded on multiple venues. You need to confirm exactly what your data is showing: a) trades on the primary-listed exchange; or b) trades made at any venue. Also, the trade condition codes are important. Only certain trade condition codes contribute towards the day's open/high/low/close and some others only contribute towards the volume data. The Consolidated Tape Association is very clear on which trades should contribute towards each value - but some vendors have their own interpretation (or just simply an erroneous interpretation of the specifications). It may surprise you to find that the majority of trading volume for many stocks is not on their primary-listed exchange. For example, on 2 Mar 2015, NASDAQ:AAPL traded a total volume across all venues was 48096663 shares but trading on NASDAQ itself was 12050277 shares. Trades can be cancelled. Some data vendors do not modify their data to reflect these busted trades. Some data vendors also \"\"snapshot\"\" their feed at a particular point in time of the data. Some exchanges can provide data (mainly corrections) 4-5 hours after the closing bell. By snapshotting the data too early and throwing away any subsequent data is a typical cause of data discrepancies. Some data vendors also round prices/volumes - but stocks don't just trade to two decimal places. So you may well be comparing two different sets of trades (with their own specific inclusion rules) against the same stock. You need to confirm with your data sources exactly how they do things. Disclosure: Premium Data is an end-of-day daily data vendor.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58508326ca40b024e9d896173d8c4094", "text": "Take a look at this: http://code.google.com/p/stock-portfolio-manager/ It is an open source project aimed to manage your stock portfolio.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d9fd9278d1df7eff6f2b32d543ed49d", "text": "I've had luck finding old stock information in the Google scanned newspaper archives. Unfortunately there does not appear to be a way to search exactly by date, but a little browsing /experimenting should get what you want. For instance, here's a source which shows the price to be 36 3/4 (as far as I can read anyway) on that date.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc791ff7f4a2e648915913f2f2bc62ae", "text": "Yup. What I wanted to know was where they are pulling it up from. Have casually used Google finance for personal investments, but they suck at corp actions. Not sure if they provide free APIs, but that would probably suck too! :D", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f88af7a8167c5d60b1d44913022efb1f", "text": "Ya, that's a lot of data - especially considering your relative lack of experience and the likely fact that you have no idea what to do with what you're given. How do you even know you need minute or tick-based bid-ask data? You can get a lot more than OHLC/V/Split/Dividend. You can get: * Book Value; * Dividend information (Amount, yield, ex date, pay date); * EBITDA; * EPS (current AND estimates); * Price/sales ratio; * Price/book value; * Price/earnings ratio; * PEG ratio; * Short ratio; * Market cap. Among other things, all for free.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46651b3b3476d6ee2c361efaaa80b1bb", "text": "It's difficult to compile free information because the large providers are not yet permitted to provide bulk data downloads by their sources. As better advertising revenue arrangements that mimic youtube become more prevalent, this will assuredly change, based upon the trend. The data is available at money.msn.com. Here's an example for ASX:TSE. You can compare that to shares outstanding here. They've been improving the site incrementally over time and have recently added extensive non-US data. Non-US listings weren't available until about 5 years ago. I haven't used their screener for some years because I've built my own custom tools, but I will tell you that with a little PHP knowledge, you can build a custom screener with just a few pages of code; besides, it wouldn't surprise me if their screener has increased in power. It may have the filter you seek already conveniently prepared. Based upon the trend, one day bulk data downloads will be available much like how they are for US equities on finviz.com. To do your part to hasten that wonderful day, I recommend turning off your adblocker on money.msn and clicking on a worthy advertisement. With enough revenue, a data provider may finally be seduced into entering into better arrangements. I'd much rather prefer downloading in bulk unadulterated than maintain a custom screener. money.msn has been my go to site for mult-year financials for more than a decade. They even provide limited 10-year data which also has been expanded slowly over the years.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43bdbf79a13a6c8e8d9b9fc4fface6b0", "text": "Bloomberg is really just a huge database. You can look up just about anything you need to know. Launchpad is much better than the old NW market monitors. The Excel API is useful. If it wasn't where all my brokers are I would consider something different like Eikon. It has some limitations but it's a useful system and parts of my job would be a pain without it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7978a163ea6fbead1bd037bcc1a14902", "text": "I also searched for some time before discovering Market Archive, which AFAIK is the most affordable option that basically gives you a massive multi-GB dump of data. I needed sufficient data to build a model and didn't want to work through an API or have to hand-pick the securities to train from. After trying to do this on my own by scraping Yahoo and using the various known tools, I decided my time was better spent not dealing with rate-limiting issues and parsing quirks and whatnot, so I just subscribed to Market Archive (they update the data daily).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f02a9257adc4e124ef1c014445d262a3", "text": "\"&gt; 41x92x1820mm 1.6\"\"x3.6\"\"x71.7\"\", which is more or less the same as in the US. 2\"\"x4\"\" is the rough cut board before drying and finishing. Anyone who regularly works with wood knows this. It's been the industry standard for decades.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a77a957090af8b1cef499174dafe62c1
Professional investment planning for small net-worth individual in bearish market
[ { "docid": "8f913c481b6e6bedab9ea544c959e216", "text": "You're going to have a hard time finding a legit investment planner that is willing to do things like take short-term positions in shorts, etc for a small investor. Doing so would put them at risk of getting sued by you for mismanagement and losing their license or affiliation with industry associations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "042f9a1692281b7268716120e19011d8", "text": "There is no magic bullet here. If you want professional management, because you think they know more about entry and exit points for short positions, have more time to monitor a position, etc... (but they might not) try a mutual fund or exchange traded fund that specializes in shorts. Note: a lot of these may not have done so well, your mileage may vary", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "1c007d2f764ed54de2b635b1ceb950c4", "text": "\"(Leaving aside the question of why should you try and convince him...) I don't know about a very convincing \"\"tl;dr\"\" online resource, but two books in particular convinced me that active management is generally foolish, but staying out of the markets is also foolish. They are: The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk by William Bernstein, and A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time Tested-Strategy for Successful Investing by Burton G. Malkiel Berstein's book really drives home the fact that adding some amount of a risky asset class to a portfolio can actually reduce overall portfolio risk. Some folks won a Nobel Prize for coming up with this modern portfolio theory stuff. If your friend is truly risk-averse, he can't afford not to diversify. The single asset class he's focusing on certainly has risks, most likely inflation / purchasing power risk ... and that risk that could be reduced by including some percentage of other assets to compensate, even small amounts. Perhaps the issue is one of psychology? Many people can't stomach the ups-and-downs of the stock market. Bernstein's also-excellent follow-up book, The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio, specifically addresses psychology as one of the pillars.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22b06c17c85ae6bd7f53ec84a3db119a", "text": "\"Not sure what your needs are or what NIS is: However here in the US a good choice for a single fund are \"\"Life Cycle Funds\"\". Here is a description from MS Money: http://www.msmoney.com/mm/investing/articles/life_cyclefunds.htm\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b683b5c56dadebd966fea31964fadf1", "text": "\"One alternative to bogleheadism is the permanent portfolio concept (do NOT buy the mutual fund behind this idea as you can easily obtain access to a low cost money market fund, stock index fund, and bond fund and significantly reduce the overall cost). It doesn't have the huge booms that stock plans do, but it also doesn't have the crushing blows either. One thing some advisers mention is success is more about what you can stick to than what \"\"traditionally\"\" makes sense, as you may not be able to stick to what traditionally makes sense (all people differ). This is an excellent pro and con critique of the permanent portfolio (read the whole thing) that does highlight some of the concerns with it, especially the big one: how well will it do in a world of high interest rates? Assuming we ever see a world of high interest rates, it may not provide a great return. The authors make the assumption that interest rates will be rising in the future, thus the permanent portfolio is riskier than a traditional 60/40. As we're seeing in Europe, I think we're headed for a world of negative interest rates - something in the past most advisers have thought was very unlikely. I don't know if we'll see interest rates above 6% in my lifetime and if I live as long as my father, that's a good 60+ years ahead. (I realize people will think this is crazy to write, but consider that people are willing to pay governments money to hold their cash - that's how crazy our world is and I don't see this changing.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "609df879e23f8bc656b9519af3778ac2", "text": "Many people have provided very good answers to this question and all the answers provide sound advice and justification. Below are some of my thoughts on the questions that you have put forward. 1) The investment manager question: The returns on your capital for a half year has been quite low; having said that, some investments do take more than half year to show some growth. You could try talking to your investment manager and ask where your money has been deployed and why the returns are low. If there are no real explanation given forth (which would be more likely as you have mentioned your investment manager does not like to discuss your money with you) you should conside Xolorus & Pete's advice and forthwith take all your money from investment manager and park it in the bank till you figure out what to do next with it. 2) Finances are not my forte: At 22 finance is nobodies forte, it takes longer than that; however having said that, how do you know finance is actually not your forte? Being a computer science graduate you would be more than comfortable with the mathematics required for finance. You may not have looked seriously at finance till now (I assume by your statement). Once way to be certain about this would be self learning, some good books have been refered above and there are online information, courses and articles on the Internet, for example here. You could give some spare time and explore if finance interests you or not. 3) If finance interests you: Then consider the 30K as your seed fund and take a small portion of it say 2K and try out your hand at investing on your own in the instruments that you feel most comfortable and see how you fare, you are young enough to take the risk. Rest of the money you could put in other low risk instruments (that you have identified through self study) 4) If finance does not interest you: The probably you are better off with an investment manager, as observed above, it will take some time for you to identify him/her 5) On returns: As mentioned above different instruments produce returns differently, however, one question that is universally asked is how much return on an invetment shoule one expect (you were expecting more than $12 on your investment). It is a difficult question to answer as invetment returns and investment needs depend on a persons financial goals and risk taking profile. One way to have some measure is to take 15-20 years CAGR of the stock index return and reduce it by 2-3%, that is (in many cases, not all) a reasonable return expectation in medium-long term.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0044b61fb390a15d42caa49119414285", "text": "I have had similar thoughts regarding alternative diversifiers for the reasons you mention, but for the most part they don't exist. Gold is often mentioned, but outside of 1972-1974 when the US went off the gold standard, it hasn't been very effective in the diversification role. Cash can help a little, but it also fails to effectively protect you in a bear market, as measured by portfolio drawdowns as well as std dev, relative to gov't bonds. There are alternative assets, reverse ETFs, etc which can fulfill a specific short term defensive role in your portfolio, but which can be very dangerous and are especially poor as a long term solution; while some people claim to use them for effective results, I haven't seen anything verifiable. I don't recommend them. Gov't bonds really do have a negative correlation to equities during periods in which equities underperform (timing is often slightly delayed), and that makes them more valuable than any other asset class as a diversifier. If you are concerned about rate increases, avoid LT gov't bond funds. Intermediate will work, but will take a few hits... short term bonds will be the safest. Personally I'm in Intermediates (30%), and willing to take the modest hit, in exchange for the overall portfolio protection they provide against an equity downturn. If the hit concerns you, Tips may provide some long term help, assuming inflation rises along with rates to some degree. I personally think Tips give up too much return when equity performance is strong, but it's a modest concern - Tips may suit you better than any other option. In general, I'm less concerned with a single asset class than with the long term performance of my total portfolio.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "64179b9abe526e78ade3da280069e512", "text": "You are likely thinking of a individual variable insurance contract (IVIC) , better known as a segregated fund, or a principal-protected note (PPN). For a segregated fund, to get a full guarantee on invested capital, you need a 100/100 where the maturity value and death benefit are each 100% guaranteed. The PPN works similar to a long-term GIC (or CD) with a variable investment component. The thing is, neither of these things are cheap and the cost structure that is built in behind them makes it difficult to make any real above market rates of return. In both cases, if you try to break the contracts early then the guarantees are null and void and you get out what you get out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee81a90148d0f963fa707fa0e5631b6c", "text": "\"The standard low-risk/gain very-short-term parking spot these days tends to be a money market account. However, you have only mentioned stock. For good balance, your portfolio should consider the bond market too. Consider adding a bond index fund to diversify the basic mix, taking up much of that 40%. This will also help stabilize your risk since bonds tend to move opposite stocks (prperhaps just because everyone else is also using them as the main alternative, though there are theoretical arguments why this should be so.) Eventually you may want to add a small amount of REIT fund to be mix, but that's back on the higher risk side. (By the way: Trying to guess when the next correction will occur is usually not a winning strategy; guesses tend to go wrong as often as they go right, even for pros. Rather than attempting to \"\"time the market\"\", pick a strategic mix of investments and rebalance periodically to maintain those ratios. There has been debate here about \"\"dollar-cost averaging\"\" -- see other answers -- but that idea may argue for investing and rebalancing in more small chunks rather than a few large ones. I generally actively rebalance once a year or so, and between those times let maintainng the balance suggest which fund(s) new money should go into -- minimal effort and it has worked quite well enough.,)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34cd5a23fbe463b0ccd510681344e33d", "text": "As observed above, 1.5% for 3 years is not attractive, and since due to the risk profile the stock market also needs to be excluded, there seems about 2 primary ways, viz: fixed income bonds and commodity(e,g, gold). However, since local bonds (gilt or corporate) are sensitive and follow the central bank interest rates, you could look out investing in overseas bonds (usually through a overseas gilt based mutual fund). I am specifically mentioning gilt here as they are government backed (of the overseas location) and have very low risk. Best would be to scout out for strong fund houses that have mutual funds that invest in overseas gilts, preferably of the emerging markets (as the interest is higher). The good fund houses manage the currency volatility and can generate decent returns at fairly low risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d5c59181eaa85ca83e4e9e3a625e3d94", "text": "This decision depends upon a few things. I will list a couple:- 1.) What is your perception about financial markets in your time span of investments? 2.) What kind of returns are you expecting? 3.) How much liquidity do you have to take care of your daily/monthly expenses? 1.)If your perception about financial markets is weak for the near future, do not invest all your money in a mutual fund at 1 time. Because, if the market falls drastically, chances are that your fund will also lose a lot of money and the NAV will go down. On the other hand, if you think it is strong, go ahead and invest all at one time. 2.) If you are expecting very high returns in a short time frame, then SIP might not be a very good option as you are only investing a portion of your money. So, if the market goes higher, then you will make money only on what you have invested till date and also buy into the fund in the upcoming month at a higher rate( So you will get less units). 3.) If you put all your money into a mutual fund, will you have enough money to take care of your daily needs and emergencies? The worst thing about an investment is putting in all what you have and then being forced to sell in a bear market at a lower rate because you really require the money. Other option is taking a personal loan(15-16%) and taking care of your daily needs, but that would not make sense either as the average return that you can expect from a mutual fund in India is 12-13%. To summarize:- 1.) If you have money to spare and think the market is going to go higher, a mutual fund is a better option. 2.) If you have the money to spare and think that the market is going to fall, DON'T DO ANYTHING!.(It is always better to be even than lose). 3.) If you don't have the money and don't know about markets, but want to be part of it, then you can invest in an SIP because the advantages of this are if the market goes high, you make money on what you've put it, and if the market falls, you get to buy more units of the fund for a cheaper price. Eventually, you can expect to make a return of 14-15% on these, but again, INVESTMENTS ARE SUBJECT TO MARKET RISK! Please watch the funds average return over the last 10 years and their portfolio holdings. All the best!:) PS:- I am assuming you are talking about equity funds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2268cd97ad96813139a7a735fb5a81c3", "text": "Unfortunately, that's a call only you can make and whichever route you choose comes with advantages and disadvantages. If you manage your money directly, you may significantly reduce costs (assuming that you don't frequently trade index funds or you use a brokerage like RobinHood) and take advantage of market returns if the indexes perform well. On the other hand, if the market experiences some bad years, a professional might (and this is a huge might) have more self-discipline and prevent a panic sell, or know how to allocate accordingly both before and after a rise or fall (keep in mind, investors often get too greedy for their own good, like they tend to panic at the wrong time). As an example of why this might is important: one family member of mine trusted a professional to do this and they failed; they bought in a rising market and sold in a falling market. To avoid the above example, if you do go with the professional service, the best course of action is to look at their track record; if they're new, you might be better on your own. Since I assume this one or more professionals at the company, testing to see what they've recommended over the years might help you evaluate if they're offering you a good choice. Finally, depending on how much money you have, you could always do what Scott Adams did: he took a portion of his own money and managed it himself and tested how well he did vs. how well his professional team did (if I recall, I believe he came out ahead of his professional team). With two decades left, that may help guide you the rest of the way, even through retirement.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c045370f584af27f067804285d8c044", "text": "It's hard to say for smaller cap firms because they are all so different. Take a look at SandP or other rating agencies at about the BB range. Then decide how much of a buffer you'd like. If all goes to hell, do you want to be able to cover all you salaries, debt etc for three months? Six? What kind of seasonal volatility does your industry face? Do you plan on any significant investment or FTE uplift any time soon? This will all play into how much retained earnings you will chose to have.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "816947f3eceb4fe3417ce1673e77d6ea", "text": "\"If you want a Do-It-Yourself solution, look to a Vanguard account with their total market index funds. There's a lot of research that's been done recently in the financial independence community. Basically, there's not many money managers who can outperform the market index (either S&P 500 or a total market index). Actually, no mutual funds have been identified that outperform the market, after fees, consistently. So there's not much sense in paying someone to earn you less than a low fee index fund could do. And some of the numbers show that you can actually lose value on your 401k due to high fees. That's where Vanguard comes in. They offer some of the lowest fees (if not the lowest) and a selection of index funds that will let you balance your portfolio the way you want. Whether you want to go 100% total stock market index fund or a balance between total stock market index fund and total bond index fund, or a \"\"lazy 3 fund portfolio\"\", Vanguard gives you the tools to do it yourself. Rebalancing would require about an hour every quarter. (Or time span you declare yourself). jlcollinsnh A Simple Path to Wealth is my favorite blog about financial independence. Also, Warren Buffet recommended that the trustees for his wife's inheritance when he passes invest her trust in one investment. Vanguard's S&P500 index fund. The same fund he chose in a 10 year $1M bet vs. hedge fund managers. (proceeds go to charity). That was about 9 years ago. So far, Buffet's S&P500 is beating the hedge funds. Investopedia Article\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "733bdfd0269c974184d15a1ad82c5f9a", "text": "For a non-technical investor (meaning someone who doesn't try to do all the various technical analysis things that theoretically point to specific investments or trends), having a diverse portfolio and rebalancing it periodically will typically be the best solution. For example, I might have a long-term-growth portfolio that is 40% broad stock market fund, 40% (large) industry specific market funds, and 20% bond funds. If the market as a whole tanks, then I might end up in a situation where my funds are invested 30% market 35% industry 35% bonds. Okay, sell those bonds (which are presumably high) and put that into the market (which is presumably low). Now back to 40/40/20. Then when the market goes up we may end up at 50/40/10, say, in which case we sell some of the broad market fund and buy some bond funds, back to 40/40/20. Ultimately ending up always selling high (whatever is currently overperforming the other two) and buying low (whatever is underperforming). Having the industry specific fund(s) means I can balance a bit between different sectors - maybe the healthcare industry takes a beating for a while, so that goes low, and I can sell some of my tech industry fund and buy that. None of this depends on timing anything; you can rebalance maybe twice a year, not worrying about where the market is at that exact time, and definitely not targeting a correction specifically. You just analyze your situation and adjust to make everything back in line with what you want. This isn't guaranteed to succeed (any more than any other strategy is), of course, and has some risk, particularly if you rebalance in the middle of a major correction (so you end up buying something that goes down more). But for long-term investments, it should be fairly sound.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6133f6d083b06457fb1454a44b740a51", "text": "These scenarios discuss the period to 2025. They assess the deep uncertainty that is paralysing decision-taking. They identify the roots of this as the failure of the social model on which the West has operated since the 1920s. Related and pending problems imply that this situation is not recoverable without major change: for example, pensions shortfalls are greater in real terms that entire expenditure on World War II, and health care and age support will treble that. Due to the prolonged recession, competition will impact complex industries earlier than expected. Social responses which seek job protection, the maintenance of welfare and also support in old age will tear at the social fabric of the industrial world. There are ways to meet this, implying a major change in approach, and a characteristic way in which to fail to respond to it in time, creating a dangerous and unstable world. The need for such change will alter the social and commercial environment very considerably. The absence of such change will alter it even more. The summary is available [here](http://www.chforum.org/scenario2012/paper-4-6.shtml) or at the foot of the link given in the header. The much richer paper is [here](http://www.chforum.org/scenario2012/paper-4-1.shtml). These scenarios are the latest in a series in a project that dates back to 1995. Over a hundred people participated from every continent, over a six month period. The working documents are available on the web.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8466c5005eb2bad187a712362c942f99", "text": "\"Don't ignore it. If this is a non-trivial amount of money you need a lawyer. You've acknowledged that a loan exists and have personally guaranteed it, so a court can and will ultimately order you to pay. In doing so, they can put liens on your assests. Depending on the state, how the property is titled and other factors, that can include your home. If you don't have the money and are pretty much broke, try to negotiate a settlement. If they balk, you'll eventually need to start talking about bankruptcy -- that's the \"\"nuclear option\"\" and a motivator to settle. Otherwise, you need to either seriously explore bankruptcy or be prepared to lose your stuff to a judgement and having your dirty laundry aired in court. If you're not broke, but don't have liquid capital, you need to figure out a way to raise the money somehow. Again, you need to consult an attorney.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
06c8110c96117073518852c2dcd59b01
Put on a put option
[ { "docid": "34496eab57952e94977ad49daae7fb34", "text": "I doubt that this exists, but it could theoretically. After all, a share is kind of an option to a company's future success, and so a call is already a second level on indirection. The better approach would be to 'create your own Put-Puts', by investing less money (A) in the Put you wanted to invest into, and put the smaller rest (B) in the share itself or a Call. That way, if the original Put is successful, at max (B) is lost, and if it is unsuccessful, the loss on (A) is covered by a gain on (B). Potentially, if you do the math, you can reach a mathematical equivalent situation to a Put-Put by buying the right amount and kind of Calls. However, we know already that buying a Put and a Call is a poor strategy, so that would mean a Put-Put would also be a poor strategy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2631eae9633f063f2dc1e9802e506444", "text": "If you look at it from the hedging perspective, if you're unsure you're going to need to hedge but want to lock in an option premium price if you do need to do so, I could see this making sense.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "fcd9990896be0b5c627ec5da25a4af72", "text": "I think George's answer explains fairly well why the brokerages don't allow this - it's not an exchange rule, it's just that the brokerage has to have the shares to lend, and normally those shares come from people's margin, which is impossible on a non-marginable stock. To address the question of what the alternatives are, on popular stocks like SIRI, a deep In-The-Money put is a fairly accurate emulation of an actual short interest. If you look at the options on SIRI you will see that a $3 (or higher) put has a delta of -$1, which is the same delta as an actual short share. You also don't have to worry about problems like margin calls when buying options. The only thing you have to worry about is the expiration date, which isn't generally a major issue if you're buying in-the-money options... unless you're very wrong about the direction of the stock, in which case you could lose everything, but that's always a risk with penny stocks no matter how you trade them. At least with a put option, the maximum amount you can lose is whatever you spent on the contract. With a short sale, a bull rush on the stock could potentially wipe out your entire margin. That's why, when betting on downward motion in a microcap or penny stock, I actually prefer to use options. Just be aware that option contracts can generally only move in increments of $0.05, and that your brokerage will probably impose a bid-ask spread of up to $0.10, so the share price has to move down at least 10 cents (or 10% on a roughly $1 stock like SIRI) for you to just break even; definitely don't attempt to use this as a day-trading tool and go for longer expirations if you can.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfe07a5e0fcc828bbcbcfe452ecd4d1b", "text": "The risk situation of the put option is the same whether you own the stock or not. You risk $5 and stand to gain 0 to $250 in the period before expiration (say $50 if the stock reaches $200 and you sell). Holding the stock or not changes nothing about that. What is different is the consideration as to whether or not to buy a put when you own the stock. Without an option, you are holding a $250 asset (the stock), and risking that money. Should you sell and miss opportunity for say $300? Or hold and risk loss of say $50 of your $250? So you have $250 at risk, but can lock in a sale price of $245 for say a month by buying a put, giving you opportunity for the $300 price in that month. You're turning a risk of losing $250 (or maybe only $50 more realistically) into a risk of losing only $5 (versus the price your stock would get today).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d07b7887dc667881835e9251cf86b105", "text": "&gt; The only problem I see with stock options is that they expire You're on to something: the reason why some prefer to write (sell) options instead of buying. Neutral to bullish on crude oil? Sell puts on /CL at 90-95% probability OTM. You keep your money if the underlying moves up or does nothing, within the days to expiration.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d3024badcf485a7f35871a15bc54bf9", "text": "\"The question you are asking concerns the exercise of a short option position. The other replies do not appear to address this situation. Suppose that Apple is trading at $96 and you sell a put option with a strike price of $95 for some future delivery date - say August 2016. The option contract is for 100 shares and you sell the contract for a premium of $3.20. When you sell the option your account will be credited with the premium and debited with the broker commission. The premium you receive will be $320 = 100 x $3.20. The commission you pay will depend on you broker. Now suppose that the price of Apple drops to $90 and your option is exercised, either on expiry or prior to expiry. Then you would be obliged to take delivery of 100 Apple shares at the contracted option strike price of $95 costing you $9,500 plus broker commission. If you immediately sell the Apple shares you have purchased under your contract obligations, then assuming you sell the shares at the current market price of $90 you would realise a loss of $500 ( = 100x($95-$90) )plus commission. Since you received a premium of $320 when you sold the put option, your net loss would be $500-$320 = $180 plus any commissions paid to your broker. Now let's look at the case of selling a call option. Again assume that the price of Apple is $96 and you sell a call option for 100 shares with a strike price of $97 for a premium of $3.60. The premium you receive would be $360 = 100 x $3.60. You would also be debited for commission by your broker. Now suppose that the price of Apple shares rises to $101 and your option is exercised. Then you would be obliged to deliver 100 Apple shares to the party exercising the option at the contracted strike price of $97. If you did not own the shares to effect delivery, then you would need to purchase those shares in the market at the current market price of $101, and then sell them to the party exercising the option at the strike price of $97. This would realise an immediate loss of $400 = 100 x ($101-$97) plus any commission payable. If you did own the shares, then you would simply deliver them and possibly pay some commission or a delivery fee to your broker. Since you received $360 when you sold the option, your net loss would be $40 = $400-$360 plus any commission and fees payable to the broker. It is important to understand that in addition to these accounting items, short option positions carry with them a \"\"margin\"\" requirement. You will need to maintain a margin deposit to show \"\"good faith\"\" so long as the short option position is open. If the option you have sold moves against you, then you will be called upon to put up extra margin to cover any potential losses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ffa363ff5c09f42ad29c604cfe28039c", "text": "The option is exercised. The option is converted into shares. That is an optional condition in closing that contract, hence why they are called options.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9206602b5c6fff91a1d1f861cc514265", "text": "\"Cart's answer describes well one aspects of puts: protective puts; which means using puts as insurance against a decline in the price of shares that you own. That's a popular use of puts. But I think the wording of your question is angling for another strategy: Writing puts. Consider: Cart's strategy refers to the buyer of a put. But, on the transaction's other side is a seller of the put – and ultimately somebody created or wrote that put contract in the first place! That first seller of the put – that is, the seller that isn't just selling one they themselves bought – is the put writer. When you write a put, you are taking on the obligation to buy the other side's stock at the put exercise price if the stock price falls below that exercise price by the expiry date. For taking on the obligation, you receive a premium, like how an insurance company charges a premium to insure against a loss. Example: Imagine ABC Co. stock is trading at $25.00. You write a put contract agreeing to buy 100 shares of ABC at $20.00 per share (the exercise price) by a given expiration date. Say you receive $2.00/share premium from the put buyer. You now have the obligation to purchase the shares from the put buyer in the event they are below $20.00 per share when the option expires – or, technically any time before then, if the buyer chooses to exercise the option early. Assuming no early assignment, one of two things will happen at the option expiration date: ABC trades at or above $20.00 per share. In this case, the put option will expire worthless in the hands of the put buyer. You will have pocketed the $200 and be absolved from your obligation. This case, where ABC trades above the exercise price, is the maximum profit potential. ABC trades below $20.00 per share. In this case, the put option will be assigned and you'll need to fork over $2000 to the put buyer in exchange for his 100 ABC shares. If those shares are worth less than $18.00 in the market, then you've suffered a loss to the extent they are below that price (times 100), because remember – you pocketed $200 premium in the first place. If the shares are between $18.00 to $20.00, you're still profitable, but not to the full extent of the premium received. You can see that by having written a put it's possible to acquire ABC stock at a price lower than the market price – because you received some premium in the process of writing your put. If you don't \"\"succeed\"\" in acquiring shares on your first write (because the shares didn't get below the exercise price), you can continue to write puts and collect premium until you do get assigned. I have read the book \"\"Money for Nothing (And Your Stocks for FREE!)\"\" by Canadian author Derek Foster. Despite the flashy title, the book essentially describes Derek's strategy for writing puts against dividend-paying value stocks he would love to own. Derek picks quality companies that pay a dividend, and uses put writing to get in at lower-than-market prices. Four Pillars reviewed the book and interviewed Derek Foster: Money for Nothing: Book Review and Interview with Derek Foster. Writing puts entails risk. If the stock price drops to zero then you'll end up paying the put exercise price to acquire worthless shares! So your down-side can easily be multiples of the premium collected. Don't do this until and unless you understand exactly how this works. It's advanced. Note also that your broker isn't likely to permit you to write puts without having sufficient cash or margin in your account to cover the case where you are forced to buy the stock. You're better off having cash to secure your put buys, otherwise you may be forced into leverage (borrowing) when assigned. Additional Resources: The Montreal Exchange options guide (PDF) that Cart already linked to is an excellent free resource for learning about options. Refer to page 39, \"\"Writing secured put options\"\", for the strategy above. Other major options exchanges and organizations also provide high-quality free learning material:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "881d9743c9290902d46440ea7dadc826", "text": "This is a snapshot of the Jan '17 puts for XBI, the biotech index. The current price is $65.73. You can see that even the puts far out of the money are costly. The $40 put, if you get a fill at $3, means a 10X return if the index drops to $10. A 70X return for a mild, cyclic, drop isn't likely to happen. Sharing youtube links is an awful way to ask a question. The first was far too long to waste my time. The second was a reasonable 5 minutes, but with no example, only vague references to using puts to protect you in bad years. Proper asset allocation is more appropriate for the typical investor than any intricate option-based hedging strategy. I've successfully used option strategies on the up side, multiplying the returns on rising stocks, but have never been comfortable creating a series of puts to hit the jackpot in an awful year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe2d92ad24ac168a27b7be79ec6c04e9", "text": "\"You're forgetting the fundamental issue, that you never have to actually exercise the options you buy. You can either sell them to someone else or, if they're out of the money, let them expire and take the loss. It isn't uncommon at all for people to buy both a put and call option (this is a \"\"straddle\"\" when the strike price of both the put and call are the same). From Investopedia.com: A straddle is an options strategy in which the investor holds a position in both a call and put with the same strike price and expiration date, paying both premiums. This strategy allows the investor to make a profit regardless of whether the price of the security goes up or down, assuming the stock price changes somewhat significantly. Read more: Straddle http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/straddle.asp#ixzz4ZYytV0pT\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "524afee62b9dc9c8606c83b85562b9b0", "text": "Put options are basically this. Buying a put option gives you the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying security at a certain date for a fixed price, no matter its current market value at that time. However, markets are largely effective, and the price of put options is such that if you bought them to cover you the whole time, you would on average pay more than you'd gain from the underlying security. There is no such thing as a risk-free investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6a90c268daabff60f9717e9e8d84869", "text": "Options, both puts and calls, are typically written/sold at different strike prices. For example, even though the stock of XYZ is currently trading at $12.50, there could be put options for prices ranging from $0.50 to $30.00, just as an example. There are several factors that go into determining the strike prices at which people are willing to write options. The writer/seller of an option is the person on the other side of the trade that has the opposite opinion of you. If you are interested in purchasing a put on a stock to hedge your downside, that means the writer/seller of the put is betting that you are wrong and that the stock price will rise instead.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9079ee498ba4f1d27f37c3bc2a997928", "text": "Someone already mentioned that this is a risk-reversal, but as an aside, in the vol market (delta-hedged options) this is a fundamental skew trade. (buying calls, selling puts or vice versa). Initially vega neutral, the greek that this trade largely isolates is vanna (dvega/dspot or ddelta/dvol).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "388c7482b2633eb9ef23f43a18b04792", "text": "\"No. The more legs you add onto your trade, the more commissions you will pay entering and exiting the trade and the more opportunity for slippage. So lets head the other direction. Can we make a simple, risk-free option trade, with as few legs as possible? The (not really) surprising answer is \"\"yes\"\", but there is no free lunch, as you will see. According to financial theory any riskless position will earn the risk free rate, which right now is almost nothing, nada, 0%. Let's test this out with a little example. In theory, a riskless position can be constructed from buying a stock, selling a call option, and buying a put option. This combination should earn the risk free rate. Selling the call option means you get money now but agree to let someone else have the stock at an agreed contract price if the price goes up. Buying the put option means you pay money now but can sell the stock to someone at a pre-agreed contract price if you want to do so, which would only be when the price declines below the contract price. To start our risk free trade, buy Google stock, GOOG, at the Oct 3 Close: 495.52 x 100sh = $49,552 The example has 100 shares for compatibility with the options contracts which require 100 share blocks. we will sell a call and buy a put @ contract price of $500 for Jan 19,2013. Therefore we will receive $50,000 for certain on Jan 19,2013, unless the options clearing system fails, because of say, global financial collapse, or war with Aztec spacecraft. According to google finance, if we had sold a call today at the close we would receive the bid, which is 89.00/share, or $8,900 total. And if we had bought a put today at the close we would pay the ask, which is 91.90/share, or $9190 total. So, to receive $50,000 for certain on Jan 19,2013 we could pay $49,552 for the GOOG stock, minus $8,900 for the money we received selling the call option, plus a payment of $9190 for the put option we need to protect the value. The total is $49,842. If we pay $49,842 today, plus execute the option strategy shown, we would have $50,000 on Jan 19,2013. This is a profit of $158, the options commissions are going to be around $20-$30, so in total the profit is around $120 after commissions. On the other hand, ~$50,000 in a bank CD for 12 months at 1.1% will yield $550 in similarly risk-free interest. Given that it is difficult to actually make these trades simultaneously, in practice, with the prices jumping all around, I would say if you really want a low risk option trade then a bank CD looks like the safer bet. This isn't to say you can't find another combination of stock and contract price that does better than a bank CD -- but I doubt it will ever be better by very much and still difficult to monitor and align the trades in practice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a1a98051b627a029a57786061576c51", "text": "\"Options have legitimate uses as a way of hedging a bet, but in the hands of anyone but an expert they're gambling, not investing. They are EXTREMELY volatile compared to normal stocks, and are one of the best ways to lose your shirt in the stock market yet invented. How options actually work is that you're negotiating a promise that, at some future date or range of dates, they will let you purchase some specific number of shares (call), or they will let you sell them that number of shares (put), at a price specified in the option contract. The price you pay (or are paid) to obtain that contract depends on what the option's seller thinks the stock is likely to be worth when it reaches that date. (Note that if you don't already own the shares needed to back up a put option, you're promising to pay whatever it takes to buy those shares so you can sell them at the agreed upon price.) Note that by definition you're betting directly against experts, as opposed to a normal investment where you're usually trying to ride along with the experts. You are claiming that you can predict the future value of the stock better than they can, and that you will make a profit (on the difference between the value locked in by the option and the actual value at that time) which exceeds the cost of purchasing the option in the first place. Let me say that again: the option's price will have been set based on an expert's opinion of what the stock is likely to do in that time. If they think that it's really likely to be up $10 per share when the option comes due (really unlikely for a $20 stock!!!), they will try to charge you almost $10 per share to purchase the option at the current price. \"\"Almost\"\" because you're giving them a guaranteed profit now and assuming all the risk. If they're less sure it will go up that much, you'll pay less for the option -- but again, you're giving them hard money now and betting that you can predict the probabilities better than they can. Unless you have information that the experts don't have -- in which case you're probably committing insider trading -- this is a very hard bet to win. And it can be extremely misleading, since the price during the option period may cross back and forth over the \"\"enough that you'll make a profit\"\" line many times. Until you actually commit to exercising the option or not, that's all imaginary money which may vanish the next minute. Unless you are willing and able to invest pro-level resources in this, you'd probably get better odds in Atlantic City, and definitely get better odds in Las Vegas. If you don't see the sucker at the poker table, he's sitting in your seat. And betting against the guy who designed and is running the game is usually Not a Good Idea.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d64699c18a0229bfc509a26b3a4c0d2", "text": "\"As I stated in my comment, options are futures, but with the twist that you're allowed to say no to the agreed-on transaction; if the market offers you a better deal on whatever you had contracted to buy or sell, you have the option of simply letting it expire. Options therefore are the insurance policy of the free market. You negotiate a future price (actually you usually take what you can get if you're an individual investor; the institutional fund managers get to negotiate because they're moving billions around every day), then you pay the other guy up front for the right of refusal later. How much you pay depends on how likely the person giving you this option is to have to make good on it; if your position looks like a sure thing, an option's going to be very expensive (and if it's such a sure thing, you should just make your move on the spot market; it's thus useful to track futures prices to see where the various big players are predicting that your portfolio will move). A put option, which is an option for you to sell something at a future price, is a hedge against loss of value of your portfolio. You can take one out on any single item in your portfolio, or against a portion or even your entire portfolio. If the stock loses value such that the contract price is better than the market price as of the delivery date of the contract, you execute the option; otherwise, you let it expire. A call option, which is an option to buy something at a future price, is a hedge against rising costs. The rough analog is a \"\"pre-order\"\" in retail (but more like a \"\"holding fee\"\"). They're unusual in portfolio management but can be useful when moving money around in more complex ways. Basically, if you need to guarantee that you will not pay more than a certain per-share price to buy something in the future, you buy a call option. If the spot price as of the delivery date is less than the contract price, you buy from the market and ignore the contract, while if prices have soared, you exercise it and get the lower contract price. Stock options, offered as benefits in many companies, are a specific form of call option with very generous terms for whomever holds them. A swaption, basically a put and a call rolled into one, allows you to trade something for something else. Call it the free market's \"\"exchange policy\"\". For a price, if a security you currently hold loses value, you can exchange it for something else that you predicted would become more valuable at the same time. One example might be airline stocks and crude oil; when crude spikes, airline stocks generally suffer, and you can take advantage of this, if it happens, with a swaption to sell your airline stocks for crude oil certificates. There are many such closely-related inverse positions in the market, such as between various currencies, between stocks and commodities (gold is inversely related to pretty much everything else), and even straight-up cash-for-bad-debt arrangements (credit-default swaps, which we heard so much about in 2008).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "429d3180b3c5400ce362bfeeddf30fbb", "text": "\"Long here does not mean you wish for the underlying stock to increase in value, in fact, as the chart shows, just the opposite is true. \"\"Long means you bought the derivative, and you own the option. The guy that sold it to you is at your mercy, he is short the put, and it's your decision to put the stock to him should it fall in value. The value of the put itself rises with the falling stock price, you are long the put and want the put, itself, to rise in value.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
2b42df96e1b5b357a56d3df2d3276227
How can I invest in US Stocks from outside the US with a credit card instead of a bank account?
[ { "docid": "fe88f147ee1185df8e18652d0ffef41a", "text": "You'll have to take cash from your Credit Card account and use that to trade. I doubt any brokerage house will take credit cards as it's trading without any collateral (since credit cards are an unsecured credit)", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "219dc33bbbdbc9a3d247d551912f5e14", "text": "\"Your broker, Ameritrade, offers a variety of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that you can buy and sell with zero commission. An ETF is like a mutual fund, but you buy and sell shares the same way you buy and sell shares of stocks. From your point of view, the relevance of this is that you can buy and sell as many or as few shares as you like, even down to a single share. Note that to get the commission-free trades on the available ETFs you have to sign up for it in your account profile. Be sure to do that before you enter any buy orders. You'll want to start by looking at the Ameritrade's list of commission-free ETFs. Notice that they are divided into different categories: stocks, bonds, international, and commodities. Which categories you pick from will depend on your personal investing goals, time horizon, risk tolerance, and so on. There are lots of questions and answers on this site that talk about asset allocation. You should read them, as it is the most important decision you will make with your portfolio. The other thing you want to be aware of is the expense ratio for each fund. These expenses reduce the fund's return (they are included in the calculation of the net asset value of the shares), so lower is definitely better. Personally, I wouldn't even consider paying more than about 0.10% (commonly read \"\"10 basis points\"\" or \"\"10 bp\"\") for a broad-based domestic stock fund. For a sectoral fund you might put up with as much as 20 bp in expenses. Bond funds tend to be a little more expensive, so maybe allow as much as 25 bp, and likewise for international funds. I've never invested in commodity funds, so I'll let someone else opine on appropriate expense ratios for those. Once you've decided what funds you want (and have signed up for commission-free trades), all you have to do is enter the trade orders. The website where you manage your account has tutorials on how to do that. After that you should be all set. Good luck with your investing!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd746187d7e1e6c66158ebf47d88f054", "text": "If a company's shares trade in multiple exchanges, the prices in every exchange are very near to each other, otherwise you could earn money by doing arbitrage deals (buying in one, selling in the other) - and people do that once it becomes worth it. Which stock exchange you use is more a convenience for the buyer/seller - many investment banks offer only something local/near, and you have to go to specific investment banks to use other exchanges. For example, in Germany, it is easy to deal in Frankfurt, but if you want to trade at the the NASDAQ, you have to run around and find a bank that offers it, and you probably have to pay extra for it. In the USA, most investment banks offer NASDAQ, but if you want to trade in Frankfurt, you will have run around for an international company that offers that. As a stock owner/buyer, you can sell/buy your shares on any stock exchange where the company is listed (again, assuming your investment broker supports it). So you can buy in Frankfurt and sell in Tokyo seconds later, as nothing needs to be physically moved. Companies that are listed in multiple stock exchangs are typically large, and offer this to make trading their shares easier for a larger part of the world. Considering your 'theoretical buy all shares' - the shares are not located in the exchanges, they are in the hands of the owners, and not all are for sale, for various reasons. The owners decide if and when they want them offered for sale, and they also decide which stock exchange they offer them on; so you would need to go to all exchanges to buy them all. However, if you raise your offer price in one exchange only slightly, someone will see the arbitrage and buy them in the other locations and offer them to you in your stock exchange; in other words, for a small fee the shares will come to you. But again, most shares are typically not for sale. It's the same as trying to buy all Chevy Tahoes - even if you had the money, most owners wouldn't know or care about you. You would have to go around and contact every single one and convince them to sell.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "55094532cddaab9387ee3ea1019fb387", "text": "First thing to consider is that getting your hands on an IPO is very difficult unless you have some serious clout. This might help a bit in that department (http://www.sec.gov/answers/ipoelig.htm) However, assuming you accept all that risk and requirements, YES - you can buy stocks of any kind in the US even if you are a foreigner. There are no laws prohibiting investment/buying in the US stock market. What you need is to get an online trading account from a registered brokerage house in the US. Once you are registered, you can buy whatever that is offered.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5390ccf80d5ca97b63c0c6cb1002ce4d", "text": "Yes many people operate accounts in usa from outside usa. You need a brokerage account opened in the name of your sister and then her username and password. Remember that brokerages may check the location of login and may ask security questions before login. So when your sister opens her account , please get the security questions. Also note that usa markets open ( 7.00 pm or 8.00 pm IST depending on daylight savings in usa). So this means when they close at 4:00 pm ET, it will be 1:30 or 2:30 am in India. This means it will affect your sleeping hours if you intend to day trade. Also understand that there are some day trading restrictions and balances associate. Normally brokerages need 25,000 $ for you to be a day trader. Finally CFA is not a qualification to be a trader and desire to become a trader doesn't make one a trader. TO give an analogy , just because you want to be a cricketer doesn't make you one. It needs a lot of practice and discipline.Also since in bangladesh , you will always convert the usa amount to bangladeshi currency and think of profits and losses in those terms. This might actually be bad.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "510141ac2504a9acc193963a04ec046d", "text": "\"In the US there is only one stock market (ignoring penny stocks) and handfuls of different exchanges behind it. NYSE and NASDAQ are two different exchanges, but all the products you can buy on one can also be bought on the other; i.e. they are all the same market. So a US equities broker cannot possibly restrict access to any \"\"markets\"\" in the US because there is only one. (Interestingly, it is commonplace for US equity brokers to cheat their customers by using only exchanges where they -- the brokers -- get the best deals, even if it means your order is not executed as quickly or cheaply as possible. This is called payment for order flow and unfortunately will probably take an Act of Congress to stop.) Some very large brokers will have trading access to popular equity markets in other countries (Toronto Stock Exchange, Mexico Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange) and can support your trades there. However, at many brokers or in less popular foreign markets this is usually not the case; to trade in the average foreign country you typically must open an account with a broker in that country.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "184b63bf1790b8e69ca079b62aebdbb5", "text": "Open an account with a US discount online broker, or with a European broker with access to the US market. I think ETRADE allow non-resident accounts, for instance, amongst others. The brokerage will be about $10, and there is no annual fee. (So you're ~1% down out of the gate, but that's not so much.) Brokers may have a minimum transaction value but very few exchanges care about the number of shares anymore, and there is no per-share fee. As lecrank notes, putting all your savings into a single company is not prudent, but having a flutter with fun money on Apple is harmless. Paul is correct that dividend cheques may be a slight problem for non-residents. Apple don't pay dividends so there's no problem in this specific case. More generally your broker will give you a cash account into which the dividends can go. You may have to deal with US tax which is more of an annoyance than a cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b01a421429388d4440dfa1ad69ed3c9", "text": "Your wife could open a non-registered margin trading account with a Canadian full-service or discount broker. An account at one of the top Canadian brokers should provide access to trade U.S.-listed options. I've traded both Canadian and U.S.-listed options with my own broker. On the application, you'd need to indicate an interest in trading options, and more specifically, what kind of option trades; e.g. long puts and calls only, covered writing, combination trades, etc. And yes, part of the application approval process (at least when I went through it) is to answer a few questions to prove that the applicant is aware of the types of risks with trading options. Be sure to do some research on the fees and currency/fx aspects before you choose a broker. If you plan to exercise any options purchased or expect to be assigned for any you write, be aware that those fees are often different from the headline cost-per-trade advertised by brokers. For instance, I pay in excess of $40 when a call option I write gets assigned, vs. ~$10 that I'd pay if I just plain sold the stock. One other thing to investigate is what kind of online option trading research and order entry tools are available; not every broker has the same set of features with respect to options — especially if it isn't a big part of their business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68e8dd4cb04f33ac12a48e82504d96dc", "text": "If you wanted to spend money in another country, a specialist credit card would be the most cost-effective way. Near-spot exchange rate, zero-loading, no/low ATM fees. Likewise a pre-paid debit card would also allow for money transfer across borders. If this is the right situation, FOREX trading platforms are overkill to achieve a valid solution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3abf524688025b980ad223313b4ca8a", "text": "\"Not every American credit card charges Foreign Currency conversion fees. I won't mention the specific one I know about as I'm not interested in shilling for them. However, if you Google \"\"No foreign transaction fee\"\" you will find a couple of options.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa718696681523ba8b60263c70784ca7", "text": "I don't believe from reading the responses above that Questrade is doing anything 'original' or 'different' much less 'bad'. In RRSPs you are not allowed to go into debt. So the costs of all trades must be covered. If there is not enough USD to pay the bill then enough CAD is converted to do so. What else would anyone expect? How margin accounts work depends on whether the broker sets up different accounts for different currencies. Some do, some don't. The whole point of using 'margin' is to buy securities when you don't have the cash to cover the cost. The result is a 'short' position in the cash. Short positions accrue interest expense which is added to the balance once a month. Every broker does this. If you buy a US stock in a USD account without the cash to cover it, you will end up with USD margin debt. If you buy US stock in an account that co-mingles both USD and CAD assets and cash, then there will be options during the trade asking if you want to settle in USD or CAD. If you settle in CAD then obviously the broker will convert the necessary CAD funds to pay for it. If you settle in US funds, but there is no USD cash in the account, then again, you have created a short position in USD.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e89d3c295686a29498edd78227a5181", "text": "Take a look at Everbank. They offer CDs and Money Market Accounts denominated in Euros for US residents. https://www.everbank.com/personal/foreign-currencies.aspx", "title": "" }, { "docid": "924c06ef4114ce9a9f421443152b2e88", "text": "\"As previously answered, the solution is margin. It works like this: You deposit e.g. 1'000 USD at your trading company. They give you a margin of e.g. 1:100, so you are allowed to trade with 100'000 USD. Let's say you buy 5'000 pieces of a stock at $20 USD (fully using your 100'000 limit), and the price changes to $20.50 . Your profit is 5000* $0.50 = $2'500. Fast money? If you are lucky. Let's say before the price went up to 20.50, it had a slight dip down to $19.80. Your loss was 5000* $0.2 = 1'000$. Wait! You had just 1000 to begin with: You'll find an email saying \"\"margin call\"\" or \"\"termination notice\"\": Your shares have been sold at $19.80 and you are out of business. The broker willingly gives you this credit, since he can be sure he won't loose a cent. Of course you pay interest for the money you are trading with, but it's only for minutes. So to answer your question: You don't care when you have \"\"your money\"\" back, the trading company will always be there to give you more as long as you have deposit left. (I thought no one should get margin explained without the warning why it is a horrible idea to full use the ridiculous high margins some broker offer. 1:10 might or might not be fine, but 1:100 is harakiri.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60a9f5107226f646e8d26736cf930801", "text": "\"Don't do it until you have educated yourself enough to know what you are doing. I hope you won't take this personally, but given that you are wandering around asking random strangers on the Internet how to \"\"get into investing,\"\" I feel safe in concluding that you are by no means a sophisticated enough investor to be choosing individual investments, nor should you be trusting financial advisors to choose investments for you. Believe me, they do not have your interests at heart. I usually advise people in your position to start by reading one book: A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. Once you've read the book by Malkiel you'll understand that the best strategy for all but the most sophisticated investors is to buy an index fund, which simply purchases a portfolio of ALL available stocks without trying to pick winners and losers. The best index funds are at Vanguard (there is also a Vanguard site for non-US residents). Vanguard is one of the very, very, very few honest players in the business. Unlike almost any other mutual fund, Vanguard is owned by its investors, so it has no profit motive. They never try to pick individual stocks, so they don't have to pay fancy high-priced analysts to pick stocks. If you find it impossible to open a Vanguard account from wherever you're living, find a local brokerage account that will allow you to invest in the US stock market. Many Vanguard mutual funds are available as ETFs which means that you buy and sell them just like any other stock on the US market, which should be easy to do from any reasonably civilized place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c4f07701547ca7c0b29722ef041bc00", "text": "\"Hmm... Well there are several ways to do that: Go to any bank (or at the very least major ones). They can assist you with buying and/or selling stocks/shares of any company on the financial market. They keep your shares safe at the bank and take care of them. The downside is that they will calculate fees for every single thing they do with your money or shares or whatever. Go to any Financial broker/trader that deals with the stock market. Open an account and tell them to buy shares from company \"\"X\"\" and keep them. Meaning they won't trade with them if this is what you want. Do the same as point 2, but on your own. Find a suitable broker with decent transaction fees, open an account, find the company's stock code and purchase the stocks via the platform the broker uses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fcd9990896be0b5c627ec5da25a4af72", "text": "I think George's answer explains fairly well why the brokerages don't allow this - it's not an exchange rule, it's just that the brokerage has to have the shares to lend, and normally those shares come from people's margin, which is impossible on a non-marginable stock. To address the question of what the alternatives are, on popular stocks like SIRI, a deep In-The-Money put is a fairly accurate emulation of an actual short interest. If you look at the options on SIRI you will see that a $3 (or higher) put has a delta of -$1, which is the same delta as an actual short share. You also don't have to worry about problems like margin calls when buying options. The only thing you have to worry about is the expiration date, which isn't generally a major issue if you're buying in-the-money options... unless you're very wrong about the direction of the stock, in which case you could lose everything, but that's always a risk with penny stocks no matter how you trade them. At least with a put option, the maximum amount you can lose is whatever you spent on the contract. With a short sale, a bull rush on the stock could potentially wipe out your entire margin. That's why, when betting on downward motion in a microcap or penny stock, I actually prefer to use options. Just be aware that option contracts can generally only move in increments of $0.05, and that your brokerage will probably impose a bid-ask spread of up to $0.10, so the share price has to move down at least 10 cents (or 10% on a roughly $1 stock like SIRI) for you to just break even; definitely don't attempt to use this as a day-trading tool and go for longer expirations if you can.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
6524c02acec59d78d880043de8f64e88
How to tell if an option is expensive
[ { "docid": "043403925d1b5a388d2882a62cad96ed", "text": "An option, by definition, is a guess about the future value of the stock. If you guess too aggressively, you lose the purchase price of the option; if you guess too conservatively, you may not take the option or may not gain as much as you might have. You need to figure out what you expect to happen, and how confident you are about it, against the cost of taking the option -- and be reasonably confident that the change in the stock's value will be at least large enough to cover the cost of buying into the game. Opinion: Unless you're comfortable with expectation values and bell curves around them, it's significantly easier to lose money on options than to profit on them. And I'm not convinced that even statisticians can really do this well. I've always been told that the best use for options is hedging an investment you've already made; treating them as your primary bet is gambling, not investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "869bea64afaf453a4d2e013c925e62f7", "text": "One way is to compare the implied volatility with the realised volatility over a period similar to the time left to expiry. However there are plenty of reasons why the implied may be higher than the historical, for example because the market volatility has increased overall or because the underlying company is going to report their results before the option expires.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "6e6e40c1fea4268cb12f780d66f98e66", "text": "Yes When exercising a stock option you will be buying the stock at the strike price so you will be putting up your money, if you lose that money you can declare it as a loss like any other transaction. So if the stock is worth $1 and you have 10 options with a strike at $0.50 you will spend $500 when you exercise your options. If you hold those shares and the company is then worth $0 you lost $500. I have not verified my answer so this is solely from my understanding of accounting and finance. Please verify with your accountant to be sure.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0a6ae037fbb51b1c3c62cad032ee4ce", "text": "I'm not positive my answer is complete, but from information on my broker's website, the following fees apply to a US option trade (which I assume you're concerned with given fee in dollars and the mention of the Options Clearing Corporation): They have more detail for other countries -- see https://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk/en/index.php?f=commission&p=options1 for North America. Use the sub-menu near the top of the page to pick Europe or Asia. The brokerage-charged commission for this broker is as low as $0.25 per contract with a $1.00 minimum. Though I've been charged less than $1 to STO an options position, as well as less than $1 to BTC an options position, so not sure about that minimum. Regarding what I read as your overall underlying question (why are option fees so high), in my research this broker has one of the cheapest commission rates on options I've ever seen. When I participate in certain discussions, I'm routinely told that these fees are unbelievable and that $5.95, $7.95, or even $9.95 are considered low fees. I've heard this so much, and discussed commissions with enough people who've refused to switch brokers, that I conclude there just isn't enough competition to drive prices lower. If most people won't switch brokers to go from $9.95 to $1 per trade, there simply isn't a reason to lower rates.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73ba7fddc5657098f06a536c734a6205", "text": "Yes, past option prices are available for many options, but as far as I know not for free. You can get them from, for example, OptionMetrics. Probably there are other providers as well, which may be cheaper for an individual or small institution. OptionMetrics data comes from the National Best Bid and Offer. Probably there are some over-the-counter options that are not included here, but for someone asking this question, OptionMetrics will most likely have the option you are interested in.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9cf9dd3dcd45697a09d165c0c5ed726", "text": "Power Options is one such example of what you seek, not cheap, but one good trade will recover a year's fee. There's a lot you can do with the stock price alone as most options pricing will follow Black Scholes. Keep in mind, this is a niche, these questions, while interesting to me, generate little response here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6bf6a14a1513d13c389d1123443d40fb", "text": "\"P/E is a useful tool for evaluating the price of a company, but only in comparison to companies in similar industries, especially for industries with well-defined cash flows. For example, if you compared Consolidated Edison (NYSE:ED) to Hawaiian Electric (NYSE:HE), you'll notice that HE has a significantly higher PE. All things being equal, that means that HE may be overpriced in comparison to ED. As an investor, you need to investigate further to determine whether that is true. HE is unique in that it is a utility that also operates a bank, so you need to take that into account. You need to think about what your goal is when you say that you are a \"\"conservative\"\" investor and look at the big picture, not a magic number. If conservative to you means capital preservation, you need to ensure that you are in investments that are diversified and appropriate. Given the interest rate situation in 2011, that means your bonds holding need to be in short-duration, high-quality securities. Equities should be weighted towards large cap, with smaller holdings of international or commodity-associated funds. Consider a target-date or blended fund like one of the Vanguard \"\"Life Strategy\"\" funds.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06199f176acd73e7794e04c4be1ced82", "text": "From what I see, it is more like .70 per contract, with a $1 minimum (for options that trade over a dime.) IB does not provide any help, at all, so you have to know what you are doing. I use tradeking, which charges about $6 for a contract, but you can call them for help if needed. There looks to be other fees for IB, like when you cancel an order, but that can be offset by other trades. It is one of the reason the Motley Fool Stock Adviser service has recommended IB for an investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5171a95db59f59c3e0215c4bef9d21e2", "text": "I can often get the option at [a] price [between bid and ask] The keyword you use here is quite relevant: often. More realistically, it's going to be sometimes. And that's just how supply and demand should work. The ask is where you know you can buy right away. If you don't wanna buy at ask, you can try and put a higer bid but you can only hope someone will take it before the price moves. If prices are moving up fast, you will have missed a chance if you gambled mid-spread. Having said that, the larger the spread is, the more you should work with limits mid-spread. You don't want to just take ask or bid with illiquid options. Make a calculation of the true value of the option (i.e. using the Black Scholes Model), then set your bid around there. Of course, if not only the option but also the underlying is illiquid, this all gets even more difficult.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adebc6f97829d7aef018c0582f2976c3", "text": "ode2k noted the liquidity can very wildly especially 9 months out and there will be little volume even in the largest stocks. Victor noted standard measures of liquidity don't always apply cleanly to options as they are priced using a hybrid of model and market inputs. So your question is generally very hard to answer on SE, but you can get an answer yourself without too much trouble. The best way to get a feel for slippage in your case is to just get quotes. Most systems should let you get a quote for both buying and selling options at the same time. This will give you a feeling for how much you are paying in spread. Do the same for near dated options to get a feeling for spread size when you end up selling. You should factor in some widening of spreads at bad times, but this should get you a feeling for the scale of the slippage problem.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a52969d6de27e78057142e53b34db9c", "text": "You're realizing the perils of using a DCF analysis. At best, you can use them to get a range of possible values and use them as a heuristic, but you'll probably find it difficult to generate a realistic estimate that is significantly different than where the price is already.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04bfc87cb156f3d2cd6b402f7d5d60ca", "text": "Sounds to me like you're describing just how it should work. Ask is at 30, Bid is at 20; you offer a new bid at 25. Either: Depending on liquidity, one or the other may be more likely. This Investorplace article on the subject describes what you're seeing, and recommends the strategy you're describing precisely. Instead of a market order, take advantage of the fact that the options world truly is a marketplace — one where you can possibly get a better price just by asking. How does that work? If you use a limit order (instead of a market order) when opening a position, you can tell your broker how much you are willing to pay to enter a trade. For example, if you enter a limit price of $1.15, you can see whether the market-maker will bite. You will be surprised at how many times you will get your price (i.e., $1.15) instead of the ask price of $1.30. If your order at $1.15 is not filled after a few minutes, you can modify your order and pay the ask price by entering a market order or limit order at the ask price (that is, you can tell your broker to pay no more than $1.30).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf0daa4cff8d959a279c6cc91d5bcc87", "text": "\"You can interpret prices in any way you wish, but the commonly quoted \"\"price\"\" is the last price traded. If your broker routes those orders, unlikely because they will be considered \"\"unfair\"\" and will probably be busted by the exchange, the only way to drive the price to the heights & lows in your example is to have an overwhelming amount of quantity relative to the order book. Your orders will hit the opposing limit orders until your quantity is exhausted, starting from the best price to the worst price. This is the functional equivalent to a market order.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "786c95e1d4f564b1d1cad2e7b6dd075f", "text": "The answer is actually very simple: the cost of data. Seriously. Call the CBOE tomorrow and ask yourself. They have two big programs: 1) the penny pilot program, where options trade at penny increments instead of 5 cent increments. This is only extended to a select few symbols because of the amount of data this can generate is too much for the data vendors. Data vendors store and sell historical data. The exchanges themselves often have a big data vending business too. 2) the weekly options program, where only select symbols get these chains because of the amount of data they will generate. Liquidity and demand are factors in determining if the CBOE will consider enabling those series on new issues. (although they have to give the list of which symbols are on these programs to the SEC)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04ec120e0fd5643d3973311263ebe429", "text": "\"Often you are right, and the current information is \"\"priced in\"\", but I would say in times of market boom like this that the market can definitely overprice. Price is driven by trades/last trade. Someone may be willing to pay X, and do so, making the price now X, but that does not mean it is worth X. You could very well be paying a premium for it's perceived desirability. This is why investors/analysts spend time and energy on valuations, they want to compare the markets current price to what the price theoretically should/would be if it were purely driven by the data, in effect trying to remove sentiment from the equation to gain a more realistic idea of what a company is worth. Side note adding on that, don't mistake this as saying one should pay a lot of attention to analysts or their price targets, though analysts do have insightful things to say.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d7ecf7c5d091ee8984b5ed7a27e6fa4", "text": "So, child, your goal is to make money? This is usually achieved by selling goods (say, lemonade) at a price that exceeds their cost (say, sugar, water and, well, lemons). Options, at first, are very much same in that you can buy the right to engage in a specific future trade. You make money in this situation if the eventual returns from the scheduled trade cover the cost of purchasing the option. Otherwise you can simply opt out of the trade -- you purchased the right to trade, after all, not any type of obligation. Makes sense? Good. Because what follows is what makes options a little different. That is, if you sell that same right to engage in a specific trade the situation is seemingly reversed: you lock in your return at the outset, but the costs aren't fully realized until the trade is either consumed or declined by the owner of the option. And keep in mind that it is always the owner of the option who is in the driver's seat; they may sell the option, hold on to it and do nothing, or use it to engage in the anticipated trade. And that's really all there's to it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "87762fba6c108480835b5f9945920f30", "text": "\"I look for buying a call option only at the money, but first understand the background above: Let's suppose X stock is being traded by $10.00 and it's January The call option is being traded by $0.20 with strike $11.00 for February. (I always look for 2% prize or more) I buy 100 stocks by $10.00 each and sell the option, earning $0.20 for each X stock. I will have to deliver my stocks by $11.00 (strike value agreed). No problem for me here, I took the prize plus the gain of $1.00. (continuing from item 3) I still can sell the option for the next month with strike equal or higher than that I bought. For instance, I can sell a call option of strike $10.00 and it might be worth to deliver stocks by $10.00 and take the prize. (continuing from item 3) Probably, it won't be possible to sell a call option with strike at the price that I paid for the stock, but that's not a problem. At the end of the option life (in February), the strike was $11.00 but the stock's price is $8.00. I got the $0.20 as prize and my stocks are free for trade again. I'll sell the call option for March with strike $9.00 (taking around 2% of prize). Well, I don't want to sell my stocks by $9.00 and make loss, right? But I'm selling the call option anyway. Then I wait till the price of the stock gets near the strike value (almost ATM) and I \"\"re-buy\"\" the option sold (Example: [StockX]C9 where C means month = March) and sell again the call option with higher strike to April (Example [StockX]D10, where D means month = April) PS.: At item 9 there should be no loss between the action of \"\"re-buy\"\" and sell to roll-out to the next month. When re-buying it with the stock's price near the strike, option value for March (C9) will be lower than when selling it to April (D10). This isn't any rule to be followed, this is just a conservative (I think they call it hedge) way to handle options and stocks. Few free to make money according to your goals and your style. The perfect rule is the one that meet your expectation, don't take the generalized rules too serious.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
352f58769cb70b371f7e7caa363c115c
How do ETF fees get applied?
[ { "docid": "9a2fb8987853dd7bb42da0a18d64dd5a", "text": "The ETF price quoted on the stock exchange is in principle not referenced to NAV. The fund administrator will calculate and publish the NAV net of all fees, but the ETF price you see is determined by the market just like for any other security. Having said that, the market will not normally deviate greatly from the NAV of the fund, so you can safely assume that ETF quoted price is net of relevant fees.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "418c1aba4dd73fbeabded92cc00ddb0c", "text": "The question is valid, you just need to work backwards. After how much money-time will the lower expense offset the one time fee? Lower expenses will win given the right sum of money and right duration for the investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35c459b8792369297e41681430c55724", "text": "Mutual funds are collections of investments that other people pay to join. It would be simpler to calculate the value of all these investments at one time each day, and then to deem that any purchases or sales happen at that price. The fund diversifies rather than magnifies risk, looking to hold rather than enjoy a quick turnaround. Nobody really needs hourly updated price information for an investment they intend to hold for decades. They quote their prices on a daily basis and you take the daily price. This makes sense for a vehicle that is a balanced collection of many different assets, most of which will have varying prices over the course a day. That makes pricing complicated. This primer explains mutual fund pricing and the requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940, which mandates daily price reporting. It also illustrates the complexity: How does the fund pricing process work? Mutual fund pricing is an intensive process that takes place in a short time frame at the end of the day. Generally, a fund’s pricing process begins at the close of the New York Stock Exchange, normally 4 p.m. Eastern time. The fund’s accounting agent, which may be an affiliated entity such as the fund’s adviser, or a third-party servicer such as the fund’s administrator or custodian bank, is usually responsible for calculating the share price. The accounting agent obtains prices for the fund’s securities from pricing services and directly from brokers. Pricing services collect securities prices from exchanges, brokers, and other sources and then transmit them to the fund’s accounting agent. Fund accounting agents internally validate the prices received by subjecting them to various control procedures. For example, depending on the nature and extent of its holdings, a fund may use one or more pricing services to ensure accuracy. Note that under Rule 22c-1 forward pricing, fund shareholders receive the next daily price, not the last daily price. Forward pricing makes sense if you want shareholders to get the most accurate sale or purchase price, but not if you want purchasers and sellers to be able to make precise calculations about gains and losses (how can you be precise if the price won't be known until after you buy or sell?).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cb549009ae9d2f1a8976238da587253", "text": "\"My knowledge relates to ETFs only. By definition, an ETF's total assets can increase or decrease based upon how many shares are issued or redeemed. If somebody sells shares back to the ETF provider (rather than somebody else on market) then the underlying assets need to be sold, and vice-versa for purchasing from the ETF provider. ETFs also allow redemptions too in addition to this. For an ETF, to determine its total assets, you need to you need to analyze the Total Shares on Issue multipled by the Net Asset Value. ETFs are required to report shares outstanding and NAV on a daily basis. \"\"Total assets\"\" is probably more a function of marketing rather than \"\"demand\"\" and this is why most funds report on a net-asset-value-per-share basis. Some sites report on \"\"Net Inflows\"\" is basically the net change in shares outstanding multiplied by the ETF price. If you want to see this plotted over time you can use a such as: http://www.etf.com/etfanalytics/etf-fund-flows-tool which allows you to see this as a \"\"net flows\"\" on a date range basis.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7a55c44dfb0435d43f0e98deac371602", "text": "ETrade allows this without fees (when investing into one of the No-Load/No-Fees funds from their list). The Sharebuilder plan is better when investing into ETF's or stocks, not for mutual funds, their choice (of no-fees funds) is rather limited on Sharebuilder.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c02e759961fc1045b5c3846be9ea8436", "text": "The process would look something like: 1. Register your investment company with the SEC 2. Get the ETF approved by the SEC 3. Get a custodian bank (likely requires min assets of a few million) 4. Get listed on an exchange like NYSEARCA by meeting requirements and have an IPO 1 and 2 probably require a lot of time and fees and would be wise to have a lawyer advising, 3 is obviously difficult due to asset requirements and 4 would probably involve an investment bank plus more fees", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6794ad18ad2fa4de328253fa5f918bec", "text": "While I might have to agree with PiratesSayARRR from below about missing case details, I have to say, your math seems to check out to me. Although the numbers aren't rouded off and pretty, they back out. $22,285.71 generates $334.28 of fees in a month; subtract from that the monthly cost of funds (.003333 x $22285.71)= $74.28... $334.28-74.28 = $260.00. Hate to say it, but maybe they didn't hire you for a different reason?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "86187aff29a5958bb1351d248820ce19", "text": "NO. All the leveraged ETFs are designed to multiply the performance of the underlying asset FOR THAT DAY, read the prospectus. Their price is adjusted at the end of the day to reflect what is called a NAV unit. Basically, they know that their price is subject to fluctuations due to supply and demand throughout the day - simply because they trade in a quote driven system. But the price is automatically corrected at the end of the day regardless. In practice though, all sorts of crazy things happen with leveraged ETFs that will simply make them more and more unfavorable to hold long term, the longer you look at it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dab449e201a0e2457748c41c68865b9f", "text": "The same reason a company would offer coupons. I'd guess they're just doing it as a way to entice people to do their investing with them. Since it is any ETF I doubt they are being compensated by the ETF companies, as is sometimes the case (iShares does this with Fidelity, for example). And they still get the commission on the sale.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b962d0c6c11e5ca3e77f09acaddf793b", "text": "Most bond ETFs have switched to monthly dividends paid on the first of each month, in an attempt to standardize across the market. For ETFs (but perhaps not bond mutual funds, as suggested in the above answer) interest does accrue in the NAV, so the price of the fund does drop on ex-date by an amount equal to the dividend paid. A great example of this dynamic can be seen in FLOT, a bond ETF holding floating rate corporate bonds. As you can see in this screenshot, the NAV has followed a sharp up and down pattern, almost like the teeth of a saw. This is explained by interest accruing in the NAV over the course of each month, until it is paid out in a dividend, dropping the NAV sharply in one day. The effect has been particularly pronounced recently because the floating coupon payments have increased significantly (benchmark interest rates are higher) and mark-to-market changes in credit spreads of the constituent bonds have been very muted.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "893682084a5cd9dc30d884eb4ca6a379", "text": "\"Usually the new broker will take care of this for you. It can take a couple of weeks. If you are planning to go with Vanguard, you probably want to actually get an account at Vanguard, as Vanguard funds usually aren't \"\"No Transaction Fee\"\" funds with many brokers. If you are planning to invest in ETFs, you'll get more flexibility with a broker.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9381d589de0907189c958cae99ba34b6", "text": "The ETF supply management policy is arcane. ETFs are not allowed to directly arbitrage their holdings against the market. Other firms must handle redemptions & deposits. This makes ETFs slightly costlier than the assets held. For ETFs with liquid holdings, its price will rarely vary relative to the holdings, slippage of the ETF's holdings management notwithstanding. This is because the firms responsible for depositing & redeeming will arbitrage their equivalent holdings of the ETF assets' prices with the ETF price. For ETFs with illiquid holdings, such as emerging markets, the ETF can vary between trades of the holdings. This will present sometimes large variations between the last price of the ETF vs the last prices of its holdings. If an ETF is shunned, its supply of holdings will simply drop and vice versa.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a78a822b2b626375e6377614588064f4", "text": "\"ETF Creation and Redemption Process notes the process: While ETF trading occurs on an exchange like stocks, the process by which their shares are created is significantly different. Unless a company decides to issue more shares, the supply of shares of an individual stock trading in the marketplace is finite. When demand increases for shares of an ETF, however, Authorized Participants (APs) have the ability to create additional shares on demand. Through an \"\"in kind\"\" transfer mechanism, APs create ETF units in the primary market by delivering a basket of securities to the fund equal to the current holdings of the ETF. In return, they receive a large block of ETF shares (typically 50,000), which are then available for trading in the secondary market. This ETF creation and redemption process helps keep ETF supply and demand in continual balance and provides a \"\"hidden\"\" layer of liquidity not evident by looking at trading volumes alone. This process also works in reverse. If an investor wants to sell a large block of shares of an ETF, even if there seems to be limited liquidity in the secondary market, APs can readily redeem a block of ETF shares by gathering enough shares of the ETF to form a creation unit and then exchanging the creation unit for the underlying securities. Thus, the in-kind swap to the underlying securities is only done by APs so the outflow would be these individuals taking a large block of the ETF and swapping it for the underlying securities. The APs would be taking advantage of the difference between what the ETF's trading value and the value of the underlying securities.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ce67213c02975c72d0ddd432803db58a", "text": "1: Low fees means: a Total Expense Ratio of less than 0,5%. One detail you may also want to pay attention to whether the fund reinvests returns (Thesaurierender Fonds) which is basically good for investing, but if it's also a foreign-based fund then taxes get complicated, see http://www.finanztip.de/indexfonds-etf/thesaurierende-fonds/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d78a5b716489ff3fa60038e90e411c1", "text": "\"Don't put money in things that you don't understand. ETFs won't kill you, ignorance will. The leveraged ultra long/short ETFs hold swaps that are essentially bets on the daily performance of the market. There is no guarantee that they will perform as designed at all, and they frequently do not. IIRC, in most cases, you shouldn't even be holding these things overnight. There aren't any hidden fees, but derivative risk can wipe out portions of the portfolio, and since the main \"\"asset\"\" in an ultra long/short ETF are swaps, you're also subject to counterparty risk -- if the investment bank the fund made its bet with cannot meet it's obligation, you're may lost alot of money. You need to read the prospectus carefully. The propectus re: strategy. The Fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to twice the inverse (-2x) of the daily performance of the Index. The Fund does not seek to achieve its stated investment objective over a period of time greater than a single day. The prospectus re: risk. Because of daily rebalancing and the compounding of each day’s return over time, the return of the Fund for periods longer than a single day will be the result of each day’s returns compounded over the period, which will very likely differ from twice the inverse (-2x) of the return of the Index over the same period. A Fund will lose money if the Index performance is flat over time, and it is possible that the Fund will lose money over time even if the Index’s performance decreases, as a result of daily rebalancing, the Index’s volatility and the effects of compounding. See “Principal Risks” If you want to hedge your investments over a longer period of time, you should look at more traditional strategies, like options. If you don't have the money to make an option strategy work, you probably can't afford to speculate with leveraged ETFs either.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bdc088e3c947f07ccdf31e5b845889e8", "text": "\"I just looked at a fund for my client, the fund is T Rowe Price Retirement 2015 (TRRGX). As stated in the prospectus, it has an annual expense ratio of 0.63%. In the fine print below the funds expenses, it says \"\"While the fund itself charges no management fee, it will indirectly bear its pro-rata share of the expenses of the underlying T. Rowe Price funds in which it invests (acquired funds). The acquired funds are expected to bear the operating expenses of the fund.\"\" One of it's acquired funds is TROSX which has an expense ratio of 0.86%. So the total cost of the fund is the weighted average of the \"\"acquired funds\"\" expense ratio's plus the listed expense ratio of the fund. You can see this at http://doc.morningstar.com/docdetail.aspx?clientid=schwab&key=84b36f1bf3830e07&cusip=74149P796 and its all listed in \"\"Fees and Expenses of the Fund\"\"\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a98770ffc899feb477e47ed14c59c806
List of Investments from safest to riskiest?
[ { "docid": "140316a651354cc2875c8679cdd3187d", "text": "\"With every caveat that Rick said plus many many more lets have some fun. One common way to measure risk is volatility of returns roughly how much the value of your asset jumps around. Interestingly, the following ordering is fairly similar for many other common measures of risk. The first three on the list would be mostly interchangeable. Generally, putting your money in \"\"cash\"\" investments has no real day-to-day price variability and the main risk is that the bank won't give you your money back at the end. Money market funds are last as they can \"\"Break the buck\"\". To get a feel for the next few on the list I'm using previous 360 day volatility numbers for representative broad indices (asof 2014-10-27). While these volatility values can move around quite a bit, the order is actually remarkably stable. Hedge funds might seem out of place here, but remember that hedge funds can hold be long and short at the same time and this can cancel out daily variation. However, Hedge funds do have plenty of risks that may not be well accounted for by this measure. For derivatives I'll refer to back to Rick's answer. This is a measure for broad investment in these categories your particular investment in Long-term Capital Management or Argentine Bonds may vary. It is important to note that your return on your investment generally grows as you go toward more risky investments down this list as people generally expect to be rewarded in the long term for risky investments.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b807557ba137c1143736dc37981715b", "text": "I think your premise is slightly flawed. Every investment can add or reduce risk, depending on how it's used. If your ordering above is intended to represent the probability you will lose your principal, then it's roughly right, with caveats. If you buy a long-term government bond and interest rates increase while you're holding it, its value will decrease on the secondary markets. If you need/want to sell it before maturity, you may not recover your principal, and if you hold it, you will probably be subject to erosion of value due to inflation (inflation and interest rates are correlated). Over the short-term, the stock market can be very volatile, and you can suffer large paper losses. But over the long-term (decades), the stock market has beaten inflation. But this is true in aggregate, so, if you want to decrease equity risk, you need to invest in a very diversified portfolio (index mutual funds) and hold the portfolio for a long time. With a strategy like this, the stock market is not that risky over time. Derivatives, if used for their original purpose, can actually reduce volatility (and therefore risk) by reducing both the upside and downside of your other investments. For example, if you sell covered calls on your equity investments, you get an income stream as long as the underlying equities have a value that stays below the strike price. The cost to you is that you are forced to sell the equity at the strike price if its value increases above that. The person on the other side of that transaction loses the price of the call if the equity price doesn't go up, but gets a benefit if it does. In the commodity markets, Southwest Airlines used derivatives (options to buy at a fixed price in the future) on fuel to hedge against increases in fuel prices for years. This way, they added predictability to their cost structure and were able to beat the competition when fuel prices rose. Even had fuel prices dropped to zero, their exposure was limited to the pre-negotiated price of the fuel, which they'd already planned for. On the other hand, if you start doing things like selling uncovered calls, you expose yourself to potentially infinite losses, since there are no caps on how high the price of a stock can go. So it's not possible to say that derivatives as a class of investment are risky per se, because they can be used to reduce risk. I would take hedge funds, as a class, out of your list. You can't generally invest in those unless you have quite a lot of money, and they use strategies that vary widely, many of which are quite risky.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "1856f12fa004f6ee1b1d9889a4827b0d", "text": "Bonds by themselves aren't recession proof. No investment is, and when a major crash (c.f. 2008) occurs, all investments will be to some extent at risk. However, bonds add a level of diversification to your investment portfolio that can make it much more stable even during downturns. Bonds do not move identically to the stock market, and so many times investing in bonds will be more profitable when the stock market is slumping. Investing some of your investment funds in bonds is safer, because that diversification allows you to have some earnings from that portion of your investment when the market is going down. It also allows you to do something called rebalancing. This is when you have target allocation proportions for your portfolio; say 60% stock 40% bond. Then, periodically look at your actual portfolio proportions. Say the market is way up - then your actual proportions might be 70% stock 30% bond. You sell 10 percentage points of stocks, and buy 10 percentage points of bonds. This over time will be a successful strategy, because it tends to buy low and sell high. In addition to the value of diversification, some bonds will tend to be more stable (but earn less), in particular blue chip corporate bonds and government bonds from stable countries. If you're willing to only earn a few percent annually on a portion of your portfolio, that part will likely not fall much during downturns - and in fact may grow as money flees to safer investments - which in turn is good for you. If you're particularly worried about your portfolio's value in the short term, such as if you're looking at retiring soon, a decent proportion should be in this kind of safer bond to ensure it doesn't lose too much value. But of course this will slow your earnings, so if you're still far from retirement, you're better off leaving things in growth stocks and accepting the risk; odds are no matter who's in charge, there will be another crash or two of some size before you retire if you're in your 30s now. But when it's not crashing, the market earns you a pretty good return, and so it's worth the risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82e1f714bcf875df2343789d9907506a", "text": "\"I think you're confusing risk analysis (that is what you quoted as \"\"Taleb Distribution\"\") with arguments against taking risks altogether. You need to understand that not taking a risk - is by itself a risk. You can lose money by not investing it, because of the very same Taleb Distribution: an unpredictable catastrophic event. Take an example of keeping cash in your house and not investing it anywhere. In the 1998 default of the Russian Federation, people lost money by not investing it. Why? Because had they invested the money - they would have the investments/properties, but since they only had cash - it became worthless overnight. There's no argument for or against investing on its own. The arguments are always related to the investment goals and the risk analysis. You're looking for something that doesn't exist.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7872e2a2885e23482027b15df8710aa", "text": "Putting the money in a bank savings account is a reasonably safe investment. Anything other than that will come with additional risk of various kinds. (That's right; not even a bank account is completely free of risk. Neither is withdrawing cash and storing it somewhere yourself.) And I don't know which country you are from, but you will certainly have access to your country's government bonds and the likes. You may also have access to mutual funds which invest in other countries' government bonds (bond or money-market funds). The question you need to ask yourself really is twofold. One, for how long do you intend to keep the money invested? (Shorter term investing should involve lower risk.) Two, what amount of risk (specifically, price volatility) are you willing to accept? The answers to those questions will determine which asset class(es) are appropriate in your particular case. Beyond that, you need to make a personal call: which asset class(es) do you believe are likely to do better or less bad than others? Low risk usually comes at the price of a lower return. Higher return usually involves taking more risk (specifically price volatility in the investment vehicle) but more risk does not necessarily guarantee a higher return - you may also lose a large fraction of or even the entire capital amount. In extreme cases (leveraged investments) you might even lose more than the capital amount. Gold may be a component of a well-diversified portfolio but I certainly would not recommend putting all of one's money in it. (The same goes for any asset class; a portfolio composed exclusively of stocks is no more well-diversified than a portfolio composed exclusively of precious metals, or government bonds.) For some specifics about investing in precious metals, you may want to see Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum?.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68137f0a658c2a2bc73b6b31ad72c235", "text": "\"When you invest in a single index/security, you are completely exposed to the risk of that security. Diversification means spreading the investments so the losses on one side can be compensated by the gains on the other side. What you are talking about is one thing called \"\"risk apettite\"\", more formally known as Risk Tolerance: Risk tolerance is the degree of variability in investment returns that an investor is willing to withstand. (emphasis added) This means that you are willing to accept some losses in order to get a potential bigger return. Fidelity has this graph: As you can see in the table above, the higher the risk tolerance, the bigger the difference between the best and worst values. That is the variability. The right-most pie can be one example of an agressive diversified portfolio. But this does not mean you should go and buy exactly that security compostion. High-risk means playing with fire. Unless you are a professional stuntman, playing with fire usually leaves people burnt. In a financial context this usually means the money is gone. Recommended Reading: Investopedia; Risk and Diversification: The Risk-Reward Tradeoff Investopedia; How to construct a High Risk portfolio Fidelity: Guide to Diversification KPMG: Understanding and articulating Risk Appetite (pdf)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8310f2218e19f58e31b2da656ce534a7", "text": "Are you willing to risk the possibility of investing to prepare for these things and losing money or simply getting meager returns if those crises don't happen? Just invest in a well diversified portfolio both geographically and across multiple sectors and you should be fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e4227383817fb1d7e34405d771bee381", "text": "Thats a very open question, Depends on the risk you are willing to take with the money, or the length of time you are willing sit on it, or if you have a specific goal like buying a house. Some banks offer high(ish) rate savings accounts http://www.bankaccountsavings.co.uk/calculator with a switching bonus that could be a good start. (combining the nationwide flexdirect and regular saver) if you want something more long term - safe option is bonds, medium risk option is Index funds (kind of covers all 3 risks really), risky option is Stocks & shares. For these probably a S&S ISA for a tax efficient option. Also LISA or HtB ISA are worth considering if you want to buy a house in the future.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "996266f97b78e4f6e3f69efe23457325", "text": "\"I would start with The Intelligent Investor. It's more approachable than Security Analysis. I read the revised edition which includes post-chapter commentary and footnotes from Jason Zweig. I found the added perspective helpful since the original book is quite old. Warren Buffet has called Intelligent Investor \"\"the best book about investing ever written.\"\" (Source) I would suggest that endorsement ranks it before the other. :) Security Analysis is more detailed and, perhaps, oriented at a more professional audience – though individual investors would certainly benefit from reading it. Security Analysis is used as a textbook on value investing in some university-level business & finance courses. (p.s. If you haven't yet heard about William Bernstein's The Intelligent Asset Allocator, I also recommend adding it to your reading list.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ddf64e9c50baa408074c1b2ff9aec11", "text": "\"I commend you for your desire to be a smart and engaged investor. Regarding the other comments, yes the market is unpredictable and dangerous, but such is everything that leads to profit. I am currently reading, \"\"Advanced Options Pricing Models\"\" (Katz and McCormick) - mighy be at your local library. The book is helpful because in explaining the options market, it covers basic stock methodologies and then builds on them as it pursues a quant's math/computation based view of the market. The book is highly math oriented and discusses authors' custom design scripts/alogrithms to analyze market behavior. See similar post about technical analysis (since it often directs short term trading decisisions).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "340d44a9f7c323428a3fd7a583777194", "text": "I'd say that because you are young, even the 'riskier' asset classes are not as risky as you think, for example, assuming conservatively that you only have 30 years to retirement, investing in stocks index might be a good option. In short term share prices are volatile and prone to bull and bear cycles but given enough time they have pretty much always outperformed any other asset classes. The key is not to be desperate to withdraw when an index is at the bottom. Some cycles can be 20 years, so when you need get nearer retirement you will need to diversify so that you can survive without selling low. Just make sure to pick an index tracker with low fees and you should be good to go. A word of warning is of course past performance is no indication of a future one, but if a diversified index tracker goes belly up for 20+ years, we are talking global calamity, in which case buy a shotgun and some canned food ;)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5b9a2379fe0e363b5e4f935c7eda594", "text": "\"Defining risk tolerance is often aided with a series of questions. Such as - You are 30 and have saved 3 years salary in your 401(k). The market drops 33% and since you are 100% S&P, you are down the same. How do you respond? (a) move to cash - I don't want to lose more money. (b) ride it out. Keep my deposits to the maximum each year. Sleep like a baby. A pro will have a series of this type of question. In the end, the question resolves to \"\"what keeps you up at night?\"\" I recall a conversation with a coworker who was so risk averse, that CDs were the only right investment for her. I had to explain in painstaking detail, that our company short term bond fund (sub 1 year government paper) was a safe place to invest while getting our deposits matched dollar for dollar. In our conversations, I realized that long term expectations (of 8% or more) came with too high a risk for her, at any level of her allocation. Zero it was.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b814e2e4f943f77864610939f302e619", "text": "\"I find it interesting that you didn't include something like [Total Bond Market](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBMFX), or [Intermediate-Term Treasuries](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBIIX), in your graphic. If someone were to have just invested in the DJI or SP500, then they would have ignored the tenants of the Modern Portfolio Theory and not diversified adequately. I wouldn't have been able to stomach a portfolio of 100% stocks, commodities, or metals. My vote goes for: 1.) picking an asset allocation that reflects your tolerance for risk (a good starting point is \"\"age in bonds,\"\" i.e. if you're 30, then hold 30% in bonds); 2.) save as if you're not expecting annualized returns of %10 (for example) and save more; 3.) don't try to pick the next winner, instead broadly invest in the market and hold it. Maybe gold and silver are bubbles soon to burst -- I for one don't know. I don't give the \"\"notion in the investment community\"\" much weight -- as it always is, someday someone will be right, I just don't know who that someone is.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d91a34cfbab8e3a3455341d62804b92", "text": "CDs or money market funds. Zero-risk for the CD and ultra-low risk for the money market account; better return than most savings accounts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d779cf9b522dace5934e0ee2a3dc591", "text": "\"These days almost all risky assets move together, so the most difficult criterion to match from your 4 will be \"\"not strongly correlated to the U.S. economy.\"\" However, depending on how you define \"\"strongly,\"\" you may want to consider the following: Be careful, you are sort of asking for the impossible here, so these will all be caveat emptor type assets. EDIT: A recent WSJ article talks about what some professional investors are doing to find uncorrelated bets. Alfredo Viegas, an emerging-markets strategist for boutique brokerage Knight Capital Group, is encouraging clients to bet against Israeli bonds. His theory: Investors are so focused on Europe that they are misjudging risks in the Middle East, such as a flare-up in relations between Israel and Iran, or greater conflict in Egypt and Syria. Once they wake up to those risks, Israeli bonds are likely to tumble, Mr. Viegas reasons. In the meantime, the investment isn't likely to be pushed one way or another by the European crisis, he says.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e230288331beca696b9be76c1cb1340", "text": "\"From Pub 550: More or less stock bought than sold. If the number of shares of substantially identical stock or securities you buy within 30 days before or after the sale is either more or less than the number of shares you sold, you must determine the particular shares to which the wash sale rules apply. You do this by matching the shares bought with an equal number of the shares sold. Match the shares bought in the same order that you bought them, beginning with the first shares bought. The shares or securities so matched are subject to the wash sale rules. You must match \"\"beginning with the first shares bought.\"\" If only activity 1 & 4 happened, you'd have bought and sold stock with no wash sale. If you remove activity 1 & 4 from consideration because they are a \"\"normal\"\" or non-wash sale transaction, then the Activity 2 or Activity 3 trigger a wash sale. The shares in lot 1 are sold for disallowed loss, so the disallowed basis would be added to shares in lot 2 because lot 2 was purchased before lot 3. (hat tip to user662852 who had much better wording) Second example: Activity 5, 7, and 8 all together would not be a wash sale. The addition of activity 6 creates a wash sale. The shares in Activity 5 are sold for a disallowed loss in Activity 7 & 8 because of the wash sale triggering purchase in Activity 6. Activity 6 is where you add the disallowed basis because they are the \"\"first shares bought\"\" that cause the wash sale rule to be triggered.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d9541b7dd3a0d48fd5d36e184aad95bf", "text": "If you are in an economy which has a decent liquid debt market (corporate bonds, etc.), then you may look into investing in AA or AA+ rated bonds. They can provide higher returns than bank deposits and are virtually risk-free. (Though in severe economic downturns, you can see defaults in even very high-rated bonds, leading to partial or complete loss of value however, this is statistically quite rare). You can make this investment through a debt mutual fund but please make sure that you read through the offer document carefully to understand the investment style of the mutual fund and their expense ratio (which directly affect your returns). In any case, it is always recommended to reach out to an investment adviser who is good with local tax laws to minimize taxes and maximize returns.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
2022c314302f8f90d56eda4968740795
Can I use my long position stocks as margin for my short sold stocks?
[ { "docid": "c75124c6a9810e77d5807454eacd0289", "text": "200% margin for a short sale is outrageous. You should only need to put up 150% margin, of which 50% is your money, and the 100% is the proceeds. With $100 of your money, you should be able to buy $100 of GOOG and short $100 of PNQI.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4d0385f44412a8f888adc633b39da262", "text": "\"When portfolio positions are reported in percentages, those percentages are relative to the portfolio's base equity. When you start out, that is equal to the cash you have in a portfolio. Later it's the net equity of the portfolio (i.e., how much money you could withdraw if you were to exit all your positions). If you put $5,000 into your account and are long and short 50%, then you are long $2,500 and short $2,500. If it's 100% and -100%, then long and short $5,000. \"\"Leverage\"\" is often computed gross (as if all positions were long). So if you have 100% and -100%, then your broker may say you are \"\"levered 2 to 1.\"\" That is, your gross exposure is twice as large as your underlying base equity.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c843dc9c5c342b9205e36ba2aa3344f", "text": "\"You should check with your broker for details, but you can generally specify which \"\"lot\"\" you are selling. where I've seen it, that's done by concurrently sending a \"\"letter of instruction\"\" documenting your choice of lot concurrent with the sale, but different brokers may handle this differently. I would think this should work for the case that you describe. (In addition, the default rule used by your broker is \"\"probably\"\" first-in-first-out, which will do what you want here.) Note that this may come into play even in a margin account to the extent that you might want to specify a lot in order to obtain (or set yourself up for later benefit of) favorable tax treatment under the long-term capital gains rules\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "005ae68f6b6c32c422f0c8118e17c5a7", "text": "There is no difference. When dealing with short positions, talking about percentages become very tricky since they no longer add up to 100%. What does the 50% in your example mean? Unless there's some base amount (like total amount of the portfolio, then the percentages are meaningless. What matters when dealing with long and short positions is the net total - meaning if you are long 100 shares on one stock trade and short 50 shares on another, then you are net long 50 shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5fcbbc6e595a3203c102aaa7b49dfc8", "text": "Yes, you call the broker and tell him to use those shares to deliver to the short position.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b3223e6c6ae497ac0cf50ce1b853081", "text": "Yes, theoretically you can flip the shares you agreed to buy and make a profit, but you're banking on the market behaving in some very precise and potentially unlikely ways. In practice it's very tricky for you to successfully navigate paying arbitrarily more for a stock than it's currently listed for, and selling it back again for enough to cover the difference. Yes, the price could drop to $28, but it could just as easily drop to $27.73 (or further) and now you're hurting, before even taking into account the potentially hefty commissions involved. Another way to think about it is to recognize that an option transaction is a bet; the buyer is betting a small amount of money that a stock will move in the direction they expect, the seller is betting a large amount of money that the same stock will not. One of you has to lose. And unless you've some reason to be solidly confident in your predictive powers the loser, long term, is quite likely to be you. Now that said, it is possible (particularly when selling puts) to create win-win scenarios for yourself, where you're betting one direction, but you'd be perfectly happy with the alternative(s). Here's an example. Suppose, unrelated to the option chain, you've come to the conclusion that you'd be happy paying $28 for BBY. It's currently (June 2011) at ~$31, so you can't buy it on the open market for a price you'd be happy with. But you could sell a $28 put, promising to buy it at that price should someone want to sell it (presumably, because the price is now below $28). Either the put expires worthless and you pocket a few bucks and you're basically no worse off because the stock is still overpriced by your estimates, or the option is executed, and you receive 100 shares of BBY at a price you previously decided you were willing to pay. Even if the list price is now lower, long term you expect the stock to be worth more than $28. Conceptually, this makes selling a put very similar to being paid to place a limit order to buy the stock itself. Of course, you could be wrong in your estimate (too low, and you now have a position that might not become profitable; too high, and you never get in and instead just watch the stock gain in value), but that is not unique to options - if you're bad at estimating value (which is not to be confused with predicting price movement) you're doomed just about whatever you do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9058b6755c59aa95043d2ea72c11b6a", "text": "\"If you sell a stock you don't own, it's called a short sale. You borrowed the shares from an owner of the stock and eventually would buy to close. On most normal shares, you can hold a short position indefinitely, but there are some shares that have a combination of either a small float or too high a short position that shares to short are not available. This can create a \"\"short squeeze\"\" where shorts are burned by being forced to buy the stock back. Last - when you did this, you should have instructed the broker that you were \"\"selling to open\"\" or \"\"selling short.\"\" In the old days, when people held stock certificates, you were required to send the certificate in when you sold. Today, the broker should know that wasn't your intention.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "657fb692db7848c13e022c1b2868fcc7", "text": "If the position starts losing money as soon as it is put on, then I would close it out ,taking a small loss. However, if it starts making money,as in the stock inches higher, then you can use part of the premium collected to buy an out of money put, thereby limiting your downside. It is called a collar.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f9197dbec65727625330e84404cb3cf", "text": "Most brokers have a margin maintenance requirement of 30%. In your example, it would depend on how much money you're borrowing from your broker on margin. Consider this: You have $250, and short AAPL at $500 on margin. This would be a common scenario (federal law requires investors to have at least 50% of their margin equity when opening a transaction). If your broker had a requirement of 30%, they would require that for your $500 position, you have at least $500 * .3 = $150 equity. Since you are currently above that number at $250, you will not be hit with a margin call. Say the price of AAPL doubles, and now your position is worth $1000. $1000 * .3 = $300, which is $50 above your initial equity. Your broker will now consider you eligible for a margin call. Most will not execute the call right away, you will often have some time to either sell/cover stock or add funds to your account. But not all brokers will warn you if you are breaking margin requirements, and sometimes margin calls can take you by surprise if you are not paying attention. Also, many will charge interest on extra margin borrowed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b9eedb32654953aa200daa767763194", "text": "A long put - you have a small initial cost (the option premium) but profit as the stock goes down. You have no additional risk if the shock rises, even a lot. Short a stock - you gain if the stock drops, but have unlimited risk if it rises, the call mitigates this, by capping that rising stock risk. The profit/loss graph looks similar to the long put when you hold both the short position and the long call. You might consider producing a graph or spreadsheet to compare positions. You can easily sketch put, call, long stock, short stock, and study how combinations of positions can synthetically look like other positions. Often, when a stock has no shares to short, the synthetic short can help you put your stock position in place.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8028417ab8882585d653989bfad1b06", "text": "When you sell a stock that you own, you realize gains, or losses. Short-term gains, realized within a year of buying and selling an asset, are taxed at your maximum (or marginal) tax rate. Long term-gains, realized after a year, are taxed at a lower, preferential rate. The first thing to consider is losses. Losses can be cancelled against gains, reducing your tax liability. Losses can also be carried over to the next tax year and be redeemed against those gains. When you own a bunch of the same type of stock, bought at different times and prices, you can choose which shares to sell. This allows you to decide whether you realize short- or long-term gains (or losses). This is known as lot matching (or order matching). You want to sell the shares that lost value before selling the ones that gained value. Booking losses reduces your taxes; booking gains increases them. If faced with a choice between booking short term and long term losses, I'd go with the former. Since net short-term gains are taxed at a higher rate, I'd want to minimize the short-term tax liability before moving on to long-term tax liability. If my remaining shares had gains, I'd sell the ones purchased earliest since long-term gains are taxed at a lower rate, and delaying the booking of gains converts short-term gains into long-term ones. If there's a formula for this, I'd say it's (profit - loss) x (tax bracket) = tax paid", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e01ecd127956459cee7b71abf819ac75", "text": "\"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\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c494d981cd42f26b230f546bd8aa58c1", "text": "If you buy puts, there are no guaranteed proceeds though. If you short against the box, you've got immediate proceeds with a nice capital loss if it doesn't work out. Conversely, you could write a covered call, take the contract proceeds, and write off the long position losses. Nobody ever factors tax consequences into the equation here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41edaece3a849c76e79e57d348b0c2b5", "text": "No, CFD is not viable as a long term trading strategy. You have a minimum margin to maintain, and you are given X days to top up your margin should you not meet the margin requirements. Failure to meet margin requirements will result in a forced sell where you are no longer able to hold onto the stock. A long term trading strategy is where you hold onto the stock through the bad times of the company and keep it long enough to see the good times. However, with CFD, you may be forced to sell before you see the good times. In addition, you incur additional lending charges (e.g. 4%-6%) for the ability to leverage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e339dfd0161b723a3e6d30b163028cee", "text": "\"Simplest way to answer this is that on margin, one is using borrowed assets and thus there are strings that come with doing that. Thus, if the amount of equity left gets too low, the broker has a legal obligation to close the position which can be selling purchased shares or buying back borrowed shares depending on if this is a long or short position respectively. Investopedia has an example that they walk through as the call is where you are asked to either put in more money to the account or the position may be closed because the broker wants their money back. What is Maintenance Margin? A maintenance margin is the required amount of securities an investor must hold in his account if he either purchases shares on margin, or if he sells shares short. If an investor's margin balance falls below the set maintenance margin, the investor would then need to contribute additional funds to the account or liquidate stocks in the account to bring the account back to the initial margin requirement. This request is known as a margin call. As discussed previously, the Federal Reserve Board sets the initial margin requirement (currently at 50%). The Federal Reserve Board also sets the maintenance margin. The maintenance margin, the amount of equity an investor needs to hold in his account if he buys stock on margin or sells shares short, is 25%. Keep in mind, however, that this 25% level is the minimum level set, brokerage firms can increase, but not decrease this level as they desire. Example: Determining when a margin call would occur. Assume that an investor had purchased 500 shares of Newco's stock. The shares were trading at $50 when the transaction was executed. The initial margin requirement on the account was 70% and the maintenance margin is 30%. Assume no transaction costs. Determine the price at which the investor will receive a margin call. Answer: Calculate the price as follows: $50 (1- 0.70) = $21.43 1 - 0.30 A margin call would be received when the price of Newco's stock fell below $21.43 per share. At that time, the investor would either need to deposit additional funds or liquidate shares to satisfy the initial margin requirement. Most people don't want \"\"Margin Calls\"\" but stocks may move in unexpected ways and this is where there are mechanisms to limit losses, especially for the brokerage firm that wants to make as much money as possible. Cancel what trade? No, the broker will close the position if the requirement isn't kept. Basically think of this as a way for the broker to get their money back if necessary while following federal rules. This would be selling in a long position or buying in a short sale situation. The Margin Investor walks through an example where an e-mail would be sent and if the requirement isn't met then the position gets exited as per the law.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8d00d25fc080b968a4da21485d99698", "text": "Timothy Sykes specializes in this type of trade, according to his website. He has some recommendations for brokers that allow shorting low-priced stocks:", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
bdfcdf3e90a16df978a030387f5af348
Why should I trust investment banks' ratings?
[ { "docid": "546e4f72d09bc4718e190a0dd240b4fd", "text": "In theory, GS has a Chinese Wall between the department which issued the advice and any departments which may profit from such advice. This would take away some of your distrust, except for the fact that GS did violate these rules in the past (see the answer from user10665). You're wondering about the timing, prior to the release of figures by Tesla itself. This is quite normal. Predicting the past is not that useful ;) The price range indeed is wide, but that too is a meaningful opinion. It says that GS thinks Tesla's share price strongly depends on factors which are hard to predict. In comparison, Coca Cola's targets will be in a much smaller range because its costs and sales are very stable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2b54cdc0716e474b03097af2f154815", "text": "\"If there's indeed no reason to trust GS, i.e. those are just guides then the question is: Why do investors seem to care? Because there's a reason to trust. You're just reading the bottom line - the target price range. More involved investors read the whole report, including the description of the current situation, the premises for the analysis, the expectations on the firm's performance and what these expectations are based on, the analysis of how the various scenarios might affect the valuation, and the evaluation of chances of these scenarios to occur. You don't have to trust everything and expect it to be 100% correct, analysts are not prophets. But you do have an option of reading their reports and critically analyzing their conclusions. What you suspect GS of doing (\"\"I tend to believe those guys just want themselves a cheap buy price a few days before Q2 earnings release\"\") is a criminal offence.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41ae722fcce68d01edfb7eaddcc8744f", "text": "Investment banks will put out various reports and collect revenues from that along with their banking activity. I don't read them or care to read them myself. If banks can make money from something, they will likely do it, especially if it is legal. To take the Tesla stock question for a moment: Aren't you ruling out that yesterday was the day that Tesla was included in the Nasdaq 100 and thus there may be some people today exiting because they tried to cash in on the index funds having to buy the stock and bid it up in a sense? Or as @littleadv points out there could be those tracking the stocks not in the index that would have been forced to sell for another idea here. The Goldman note is a possible explanation but there could well be more factors in play here such as automated trading systems that seek to take advantage of what could be perceived as arbitrage opportunities. There can be quick judgments made on things which may or may not be true in the end. After all, who knows exactly what is causing the sell-off. Is it a bunch of stop orders being triggered? Is it people actually putting in sell order manually? Is it something else? There are lots of questions here where I'm not sure how well one can assign responsibility here.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3b9ae35eb128a2fcc6a93a1cd48c9cae", "text": "The indication is based on the average Buy-Hold-Sell rating of a group of fundamental analysts. The individual analysts provide a Buy, Hold or Sell recommendation based on where the current price of the stock is compared to the perceived value of the stock by the analyst. Note that this perceived value is based on many assumptions by the analyst and their biased view of the stock. That is why different fundamental analysts provide different values and different recommendations on the same stock. So basically if the stock's price is below the analyst's perceived value it will be given a Buy recommendation, if the price is equal with the perceived value it will be given a Hold recommendation and if the price is more than the perceived value it will be given a Sell recommendation. As the others have said this information IMHO is useless.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc7f42649f3f23fb3fac410b56aced21", "text": "\"This company was a reputable rating agency for many years. See Weiss Research website, ratings section for a very different perspective on Martin Weiss's work than the websites with which he is now associated. I checked both links provided, and agree with the questioner in every way: These appear to be highly questionable investment research websites. I use such strong terms based on the fact that the website actually uses the distasteful pop-up ploy, \"\"Are you SURE you want to leave this site?\"\" Clearly, something changed between what Weiss Ratings was in the past (per company history since 1971) and what Martin Weiss is doing now. Larry Edelson seems to have been associated exclusively with questionable websites and high pressure investment advice since 2007. From 1996 through the present, he worked as either an employee or contractor of Weiss Research. Let's answer each of your questions. On June 22, 2006, the Commission instituted settled administrative proceedings against Weiss Research, Inc., Martin Weiss, and Lawrence Edelson (collectively, “Respondents”) for violations of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 in connection with their operation of an unregistered investment adviser and the production and distribution of materially false and misleading marketing materials. Full details about Weiss Ratings operations, including its history from 1996 through 2001, when it operated in compliance with securities laws, then from 2001 through 2005, which was when the SEC filed charges for regulatory violations, are available from the June 2006 U.S. SEC court documents PDF. Finally, this quantitative assessment, \"\"Safe With Martin Weiss? (December 2010) by CXO Advisory (providers of \"\"objective research and reviews to aid investing decisions\"\") for its readers concluded the following: In summary, the performance of Martin Weiss’ premium services in aggregate over the past year is unimpressive. The study methodology was good, but I recommend reading the article (I posted the URL) to fully understand what caveats and assumptions were done to reach that conclusion.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97ae846da79dfb8cf406399d59a40041", "text": "For questions 1 and 2. 1) If you are packing the loans into a CDO, they are being sold on the open market. Once it achieves a AAA rating, as most did even though they were mostly subprime, alt a, or arm, it is sold and shipped off the originator's books (While the originator of the CDO collects X% in fees) Basically how the originator makes their money is by X amount of CDOs they sell. There was no incentive to pick and choose the best borrowers to sell a loan to because how the CDOs were sold they achieved the best rating regardless of the borrowers credit risk. Due to this model, people are going to try and get as many people into the homes and sell the CDO asap. This caused questionable lending practices to result, NINJA (no income, no job, no assets) loans, manipulating borrowers income, assets, etc. Things that could be changed to help not have this occur again: a) Feds monetary policy was pretty meh during this period, due to low interest rates the banks had pretty much an endless supply of money and when all the reasonable ventures dried up they had to explore other opportunities to lend. b) Ratings agencies need an overhaul in how they receive their commission, preferably they should be being paid by the investor not the person issuing the security. This will help to eliminate the bias that results. c) Having X% (2-5) remain on the institutions books who created the CDO will help to make them responsibly lend. This is because if they are required to have it remain on their books, they will make better longer term decisions in who to lend to. I'm pretty sure all of these issues are discussed in Nouriel Roubini's book [Crisis Economics](http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Economics-Course-Future-Finance/dp/1594202508) Another Great book already mentioned in this thread is by Michael Lewis [The Big Short](http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393338827/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324140607&amp;sr=1-1) If your interested in the European Crisis Michael Lewis also just came out with [Boomerang](http://www.amazon.com/Boomerang-Travels-New-Third-World/dp/0393081818/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324140665&amp;sr=1-1)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e9dab648c073d7d951d574e279b4de7", "text": "Dollar is the lingua franca of the financial industry and unluckily it is the US currency. It is till today considered the most safest investment bet, that is why you have China possesing $3 trillion of US debt, as an investment albiet a very safe one. Financial investors get in queue to by US bonds the moment they are put up for sale. Because of the AAA rating the investors consider it to be safe at a specific rate. Now when you lower the credit rating you are indirectly asking the US government that you want a higher return(yield) on your investments. When you ask for higher yields, it translates into higher interest rates (money US would get for bonds issued decreases and so more bonds are issued). So you basically start looking at a slowdown in consumer spendings households and businesses. With already defaults, repossesions and lesser spending, the slowdown would increase manifold.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "138081ec8dc672510864b024303858ca", "text": "Whilst it is true that they do not have a conference call every time a rating is produced, the parameters of a natural oligopoly do indicate that there are negative effects of deviating too much from the other members of an oligopoly. There are instances of rating agencies (Moody's) giving lower ratings to punish the issuer for going elsewhere (Re Hannover), but usually a slightly lower rating may be acceptable and is usually corrected to be in line with the competitor shortly afterwards. The power, arguably, is with the issuer in this sense because they can take their business to the 3rd member (Fitch) if the rating is too low from one of the Big Two. The preservation of the 'Big Two', for so long, is arguably testament to the S&amp;P and Moody's understanding of these parameters If the answer is not micromanaging, what do you think it is out of interest?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a391300cbd24b967851a40af75af143", "text": "\"Institutions may be buying large quantities of the stock and would want the price to go up after they are done buying all that they have to buy. If the price jumps before they finish buying then they may not make as great a deal as they would otherwise. Consider buying tens of thousands of shares of a company and then how does one promote that? Also, what kind of PR system should those investment companies have to disclose whether or not they have holdings in these companies. This is just some of the stuff you may be missing here. The \"\"Wall street analysts\"\" are the investment banks that want the companies to do business through them and thus it is a win/win relationship as the bank gets some fees for all the transactions done for the company while the company gets another cheerleader to try to play up the stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a645e71c88b090fb161d6d1f0924ae6", "text": "\"Rating agencies are pretty garbage, the market is always a few steps ahead of them. However, India is rated lower as it has not been an economic \"\"power\"\" for a long time ans is still developing. However the market rates on bonds tell a different story, and that is that India is safer than Spain to lend to. It is also easier to go after assets in Spain a Eurozone country than India, however Indian debt in Rupees should be safer than Spanish debt in Euros as India can fire up the printer if necessary. Indian yield on the 10 year is ~ 8.5% inflation is 7.5% giving a real yield of 1% Spanish 10 year is 6.87% and Eurozone inflation is 2.4% giving a real yield of 4.47%. The market doesn't agree with S&amp;P.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ba531704a6a6569d654bfcf27ce3fb7", "text": "\"Morningstar is often considered a trusted industry standard when it comes to rating mutual funds and ETFs. They offer the same data-centric information for other investments as well, such as individual stocks and bonds. You can consult Morningstar directly if you like, but any established broker will usually provide you with Morningstar's ratings for the products it is trying to sell to you. Vanguard offers a few Emerging Markets stock and bond funds, some actively managed, some index funds. Other investment management companies (Fidelity, Schwab, etc.) presumably do as well. You could start by looking in Morningstar (or on the individual companies' websites) to find what the similarities and differences are among these funds. That can help answer some important questions: I personally just shove a certain percentage of my portfolio into non-US stocks and bonds, and of that allocation a certain fraction goes into \"\"established\"\" economies and a certain fraction into \"\"emerging\"\" ones. I do all this with just a few basic index funds, because the indices make sense (to me) and index funds cost very little.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b7f47bdc14e36e7029400f4aa22011d", "text": "Actually, you're missing the key feature of CDOs. Most CDOs use (much to our economic misery, ultimately) a system call tranching. To simplify this idea, I'll make a two tranch example. Suppose I buy mortgages covering a face value of $120,000,000. Because they are subprime, if I just put them in a pool and finance them with bonds, the rating will be lousy and most investors will shun them (at least investors who are safety oriented). What I do is divide them into two tranches. One bond issue is for $100,000,000 and another for $20,000,000. The idea is that any defaulting mortgage comes out of the latter bond issue. I'll probably keep these bonds (the lower tranch). Thus buyers of the first issue are safe unless defaults exceed $20,000,000. Then the rating agencies rate the first issue AAA and it gets snapped up by investors. In a strict sense it is overcollateralized, basically the entire $120,000,000 backs up the first bond issue. In reality, many CDOs had multiple tranches, with the lowest tranch being retained by the underwriters and the other tranches sold as bonds of various ratings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bbdb17034da83f541b45c12d27ec2b61", "text": "rawbdor is spot on both in terms of the divident yield and the ratings. BAC and C should have no dividend at all. They have liquidity due to the FED but they still have loads of debt that needs to be written off. For all intents and purposes they bankrupt but are kept alive as zombie banks by the FED and the market is pricing them as such. As we've seen time and again, the ratings agencies are lagging indicators regarding value. Once the market loses faith in an enterprise, the ratings agencies have no choice but to downgrade. The *only* reason the major agencies are in business is because they are a state sanctioned oligopoly. Essentially mutual/ money market funds cannot operate without these agencies by law.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2027b3ebdcb1a87ae89afa3da0ca9733", "text": "You can call it a stock rating of say between 0 to 5 or 0 to 10 or whatever scale you want to use. It should not be called a recommendation but rather a rating based on the criterial you have analysed. Also a scale from say 0 to 5 is better than using terms like buy, hold and sell.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4892243086c3dcd9db498e02a2f6c63", "text": "Right. A banker provides a product/service, whether it be liquidity or something else, for a premium. The Rothschilds, for example (I'm only familiar with them because I like their wine), are typical examples of some of the first bankers of the modern era-- they provided the ability to exchange currencies at a market value, and it made them one of the wealthiest families of the modern world. If someone doesn't like banks, then let them walk onto the NYSE and make their own investment decisions. Which is a terrible idea because it's statistically almost impossible to beat the market. If you wanted to be able to prove that you are a successful investor you would have to have higher earnings than a market portfolio every day for around 180 years, in order to have a T-statistic of about 2.0.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3dfba7595dbb91e360d60b0b825f095b", "text": "This was my exact thought when I first heard. It just sounds like inflation to me &amp; I don't understand the logic. If everyone on average gets say...a ~3% boost on their score, why wouldn't banks just adjust their standards by 3%?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "132e687702aa3c1ab0f5f97c9facfc6f", "text": "If you are interested in this stuff, S&amp;P produce a sovereign rating methodolgy, in which they will tell you exactly what factors they look at. Once you read this, you can obtain their latest rating report on India and Spain to understand how they applied said methodology in each case. (Not sure if this is free)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1479bfc3f23662f17bdf12c0074e13f8", "text": "\"I like Muro questions! No, I don't think they do. Because for me, as a personal finance investor type just trying to save for retirement, they mean nothing. If I cannot tell what the basic business model of a company is, and how that business model is profitable and makes money, then that is a \"\"no buy\"\" for me. If I do understand it, they I can do some more looking into the stock and company and see if I want to purchase. I buy index funds that are indexes of industries and companies I can understand. I let a fund manager worry about the details, but I get myself in the right ballpark and I use a simple logic test to get there, not the word of a rating agency. If belong in the system as a whole, I could not really say. I could not possibly do the level of accounting research and other investigation that rating agencies do, so even if the business model is sound I might lose an investment because the company is not an ethical one. Again, that is the job of my fund manager to determine. Furthermore and I mitigate that risk by buying indexes instead of individual stock.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
56ddf9c4494150e7d12f487110a906a6
What percentage of my portfolio should be in individual stocks?
[ { "docid": "7cd57b14478334506368024bba017f72", "text": "If you are comfortable with the risk etc, then the main thing to worry about is diversity. For some folks, picking stocks is beyond them, or they have no interest in it. But if it's working for you, and you want to keep doing it, more power to you. If you are comfortable with the risk, you could just as well have ALL your equity position in individual stocks. I would offer only two pieces of advice in that respect. 1) no more than 4% of your total in any one stock. That's a good way to force diversity (provided the stocks are not clustered in a very few sectors like say 'financials'), and make yourself take some of the 'winnings off the table' if a stock has done well for you. 2) Pay Strong attention to Taxes! You can't predict most things, but you CAN predict what you'll have to pay in taxes, it's one of the few known quantities. Be smart and trade so you pay as little in taxes as possible 2A)If you live someplace where taxes on Long term gains are lower than short term (like the USA) then try really really hard to hold 'winners' till they are long term. Even if the price falls a little, you might be up in the net compared to paying out an extra 10% or more in taxes on your gains. Obviously there's a balancing act there between when you feel something is 'done' and the time till it's long term.. but if you've held something for 11 months, or 11 months and 2 weeks, odds are you'd be better off to hold till the one year point and then sell it. 2B) Capture Losses when you have them by selling and buying a similar stock for a month or something. (beware the wash sale rule) to use to offset gains.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46954434d854deff0918901928a5d57c", "text": "How much should a rational investor have in individual stocks? Probably none. An additional dollar invested in a ETF or low cost index fund comprised of many stocks will be far less risky than a specific stock. And you'd need a lot more capital to make buying, voting, and selling in individual stocks as if you were running your own personal index fund worthwhile. I think in index funds use weightings to make it easier to track the index without constantly trading. So my advice here is to allocate based not on some financial principal but just loss aversion. Don't gamble with more than you can afford to lose. Figure out how much of that 320k you need. It doesn't sound like you can actually afford to lose it all. So I'd say 5 percent and make sure that's funded from other equity holdings or you'll end up overweight in stocks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3eba0ee9b9ecd19532789be1d9146812", "text": "\"I find the question interesting, but it's beyond an intelligent answer. Say what you will about Jim Cramer, his advice to spend \"\"an hour per month on each stock\"\" you own appears good to me. But it also limits the number of stocks you can own. Given that most of us have day jobs in other fields, you need to decide how much time and education you can put in. That said, there's a certain pleasure in picking stocks, buying a company that's out of favor, but your instinct tells you otherwise. For us, individual stocks are about 10% of total portfolio. The rest is indexed. The amount that \"\"should be\"\" in individual stocks? None. One can invest in low cost funds, never own shares of individual stocks, and do quite well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17fe244e271b26488189fb303501cb61", "text": "I think it depends entirely on your risk tolerance. Putting money in individual stocks obviously increases your risk and potentially increases your reward. Personally (as a fairly conservative investor) I'd only invest in individual stocks if I could afford to lose the entire investment (maybe I'd end up buying Enron or Nortel). If you enjoy envesting and feel 10% is an acceptable loss I think you have your answer", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b78580b88a1a29dd3ce954b9a6d999d", "text": "I'm in a remarkably similar situation as yourself. I keep roughly 80% of my portfolio in low-cost ETFs (16% bond, 16% commodities, 48% stock), with about 20% in 6-8 individual stocks. Individual stocks are often overlooked by investors. The benefits of individual stock ownership are that you can avoid paying any holding or management fee (unlike ETFs and mutual funds). As long as you assess the fundamentals (P/B, P/E, PEG etc.) of the company you are buying, and don't over-trade, you can do quite well. I recommend semi-annual re-balancing among asset classes, and an individual stock check up. I've found over the years that my individual stocks outperform the S&P500 the vast majority of the time, although it often accompanied by an increase in volatility. Since you're limiting your stake to only 20%, the volatility is not really an issue.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "32f8621bb2dbd2b0f0f4b28ba3bab59a", "text": "The only sensible reason to invest in individual stocks is if you have reason to think that they will perform better than the market as a whole. How are you to come to that conclusion other than by doing in-depth research into the stock and the company behind it? If you can't, or don't want to, reach that conclusion about particular stocks then you're better off putting your money into cheap index trackers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebe39a744dafca7cc1109e902d75b7a2", "text": "It depends on what stocks you invest in or whether you invest in an index, as all stocks are not created equally. If you prefer to invest directly into individual stocks and you choose ones that are financially health and trending upwards, you should be able to easily outperform any indexes and get your 30% return much quicker. But you always need to make sure that you have a stop loss placed on all of your stocks, because even the best performing companies can go through bad patches. The stop loss prevents you from losing all your capital if the share price suddenly starts going south and turns into a downtrend.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a9bfc6f02844bb51fdc72df8873d4e3", "text": "\"You probably want to think about pools of money separately if they have separate time horizons or are otherwise not interchangeable. A classic example is your emergency fund (which has a potentially-immediate time horizon) vs. your retirement savings. The emergency fund would be all in cash or very short-term bonds, and would not count in your retirement asset allocation. Since the emergency fund usually has a capped value (a certain amount of money you want to have for emergencies) rather than a percentage of net worth value, this especially makes sense; you have to treat the emergency fund separately or you'd have to keep changing your asset allocation percentages as your net worth rises (hopefully) with respect to the capped emergency amount. Similarly, say you are saving for a car in 3 years; you'd probably invest that money very conservatively. Also, it could not go in tax-deferred retirement accounts, and when you buy the car the account will go to zero. So probably worth treating this separately. On the other hand, say you have some savings in tax-deferred retirement accounts and some in taxable accounts, but in both cases you're expecting to use the money for retirement. In that case, you have the same time horizon and goals, and it can pay to think about the taxable and nontaxable accounts as a whole. In particular you can use \"\"asset location\"\" (put less-tax-efficient assets in tax-deferred accounts). In this case maybe you would end up with mostly bonds in the tax-deferred accounts and mostly equities in the taxable accounts, for tax reasons; the asset allocation would only make sense considering all the accounts, since the taxable account would be too equity-heavy and the tax-deferred one too bond-heavy. There can be practical reasons to treat each account separately, too, though. For example if your broker has a convenient automatic rebalancing tool on their website, it probably only works within an account. Treating each account by itself would let you use the automatic rebalancing feature on the website, while a more complicated asset location strategy where you rebalance across multiple accounts might be too hard and in practice you wouldn't get around to it. Getting around to rebalancing could be more important than tax-motivated asset location. You could also take a keep-it-simple attitude: as long as your asset allocation is pretty balanced (say 40% bonds) and includes a cash allocation that would cover emergencies, you could just put all your money in one big portfolio, and think of it as a whole. If you have an emergency, withdraw from the cash allocation and then rebuild it over time; if you have a major purchase, you could redeem some bonds and then rebuild the bond portion over time. (When I say \"\"over time\"\" I'm thinking you might start putting new contributions into the now-underallocated assets, or you might dollar-cost-average back into them by selling bits of the now-overallocated assets.) Anyway there's no absolute rule, it depends on what's simple enough to be manageable for you in practice, and what separate shorter-horizon investing goals you have in addition to retirement. You can always make things complex but remember that a simple plan that happens in real life is better than a complex plan you don't keep up with in practice (or a complex plan that takes away from activities you'd enjoy more).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d52d5504411747e2542abe9d003d7cb2", "text": "The biggest challenge with owning any individual stock is price fluctuation, which is called risk. The scenarios you describe assume that the stock behaves exactly as you predict (price/portfolio doubles) and you need to consider risk. One way to measure risk in a stock or in a portfolio is Sharpe Ratio (risk adjusted return), or the related Sortino ratio. One piece of advice that is often offered to individual investors is to diversify, and the stated reason for diversification is to reduce risk. But that is not telling the whole story. When you are able to identify stocks that are not price correlated, you can construct a portfolio that reduces risk. You are trying to avoid 10% tax on the stock grant (25%-15%), but need to accept significant risk to avoid the 10% differential tax ($1000). An alternative to a single stock is to invest in an ETF (much lower risk), which you can buy and hold for a long time, and the price/growth of an ETF (ex. SPY) can be charted versus your stock to visualize the difference in growth/fluctuation. Look up the beta (volatility) of your stock compared to SPY (for example, IBM). Compare the beta of IBM and TSLA and note that you may accept higher volatility when you invest in a stock like Tesla over IBM. What is the beta of your stock? And how willing are you to accept that risk? When you can identify stocks that move in opposite directions, and mix your portfolio (look up beta balanced portolio), you can smooth out the variability (reduce the risk), although you may reduce your absolute return. This cannot be done with a single stock, but if you have more money to invest you could compose the rest of your portfolio to balance the risk for this stock grant, keep the grant shares, and still effectively manage risk. Some years ago I had accumulated over 10,000 shares (grants, options) in a company where I worked. During the time I worked there, their price varied between $30/share and < $1/share. I was able to liquidate at $3/share.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c96059fc6a8e0e1ff98cb3eb7b26c0b", "text": "This depends on a lot actually - with the overall being your goals and how much you like risk. Question: What are your fees/commissions for selling? $8.95/trade will wipe out some gains on those trades. (.69% if all are sold with $8.95 commission - not including the commission payed when purchased that should be factored into the cost basis) Also, I would recommend doing commission free ETFs. You can get the same affect as a mutual fund without the fees associated with paying someone to invest in ETFs and stocks. On another note: Your portfolio looks rather risky. Although everyone has their own risk preference so this might be yours but if you are thinking about a mutual fund instead of individual stocks you probably are risk averse. I would suggest consulting with an adviser on how to set up for the future. Financial advice is free flowing from your local barber, dentist, and of course StackExchange but I would look towards a professional. Disclaimer: These are my thoughts and opinions only ;) Feel free to add comments below.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e144e276962b576070defb6e72a120e", "text": "If you don't have a good knowledge of finance, maybe you should not put too much money in individual stocks. But if you really want to invest, you can just compare the rate of return of the most known stocks available to you (like the one from the S&P for the US). The rate of return is very simple to compute, it's 100*dividend/share price. For example a company with a current share price of 50.12 USD that delivered a dividend of 1.26 USD last year would have a rate of return of 100 * 1.26/50.12= 2.51% Now if you only invest in the most known stocks, since they are already covered by nearly all financial institutions and analysts: If you are looking for lower risk dividend companies, take a sample of companies and invest those with the lowest rates of return (but avoid extreme values). Of course since the stock prices are changing all the time, you have to compare them with a price taken at the same time (like the closing price of a specific day) and for the dividend, they can be on several basis (yearly, quartely, etc..) so you have to be sure to take the same basis. You can also find the P/E ratio which is the opposite indicator (= share price/dividend) so an higher P/E ratio means a lower risk. Most of the time you can find the P/E ratio or the rate of return already computed on specialized website or brokers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7776d8529615f03d3a1ff066204e2e5", "text": "I have a similar plan and a similar number of accounts. I think seeking a target asset allocation mix across all investment accounts is an excellent idea. I use excel to track where I am and then use it to adjust to get closer (but not exactly) to my target percentages. Until you have some larger balances, it may be prudent to use less categories or realize that you can't come exactly to your percentages, but can get close. I also simplify by primarily investing in various index funds. That means that in my portfolio, each category has 1 or 2 funds, not 10 or 20.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d407dde09a02878064db1dc11e7a5df2", "text": "\"JoeTaxpayer's answer is dead on... but let me give my own two cents with a little bit of math. Otherwise, I personally find that people talking about diversified portfolios tends to be full of buzzwords. Let's say that Buffett's investments are $10 million. He would like to earn ≥7% this year, or $700,000. He can invest that money in coca-cola//underwear, which might return: Or he can invest in \"\"genius moves\"\" that will make headlines: (like buying huge stakes in Goldman Sachs), which might return: And he makes plays for the long haul based on the expected value of the investments. So if he splits it 50/50... ($5 million/ $5 million), then his expected value is 822,250: By diversifying, he does reduce the expected value of the portfolio... (He is not giving $10 M the chance to turn into $1.5 million or $2 million for him!). The expected value of that shock-and-awe portfolio with all $10 million invested in it is $1.2M. By taking less risk... for less reward... his expected return is lower. But his risk is lower too. Scale this example back up into the $100 million or billion range that Buffett invests in and that extra margin makes the difference. In the context of your original article, the lower-risk 'cake and underwear' investments let Buffett go big on the things that will make 20%+ returns on billions of dollars, without completely destroying his investment capital when things take a turn for the worse.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ae55bf06b5b29598b4932492d995608", "text": "\"You should only invest in individual stocks if you truly understand the company's business model and follow its financial reports closely. Even then, individual stocks should represent only the tiniest, most \"\"adventurous\"\" part of your portfolio, as they are a huge risk. A basic investing principle is diversification. If you invest in a variety of financial instruments, then: (a) when some components of your portfolio are doing poorly, others will be doing well. Even in the case of significant economic downturns, when it seems like everything is doing poorly, there will be some investment sectors that are doing relatively better (such as bonds, physical real estate, precious metals). (b) over time, some components of your portfolio will gain more money than others, so every 6 or 12 months you can \"\"rebalance\"\" such that all components once again have the same % of money invested in them as when you began. You can do this either by selling off some of your well-performing assets to purchase more of your poorly-performing assets or (if you don't want to incur a taxable event) by introducing additional money from outside your portfolio. This essentially forces you to \"\"buy (relatively) low, sell (relatively) high\"\". Now, if you accept the above argument for diversification, then you should recognize that owning a handful (or even several handfuls) of individual stocks will not help you achieve diversification. Even if you buy one stock in the energy sector, one in consumer discretionary, one in financials, etc., then you're still massively exposed to the day-to-day fates of those individual companies. And if you invest solely in the US stock market, then when the US has a decline, your whole portfolio will decline. And if you don't buy any bonds, then again when the world has a downturn, your portfolio will decline. And so on ... That's why index mutual funds are so helpful. Someone else has already gone to the trouble of grouping together all the stocks or bonds of a certain \"\"type\"\" (small-cap/large-cap, domestic/foreign, value/growth) so all you have to do is pick the types you want until you feel you have the diversity you need. No more worrying about whether you've picked the \"\"right\"\" company to represent a particular sector. The fewer knobs there are to turn in your portfolio, the less chance there is for mistakes!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "614b7b9b22e749656708a18846064a59", "text": "On what basis did you do your initial allocation of funds to each stock? If you are 're-balancing' that implies returning things to their initial allocation. You can do this without any research or recommendations. If you started out with say 10 stocks and 10% of the funds allocated to each stock, then re-balancing would simply be either buying/selling to return to that initial allocation. If you are contributing to the portfolio you could adjust where the new money goes to re-balance without selling. Or if you are drawing money from the portfolio, then you could adjust what you are selling. If on the other hand you are trying to decide if you want to alter the stocks the portfolio is HOLDING, then you have an entirely different question from 're-balancing'", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f06a650f6e12c270ce086e21c87761e3", "text": "\"Great question! While investing in individual stocks can be very useful as a learning experience, my opinion is that concentrating an entire portfolio in a few companies' stock is a mistake for most investors, and especially for a novice for several reasons. After all, only a handful of professional investors have ever beaten the market over the long term by picking stocks, so is it really worth trying? If you could, I'd say go work on Wall Street and good luck to you. Diversification For many investors, diversification is an important reason to use an ETF or index fund. If they were to focus on a few sectors or companies, it is more likely that they would have a lop-sided risk profile and might be subject to a larger downside risk potential than the market as a whole, i.e. \"\"don't put all your eggs in one basket\"\". Diversification is important because of the nature of compound investing - if you take a significant hit, it will take you a long time to recover because all of your future gains are building off of a smaller base. This is one reason that younger investors often take a larger position in equities, as they have longer to recover from significant market declines. While it is very possible to build a balanced, diversified portfolio from individual stocks, this isn't something I'd recommend for a new investor and would require a substantial college-level understanding of investments, and in any case, this portfolio would have a more discrete efficient frontier than the market as a whole. Lower Volatility Picking individual stocks or sectors would could also significantly increase or decrease the overall volatility of the portfolio relative to the market, especially if the stocks are highly cyclical or correlated to the same market factors. So if they are buying tech stocks, they might see bigger upswings and downswings compared to the market as a whole, or see the opposite effect in the case of utilities. In other words, owning a basket of individual stocks may result in an unintended volatility/beta profile. Lower Trading Costs and Taxes Investors who buy individual stocks tend to trade more in an attempt to beat the market. After accounting for commission fees, transaction costs (bid/ask spread), and taxes, most individual investors get only a fraction of the market average return. One famous academic study finds that investors who trade more trail the stock market more. Trading also tends to incur higher taxes since short term gains (<1 year) are taxed at marginal income tax rates that are higher than long term capital gains. Investors tend to trade due to behavioral failures such as trying to time the market, being overconfident, speculating on stocks instead of long-term investing, following what everyone else is doing, and getting in and out of the market as a result of an emotional reaction to volatility (ie buying when stocks are high/rising and selling when they are low/falling). Investing in index funds can involve minimal fees and discourages behavior that causes investors to incur excessive trading costs. This can make a big difference over the long run as extra costs and taxes compound significantly over time. It's Hard to Beat the Market since Markets are Quite Efficient Another reason to use funds is that it is reasonable to assume that at any point in time, the market does a fairly good job of pricing securities based on all known information. In other words, if a given stock is trading at a low P/E relative to the market, the market as a whole has decided that there is good reason for this valuation. This idea is based on the assumption that there are already so many professional analysts and traders looking for arbitrage opportunities that few such opportunities exist, and where they do exist, persist for only a short time. If you accept this theory generally (obviously, the market is not perfect), there is very little in the way of insight on pricing that the average novice investor could provide given limited knowledge of the markets and only a few hours of research. It might be more likely that opportunities identified by the novice would reflect omissions of relevant information. Trying to make money in this way then becomes a bet that other informed, professional investors are wrong and you are right (options traders, for example). Prices are Unpredictable (Behave Like \"\"Random\"\" Walks) If you want to make money as a long-term investor/owner rather than a speculator/trader, than most of the future change in asset prices will be a result of future events and information that is not yet known. Since no one knows how the world will change or who will be tomorrow's winners or losers, much less in 30 years, this is sometimes referred to as a \"\"random walk.\"\" You can point to fundamental analysis and say \"\"X company has great free cash flow, so I will invest in them\"\", but ultimately, the problem with this type of analysis is that everyone else has already done it too. For example, Warren Buffett famously already knows the price at which he'd buy every company he's interested in buying. When everyone else can do the same analysis as you, the price already reflects the market's take on that public information (Efficent Market theory), and what is left is the unknown (I wouldn't use the term \"\"random\"\"). Overall, I think there is simply a very large potential for an individual investor to make a few mistakes with individual stocks over 20+ years that will really cost a lot, and I think most investors want a balance of risk and return versus the largest possible return, and don't have an interest in developing a professional knowledge of stocks. I think a better strategy for most investors is to share in the future profits of companies buy holding a well-diversified portfolio for the long term and to avoid making a large number of decisions about which stocks to own.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "005ae68f6b6c32c422f0c8118e17c5a7", "text": "There is no difference. When dealing with short positions, talking about percentages become very tricky since they no longer add up to 100%. What does the 50% in your example mean? Unless there's some base amount (like total amount of the portfolio, then the percentages are meaningless. What matters when dealing with long and short positions is the net total - meaning if you are long 100 shares on one stock trade and short 50 shares on another, then you are net long 50 shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91fb41385d3ed83338b90b32b5f44787", "text": "I don't know that I can answer the question fully, but 2 points. The percent that represent capital gains certainly can't exceed 100. Did you mean 50% but the 500% is a typo? More important, funds held in retirement accounts have no issue with this, Cap Gains are meaningless within tax deferred accounts. I don't know the ratio of stocks held in these accounts vs outside, just that the 2011 year end total retirement account worth was $17 trillion. (That's 12 zeros) This strikes me as a high ratio, although more numbers digging is in order.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "234abc3a41c6ec7418900d2ca1dcfc46", "text": "Split the difference. Max it out, sell half immediately and wait a year or more for the rest. Or keep a third... whatever works for your risk tolerance. A perfectly diversified portfolio with $0 in it is still worth $0.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c27cfde6597ec260ee214ddc112e92dc", "text": "\"First note that CIBC issued these bonds with a zero coupon, so they do not pay any interest. They were purchased by the market participants at a small premium, paying an average of 100.054 for a nominal value of 100. This equates to a negative annual \"\"redemption\"\" yield of 0.009% - i.e., if held until maturity, then the holder will witness a negative annual return of 0.009%. You ask \"\"why does this make sense?\"\". Clearly it makes no sense for a private individual to purchase these bonds since they will be better off simply holding cash. To understand why there is a demand for these bonds we need to look elsewhere. The European bond market is currently suffering a dwindling supply owing to the ECBs bond buying programme (i.e., quantitative easing). The ECB is purchasing EUR 80 billion per month of Eurozone sovereign debt. This means that the quantity of high grade bonds available for purchase is shrinking fast. Against this backdrop we have all of those European institutions and financial corporations who are legally obliged to purchase bonds to be held as assets against their obligations. These are mostly national and private pension funds as well as insurance companies and fund managers. In this sort of environment, the price of high quality bonds is quickly bid up to the point where we see negative yields. In this environment companies like CIBC can borrow by issuing bonds with a zero coupon and the market is willing to pay a small premium over their nominal value. TL/DR The situation is further complicated by the subdued inflation outlook for the Eurozone, with a very real possibility of deflation. Should a prolonged period of deflation materialise, then negative redemption yield bonds may provide a positive real return.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
eda7914c450e3319f1763a07be33c93c
How to deal with intraday prices conflicting with EOD highs and lows
[ { "docid": "244082b525c3e0b52022e26c339e7810", "text": "\"In the US, stocks are listed on one exchange but can be traded on multiple venues. You need to confirm exactly what your data is showing: a) trades on the primary-listed exchange; or b) trades made at any venue. Also, the trade condition codes are important. Only certain trade condition codes contribute towards the day's open/high/low/close and some others only contribute towards the volume data. The Consolidated Tape Association is very clear on which trades should contribute towards each value - but some vendors have their own interpretation (or just simply an erroneous interpretation of the specifications). It may surprise you to find that the majority of trading volume for many stocks is not on their primary-listed exchange. For example, on 2 Mar 2015, NASDAQ:AAPL traded a total volume across all venues was 48096663 shares but trading on NASDAQ itself was 12050277 shares. Trades can be cancelled. Some data vendors do not modify their data to reflect these busted trades. Some data vendors also \"\"snapshot\"\" their feed at a particular point in time of the data. Some exchanges can provide data (mainly corrections) 4-5 hours after the closing bell. By snapshotting the data too early and throwing away any subsequent data is a typical cause of data discrepancies. Some data vendors also round prices/volumes - but stocks don't just trade to two decimal places. So you may well be comparing two different sets of trades (with their own specific inclusion rules) against the same stock. You need to confirm with your data sources exactly how they do things. Disclosure: Premium Data is an end-of-day daily data vendor.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "6346bf2359cb8a27f603da4b4436f171", "text": "You said the decision will be made by EOD. If you've made the decision prior to the market close, I'd execute on the closing price. If you are trading stocks with any decent volume, I'd not worry about the liquidity. If your strategy's profits are so small that your gains are significantly impacted by say, the bid/ask spread (a penny or less for liquid stocks) I'd rethink the approach. You'll find the difference between the market open and prior night close is far greater than the normal bid/ask.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0664599fabdb6883ccada3e18d42cf24", "text": "If you are in it for the long run and are not worried about intra day fluctuations and buying within + or - 1% you would be better off going for a market order as this will make sure you buy it on the day. If you use limit orders you risk missing out on the order if prices gap and start rising in the morning. Another option is to employ stop buy trigger orders (if offered by your broker). So you would have to sum up and decide which type of order would suit your strategy the best. Are you looking to buy the security because you are looking for long term growth and gains, or are you after getting the best price possible to help your short term gains?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c0c5e7650ac2b723b638a50e5bc0f53", "text": "There are lots of reasons for the differences in price. Can you go to (a) bank, (b) forex bureau and (c) central bank and post back both bid and offer prices at a given time so we can consider the spread? What you've said above for (a) and (b) are presumably USDGHS offer prices, because they are higher than the (c) central bank price. If a bank or bureau bid price was higher than the central bank offer price then you could buy GHS from the central bank and then sell them to a bureau for a higher price, an almost no risk arbitrage, other than the armoured car to deliver the funds from central bank to bureau. What you've posted is: (a) a bank will sell you 1 USD for 3.4 GHS (b) a bureau will sell you 1 USD for 3.7 GHS (c) we can see the bid/offer for central bank is 3.1949/3.1975 which means the central bank, if you have an account, will sell you 1 USD for 3.1975 GHS. You clearly want to buy USD from the central bank, then the bank, then the bureau. Anyway, the reason for these differences is all to do with liquidity conditions in the local areas, the customer types, and the frequency of orders versus inventory... Think about it. The central bank has the most frequency of orders and the biggest customers so it offers the lower price, then the bank, and then the bureau. I think the bureau is the worst price there... You have to explain further :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e42588337b533431d5839a751b472ca7", "text": "You typically need to specify that you want the GTC order to be working during the Extended hours session. I trade on TD Ameritrade's Thinkorswim platform, and you can select DAY, GTC, EXT or GTC_EXT. So in your case, you would select GTC_EXT.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89940e315a6cc1493916b85e348e62eb", "text": "In my experience thanks to algorithmic trading the variation of the spread and the range of trading straight after a major data release will be as random as possible, since we live in an age that if some pattern existed at these times HFT firms would take out any opportunity within nanoseconds. Remember that some firms write algorithms to predict other algorithms, and it is at times like those that this strategy would be most effective. With regards to my own trading experience I have seen orders fill almost €400 per contract outside of the quoted range, but this is only in the most volatile market conditions. Generally speaking, event investing around numbers like these are only for top wall street firms that can use co-location servers and get a ping time to the exchange of less than 5ms. Also, after a data release the market can surge/plummet in either direction, only to recover almost instantly and take out any stops that were in its path. So generally, I would say that slippage is extremely unpredictable in these cases( because it is an advantage to HFT firms to make it so ) and stop-loss orders will only provide limited protection. There is stop-limit orders( which allow you to specify a price limit that is acceptable ) on some markets and as far as I know InteractiveBrokers provide a guaranteed stop-loss fill( For a price of course ) that could be worth looking at, personally I dont use IB. I hope this answer provides some helpful information, and generally speaking, super-short term investing is for algorithms.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bcadeea3c20862c49481272928faa326", "text": "\"If the stock is below its purchase price, there is no way to exit the position immediately without taking losses. Since presumably you had Good Reasons for buying that stock that haven't changed overnight, what you should probably do is just hold it and wait for the stock to come back up. Otherwise you're putting yourself into an ongoing pattern of \"\"buy high, sell low\"\", which is precisely what you don't want to do. If you actually agree with the market that you made a mistake and believe that the stock will not recover any part of the loss quickly (and indeed will continue going down), you could sell immediately and take your losses rather than waiting and possibly taking more losses. Of course if the stock DOES recover you've made the wrong bet. There are conditions under which the pros will use futures to buffer a swing. But that's essentially a side bet, and what it saves you has to be balanced against what it costs you and how certain you are that you NOW can predict the stock's motion. This whole thing is one of many reasons individuals are encouraged to work with index funds, and to buy-and-hold, rather than playing with individual stocks. It is essentially impossible to reliably \"\"time the market\"\", so all you can do is research a stock to death before making a bet on it. Much easier, and safer, to have your money riding on the market as a whole so the behavior of any one stock doesn't throw you into a panic. If you can't deal with the fact that stocks go down as well as up, you probably shouldn't be in the market.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d842df2edcb6060ea67ec2da23855a0c", "text": "The best thing to do is not worry about what time is best to buy but put in a conditional order before the market opens. If your conditions are met during the trading day your order will go through and you will buy the shares. This keeps your emotions out of your trading and will stop you from either chasing the market or buying when you consider the wrong time. As you have already done your analysis and made your decision before market open, thus you should place your conditional orders and stop losses before market opens as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a52969d6de27e78057142e53b34db9c", "text": "You're realizing the perils of using a DCF analysis. At best, you can use them to get a range of possible values and use them as a heuristic, but you'll probably find it difficult to generate a realistic estimate that is significantly different than where the price is already.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "661a82ae2d2703de1f52515e29710b2d", "text": "Stop orders and stop limit orders typically do not execute during extended hours after the general market session has closed. Stop orders are market orders and market orders especially are not executed during extended hours. Although there are exceptions because a broker can say one thing and do another thing with the way order types are presented to customers vs what their programming actually does. The regulatory burden is a slap on the wrist, so you need to ask the broker what their practices are. Orders created during normal market hours do not execute in extended sessions, different orders would have to be made during the extended session. Your stop order should execute if the normal market hour price stays below your stop price. So a stop limit would actually be worse here, because a stop limit will create a limit order which may never get hit (since it is above the best bid best ask)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee39ed06924306cf76f2b97018a28957", "text": "If you are looking to go long (buy) you would use bid prices as this is what you will be matched against for your order to be executed and a trade to go through. If you are looking to go short (sell) you would use the ask prices as this is what you will be matched against for your order to be executed and a trade go through. In your analysis you could use either this convention or the midpoint of the two prices. As FX is very liquid the bid and ask prices would be quite close to each other, so the easiest way to do your analysis is to use the convention I listed above.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "405c2b89f7064ee65103e2e10f5b8c33", "text": "The situation you're proposing is an over-simplification that wouldn't occur in practice. Orders occur in a sequence over time. Time is an important part of the order matching process. Orders are not processed in parallel; otherwise, the problem of fairness, already heavily regulated, would become even more complex. First, crossed and locked markets are forbidden by regulators. Crossed orders are where one exchange has a higher bid than another's ask, or a lower ask than another's bid. A locked market is where a bid on one exchange is equal to the ask on another. HFTs would be able to make these markets because of the gap between exchange fees. Since these are forbidden, and handling orders in parallel would ensure that a crossed or locked market would occur, orders are serialized (queued up), processed in order of price-time priority. So, the first to cross the market will be filled with the best oldest opposing order. Regulators believe crossed or locked markets are unfair. They would however eliminate the bid ask spread for many large securities thus the bid-ask cost to the holder.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02ecc79bbe98859380636df1e95a5c82", "text": "Yes, the ADR will trade on a separate exchange from the underlying one, and can (and does) see fluctuations in price that do not match the (exchange corrected) fluctuations that occur in the original market. You are probably exposing yourself to additional risk that is related to:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "739a5cc8792b387f4c5766483658062d", "text": "The dynamics of different contracts and liquidity can be quite different on the last day on the month and for intraday trade make sure you use bid-ask data as opposed to historical trades. I'm not saying whether it works or not, but im just giving you ideas to improve your testing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efd0097229164057ef16b3e11f442cf7", "text": "The closest I can think of from the back of my head is http://finviz.com/map.ashx, which display a nice map and allows for different intervals. It has different scopes (S&P500, ETFs, World), but does not allow for specific date ranges, though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8a6e87ece5bda5dbb3720b8f90837b88", "text": "\"Here is how I would approach that problem: 1) Find the average ratios of the competitors: 2) Find the earnings and book value per share of Hawaiian 3) Multiply the EPB and BVPS by the average ratios. Note that you get two very different numbers. This illustrates why pricing from ratios is inexact. How you use those answers to estimate a \"\"price\"\" is up to you. You can take the higher of the two, the average, the P/E result since you have more data points, or whatever other method you feel you can justify. There is no \"\"right\"\" answer since no one can accurately predict the future price of any stock.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
1c72d441d397ff0588ae90cb0d668dd6
When would one actually want to use a market order instead of a limit order?
[ { "docid": "0572d6c64b6fb716f3f5bc637d43c6c4", "text": "If you have $10000 and wish to buy 1000 shares of a $10 stock, you risk borrowing on margin if you go over a bit. For some people, that's a non-issue. Some folk with an account worth say, $250K don't mind going over now and then or even let the margin account run $100K on a regular basis. But your question is about market orders. A limit order above the market price will fast-fill at the market anyway. When I buy a stock, it's longer term usually. A dime on a $30 share price won't affect my buy decision, so market is ok for me.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "157b2b7c2386e865cf9fffc54a09e93b", "text": "You put in a market order when you want to sell to whomever raises their hand first. It results in the fastest possible liquidation of your stock. It's appropriate when you need to sell now, regardless of price. An example of when to use it: It's 3:55 PM, the market's going to close in 5 minutes and you need to sell some stocks to make some kind of urgent payment elsewhere. If instead you have a limit order in place, you might not reach the limit price before the market closes, and you'll still own the stock, which might not be what you want.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8b10a424bd74580716765f8f603b278", "text": "Firstly what are you trading that you could lose more than you put in? If you are simply trading stocks you will not lose more than you put in, unless you are trading on margin. A limit order is basically that, a limit on the maximum price you want your buy order bought at or the minimum price you want your sell order sold at. If you can't be glued to the screen all day when you place a limit order, and the market moves the opposite way, you may miss out on your order being executed. Even if you can be in front of the screen all day, you then have to decide if you want to chase the market of miss out on your purchase or sale. For example, if a stock is trading at $10.10 and you put a limit buy order to buy 1000 shares at or below $10.00 and the price keeps moving up to $10.20, then $10.30 and then $10.50, until it closes the day at $11.00. You then have the choice during the day to miss out on buying the shares or to increase your limit order in order to buy at a higher price. Sometime if the stock is not very liquid, i.e. it does not trade very often and has low volume, the price may hit $10.00 and you may only have part of your order executed, say 500 out of your 1000 shares were bought. This may mean that you may have to increase the price of your remaining order or be happy with only buying 500 shares instead of 1000. The same can happen when you are selling (but in reverse obviously). With market order, however, you are placing a buy order to buy at the next bid price in the depth or a sell order to sell at the next offer price in the depth. See the market depth table below: Note that this price depth table is taken before market open so it seems that the stock is somewhat illiquid with a large gap between the first and second prices in the buyers (bid) prices. When the market opened this gap is closed, as WBC is a major Australian bank and is quite liquid. (the table is for demonstration purposes only). If we pretend that the market was currently open and saw the current market depth for WBC as above, you could decide to place a limit sell order to sell 1000 shares at say $29.91. You would sell 100 shares straight away but your remaining 900 sell order will remain at the top of the Sellers list. If other Buyers come in at $29.91 you may get your whole sale completed, however, if no other Buyers place orders above $29.80 and other Sellers come into the market with sell orders below $29.91, your remaining order may never be executed. If instead you placed a market sell order you would immediately sell 100 shares at $29.91 and the remaining 900 shares at $29.80. (so you would be $99 or just over 0.3% worse off than if you were able to sell the full 1000 shares at $29.91). The question is how low would you have had to lower your limit order price if the price for WBC kept on falling and you had to sell that day? There are risks with whichever type of order you use. You need to determine what the purpose of your order is. Is it to get in or out of the market as soon as possible with the possibility of giving a little bit back to the market? Or is it to get the price you want no matter how long it takes you? That is you are willing to miss out on buying the shares (can miss out on a good buy if the price keeps rising for weeks or months or even years) or you are willing to miss out on selling them right now and can wait for the price to come back up to the price you were willing to sell at (where you may miss out on selling the shares at a good price and they keep on falling and you give back all your profits and more). Just before the onset of the GFC I sold some shares (which I had bought a few years earlier at $3.40) through a market order for $5.96. It had traded just above $6 a few days earlier, but if instead of a market order I had placed a limit order to sell at $6.00 or more I would have missed out on the sale. The price never went back up to $6 or above, and the following week it started dropping very quickly. It is now trading at about $1.30 and has never gone back above $2.00 (5.5 years later). So to me placing a limit order in this case was very risky.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9dd61f4b88dc34661b578a4696c6a5b5", "text": "\"After learning about things that happened in the \"\"flash crash\"\" I always use limit orders. In an extremely rare instance if you place a market order when there is a some glitch, for example some large trader adds a zero at the end of their volume, you could get an awful price. If I want to buy at the market price, I just set the limit about 1% above the market price. If I want to sell, I set the limit 1% below the market price. I should point out that your trade is not executed at the limit price. If your limit price on a buy order is higher than the lowest offer, you still get filled at the lowest offer. If before your order is submitted someone fills all offers up to your limit price, you will get your limit price. If someone, perhaps by accident, fills all orders up to twice your limit price, you won't end up making the purchase. I have executed many purchases this way and never been filled at my limit price.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "de5fc302d9cddc53c62efcfcfa276d1b", "text": "There are a couple of things you could do, but it may depend partly on the type of orders your broker has available to you. Firstly, if you are putting your limit order the night before after close of market at the top of the bids, you may be risking missing out if bid & offer prices increase by the time the market opens the next day. On the other hand, if bid & offer prices fall at the open of the next day you should get your order filled at or below your limit price. Secondly, you could be available at the market open to see if prices are going up or down and then work out the price you want to buy at then and work out the quantity you can buy at that price. I personally don't like this method because you usually get too emotional, start chasing the market if prices start rising, or start regretting buying at a price and prices fall straight afterwards. My preferred method is this third option. If your broker provides stop orders you can use these to both get into and out of the market. How they work when trying to get into the market is that once you have done your analysis and picked a price that you would want to purchase at, you put a stop buy order in. For example, the price closed at $9.90 the previous day and there has been resistance at $10.00, so you would put a stop buy trigger if the price goes over $10, say $10.01. If your stop buy order gets triggered you can have either a buy market order or a limit order above $10.01 (say $10.02). The market order would go through immediately whilst the limit order would only go through if the price continues going to $10.02 or above. The advantage of this is that you don't get emotional trying to buy your securities whilst sitting in front of the screen, you do your analysis and set your prices whilst the market is closed, you only buy when the security is rising (not falling). As your aim is to be in long term you shouldn't be concerned about buying a little bit higher than the previous days close. On the other hand if you try and buy when the price is falling you don't know when it will stop falling. It is better to buy when the price shows signs of rising rather than falling (always follow the trend).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d4efbd49673d351688cc4aa7bffe166", "text": "\"One practical application would be to protect yourself from a \"\"flash crash\"\" type scenario where a stock suddenly plunges down to a penny due to transient market glitches. If you had a stop-loss order that executed at a penny (for a non-penny stock) it would be probably be voided by the exchange, but you might not want to take that risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a484b5eb4efb839e85833035c389844", "text": "\"What you are saying is a very valid concern. After the flash crash many institutions in the US replaced \"\"true market orders\"\" (where tag 40=1 and has no price) with deep in the money limit orders under the hood, after the CFTC-SEC joint advisory commission raised concerns about the use of market orders in the case of large HFT traders, and concerns on the lack of liquidity that caused market orders that found no limit orders to execute on the other side of the trade, driving the prices of blue chip stocks into the pennies. We also applaud the CFTC requesting comment regarding whether it is appropriate to restrict large order execution design that results in disruptive trading. In particular, we believe there are questions whether it is ever appropriate to permit large order algorithms that employ unlimited use of market orders or that permit executions at prices which are a dramatic percentage below the present market price without a pause for human review So although you still see a market order on the front end, it is transformed to a very aggressive limit in the back end. However, doing this change manually, by selling at price 0 or buying at 9999 may backfire since it may trigger fat finger checks and prevent your order from reaching the market. For example BATS Exchange rejects orders that are priced too aggressively and don't comply with the range of valid prices. If you want your trade to execute right now and you are willing to take slippage in order to get fast execution, sending a market order is still the best alternative.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ccc33cc95c4c84ce39970bc9473c998", "text": "The price is moving higher so by the time you enter your order and press buy, a new buyer has already come in at that time and taken out the lowest ask price. So you end up chasing the market as the prices keep moving higher. The solution: if you really want to be sure that you buy it and don't want to keep chasing the market higher and higher, you should put in a market order instead of a limit order. With a market order you may pay a few cents higher than the last traded price but you will be sure to have your order filled. If you keep placing limit orders you may miss out altogether, especially if the price keeps moving higher and higher. In a fast moving market a market order is always best if your aim is to be certain to buy the stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9ff81339f4419ca37158c942331a99e", "text": "\"A market sell order will be filled at the highest current \"\"bid\"\" price. For a reasonably liquid stock, there will be several buy orders in line, and the highest bid must be filled first, so there should a very short time between when you place the order and when it is filled. What could happen is what's called front running. That's when the broker places their own order in front of yours to fulfill the current bid, selling their own stock at the slightly higher price, causing your sale to be filled at a lower price. This is not only unethical but illegal as well. It is not something you should be concerned about with a large broker. You should only place a market order when you don't care about minute differences between the current ask and your execution price, but want to guarantee order execution. If you absolutely have to sell at a minimum price, then a limit order is more appropriate, but you run the risk that your limit will not be reached and your order will not be filled. So the risk is a tradeoff between a guaranteed price and a guaranteed execution.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6b4b297233e4a9ae8bad770474442913", "text": "Limit orders are generally safer than market orders. Market orders take whatever most-favorable price is being offered. This can be especially dangerous in highly volatile stocks which have a significant spread between the bid and ask. That being said, you want to be very careful that you enter the price you intend into a limit order. It is better to be a bit slower at entering your orders than it is to make a terrible mistake like the one you mention in your question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a2c27db18a6aa6c1335142a0fb1f2f3", "text": "If you can afford the cost and risk of 100 shares of stock, then just sell a put option. If you can only afford a few shares, you can still use the information the options market is trying to give you -- see below. A standing limit order to buy a stock is essentially a synthetic short put option position. [1] So deciding on a stock limit order price is the same as valuing an option on that stock. Options (and standing limit orders) are hard to value, and the generally accepted math for doing so -- the Black-Scholes-Merton framework -- is also generally accepted to be wrong, because of black swans. So rather than calculate a stock buy limit price yourself, it's simpler to just sell a put at the put's own midpoint price, accepting the market's best estimate. Options market makers' whole job (and the purpose of the open market) is price discovery, so it's easier to let them fight it out over what price options should really be trading at. The result of that fight is valuable information -- use it. Sell a 1-month ATM put option every month until you get exercised, after which time you'll own 100 shares of stock, purchased at: This will typically give you a much better cost basis (several dollars better) versus buying the stock at spot, and it offloads the valuation math onto the options market. Meanwhile you get to keep the cash from the options premiums as well. Disclaimer: Markets do make mistakes. You will lose money when the stock drops more than the option market's own estimate. If you can't afford 100 shares, or for some reason still want to be in the business of creating synthetic options from pure stock limit orders, then you could maybe play around with setting your stock purchase bid price to (approximately): See your statistics book for how to set ndev -- 1 standard deviation gives you a 30% chance of a fill, 2 gives you a 5% chance, etc. Disclaimer: The above math probably has mistakes; do your own work. It's somewhat invalid anyway, because stock prices don't follow a normal curve, so standard deviations don't really mean a whole lot. This is where market makers earn their keep (or not). If you still want to create synthetic options using stock limit orders, you might be able to get the options market to do more of the math for you. Try setting your stock limit order bid equal to something like this: Where put_strike is the strike price of a put option for the equity you're trading. Which option expiration and strike you use for put_strike depends on your desired time horizon and desired fill probability. To get probability, you can look at the delta for a given option. The relationship between option delta and equity limit order probability of fill is approximately: Disclaimer: There may be math errors here. Again, do your own work. Also, while this method assumes option markets provide good estimates, see above disclaimer about the markets making mistakes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccc59d257311b512fe3377b472a7bb2f", "text": "In simple terms, this is how the shares are traded, however most of the times market orders are placed. Consider below scenario( hypothetical scenario, there are just 2 traders) Buyer is ready to buy 10 shares @ 5$ and seller is ready to sell 10 shares @ 5.10$, both the orders will remain in open state, unless one wish to change his price, this is an example of limit order. Market orders If seller is ready to sell 10 shares @ 5$ and another 10 shares @5.05$, if buyer wants to buy 20 shares @ market price, then the trade will be executed for 10 shares @ 5$ and another 10 shares @ 5.05$", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0107650b5b3111aac34a28d5ddc94c73", "text": "The Limit Order are matched based on amount and time. The orders are listed Highest to Lowest on the Buy Side. The orders are listed Lowest to Highest on the Sell Side. If there are 2 Sell orders for same amount the order which is first in time [fractions of milliseconds] is first. The about is the example as to how the orders would look like on any exchange. Now the highest price the buyer is ready to pay is 20.21 and the lowest price a seller is ready to sell for is 20.25. Hence there is no trade. Now if a new Buy order comes in at 20.25, it matches with the sell and the deal is made. If a new Buy order comes in at 20.30, it still matches at 20.25. Similarly if a Sell order come in at 20.21, it matches and a deal is made. If a Sell order come in at 20.11, it still matches 20.21. Incase of market order, with the above example if there is a Buy order, it would match with the lowest sell order at 20.25, if there is not enough quantity , it would match the remaining quantity to the next highest at 20.31 and continue down. Similarly if there is a Sell market order, the it would match to the maximum a seller is ready to buy, ie 20.21, if there is not sufficient buy quantity at 20.21, it will match with next for 20.19 If say there are new buy order at 20.22 and sell orders at 20.24, these will sit first the the above queue to be matched. In your above example the Lowest Sell order was at 20.10 at time t1 and hence any buy order after time t1 for amount 20.10 or greater would match to this and the price would be 20.10. However if the Buy order was first ie at t1 there was a buy order for 20.21 and then at time later than t1, there is a sell order for say 20.10 [amount less than or equal to 20.21] it would match for 20.21. Essentially the market looks at who was the first to sell at lower price or who was the first to buy at higher price and then decide the trade. Edit [To Clarify xyz]: Say if there is an Sell order at $10 Qty 100. There is a buyer who is willing to pay Max $20 and is looking for Qty 500. Your key assumption that the Buyer does not know the current SELL price of $10 is incorrect. Now there are multiple things, the Buyer knows the lowest Sell order is at $10, he can put a matching Buy order at $10 Qty 100, and say $11 Qty 100 etc. This is painful. Second, lets say he puts a Buy order at $10 Qty 100, by the time the order hits the system someone else has put the trade at $10 and his order is fulfilled. So this buyer has to keep looking at booking and keep making adjustments, if its a large order, it would be extremely difficult and frustrating for this Buyer. Hence the logic of giving preference. The later Buy order says ... The Max I can pay is $20, match eveything at the current price and get the required shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ead6668f545edc1571a0f451473116e4", "text": "\"Market orders do not get priority over limit orders. Time is the only factor that matters in price/time order matching when the order price is the same. For example, suppose the current best available offer for AAPL is $100.01 and the best available bid is $100.00. Now a limit buy for $100.01 and a market buy arrive at around the same instant. The matching engine can only receive one order at a time, no matter how close together they arrive. Let's say that by chance the limit buy arrives first. The engine will check if there's a matching sell at $100.01 and indeed there is and a trade occurs. This all happens in an instant before the matching engine ever sees the market buy. Then it moves on to the market buy and processes it accordingly. On the other hand, let's say that by chance the market buy arrives first. The engine will match it with the best available sell (at $100.01) and a trade occurs. This all happens in an instant before the matching engine ever sees the limit buy. Then it moves on to the limit buy and processes it accordingly. So there's never a comparison between the two orders or their \"\"priorities\"\" because they never exist in the system at the same time. The first one to arrive is processed first; the second one to arrive is processed second.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d789e42d59c3ecd9aa81709d72c53a26", "text": "Buy and sell orders always include the price at which you buy/sell. That's how the market prices for stocks are determines. So if you want to place a buy order at 106, you can do that. When that order was fulfilled and you have the stock, you can place a sell order at 107. It will be processed as soon as someone places a buy order at 107. Theoretically you can even place sell orders for stocks you haven't even bought yet. That's called short selling. You do that when you expect a stock to go down in the future. But this is a very risky operation, because when you mispredict the market you might end up owing more money than you invested. No responsible banker will even discuss this with you when you can not prove you know what you are doing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df41c539018f1fb6adcf160c270d71fe", "text": "Many of the Bitcoin exchanges mimic stock exchanges, though they're much more rudimentary offering only simple buy/sell/cancel orders. It's fairly normal for retail stock brokerage accounts to allow other sorts of more complex orders, where once a certain criteria is met, (the price falls below some $ threshold, or has a movement greater than some %) then your order is executed. The space between the current buy order and the current sell order is the bid/ask spread, it's not really about timing. Person X will buy at $100, person Y will sell at $102. If both had a price set at $101, they would just transact. Both parties think they can do a little bit better than the current offer. The width of the bid/ask spread is not universal by any means. The current highest buy order and the current lowest sell order, are both the current price. The current quoted market price is generally the price of the last transaction, whether it's buy or sell.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9af0557f84f79e21e7f87405211ea996", "text": "\"There are two distinct questions that may be of interest to you. Both questions are relevant for funds that need to buy or sell large orders that you are talking about. The answer depends on your order type and the current market state such as the level 2 order book. Suppose there are no iceberg or hidden orders and the order book (image courtesy of this question) currently is: An unlimited (\"\"at market\"\") buy order for 12,000 shares gets filled immediately: it gets 1,100 shares at 180.03 (1,[email protected]), 9,700 at 180.04 and 1,200 at 180.05. After this order, the lowest ask price becomes 180.05 and the highest bid is obviously still 180.02 (because the previous order was a 'market order'). A limited buy order for 12,000 shares with a price limit of 180.04 gets the first two fills just like the market order: 1,100 shares at 180.03 and 9,700 at 180.04. However, the remainder of the order will establish a new bid price level for 1,200 shares at 180.04. It is possible to enter an unlimited buy order that exhausts the book. However, such a trade would often be considered a mis-trade and either (i) be cancelled by the broker, (ii) be cancelled or undone by the exchange, or (iii) hit the maximum price move a stock is allowed per day (\"\"limit up\"\"). Funds and banks often have to buy or sell large quantities, just like you have described. However they usually do not punch through order book levels as I described before. Instead they would spread out the order over time and buy a smaller quantity several times throughout the day. Simple algorithms attempt to get a price close to the time-weighted average price (TWAP) or volume-weighted average price (VWAP) and would buy a smaller amount every N minutes. Despite splitting the order into smaller pieces the price usually moves against the trader for many reasons. There are many models to estimate the market impact of an order before executing it and many brokers have their own model, for example Deutsche Bank. There is considerable research on \"\"market impact\"\" if you are interested. I understand the general principal that when significant buy orders comes in relative to the sell orders price goes up and when a significant sell order comes in relative to buy orders it goes down. I consider this statement wrong or at least misleading. First, stocks can jump in price without or with very little volume. Consider a company that releases a negative earnings surprise over night. On the next day the stock may open 20% lower without any orders having matched for any price in between. The price moved because the perception of the stocks value changed, not because of buy or sell pressure. Second, buy and sell pressure have an effect on the price because of the underlying reason, and not necessarily/only because of the mechanics of the market. Assume you were prepared to sell HyperNanoTech stock, but suddenly there's a lot of buzz and your colleagues are talking about buying it. Would you still sell it for the same price? I wouldn't. I would try to find out how much they are prepared to buy it for. In other words, buy pressure can be the consequence of successful marketing of the stock and the marketing buzz is what changes the price.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0016f018e4656ea0b9eaa3555dd39a65", "text": "\"The risk of market orders depends heavily on the size of the market and the exchange. On big exchange and a security which is traded in hue numbers you're likely that there are enough participants to give you a \"\"fair\"\" price. Doing a market order on a security which is hardly dealed you might make a bad deal. In Germany Tradegate Exchange and the sister company the bank Tradegate AG are known to play a bit dirty: Their market is open longer than Frankfurt (Xetra) and has way lower liquidity. So it can happen that not all sell or buy orders can be processes on the Exchange and open orders are kept. Then Tradegate AG steps in with a new offer to full-fill these trades selling high or buying low. There is a German article going in details on wiwo.de either German or via Google Translate\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17cbd235c36f5314eb8a71047b94fe43", "text": "Obvious answer but the limit order should be set at the price that you are willing to pay :). More usefully, if you want a decent chance of the order filling in short notice you should place the order one price tick above the current highest buyer (bid price). As long as high frequency trading remains alive I would advise against ever using market orders, these algorithmic trades can occasionally severely distort the price of a security in a fraction of a second. So if your market order happens to fill in during such a distortion you might end up massively overpaying/underselling.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
de42cb42972e6193cc663aae933d709b
Collecting Dividends while insulating volatility through options?
[ { "docid": "ac30adec3d15af6b41f91c748898e8bb", "text": "\"The strategy is right. As pointed out by you, will the \"\" volatility cause the premium on the price of the options to be too high to make this worthwhile\"\" ... this is subjective and depends on how the markets feels about the volatility and the trend ... ie if the market believes that the stock will go up, the option at 45 would cost quite a bit less. However if the market believes the stock would go down, the option at 45 would be quite high [and may not even be available]. There is no generic right or wrong, the strategy is right [with out without putting dividend into equation] it depends what options are available at what prices.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "1e9cebde4465fbb20cb434e8b71958d4", "text": "First, a margin account is required to trade options. If you buy a put, you have the right to deliver 100 shares at a fixed price, 50 can be yours, 50, you'll buy at the market. If you sell a put, you are obligated to buy the shares if put to you. All options are for 100 shares, I am unaware of any partial contract for fewer shares. Not sure what you mean by leveraging the position, can you spell it out more clearly?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "685c14304a8149f9c6767409cb71bdb3", "text": "This is what is called a Structured Product. The linked page gives an overview of the relative pros and cons. They tend to hold the bulk of funds in bonds and then used equity index futures and other derivatives to match returns on the S&P, or other indices tracked. All combine to provide the downside protection. Note that your mother did not receive the dividends paid by the constituent companies. She only received the capital return. Here is a link to Citigroup (Europe) current structured product offerings. Here is a link to Fidelity's current offerings of structured products. Here is Investopedia's article detailing the pitfalls. The popularity of these products appears to be on the wane, having been heavily promoted and sold by the providers at the time your mother invested. Most of these products only provide 100% protection of capital if the market does not fall by a specified amount, either in successive reporting periods or over the life of the product. There are almost as many terms and conditions imposed on the protection as there are structured products available. I have no personal experience buying this type of product, preferring to have the option to trade and receive dividend income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1aa6e57fcc88ff4c8206e366d19db581", "text": "As mentioned, dividends are a way of returning value to shareholders. It is a conduit of profit as companies don't legitimately control upward appreciation in their share prices. If you can't wrap your head around the risk to the reward, then this simply means you partially fit the description for a greater investment risk profile, so you need to put down Warren Buffett's books and Rich Dad Poor Dad and get an investment book that fits your risk profile.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb87072852045121352db618e87426c1", "text": "If you are worried about an increase in volatility, then go long volatility. Volatility itself can be traded. Here in the US there is an index VIX that is described as tracking volatility. What VIX actually tracks is the premium of S&P 500 options, which become more expensive when traders want to hedge against volatility. In the US you can trade VIX options or invest in VIX tracking ETFs like VXX. Apparently there are similar ETFs listed in Canada, such as HUV. Volatility itself is quite volatile so it is possible that a small volatility long position would cover the losses of a larger long position in stocks. If you do choose to invest in a volatility ETF, be aware that they experience quite a lot of decay. You will not want to hold it for very long.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d7d850c97cac3b30458d46b4dd90a66", "text": "I think you need to be very careful here. Covered calls don't reduce risk or increase performance overall. If they did, every investment manager would be using them. In a typical portfolio, over the long term, the gains you give up when your stock goes beyond the strike of your calls will negate the premiums you receive over time. Psychologically, covered calls are appealing because your gains happen over a long period and this is why many people suggest it. But if you believe the Black-Scholes model (used for pricing options) this is what the model predicts over the long term - that you won't do any better than just holding stock (unless you have some edge other traders don't). Now you say you want to reduce diversification and raise your risk. Keeping in mind that there is no free lunch, there are several ways to reduce your risk but they all come at a price. For simplicity, there are three elements to consider - risk, potential gain and cash. These are tradeoffs and you can't simultaneously make them all favorable. You must trade one or more of them to gain in the others. Let's say you wanted to concentrate into a few stocks... how could you counteract the additional risk? 1) Covered calls: very popular strategy usually intended (erroneously) for increasing returns. You get the bonus of cash along with marginally less risk. But you give up a substantial amount of potential return. You won't have blowout returns if you do this. You still face substantial risk. 2) Collar your stock: You sell a covered call while using the cash from the sale to buy puts for protection. You give up potential gains, you're neutral on cash but gain significantly on reducing risk. 3) Use calls as proxy for stock: You don't hold stock but only calls in equivalent delta to the stock you would have held. Substantially lower risk while still having potential gain. Your tradeoff is the cash you have to pay for the calls. When using this, one must be very, very careful not to overleverage. 4) Puts as protection for stocks: This is basically the same as #3 in tradeoffs. You won't overleverage and you also get dividends. But for the most part it's the same. These are the main ways to reduce the risk you gain by concentrating. Options themselves are far broader. But keep in mind that there is no free money. All these techniques involve tradeoffs that you have to be aware of.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85b1a08cb97369960f092c4dede5bb8d", "text": "Dividends are a form of passive income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fec19f63f8c07b06338a4f9df4afe3c", "text": "Well, yes -- you've implicitly made many assumptions (such as that the embedded option has longer maturity). The important thing to consider is when this option pays out; the premium will obviously be adjusted. For a concrete example, consider an equity option-on-an-option. The outer option has strike 110, the inner option has strike 100 (spot = forward = 100). Then the inner strike pays out when spot_T &gt; 100, but the outer option has zero value there; the overall option only pays out if spot_T &gt; 110, reducing the structure to a call option with strike 110.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7ec52608e61ec649aac5fec3c602e06", "text": "you asked for strategies which use deep in the money options: dividend mispricing can use deep in the money options, basically its an arbitrage play on ex-dividend dates. and any kind of spread can use deep in the money options, depending on how wide you want your spread to be", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ed5fda8c033d8433225d658445dd9b8", "text": "\"Their is no arbitrage opportunity with \"\"buying dividends.\"\" You're buying a taxable event. This is a largely misunderstood topic. The stock always drops by the amount if the dividend on the ex date. The stock opens that day trading \"\"ex\"\" (excluding) the dividend. It then pays out later based in the shareholders on record. There is a lot of talk about price movement and value here. That can happen but it's from trading not from the dividend per se. Yes sometimes you do see a stock pop the day prior to ex date because people are buying the stock for the dividend but the trading aspect of a stock is determined by supply and demand from people trading the stock. The dividends are paid out from the owners equity section of the balance sheet. This is a return of equity to shareholders. The idea is to give owners of the company some of their investment back (from when they bought the stock) without having the owners sell the shares of the company. After all if it's a good company you want to keep holding it so it will appreciate. Another similar way to think of it is like a bonds interest payment. People sometimes forget when trading that these are actual companies meant to be invested in. Your buying an ownership in the company with your cash. It really makes no difference to buy the dividend or not, all other things constant. Though market activity can add or lose value from trading as normal.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ec6f6d74a9946f9c7b7f8f7132d8642", "text": "I guess I wasn't clear. I want to modestly leverage (3-4x) my portfolio using options. I believe long deep-in-the-money calls would be the best way to do this? (Let me know if not.) It's important to me that the covariance matrix from the equity portfolio scales up but doesn't fundamentally change. (I liken it to systemic change as opposed to idiosyncratic change.) This is what I was thinking: * For the same expiry date, find each positions lowest lambda. * Match all option to the the highest of the lowest lambda. * Adjust number of contracts to compensate for higher leverage. I don't think this will work because if I matched the lowest lambda of options on bond etfs to my equity options they would be out-of-the-money. By the way, thanks for your time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b02b98626fee0603c28741c38a3d1b7", "text": "I wouldn't recommend leveraged dividend fishing. Dividend stocks with such high dividends are highly volatile, you will run out of collateral to cover your trades very quickly", "title": "" }, { "docid": "888da6a98abd6f62d8e73f2e77d47203", "text": "Suppose the price didn't drop on the ex-dividend date. Then people wanting to make a quick return on their money would buy shares the day before, collect the dividend, and then sell them on the ex-dividend date. But all those people trying to buy on the day before would push the price up, and they would push the price down trying to sell on the date.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d72a2287e6187ab29b5c58818cd1e8f", "text": "\"Alternatively you could exercise 12000 shares for $36000 and immediately sell 7200 shares to recover your exercise price. Then you use the remaining 4800 share to pay the exercise price of the remaining 8000 options. Both scenarios are equivalent but may have different fees associated, so it's worth checking the fine print. Tax wise: The above example is \"\"cash neutral before taxes\"\". The taxes associated with these transaction are substantial, so it's highly recommended to talk with a tax adviser. \"\"cash neutral after taxes\"\" depends highly on your specific tax situation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "08c3f5e83dd7e845ab352290781bcd70", "text": "Dividends are not paid immediately upon reception from the companies owned by an ETF. In the case of SPY, they have been paid inconsistently but now presumably quarterly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e9ed8d204d91a4d492322f8b343b568", "text": "I understand what you're asking for (you want to write options ON call options... essentially the second derivative of the underlying security), and I've never heard of it. That's not to say it doesn't exist (I'm sure some investment banker has cooked something like this up at some point), but if it does exist, you wouldn't be able to trade it as easily as you can a put or a LEAP. I'm also not sure you'd actually want to buy such a thing - the amount of leverage would be enormous, and you'd need a massive amount of margin/collateral. Additionally, a small downward movement in the stock price could wipe out the entire value of your option.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
b960f42c556ee35a14caab014962ee2f
Implied or historical volatility to calculate theoretical options price with black scholes?
[ { "docid": "6473d727ce6f8ff477b24768d2c05b49", "text": "\"Option pricing models used by exchanges to calculate settlement prices (premiums) use a volatility measure usually describes as the current actual volatility. This is a historic volatility measure based on standard deviation across a given time period - usually 30 to 90 days. During a trading session, an investor can use the readily available information for a given option to infer the \"\"implied volatility\"\". Presumably you know the option pricing model (Black-Scholes). It is easy to calculate the other variables used in the pricing model - the time value, the strike price, the spot price, the \"\"risk free\"\" interest rate, and anything else I may have forgotten right now. Plug all of these into the model and solve for volatility. This give the \"\"implied volatility\"\", so named because it has been inferred from the current price (bid or offer). Of course, there is no guarantee that the calculated (implied) volatility will match the volatility used by the exchange in their calculation of fair price at settlement on the day (or on the previous day's settlement). Comparing the implied volatility from the previous day's settlement price to the implied volatility of the current price (bid or offer) may give you some measure of the fairness of the quoted price (if there is no perceived change in future volatility). What such a comparison will do is to give you a measure of the degree to which the current market's perception of future volatility has changed over the course of the trading day. So, specific to your question, you do not want to use an annualised measure. The best you can do is compare the implied volatility in the current price to the implied volatility of the previous day's settlement price while at the same time making a subjective judgement about how you see volatility changing in the future and how this has been reflected in the current price.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "87a620a2a3953a7443f00355cebca67b", "text": "\"There are a few different \"\"kinds\"\" of implied volatility. They are all based on the IVs obtained from the option pricing model you use. (1) Basically, given a few different values (current stock price, time until expiration, right of option, exercise style, strike of the option, interest rates, dividends, etc), you can obtain the IV for a given option price. If you look at the bid of an option, you can calculate the IV for that bid. If you look at the ask, there's a different IV for the ask. You can then look at the mid price, then you have a different IV, and so on and so on. And that's for each strike, in each expiration cycle! So you have a ton of different IVs. (2) In many option trading platforms, you'll see another kind of IV: the IV for each specific expiration cycle. That's calculated based on some of the IVs I mentioned on topic (1). Some kind of aggregation (more on this later). (3) Finally, people often talk about \"\"the IV of stock XYZ\"\". That's, again, an aggregation calculated from many of the IVs mentioned on topic (1). Now, your question seems to be: which IVs, from which options, from which months, with which weight, are part of the expiration cycle IV or for the IV of the stock itself? It really depends on the trading platform you are talking about. But very frequently, people will use a calculation similar to how the CBOE calculates the VIX. Basically, the VIX is just like the IV described on topic (3) above, but specifically for SPX, the S&P 500 index. The very detailed procedure and formulas to calculate the VIX (ie, IV of SPX) is described here: http://cfe.cboe.com/education/vixprimer/about.aspx If you apply the same (or a similar) methodology to other stocks, you'll get what you could call \"\"the IV of stock XYZ\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ba5ef28d6a41f6389a2a8f8f0f9e77a", "text": "\"The question \"\"do they?\"\" is a fair one, but the answer, \"\"we can only observe the past, and that's what they did,\"\" may not be so satisfying to you. It's safe to say that any longer term view of any market will show far less volatility than a short one. It only takes a glance at the return of the 2000's 2009 27.11 2008 -37.22 2007 5.46 2006 15.74 2005 4.79 2004 10.82 2003 28.72 2002 -22.27 2001 -11.98 2000 -9.11 (for the S&P) to see that in an awful decade containing -37% and -22% that the full decade was \"\"only\"\" down 9% in total or just less than 1% per year compounded. I'm not predicting any particular returns forward, just noting this is how the math works. DCA performs well through such a decade, better than in a rising one. You are offered the opportunity to buy into a market selling below the long term trend. Added note in response to Enno's answer below - On rereading the linked article, I see where the author cites Zvi Bodie who clearly made a logical error. He concludes that since a 20 month S&P put costs triple what a 2.3 mo put costs, that there's more risk the market falls over the longer period, not less. American options can be sold or exercised at any time. If a 2 year option were cheaper than a 2 month option, no one would buy the shorter term. It's pretty simple that the Options Pricing Models take time into account and their value, put or call, increases along with the time till expiration. On a lighter note, when I take the S&P data for 1871-2012 (I know, no S&P back then, but it's Schiller's data) I get average 40 year returns of 44X, similar to the author's conclusion, $1K growing to $44K. But, the Standard deviation is 28. So the high end of +1 STDEV is $72K, not the author's $166K. Although, the low end 44-28=16 comes close to his $14K figure. $16K is a 7.18% long term return which today doesn't look bad. When the article was written, the author was looking at a 6% short term risk free rate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8479415d2f76ac41122f65caeebe24b2", "text": "Yahoo Finance's Historical Prices section allows you to look up daily historical quotes for any given stock symbol, you don't have to hit a library for this information. Your can choose a desired time frame for your query, and the dataset will include High/Low/Close/Volume numbers. You can then download a CSV version of this report and perform additional analysis in a spreadsheet of your choice. Below is Twitter report from IPO through yesterday: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=TWTR&a=10&b=7&c=2013&d=08&e=23&f=2014&g=d", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7a75b535aa087132d36f9dd54f4abc64", "text": "I understand the question, I think. The tough thing is that trades over the next brief time are random, or appear so. So, just as when a stock is $10.00 bid / $10.05 ask, if you place an order below the ask, a tick down in price may get you a fill, or if the next trades are flat to higher, you might see the close at $10.50, and no fill as it never went down to your limit. This process is no different for options than for stocks. When I want to trade options, I make sure the strike has decent volume, and enter a market order. Edit - I reworded a bit to clarify. The Black–Scholes is a model, not a rigid equation. Say I discover an option that's underpriced, but it trades under right until it expires. It's not like there's a reversion to the mean that will occur. There are some very sophisticated traders who use these tools to trade in some very high volumes, for them, it may produce results. For the small trader you need to know why you want to buy a stock or its option and not worry about the last $0.25 of its price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "10fc3cef181d456bb37c2c3051b40413", "text": "\"people are willing to pay higher premiums for options when stocks go down. Obviously the time value and intrinsic value and interests rates of the option doesn't change because of this so the miscalculation remainder is priced into the implied volatility part of the formula. Basically, anything that suggests the stock price will get volatile (sharp moves in either direction) will increase the implied volatility of the option. For instance, around earnings reports, the IV in both calls and puts in the nearest expiration dates are very high. When stocks go down sharply, the volatility is high because some people are buying puts for protection and others are buying calls because they think there will be a rebound move in the other direction. People (the \"\"sleep-at-night\"\" investors, not the derivatives traders ;) ) tend to be calm when stocks are going up, and fearful when they are going down. The psychology is important to understand and observe and profit from, not to quantitatively prove. The first paragraph should be your qualitative answer\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1536c848cdd591d961acfde183d022a6", "text": "\"Number 2 cannot occur. You can buy the call back and sell the stock, but the broker won't force that #2 choice. To trade options, you must have a margin account. No matter how high the stock goes, once \"\"in the money\"\" the option isn't going to rise faster, so your margin % is not an issue. And your example is a bit troublesome to me. Why would a $120 strike call spike to $22 with only a month left? You've made the full $20 on the stock rise and given up any gain after that. That's all. The call owner may exercise at any time. Edit: @jaydles is right, there are circumstances where an option price can increase faster than the stock price. Options pricing generally follows the Black-Scholes model. Since the OP gave us the current stock price, option strike price, and time to expiration, and we know the risk free rate is <1%, you can use the calculator to change volatility. The number two scenario won't occur, however, because a covered call has no risk to the broker, they won't force you to buy the option back, and the option buyer has no motive to exercise it as the entire option value is time premium.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7a498ff5b209063fefb4cac4f013b83", "text": "Use the Black-Scholes formula. If you know the current price, an options strike price, time until expiration, and risk-free interest rate, then knowing the market price of the option will tell you what the market's estimation of the volatility is. This does rely on a few assumptions, such as Gaussian random walk, but those are reasonable assumptions for most stocks. You can also get a list of past stock prices, put them in Excel, and ask Excel to calculate the standard deviation with stdev.s(), but that gives you the past volatility. The market's estimate of future volatility is more relevant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "206e7e13b863859a138a48dd1a13ef3b", "text": "as no advantage from exerting American call option early,we can use Black schole formula to evaluate the option.However, American put option is more likely to be exercised early which mean Black schole does not apply for this style of option", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b6da6db0482f0c3ee1f3176632c122c", "text": "I frequently do this on NADEX, selling out-of-the-money binary calls. NADEX is highly illiquid, and the bid/ask is almost always from the market maker. Out-of-the-money binary calls lose value quickly (NADEX daily options exist for only ~21 hours). If I place an above-ask order, it either gets filled quickly (within a few minutes) due to a spike in the underlying, or not at all. I compensate by changing my price hourly. As Joe notes, one of Black-Scholes inputs is volatility, but price determines (implied) volatility, so this is circular. In other words, you can treat the bid/ask prices as bid/ask volatilities. This isn't as far-fetched as it seems: http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/volatility-quoting-fx-options.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a2b7e92bc19b74a8b13ad788058ef94", "text": "Robert is right saying that options' prices are affected by implied volatility but is wrong saying that you have to look at the VIX index. For two reasons: 1) the VIX index is for S&P500 options only. If you are trading other options, it is less useful. 2) if you are trading an option that is not at the money, your implied volatility may be very different (and follow a different dynamics) that the VIX index. So please look at the right implied volatility. In terms of strategy, I don't think that not doing anything is a good strategy. I accept any point of view but you should consider that option traders should be able to adjust positions depending on market view. So you are long 1 call, suppose strike 10. Suppose the underlying price at the time of entry was 10 (so the call was at the money). Now it's 9. 1) you still have a bullish view: buy 1 call strike 9 and sell 2 calls strike 10. This way you have a bull call spread with much higher probability of leading to profit. You are limiting your profit potential but you are also reducing the costs and managing the greeks in a proper way (and in line with your expectations). 2) you become bearish: you can sell 1 call strike 9. This way you end up with a bear call spread. Again, you are limiting your profit potential but you are also reducing the costs and managing the greeks in a proper way (and in line with your expectations). 3) you become neutral: buy 1 call strike 8 and sell 2 calls strike 9. This way you end up with a call butterfly. You are almost delta neutral and you can wait until your view becomes clear enough to become directional. At that point you can modify the butterfly to make it directional. These are just some opportunities you have. There is no reason for you to wait. Options are eroding contracts and you must be fast and adjust the position before time starts eroding your capital at risk. It's true that buying a call doesn't make you loose more than the premium you paid, but it's better to reduce this premium further with some adjustment. Isn't it? Hope that helps. :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3e2f1b61d32cacf842186f073f09885", "text": "\"Note that the series you are showing is the historical spot index (what you would pay to be long the index today), not the history of the futures quotes. It's like looking at the current price of a stock or commodity (like oil) versus the futures price. The prompt futures quote will be different that the spot quote. If you graphed the history of the prompt future you might notice the discontinuity more. How do you determine when to roll from one contract to the other? Many data providers will give you a time series for the \"\"prompt\"\" contract history, which will automatically roll to the next expiring contract for you. Some even provide 2nd prompt, etc. time series. If that is not available, you'd have to query multiple futures contracts and interleave them based on the expiry rules, which should be publicly available. Also is there not a price difference from the contract which is expiring and the one that is being rolled forward to? Yes, since the time to delivery is extended by ~30 days when you roll to the next contract. but yet there are no sudden price discontinuities in the charts. Well, there are, but it could be indistinguishable from the normal volatility of the time series.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02b333afdcebbf23ab44336b569546c4", "text": "The mathematics make it easier to understand why this is the case. Using very bad shorthand, d1 and d2 are inputs into N(), and N() can be expressed as the probability of the expected value or the most probable value which in this case is the discounted expected stock price at expiration. d1 has two σs which is volatility in the numerator and one in the denominator. Cancelling leaves one on top. Calculating when it's infinity gives an N() of 1 for S and 0 for K, so the call is worth S and the put PV(K). At 0 for σ, it's the opposite. More concise is that any mathematical moment be it variance which mostly influences volatility, mean which determines drift, or kurtosis which mostly influences skew are all uncertanties thus costs, so the higher they are, the higher the price of an option. Economically speaking, uncertainties are costs. Since costs raise prices, and volatility is an uncertainty, volatility raises prices. It should be noted that BS assumes that prices are lognormally distributed. They are not. The closest distribution, currently, is the logVariance Gamma distribution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7dc405bb6c0a5643bd207f52b3bf406", "text": "\"According to the book of Hull, american and european calls on non-dividend paying stocks should have the same value. American puts, however, should be equals to, or more valuable than, european puts. The reason for this is the time value of money. In a put, you get the option to sell a stock at a given strike price. If you exercise this option at t=0, you receive the strike price at t=0 and can invest it at the risk-free rate. Lets imagine the rf rate is 10% and the strike price is 10$. this means at t=1, you would get 11.0517$. If, on the other hand, you did'nt exercise the option early, at t=1 you would simply receive the strike price (10$). Basically, the strike price, which is your payoff for a put option, doesn't earn interest. Another way to look at this is that an option is composed of two elements: The \"\"insurance\"\" element and the time value of the option. The insurance element is what you pay in order to have the option to buy a stock at a certain price. For put options, it is equals to the payout= max(K-S, 0) where K=Strike Price and St= Stock price. The time value of the option can be thought of as a risk-premium. It's difference between the value of the option and the insurance element. If the benefits of exercising a put option early (i.e- earning the risk free rate on the proceeds) outweighs the time value of the put option, it should be exercised early. Yet another way to look at this is by looking at the upper bounds of put options. For a european put, today's value of the option can never be worth more than the present value of the strike price discounted at the risk-free rate. If this rule isn't respected, there would be an arbitrage opportunity by simply investing at the risk-free rate. For an american put, since it can be exercised at any time, the maximum value it can take today is simply equals to the strike price. Therefore, since the PV of the strike price is smaller than the strike price, the american put can have a bigger value. Bear in mind this is for a non-dividend paying stock. As previously mentioned, if a stock pays a dividend it might also be optimal to exercise just before these are paid.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ffe8ab536e991492536dd5471efba9d", "text": "Just a few observations within the Black-Scholes framework: Next, you can now use the Black-Scholes framework (stock price is a Geometric Brownian Motion, no transaction costs, single interest rate, etc. etc.) and numerical methods (such as a PDE solver) to price American style options numerically, but not with a simple closed form formula (though there are closed-form approximations).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4694d4d8856d7ad268eb28c8d7372cac", "text": "In short, yes. Implied volatility will capture any expected upcoming material announcements. There is also supply/demand impact bundled in which may inflate an option price, and by extension increase implied volatility. OTM and ITM options are particularly predisposed to this phenomenon -- which is of course at odds with the traditional BS model assumptions -- the result is referred to as the volatility smile. Implied volatility is quoted as an annualised measure but isn't necessarily an annual value -- it will correspond to the option time period.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
326923fee37ed9184e55afda728c571b
Is the financial advice my elderly relative received legal/ethical?
[ { "docid": "e4802676fb212fb31deb76ed41c3b534", "text": "I can't speak about the UK, but here in the US, 1% is on the cheap side for professional management. For example Fidelity will watch your portfolio for that very amount. I doubt you could claim that they took advantage of her for charging that kind of fee. Given that this is grandma's money, no consultation with the family is necessary. Perhaps she did have dementia at the time of investment, but she was not diagnosed at the time. If a short time has past between the investment and the diagnosis, I would contact the investment company with the facts. I would ask (very nicely) that they refund the fee, however, I doubt they under obligation to do so. While I do encourage you to seek legal council, there does not seem to be much of substance to your claim. The fees are very ordinary or even cheap, and no diagnosis precluded decision making at the time of investment.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8cb84fc641cf335e2101b55a343905e7", "text": "\"*(\"\"Fee-only\"\" meaning the only money they make is the fee your folks pay directly; no kickbacks from financial products they're selling.) The answer to this is: for God's sake, leave it alone! I commend you on wanting to help your family avoid more losses. You are right, that having most of one's retirement in one stock or sector is just silly. And again yes, if they're retired, they probably need some bonds. But here's the thing, if they follow your advise and it doesn't work out, it will be a SERIOUS strain on your relationship. Of course you'll still be a family and they'll still love you, but emotionally, you are the reason they lost the money, and that will an elephant in between you. This is especially the case since we're talking about a lot of money here (presumably), and retirement money to boot. You must understand the risk you're taking with your relationships. If you/they lose, at best it'll make things awkward, and you'll feel guilty about their impoverished retirement. At worst it can destroy your relationship with your folks. What about if you win? Won't you be feted and appreciated by your folks for saving them from themselves? Yes, for a short while. Then life moves on. Everything returns to normal. But here's the thing. You won't win. You can't. Because even if you're right here, and they win, that means both they and you will be eager for you to do it again. And at some point they'll take a hit based on your advise. Can I be blunt here? You didn't even know that you can't avoid capital gains taxes by reinvesting stock gains. You don't know enough, and worse, you're not experienced enough. I deduce you're either a college student, or a recent grad. Which means you don't have experience investing your own money. You don't know how the market moves, you just know the theory. You know who you are? You're me, 20 years ago. And thank God my grandparents ignored my advise. I was right about their utilities stocks back then, too. But I know from what I learned in the years afterwards, investing on my own account, that at some point I would have hurt them. And I would have had a very hard time living with that. So, tell your folks to go visit a fee-only financial adviser to create a retirement plan. Perhaps I'm reading into your post, but it seems like you're enthusiastic about investing; stocks, bonds, building wealth, etc. I love that. My advise -- go for it! Pull some money together, and open your own stock account. Do some trading! As much as people grouse about it, the market really is glorious. It's like playing Monopoly, but for keeps. I mean that in the best way possible. It's fun, you can build wealth doing it, and it provides a very useful social purpose. In the spirit of that, check out these ideas (just for you, not for your folks!), based on ideas in your post: Good luck.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b93e0783a91335c0418e313471690db", "text": "\"Mostly ditto to @grade'eh'bacon, but let me add a couple of comments: Before I did anything, I'd find out more about what's going on. Anytime someone tells me that there's a problem with \"\"security codes or something\"\", I get cautious. Think about what the possibilities are here. Your relative is being scammed. In that case, helping him to transfer his money to the scammer is not the kind of help you really want to give. Despite your firm belief in your relative's integrity, he may have been seduced by the dark side. If he's doing something illegal, I'd be very careful about getting involved. My friends and relatives don't ask me to commit crimes for them, especially not in a way that leaves me holding the bag if things go wrong. Assuming that what is going on here is all legal and ethical, still there is the possibility that you could be making yourself liable for taxes, fees, whatever. At the very least I'd want to know what those are up front. As @Grade'eh'bacon, if he really has a problem with a lost password or expired account, by all means help him fix that problem. But become someone else's financial intermediary has many possible pitfalls.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62ce537f61f999ef8e9acee4bfc559a1", "text": "From a wealth management perspective, almost every one of my clients that owns a business has it in some sort of trust. Mostly for estate planning purposes. So it wouldn't surprise me if that's what he was talking about. But I would straight up just ask to clarify. Can't hurt to ask, and I'd love to hear what he meant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c92eab5ac3d5d3b95ad478ef01af3752", "text": "Your sister-in-law should know that anybody, US citizen or not, can open a US bank account. She should do that and then pay her 20k fee to the company. I'm a Canadian citizen and I have a US bank account and I don't even live nor work in the United States. I only use it when I travel for leisure and order online. This looks like a scam, but if you know well your sister-in-law, it may not be.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3d56d46ed450decb613728608ee35ab", "text": "Since you mentioned that it is your close relative, he has never done enything dodgy and is wise with his money, then I would take it that you have some implicit trust in him. Now your options in this case are limited to either saying an outright no, which may impact familial ties adversely or to do as he has requested. One way could be to ask him for a mail requesting a short term loan and then transfer the money to his account. Then after a few days/weeks he repays the money back to your account. Now, this may or may not be 100% black & white depending on the legalities of your country but in most countries/cultures giving and taking of personal loans between friends/families is quite common.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae1d54860f380f4d9791700b1724381b", "text": "You need the services of a hard-nosed financial planner. A good one will defend your interests against the legions of creeps trying to separate you from your money. How can you tell whether such a person is working in your best interest? Here are some ways. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly whether the planner lets you get through the same story you told us. The ability to listen carefully without interrupting is a good way to tell whether the planner is going to honor your needs. You're looking for a human service professional, not an investment or business guru. There are planners who specialize in helping people navigate big changes in their financial situation. Some of the best of those planners are women. (Many of their customers are people whose spouses recently died. But they also serve people in your situation. Ask if they work with other people like you.) Of course, you need to take the planner's advice, especially about spending and saving levels.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c6a45d877ecaabc9e61daea790eaa50", "text": "\"I think your question is pretty wise, and the comments indicate that you understand the magnitude of the situation. First off, there could be nothing that your friend could do. Step parent relationships can be strained and this could make it worse, add the age of the girl and grief and he could make this a lot worse then it potentially is. She may spend it all to spite step-dad. Secondly, there is a need to understand by all involved that personal finance is about 75-90% behavior. Very high income people can wind up bankrupt, and lower income people can end up wealthy. The difference between two people's success or failure often boils down to behavior. Thirdly, I think you understand that there needs to be a \"\"why\"\", not only a \"\"what\"\" to do. I think that is the real tricky part. There has to be a teaching component along with an okay this is what you should do. Finding a person will be difficult. First off there is not a lot of money involved. Good financial advisers handle much larger cash positions and this young lady will probably need to spend some of it down. Secondly most FAs are willing to provide a cookie cutter solution to the problem at hand. This will likely leave a bad taste in the daughter's mouth. If it was me, I would encourage two things: Both of those things buy time. If she comes out of this with an education in a career field with a 50-60K starting salary, a nice used car, and no student loans that would be okay. I would venture to say mom would be happy. If she is very savvy, she might be able to come out of this with a down payment on a place of her own; or, if she has education all locked up perhaps purchasing a home for mostly cash. In the interim period a search for a good teaching FA could occur. Finding such a person could also help you and your friend in addition to the daughter. Now my own step-daughter and I have a good financial relationship. There are other areas where our relationship can be strained but as far as finances we relate well. We took Financial Peace University ($100 offered through many local churches) together when she was at the tender age of 16. The story of \"\"Ben and Arthur\"\" really spoke to her and we have had many subsequent conversations on the matter. That may work in this case. A youTube video on part of the lesson.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f9b4ae77359227d23a064bdff172960", "text": "\"First paragraph is very true. But you also have to take into consideration that the adviser and the company are 2 different \"\"things\"\" to look into. For the adviser, quickest and easiest way is to do a Facebook search. The point of this is to see how transparent they are with their personal life. Even companies are now relying on Facebook to see how they \"\"really\"\" are. I wouldn't care if the person has lots of photos with booze and girls, but I would be concerned if they are using FB for spamming purposes, have pictures with drugs, or hints that they don't like their job and want to move on to something else. Second paragraph is spot on as well. But I would rather want to know if the company cold calls or not... which leads in to your last statement. For one adviser, more than 100 clients is a red flag. This could mean that they push savings plans left and right, they don't contact their current clients, and/or they may not have the ability to assist clients should they get many queries. A few good questions to ask: 1. How do you make your salary? 2. Besides this plan you are selling me, what other types of products do you work with and show me several examples? 3. How many other advisers are in your firm? 4. How many clients does your colleagues and boss have? 5. How often do you cold call? 6. Who else cold calls in your office? 7. How does your company get new clients OTHER than referrals? Go interrogation style and ask the above questions several times using different phrases.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "659d1634090f51bdf8cbd058f18116fd", "text": "One can never be too cautious when when choosing a financial adviser. For example, has the company your adviser claims to represent ever been sanctioned by the local financial authorities? Does your adviser reside in the country in which he purports to operate? Have you thoroughly researched his background? It is also important to bear in mind what venues a company uses for advertising - if the company resorts to advertising by spamming, then their overall business practices are likely unethical and this could lead to trouble down the line. Finally, one should also research how the company's clientele has been built up. Was it through word of mouth or was the client data acquired by other means?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc0682855ab73115a7ab506f3c255162", "text": "\"Government registering of financial institutions usually is to make the government safe (eg FINTRAC is watching for money laundering and financing terrorism) rather than to make it's customers safe. Most governments have many levels of registrations and regulatory bodies. The most stringent requirements are usually obligatory only for banks, and they indeed often include precautions for insuring customer's deposits. Even this insurances have limits, eg in most EU countries the state guarantees deposits up to 100kEUR. If you deposit more and the bank flops - you lose everything over the limit. Companies like forex or currency exchanges usually make their best effort to avoid as many regulations as possible, just because it's costly. If a given company does have guarantee funds and/or customer insurance, it should be advertised and explained on their website. However the whole issue of trust is misguiding. You don't have to \"\"trust\"\" in your grocery store to shop there. There is no government guarantee that the vegetables sold will be tasty. If you buy and the product fells short of your expectations, you call it a loss and start shopping elsewhere. Financial services are no different than any other product. I recommend to your aunt to start small and see how it works. If a service turns out well, she can increase the amount sent through exchange and decrease amount sent through bank. But still, it's always prudent to send eg $1000 every week instead of $4000 once a month. It's more time consuming and cumbersome than having your bank do it - but it's the safety and convenience you're paying premium for.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ab045a99c76a8f6c9dac6c9730b8bab", "text": "Yes, but it's a matter of paper trail and lifestyle. Your $600K guy may get questioned when he makes the deposit, but would show the record of having that money elsewhere. People buy cars with cash (a check) all the time. The guy filing a tax return claiming little to no income or no return at all, is more likely to get flagged than the $100K+ earning couple who happened to be able to save to buy their $25K car every 10 years with cash. On reading the article, the bank had its own concerns. The guy who was trying to withdraw the money was elderly, and the bank seemed pretty concerned to make sure he wasn't about to be scammed. It may not be spelled out as such, but a custodian of one's money does have an obligation to not be party to a potential scam, and the very request for such a huge sum of money in cash is a red flag.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3632c7f94df6bb7ea3ee39992fc0aa13", "text": "I recommend that people think for themselves and get a multitude of counselors. The more you understand about what drives the prices of various assets, the better. Getting to good advice for a particular person depends on the financial picture for that person. For example, if they have a lot of consumer debt, then they probably would be better off paying off the debt before investing, as earning 5% (say) in the stock market year over year will be eaten up by the 18%+ they may be paying on their credit cards. Here's a starter list of the types of information that would be better to have in order to get fair investment advice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "be2cae6c13606d7d4653c326d5ad553d", "text": "If you can not support yourself should your father die, an insurance policy may make sense as a safety net. As an investment, it is a bad bet unless he knows something about his health that would somehow not cause his premiums to be increased tremendously yet not cause them to claim he was attempting to defraud them and refuse payment. In other words, it is a bad bet, period. Insurance is a tool. If the tool doesn't do something you specifically need, it's the wrong tool.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2d26997f808375f6f9b0725bb83a7ee", "text": "My family members, particularly my aunt (his daughter), are telling me that when my grandpa dies they are taking my car. Bring this up with Grandpa. If this is what he wants to have happen, then help him make it happen before you finish paying $12,000 on a car worth only $6,000. Let the Aunt and other relatives deal with the remaining $12,000. If that isn't what he wants to have happen, then work out how you and he can legally make sure that what he wants to have happen actually happens. If the Aunt or others bring it up, make sure they understand that you still owe $12,000 on the car, and if they get the car they also get the loan. If they refuse to pay the loan then make sure they know you will cooperate with the bank when they attempt to repossess the car - up to and including providing them with keys and location. This will hurt your credit, and you will be on the hook for the remaining portion of the loan, but you at least won't have to deal with all of it - they'll sell it at auction and your loan amount will fall a little. But the best course of action is to work with Grandpa, and make sure that he understands the family's threats, how that will affect you since you're on the loan, and what options you'd like to pursue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7f7a88163519e4bfaff7e4bae52dc81", "text": "I feel like no one really has he right to step in and ask me what I'm spending my own money on and why Well, yes - the bank do, and they are legally required to. It's for legal purposes and for your own protection. The bank are looking for money laundering, generally. You can't withdraw more than $10,000 cash without the bank having to report it; however, if you ask for $10,000, the bank tell you that they have to report it, and so you reduce your request to (say) $9,500, the bank will still report it - with a note on the report saying that you initially requested a higher limit. They also check spending patterns. If for the last six months you've withdrawn $1,000 in cash each month, but for the last four days you've asked for $5,000 each time, then they'll ask what the money is being used for, in case you're being defrauded. Your question implies that the 'financial people' are asking for the money in cash. If so, then that's a big (BIG!) red flag. No reputable company would ask for deposits that cannot be traced. In this case, I'd be looking for other 'financial advisors'. Interview several, not just the ones used by your friends and/or relatives. And if you don't understand an investment completely, then you shouldn't be making that investment. Your advisor would not be risking their OWN money on it, would they...", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
efba3607637a0a24c705cc10a2f4610a
What makes an actual share valuable? [duplicate]
[ { "docid": "9b2d2c75bd6c3a17bf78bb9b37a514ea", "text": "\"What benefit do I get from buying a share The value of any financial asset is its ability to generate cash in the future, and thus the \"\"value\"\" of a share is heavily influenced by the dividends it pays and the equity value. The equity value can be calculated different ways. Two common ways are to just take \"\"book\"\" value, meaning assets - liabilities, or you can look at the projected free cash flows of the company discounted back to the present time. Voting rights don't typically influence a share price except in hostile takeover scenarios (meaning someone buys up a lot of shares to have more influence in company decisions)\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "52d826b925842aa604e0b295fcd54608", "text": "\"No, the stock market is not there for speculation on corporate memorabilia. At its base, it is there for investing in a business, the point of the investment being, of course, to make money. A (successful) business earns money, and that makes it valuable to its owners since that money can be distributed to them. Shares of stock are pieces of business ownership, and so are valuable. If you knew that the business would have profit of $10,000,000 every year, and would distribute that to the owners of each of its 10,000,000 shares each year, you would know to that each share would receive $1 each year. How much would such a share be worth to you? If you could instead put money in a bank and get 5% a year back, to get $1 a year back you would have to put $20 into the bank. So maybe that share of stock is worth about $20 to you. If somebody offers to sell you such a share for $18, you might buy it; for $23, maybe you pass up the offer. But business is uncertain, and how much profit the business will make is uncertain and will vary through time. So how much is a share of a real business worth? This is a much harder call, and people use many different ways to come up with how much they should pay for a share. Some people probably just think something like \"\"Apple is a good company making money, I'll buy a share at whatever price it is being offered at right now.\"\" Others look at every number available, build models of the company and the economy and the risks, all to estimate what a share might be worth, more or less. There is no indisputable value for a share of a successful business. So, what effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock? You can only say that for some of the people who might buy or sell shares, higher earnings will, all other thing being equal, have them be willing to spend more to buy it or demand more when selling it. But how much more is not quantifiable but depends on each person's approach to the problem. Higher earnings would tend to raise the price of the stock. Yet there are other factors, such as people who had expected even higher earnings, whose actions would tend to lower the price, and people who are OK with the earnings now, but suspect trouble for the business is appearing on the horizon, whose actions would also tend to lower the price. This is why people say that a stock's price is determined by supply and demand.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f0cb1b299c8902d05de659c56af9285", "text": "\"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.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da781e6cc464fae224f7616998e5d61b", "text": "Imagine that I own 10% of a company, and yesterday my portion was valued at $1 Million, therefore the company is valued at $10 Million. Today the company accepts an offer to sell 1% of the company for $500 Thousand: now my portion is worth $5 Million, and company is worth $50 Million. The latest stock price sets the value of the company. If next week the news is all bad and the new investor sells their shares to somebody else for pennies on the dollar, the value of the company will drop accordingly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d23850fbada2d4080a297417671d571d", "text": "Yeah, lots of value in companies is much less tangible than it used to be. But then i think we put too much faith in tangible value. EG a coal mining company my buddy invested in cos it had so much tangible value; had precisely zero tangible value when it collapsed tho", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac18a23cf30f659b257d22786cc092b5", "text": "\"As I understand it, a company raises money by sharing parts of it (\"\"ownership\"\") to people who buy stocks from it. It's not \"\"ownership\"\" in quotes, it's ownership in a non-ironic way. You own part of the company. If the company has 100 million shares outstanding you own 1/100,000,000th of it per share, it's small but you're an owner. In most cases you also get to vote on company issues as a shareholder. (though non-voting shares are becoming a thing). After the initial share offer, you're not buying your shares from the company, you're buying your shares from an owner of the company. The company doesn't control the price of the shares or the shares themselves. I get that some stocks pay dividends, and that as these change the price of the stock may change accordingly. The company pays a dividend, not the stock. The company is distributing earnings to it's owners your proportion of the earnings are equal to your proportion of ownership. If you own a single share in the company referenced above you would get $1 in the case of a $100,000,000 dividend (1/100,000,000th of the dividend for your 1/100,000,000th ownership stake). I don't get why the price otherwise goes up or down (why demand changes) with earnings, and speculation on earnings. Companies are generally valued based on what they will be worth in the future. What do the prospects look like for this industry? A company that only makes typewriters probably became less valuable as computers became more prolific. Was a new law just passed that would hurt our ability to operate? Did a new competitor enter the industry to force us to change prices in order to stay competitive? If we have to charge less for our product, it stands to reason our earnings in the future will be similarly reduced. So what if the company's making more money now than it did when I bought the share? Presumably the company would then be more valuable. None of that is filtered my way as a \"\"part owner\"\". Yes it is, as a dividend; or in the case of a company not paying a dividend you're rewarded by an appreciating value. Why should the value of the shares change? A multitude of reasons generally revolving around the company's ability to profit in the future.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ff4b83c8e5627b710d84964fc9b0a85", "text": "\"This answer will expand a bit on the theory. :) A company, as an entity, represents a pile of value. Some of that is business value (the revenue stream from their products) and some of that is assets (real estate, manufacturing equipment, a patent portfolio, etc). One of those assets is cash. If you own a share in the company, you own a share of all those assets, including the cash. In a theoretical sense, it doesn't really matter whether the company holds the cash instead of you. If the company adds an extra $1 billion to its assets, then people who buy and sell the company will think \"\"hey, there's an extra $1 billion of cash in that company; I should be willing to pay $1 billion / shares outstanding more per share to own it than I would otherwise.\"\" Granted, you may ultimately want to turn your ownership into cash, but you can do that by selling your shares to someone else. From a practical standpoint, though, the company doesn't benefit from holding that cash for a long time. Cash doesn't do much except sit in bank accounts and earn pathetically small amounts of interest, and if you wanted pathetic amounts of interests from your cash you wouldn't be owning shares in a company, you'd have it in a bank account yourself. Really, the company should do something with their cash. Usually that means investing it in their own business, to grow and expand that business, or to enhance profitability. Sometimes they may also purchase other companies, if they think they can turn a profit from the purchase. Sometimes there aren't a lot of good options for what to do with that money. In that case, the company should say, \"\"I can't effectively use this money in a way which will grow my business. You should go and invest it yourself, in whatever sort of business you think makes sense.\"\" That's when they pay a dividend. You'll see that a lot of the really big global companies are the ones paying dividends - places like Coca-Cola or Exxon-Mobil or what-have-you. They just can't put all their cash to good use, even after their growth plans. Many people who get dividends will invest them in the stock market again - possibly purchasing shares of the same company from someone else, or possibly purchasing shares of another company. It doesn't usually make a lot of sense for the company to invest in the stock market themselves, though. Investment expertise isn't really something most companies are known for, and because a company has multiple owners they may have differing investment needs and risk tolerance. For instance, if I had a bunch of money from the stock market I'd put it in some sort of growth stock because I'm twenty-something with a lot of savings and years to go before retirement. If I were close to retirement, though, I would want it in a more stable stock, or even in bonds. If I were retired I might even spend it directly. So the company should let all its owners choose, unless they have a good business reason not to. Sometimes companies will do share buy-backs instead of dividends, which pays money to people selling the company stock. The remaining owners benefit by reducing the number of shares outstanding, so they own more of what's left. They should only do this if they think the stock is at a fair price, or below a fair price, for the company: otherwise the remaining owners are essentially giving away cash. (This actually happens distressingly often.) On the other hand, if the company's stock is depressed but it subsequently does better than the rest of the market, then it is a very good investment. The one nice thing about share buy-backs in general is that they don't have any immediate tax implications for the company's owners: they simply own a stock which is now more valuable, and can sell it (and pay taxes on that sale) whenever they choose.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20fb453bd63f1f4ded5fa3e211933994", "text": "Value investing is just an investment strategy, it's an alternative to technical investing. Buffet made money picking stocks. It's not obvious how that adds value, but it does. Everything about the stock market is ultimately about IPOs. Without active trading, of stocks after issue, no one would buy at the IPO. The purpose of an IPO is to finance the long-term growth of a business, which is the point in the process where the value to the people gets created. There is a group of elites that needs to be dealt with, you're correct, but I worry that your definition of this group is overly broad.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "49af1a7aa7b174792ea7e082421cc332", "text": "\"It's been said before, but to repeat succinctly, a company's current share price is no more or less than what \"\"the market\"\" thinks that share is worth, as measured by the price at which the shares are being bought and sold. As such, a lot of things can affect that price, some of them material, others ethereal. A common reason to own stock is to share the profits of the company; by owning 1 share out of 1 million shares outstanding, you are entitled to 1/1000000 of that company's quarterly profits (if any). These are paid out as dividends. Two key measurements are based on these dividend payments; the first is \"\"earnings per share\"\", which is the company's stated quarterly profits, divided by outstanding shares, with the second being the \"\"price-earnings ratio\"\" which is the current price of the stock divided by its EPS. Your expected \"\"yield\"\" on this stock is more or less the inverse of this number; if a company has a P/E ratio of 20, then all things being equal, if you invest $100 in this stock you can expect a return of $5, or 5% (1/20). As such, changes in the expected earnings per share can cause the share price to rise or fall to maintain a P/E ratio that the pool of buyers are willing to tolerate. News that a company might miss its profit expectations, due to a decrease in consumer demand, an increase in raw materials costs, labor, financing, or any of a multitude of things that industry analysts watch, can cause the stock price to drop sharply as people look for better investments with higher yields. However, a large P/E ratio is not necessarily a bad thing, especially for a large stable company. That stability means the company is better able to weather economic problems, and thus it is a lower risk. Now, not all companies issue dividends. Apple is probably the most well-known example. The company simply retains all its earnings to reinvest in itself. This is typically the strategy of a smaller start-up; whether they're making good money or not, they typically want to keep what they make so they can keep growing, and the shareholders are usually fine with that. Why? Well, because there's more than one way to value a company, and more than one way to look at a stock. Owning one share of a stock can be seen quite literally as owning a share of that company. The share can then be valued as a fraction of the company's total assets. Sounds simple, but it isn't, because not every asset the company owns has a line in the financial statements. A company's brand name, for instance, has no tangible value, and yet it is probably the most valuable single thing Apple owns. Similarly, intellectual property doesn't have a \"\"book value\"\" on a company's balance sheet, but again, these are huge contributors to the success and profitability of a company like Apple; the company is viewed as a center of innovation, and if it were not doing any innovating, it would very quickly be seen as a middleman for some other company's ideas and products. A company can't sustain that position for long even if it's raking in the money in the meantime. Overall, the value of a company is generally a combination of these two things; by owning a portion of stock, you own a piece of the company's assets, and also claim a piece of their profits. A large company with a lot of material assets and very little debt can be highly valued based solely on the sum of its parts, even if profits are lagging. Conversely, a company more or less operating out of a storage unit can have a patent on the cure for cancer, and be shoveling money into their coffers with bulldozers.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57ae1dabaed20e2a1c7a8d770aa3941a", "text": "\"I probably don't understand something. I think you are correct about that. :) The main way money enters the stock market is through investors investing and taking money out. Money doesn't exactly \"\"enter\"\" the stock market. Shares of stock are bought and sold by investors to investors. The market is just a mechanism for a buyer and seller to find each other. For the purposes of this question, we will only consider non-dividend stocks. Okay. When you buy stock, it is claimed that you own a small portion of the company. This statement has no backing, as you cannot exchange your stock for the company's assets. For example, if I bought $10 of Apple Stock early on, but it later went up to $399, I can't go to Apple and say \"\"I own $399 of you, here you go it back, give me an iPhone.\"\" The only way to redeem this is to sell the stock to another investor (like a Ponzi Scheme.) It is true that when you own stock, you own a small portion of the company. No, you can't just destroy your portion of the company; that wouldn't be fair to the other investors. But you can very easily sell your portion to another investor. The stock market facilitates that sale, making it very easy to either sell your shares or buy more shares. It's not a Ponzi scheme. The only reason your hypothetical share is said to be \"\"worth\"\" $399 is that there is a buyer that wants to buy it at $399. But there is a real company behind the stock, and it is making real money. There are several existing questions that discuss what gives a stock value besides a dividend: The stock market goes up only when more people invest in it. Although the stock market keeps tabs on Businesses, the profits of Businesses do not actually flow into the Stock Market. In particular, if no one puts money in the stock market, it doesn't matter how good the businesses do. The value of a stock is simply what a buyer is willing to pay for it. You are correct that there is not always a correlation between the price of a stock and how well the company is doing. But let's look at another hypothetical scenario. Let's say that I started and run a publicly-held company that sells widgets. The company is doing very well; I'm selling lots of widgets. In fact, the company is making incredible amounts of money. However, the stock price is not going up as fast as our revenues. This could be due to a number of reasons: investors might not be aware of our success, or investors might not think our success is sustainable. I, as the founder, own lots of shares myself, and if I want a return on my investment, I can do a couple of things with the large revenues of the company: I can either continue to reinvest revenue in the company, growing the company even more (in the hopes that investors will start to notice and the stock price will rise), or I can start paying a dividend. Either way, all the current stock holders benefit from the success of the company.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f48115d3d43eea8f5b9323be4de730af", "text": "\"This is an excellent question, one that I've pondered before as well. Here's how I've reconciled it in my mind. Why should we agree that a stock is worth anything? After all, if I purchase a share of said company, I own some small percentage of all of its assets, like land, capital equipment, accounts receivable, cash and securities holdings, etc., as others have pointed out. Notionally, that seems like it should be \"\"worth\"\" something. However, that doesn't give me the right to lay claim to them at will, as I'm just a (very small) minority shareholder. The old adage says that \"\"something is only worth what someone is willing to pay you for it.\"\" That share of stock doesn't actually give me any liquid control over the company's assets, so why should someone else be willing to pay me something for it? As you noted, one reason why a stock might be attractive to someone else is as a (potentially tax-advantaged) revenue stream via dividends. Especially in this low-interest-rate environment, this might well exceed that which I might obtain in the bond market. The payment of income to the investor is one way that a stock might have some \"\"inherent value\"\" that is attractive to investors. As you asked, though, what if the stock doesn't pay dividends? As a small shareholder, what's in it for me? Without any dividend payments, there's no regular method of receiving my invested capital back, so why should I, or anyone else, be willing to purchase the stock to begin with? I can think of a couple reasons: Expectation of a future dividend. You may believe that at some point in the future, the company will begin to pay a dividend to investors. Dividends are paid as a percentage of a company's total profits, so it may make sense to purchase the stock now, while there is no dividend, banking on growth during the no-dividend period that will result in even higher capital returns later. This kind of skirts your question: a non-dividend-paying stock might be worth something because it might turn into a dividend-paying stock in the future. Expectation of a future acquisition. This addresses the original premise of my argument above. If I can't, as a small shareholder, directly access the assets of the company, why should I attribute any value to that small piece of ownership? Because some other entity might be willing to pay me for it in the future. In the event of an acquisition, I will receive either cash or another company's shares in compensation, which often results in a capital gain for me as a shareholder. If I obtain a capital gain via cash as part of the deal, then this proves my point: the original, non-dividend-paying stock was worth something because some other entity decided to acquire the company, paying me more cash than I paid for my shares. They are willing to pay this price for the company because they can then reap its profits in the future. If I obtain a capital gain via stock in as part of the deal, then the process restarts in some sense. Maybe the new stock pays dividends. Otherwise, perhaps the new company will do something to make its stock worth more in the future, based on the same future expectations. The fact that ownership in a stock can hold such positive future expectations makes them \"\"worth something\"\" at any given time; if you purchase a stock and then want to sell it later, someone else is willing to purchase it from you so they can obtain the right to experience a positive capital return in the future. While stock valuation schemes will vary, both dividends and acquisition prices are related to a company's profits: This provides a connection between a company's profitability, expectations of future growth, and its stock price today, whether it currently pays dividends or not.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b82b583651de7679354952bda4f95d7", "text": "There is nothing called actual, unless you convert currency. There are real offer rates that are slightly different from Bank to Bank. Search Engines give a generic average value based on the sites they are trust / have tie-up with. Banks don't use google or search engines to get the basis, they have quite a bit more info and there is a specific Treasury function that would look at the trend and give out a huge spread between buy and sell.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ccaab31cbf55185b353f68bf4441bad", "text": "Presumably you're talking about the different share class introduced in the recent stock split, which mean that there are now three Google share classes: Due to the voting rights, Class A shares should be worth more than class C, but how much only time will tell. Actually, one could very well argue that a non-voting share of a company that pays no dividends has no value at all. It's unlikely the markets will see it that way, though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f94ab28cf420d279e87cabb6029f65c", "text": "In simplest terms, when a company creates new shares and sells them, it's true that existing shareholders now own a smaller percentage of the company. However, as the company is now more valuable (since it made money by selling the new shares), the real dollar value of the previous shares is unchanged. That said, the decision to issue new shares can be interpreted by investors as a signal of the company's strategy and thereby alter the market price; this may well affect the real dollar value of the previous shares. But the simple act of creating new shares does not alter the value in and of itself.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c6d9c87fc60a8c5f72ee0140b593d35", "text": "\"A stock, at its most basic, is worth exactly what someone else will pay to buy it right now (or in the near future), just like anything else of value. However, what someone's willing to pay for it is typically based on what the person can get from it. There are a couple of ways to value a stock. The first way is on expected earnings per share, most of would normally (but not always) be paid in dividends. This is a metric that can be calculated based on the most recently reported earnings, and can be estimated based on news about the company or the industry its in (or those of suppliers, likely buyers, etc) to predict future earnings. Let's say the stock price is exactly $100 right now, and you buy one share. In one quarter, the company is expected to pay out $2 per share in dividends. That is a 2% ROI realized in 3 months. If you took that $2 and blew it on... coffee, maybe, or you stuffed it in your mattress, you'd realize a total gain of $8 in one year, or in ROI terms an annual rate of 8%. However, if you reinvested the money, you'd be making money on that money, and would have a little more. You can calculate the exact percentage using the \"\"future value\"\" formula. Conversely, if you wanted to know what you should pay, given this level of earnings per share, to realize a given rate of return, you can use the \"\"present value\"\" formula. If you wanted a 9% return on your money, you'd pay less for the stock than its current value, all other things being equal. Vice-versa if you were happy with a lesser rate of return. The current rate of return based on stock price and current earnings is what the market as a whole is willing to tolerate. This is how bonds are valued, based on a desired rate of return by the market, and it also works for stocks, with the caveat that the dividends, and what you'll get back at the \"\"end\"\", are no longer constant as they are with a bond. Now, in your case, the company doesn't pay dividends. Ever. It simply retains all the earnings it's ever made, reinvesting them into doing new things or more things. By the above method, the rate of return from dividends alone is zero, and so the future value of your investment is whatever you paid for it. People don't like it when the best case for their money is that it just sits there. However, there's another way to think of the stock's value, which is it's more core definition; a share of the company itself. If the company is profitable, and keeps all this profit, then a share of the company equals, in part, a share of that retained earnings. This is very simplistic, but if the company's assets are worth 1 billion dollars, and it has one hundred million shares of stock, each share of stock is worth $10, because that's the value of that fraction of the company as divided up among all outstanding shares. If the company then reports earnings of $100 million, the value of the company is now 1.1 billion, and its stock should go up to $11 per share, because that's the new value of one ten-millionth of the company's value. Your ROI on this stock is $1, in whatever time period the reporting happens (typically quarterly, giving this stock a roughly 4% APY). This is a totally valid way to value stocks and to shop for them; it's very similar to how commodities, for instance gold, are bought and sold. Gold never pays you dividends. Doesn't give you voting rights either. Its value at any given time is solely what someone else will pay to have it. That's just fine with a lot of people right now; gold's currently trading at around $1,700 an ounce, and it's been the biggest moneymaker in our economy since the bottom fell out of the housing market (if you'd bought gold in 2008, you would have more than doubled your money in 4 years; I challenge you to find anything else that's done nearly as well over the same time). In reality, a combination of both of these valuation methods are used to value stocks. If a stock pays dividends, then each person gets money now, but because there's less retained earnings and thus less change in the total asset value of the company, the actual share price doesn't move (much). If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then people only get money when they cash out the actual stock, but if the company is profitable (Apple, BH, etc) then one share should grow in value as the value of that small fraction of the company continues to grow. Both of these are sources of ROI, and both are seen in a company that will both retain some earnings and pay out dividends on the rest.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d03319e7e10d7777ab0af425341562df", "text": "Originally, stocks were ownership in a company just like any other business- you expected to make a profit from your investment, which is what we call dividends to stock holders. Since these dividends had real value, the stock price was based on what this return rate was, factoring in what it might be expected to be in the future, etc. Nowdays many companies never issue any dividends, so you have to consider the full value of the company and what benefit could be gained by another company if it were to acquire it. the market will likely adjust the share price to factor in what the value of the company might be to an acquirer. But otherwise, some companies today trading at an astronimical price, and which nevers pays a dividend- chalk it up to market stupidity. In this investor'd mind, there is no logical reason for these prices, except based on the idea that someone else might pay you more for it later... for what reason? I can't figure it out. Take it back to it's roots and imagine pitching a new business idea to you uncle to invest in- it will make almost nothing compared to it's share price, and even what it does make it won't pay anything to him for his investment. Why wouldn't he just laugh at you?", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
f5b921ac3e44e8bd4db466dee09e56fc
Newbie question - Brokerage and selling shares
[ { "docid": "0ca7b0a68b8b52bb9fb8f2139eb24b78", "text": "\"And to answer your other questions about fees, there are a number of sites that compare brokers' fees, Google \"\"broker fee comparison\"\". I like the Motley Fool, although there are a lot of others. However, don't go just by the comparison sites, because they can be out-of-date and usually just have the basic fees. Once you find a broker that you like, go to that broker's site and get all the fees as of now. You can't sell the shares that are in your Charles Schwab account using some other broker. However, you can (possibly now, definitely eventually, see below) transfer the shares to another broker and then sell them there. But be aware that Charles Schwab might charge you a fee to transfer the shares out, which will probably be larger than the fee they'll charge you to sell the shares, unless you're selling them a few at a time. For example, I have a Charles Schwab account through my previous employer and it's $9.99 commission to sell shares, but $50 to transfer them out. Note that your fees might be different even though we're both at Charles Schwab, because employers can negotiate individual deals. There should be somewhere on the site that has a fee schedule, but if you can't find it, send them a message or call them. One final thing to be aware of, shares you get from an employer often have restrictions on sale or transfer, or negative tax consequences on sale or transfer, that shares just bought on the open market wouldn't, so make sure you investigate that before doing anything with the shares.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a9a2887e88a59612d0e83c08cffd926", "text": "Capital gains tax is an income tax upon your profit from selling investments. Long-term capital gains (investments you have held for more than a year) are taxed significantly less than short-term gains. It doesn't limit how many shares you can sell; it does discourage selling them too quickly after buying. You can balance losses against gains to reduce the tax due. You can look for tax-advantaged investments (the obvious one being a 401k plan, IRA, or equivalent, though those generally require leaving the money invested until retirement). But in the US, most investments other than the house you are living in (which some of us argue isn't really an investment) are subject to capital gains tax, period.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "88ddcb0c6858f21c6a4571c616e9ba94", "text": "\"When I have stock at my brokerage account, the title is in street name - the brokerage's name and the quantity I own is on the books of the brokerage (insured by SIPC, etc). The brokerage loans \"\"my\"\" shares to a short seller and is happy to facilitate trades in both directions for commissions (it's a nice trick to get other parties to hold the inventory while you reap income from the churn); by selecting the account I have I don't get to choose to not loan out the shares.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ff68b09fef2ab83c41d8cf7759d12c2c", "text": "The point of that question is to test if the user can connect shares and stock price. However, that being said yeah, you're right. Probably gives off the impression that it's a bit elementary. I'll look into changing it asap.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ca405224c5eb80b97e9c9a2ecccc177", "text": "\"Yes, this is possible with some companies. When you buy shares of stock through a stock broker, the shares are kept in \"\"street name.\"\" That means that the shares are registered to the broker, not to you. That makes it easy to sell the stock later. The stock broker keeps track of who actually owns which shares. The system works well, and there are legal protections in place to protect the investors' assets. You can request that your broker change the stock to your name and request a certificate from the company. However, companies are no longer required to do this, and some won't. Your broker will charge you a fee for this service. Alternatively, if you really only want one share for decoration, there are companies that specialize in selling shares of stock with certificates. Two of them are giveashare.com and uniquestockgift.com, which offer one real share of stock with a stock certificate in certain popular companies. (Note: I have no experience with either one.) Some companies no longer issue new stock certificates; for those, these services sell you a replica stock certificate along with a real share of electronic stock. (This is now the case for Disney and Apple.) With your stock certificate, you are an actual official stockholder, entitled to dividends and a vote at the shareholder meeting. If this is strictly an investment for you, consider the advantages of street name shares: As to your question on buying stock directly from a company and bypassing a broker altogether, see Can I buy stocks directly from a public company?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d75b5516f8f79c5b756a560d56d7a8cf", "text": "But by closing the short position the broker would still be purchasing shares from the market no? Or at least, someone would be purchasing the shares to close the short position. So, why doesn't the broker just let Client A keep their short position open and buy shares in the market so that Client B can sell them...I know it sounds a bit ridic, but not much more so to me than letting Client A borrow the shares to begin with!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "54b2d8e307104d0ed9651537bd06468e", "text": "A lot of people here talk about shorting stocks, buying options, and messing around with leveraged ETFs. While these are excellent tools, that offer novel opportunities for the sophisticated investor, Don't mess around with these until you have been in the game for a few years. Even if you can make money consistently right out of the gate, don't do it. Why? Making money isn't your challenge, NOT LOSING money is your challenge. It's hard to measure the scope of the risk you are assuming with these strategies, much less manage it when things head south. So even if you've gotten lucky enough to have figured out how to make money, you surely haven't learned out how to hold on to it. I am certain that every beginner still hasn't figured out how to comprehend risk and manage losing positions. It's one of those things you only figure out after dealing with it. Stocks (with little to no margin) are a great place to learn how to lose because your risk of losing everything is drastically lower than with the aforementioned tools of the sophisticated investor. Despite what others may say you can make out really well just trading stocks. That being said, one of my favorite beginner strategies is buying stocks that dip for reasons that don't fundamentally affect the company's ability to make money in the mid term (2 quarters). Wallstreet loves these plays because it shakes out amateur investors (release bad news, push the stock down shorting it or selling your position, amateurs sell, which you buy at a discount to the 'fair price'.) A good example is Netflix back in 2007. There was a lawsuit because netflix was throttling movie deliveries to high traffic consumers. The stock dropped a good chunk overnight. A more recent example is petrobras after their huge bond sale and subsequent corruption scandal. A lot of people questioned Petrobras' long-term ability to maintain sufficient liquidity to pay back the loans, but the cashflow and long term projections are more than solid. A year later the stock was pushed further down because a lot of amateur Brazilians invest in Petrobras and they sold while the stock was artificially depressed due to a string of corruption scandals and poor, though temporary, economic conditions. One of my favorite plays back in 2008-2011 was First Solar on the run-up to earnings calls. Analysts would always come out of these meetings downgrading the stock and the forums were full of pikers and pumpers claiming heavy put positions. The stock would go down considerably, but would always pop around earnings. I've made huge returns on this move. Those were the good ole days. Start off just googling financial news and blogs and look for lawsuits and/or scandals. Manufacturing defects or recalls. Starting looking for companies that react predictably to certain events. Plot those events on your chart. If you don't know how to back-test events, learn it. Google Finance had a tool for that back in the day that was rudimentary but helpful for those starting out. Eventually though, moreso than learning any particular strategy, you should learn these three skills: 1) Tooling: to gather, manipulate, and visualize data on your own. These days automated trading also seems to be ever more important, even for the small fish. 2) Analytical Thinking learn to spot patterns of the three types: event based (lawsuits, arbitrage, earnings etc), technical (emas, price action, sup/res), or business-oriented (accounting, strategy, marketing). Don't just listen to what someone else says you should do at any particular moment, critical thinking is essential. 3) Emotions and Attitude: learn how to comprehend risk and manage your trigger finger. Your emotions are like a blade that you must sharpen every day if you want to stay in the game. Disclaimer: I stopped using this strategy in 2011, and moved to a pure technical trading regime. I've been out totally out of the game since 2015.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71399cba538d2d34baf47cb9990fb45a", "text": "\"Also, in the next sentence, what is buyers commission? Is it referring to the share holder? Or potential share holder? And why does the buyer get commission? The buyer doesn't get a commission. The buyer pays a commission. So normally a buyer would say, \"\"I want to buy a hundred shares at $20.\"\" The broker would then charge the buyer a commission. Assuming 4%, the commission would be So the total cost to the buyer is $2080 and the seller receives $2000. The buyer paid a commission of $80 as the buyer's commission. In the case of an IPO, the seller often pays the commission. So the buyer might pay $2000 for a hundred shares which have a 7% commission. The brokering agent (or agents may share) pockets a commission of $140. Total paid to the seller is $1860. Some might argue that the buyer pays either way, as the seller receives money in the transaction. That's a reasonable outlook. A better way to say this might be that typical trades bill the buyer directly for commission while IPO purchases bill the seller. In the typical trade, the buyer negotiates the commission with the broker. In an IPO, the seller does (with the underwriter). Another issue with an IPO is that there are more parties getting commission than just one. As a general rule, you still call your broker to purchase the stock. The broker still expects a commission. But the IPO underwriter also expects a commission. So the 7% commission might be split between the IPO underwriter (works for the selling company) and the broker (works for the buyer). The broker has more work to do than normal. They have to put in the buyer's purchase request and manage the price negotiation. In most purchases, you just say something like \"\"I want to offer $20 a share\"\" or \"\"I want to purchase at the market price.\"\" In an IPO, they may increase the price, asking for $25 a share. And they may do that multiple times. Your broker has to come back to you each time and get a new authorization at the higher price. And you still might not get the number of shares that you requested. Beyond all this, you may still be better off buying an IPO than waiting until the next day. Sure, you pay more commission, but you also may be buying at a lower price. If the IPO price is $20 but the price climbs to $30, you would have been better off paying the IPO price even with the higher commission. However, if the IPO price is $20 and the price falls to $19.20, you'd be better off buying at $19.20 after the IPO. Even though in that case, you'd pay the 4% commission on top of the $19.20, so about $19.97. I think that the overall point of the passage is that the IPO underwriter makes the most money by convincing you to pay as high an IPO price as possible. And once they do that, they're out of the picture. Your broker will still be your broker later. So the IPO underwriter has a lot of incentive to encourage you to participate in the IPO instead of waiting until the next day. The broker doesn't care much either way. They want you to buy and sell something. The IPO or something else. They don't care much as to what. The underwriter may overprice the stock, as that maximizes their return. If they can convince enough people to overpay, they don't care that the stock falls the day after that. All their marketing effort is to try to achieve that result. They want you to believe that your $20 purchase will go up to $30 the next day. But it might not. These numbers may not be accurate. Obviously the $20 stock price is made up. But the 4% and 7% numbers may also be inaccurate. Modern online brokers are very competitive and may charge a flat fee rather than a percentage. The book may be giving you older numbers that were correct in 1983 (or whatever year). The buyer's commission could also be lower than 4%, as the seller also may be charged a commission. If each pays 2%, that's about 4% total but split between a buyer's commission and a seller's commission.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7899255b9d21c5e86212fdc9fb628c00", "text": "\"The other two folks here are right with the math and such, so I'll just throw some intuition out there for you. The basis for this valuation model is really just tacking the Gordon growth model (which is really just a form of valuing a perpetuity) onto a couple of finite discounted cash flows. So that ending part is the Gordon growth model *at the future point* discounted back to the present. The Gordon growth model uses a \"\"next period\"\" dividend for the very simple reason that it's the next one you'd get if you bought the stock. Is that explanation clear enough, or were some of these points not adequately explained in your class? I'll help a bit more, if I can.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b40e52e0068c9e44ae241e98dd01457a", "text": "I assume by not-so-good prospects you mean small account clients whose revenue will not justify the time required to close a deal and/or post-sale service. Glad to see you are being realistic about the value of your time vs. what a prospect is paying. A big part of your practice is going to come down to what infrastructure/processes your dealer firm or back office support has. Is yours one with a formal small account policy that assigns servicing to a centralized service center (aka call center)? I've also seen others separate direct at fund vs held in-house (omnibus) based on client assets. Small accounts go direct to at fund and are directed to the mutual fund transfer agent for post-sale servicing needs. The up-front sales charge compensates for the initial consultation and the rest is self-servicing / support by the fund transfer agent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92f0b60388d535a8b24ec5ee5eac7417", "text": "\"Take a look at FolioFN - they let you buy small numbers of shares and fractional shares too. There is an annual fee on the order of US$100/year. You can trade with no fees at two \"\"windows\"\" per day, or at any time for a $15 fee. You are better off leaving the stock in broker's name, especially if you live overseas. Otherwise you will receive your dividends in the form of cheques that might be expensive to try to cash. There is also usually a fee charged by the broker to obtain share certificates instead of shares in your account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26dc642f30950827f3b301c2898a4bba", "text": "I'm going to assume that you want to be invested all the time and each trade consists in selling a security and buying another one (similar to your example). How much commissions you are willing to pay depends on several factors, but one way to think about it is as follows. You have a position in stock A and you want to switch to stock B because you think it will perform better. If you think there's a good chance (>50%) that B will outperform A by more than x% then you can happily pay up to x/2% commissions and still make money over a long time horizon. If you like formulae, one way to express it is: Where: Example: if you tend to be right 51% of the time (hit rate), and gain 110% more than you lose on average (win loss ratio), you can see that your expected profit is: 5.1% - commissions, so you could pay 2.5% commissions on entering and closing the position and still make money*. Unfortunately, common sense, statistics and numerous studies tell us a sad truth: on average, people have a hit rate of 50% and a win/loss ratio of 100%. Which means that their expected profit per trade is 0% - commission. Based on that crude observation - unless you can prove to yourself that you are better than average - you should aim at reducing commissions paid to your broker as much as possible through: * 51% and 110% are not random numbers, they correspond to the results of the top 15% (professional) managers in a research paper using a sample of 215 funds managing $150bn.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20118d2acc2ddab6bc7eba66d3175b22", "text": "From what you have written, it could be a boiler room company. These operate with fancy website and have proper book keeping systems but are elaborate scams. How did you find about this broker. If there was a seller when you purchased the shares, there is no reason you can't be seller", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28e6edb222832385511dea101954d223", "text": "\"The broker will charge borrowing fees and sometimes a charge called \"\"hard-to-borrow fee\"\". Other than that you will earn interest on the cash you get from selling the stocks, but you will have to pay dividends. This is because someone else (the party you sold the stocks off to) will now get the dividends and the party who lent you the stocks will miss out on these, that's why you have to remunerate them. The type of account you need is entirely up to your broker (and besides, it depends on what a 'normal' account for you is, you should at least mention your country or your broker).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6210d2897e4211bf4057a4113912c180", "text": "The question seems to be from the point of view actual sales and not its impact on one's taxation. In case you just want to sell, why brokers will respond differently each times. Either there may be issues with ownership and/or the company whose shares it is? In case you feel that the issues lies with brok", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6b064ac71a22895db36a8e842295dc54", "text": "\"Traditional brokers There are tons of players in this market, especially in USA. You have traditional brokers, brokers tied to your bank and a bunch of startups. The easiest is probably a broker tied to your bank, because you probably don't have to wait to fund your brokerage account and can start trading immediately. Often the older/traditional brokers don't have very intuitive interfaces, it's the startups who do a better job at this. But honestly it doesn't really matter, because you can use reporting services that are different from the services you use to execute your trades. Meaning that you only use the interface of your broker to execute trades (buy or sell), and use third party services to monitor your holdings. Monitoring services: Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, Sigfig, Morningstar,... are services allowing you to monitor your holdings. But you can't execute trades with them. Start-ups: Then there are a bunch of startups that offer investment services besides the traditional brokers. Start-up > Robinhood The most ambitious one is Robinhood, which offers the same service as a traditional broker, but completely free (most of the traditional brokers charge a flat fee and/or percentage when buying/selling hodlings) and with an intuitive interface. They're mobile first, but announced they will be launching their service on the web soon. Start-up > Acorns Another popular, mobile-first start-up is Acorns. They offer a lazy-investing service which rounds your everyday purchases and uses the change to invest. It's great when investing is not on your mind, but you still want to invest without realizing it. Start-ups > Robo-advisors Robo-advisors auto-invest your money across a bunch of funds picked based on your risk profile. Because the robo-advisers are fairly new, they often have the most intuitive interfaces. These robo-advisors often don't allow you to pick individual holdings, so these services are best when you want to passively invest. Meaning you don't want to look at it very often, and let them do the investing for you. There are tons of robo-advisor start-ups: Betterment, Wealthfront, Personal Capital, Sigfig, FutureAdvisor,... Also bigger parties jumped on this trend with their offerings: Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, Ally Managed Portfolio, Vanguard Personal Advisor, etc. Summary: It's fun to pick individual stocks, but if you start out it can be overwhelming. Robinhood is probably the best start, they have reduced functionality, but gets you going with an attractive interface. But soon you'll realize it's extremely hard to beat the market. Meaning that hand-picking stocks statistically gives you a worse return than just buying into the general stock market (like S&P500). So you can decide to just buy one fund with a traditional broker that covers the general stock market. Or you can decide to try out one of the many robo-advisors. They haven't been around that long, so it's hard to tell how effective these are and whether they beat the market. If you're young, and you believe in start-ups (who often try to challenge the traditional players), try out one of the robo-advisors. If you want to play a bit and are addicted to your smartphone, try out Robinhood. If you are addicted to your phone, but don't want to check up on your investments all the time, go for Acorns. Of course you can combine all these. Lastly, there are tons of cryptocurrencies which might give you a large return. Tons of startups offer intuitive interfaces to trade cryptocurrencies like Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken. But beware, there is a lot of risk involved in trading cryptocurrencies, it's completely unregulated etc. But definitely check them out. Oh, and you can also invest by giving out loans through LendingClub, Prosper etc. Who can you trust? Above gives you an overview of your options intermingled with some reasoning. But regarding your question \"\"who can I trust\"\" in terms of advice, it's up to yourself. Most traditional broker services don't give you any advice at all, you're on your own. Robo-advisors don't give you advice either, but let their proprietary algorithm do the job. Are these reliable? Nobody can tell, they haven't been around long enough, and they need to go through a bear market (a crash) to see how they respond during rough times. Some robo-advisors offer you personal consultancy (I believe Sigfig and PersonalCapital) does this (limited to a few hours per year). But obviously they'll try to promote their robo-advisor services.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ada9d0a627c6197e572ac50d0b4cf55d", "text": "Here's how this works in the United States. There's no law regarding your behavior in this matter and you haven't broken any laws. But your broker-dealer has a law that they must follow. It's documented here: The issue is if you buy stock before your sell has settled (before you've received cash) then you're creating money where before none existed (even though it is just for a day or two). The government fears that this excess will cause undue speculation in the security markets. The SEC calls this practice freeriding, because you're spending money you have not yet received. In summary: your broker is not allowed to loan money to an account than is not set-up for loans; it must be a margin account. People with margin account are able to day-trade because they have the ability to use margin (borrow money). Margin Accounts are subject to Pattern Daytrading Rules. The Rules are set forth by FINRA (The Financial Industry Reporting Authority) and are here:", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
5f499a82c524404cf39793620cfc0642
Fund or ETF that simulates the investment goals of an options “straddle” strategy?
[ { "docid": "f5d1bb9637a662ac31b1166409cf10ea", "text": "I am not aware of a single instrument that encapsulates what you are after; but the components do exist. At least in Canada, there are many Options traded on the Montreal Exchange that are based on Toronto ETFs. All the standard TSX ETFs are represented, as well as some of the more exotic. With a regular investment account approved for Options you should be able to do what you want. In a parallel vein, there are also double down and up ETFs. One such example are the Horizons BetaPro series of ETFs. They are designed to return double the market up or down on a daily basis and reset daily. They do need to be watched closely, however. Good Luck", "title": "" }, { "docid": "788df31037f6f5414e1fd5d8b0819883", "text": "*Volatility and the VIX can be very tricky to trade. In particular, going out longer than a month can result in highly surprising outcomes because the VIX is basically always a one month snapshot, even when the month is out in the future.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "286feafe4312307d2c0fb34a4a46c7df", "text": "\"Why bother with the ETF? Just trade the options -- at least you have the ability to know what you actually are doing. The \"\"exotic\"\" ETFs the let you \"\"double long\"\" or short indexes aren't options contracts -- they are just collections of unregulated swaps with no transparency. Most of the short/double long ETFs also only attempt to track the security over the course of one day -- you are supposed to trade them daily. Also, you have no guarantee that the ETFs will perform as desired -- even during the course of a single day. IMO, the simplicity of the ETF approach is deceiving.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4d785c5ac59a0677718f29a2e3489921", "text": "There are ETFs listed on the Brazilian stock market. Specifically there is one for S&P500 - SPXI11, which might fulfill your requirements, though as one commenter has observed, it doesn't answer your original question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80df8f80a32972fa0445cd1e0d529ac9", "text": "This is the chart going back to the first full year of this fund. To answer your question - yes, a low cost ETF or Mutual fund is fine. Why not go right to an S&P index? VOO has a .05% expense. Why attracted you to a choice that lagged the S&P by $18,000 over this 21 year period? (And yes, past performance, yada, yada, but that warning is appropriate for the opposite example. When you show a fund that beat the S&P short term, say 5 years, its run may be over. But this fund lagged the S&P by a significant margin over 2 decades, what makes you think this will change?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ab3953e4aa133925a57bb0277db2538d", "text": "Though a fan of ETFs (esp. high volume commission-free ones) recently a single, new fund VQT appeared on my radar of interest. It's based on dynamic hedging that has sort of build-in diversification and adapts to the market climate, pulling in and out varying amounts from cash, the S&P 500 and volatility futures based on VIX. I've been Long VQT and it's followed the S&P500 during good times, though not at far, but crucially disconnected with much milder losses when the general market was nose diving. You can lookup and compare to SPY at http://finance.google.com Not trying to give investment advice, in case that upsets some rules.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa3e84867601957ef5b60a40bf9e86b3", "text": "I would buy an ETF (or maybe a couple) in stable, blue chip companies with a decent yield (~3%) and then I'd play a conservative covered call strategy on the stock selling a new position about once a month. That's just me.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a9de080444de75c710b8e60527623c7", "text": "\"I'm trying to understand how an ETF manager optimized it's own revenue. Here's an example that I'm trying to figure out. ETF firm has an agreement with GS for blocks of IBM. They have agreed on daily VWAP + 1% for execution price. Further, there is a commission schedule for 5 mils with GS. Come month end, ETF firm has to do a monthly rebalance. As such must buy 100,000 shares at IBM which goes for about $100 The commission for the trade is 100,000 * 5 mils = $500 in commission for that trade. I assume all of this is covered in the expense ratio. Such that if VWAP for the day was 100, then each share got executed to the ETF at 101 (VWAP+ %1) + .0005 (5 mils per share) = for a resultant 101.0005 cost basis The ETF then turns around and takes out (let's say) 1% as the expense ratio ($1.01005 per share) I think everything so far is pretty straight forward. Let me know if I missed something to this point. Now, this is what I'm trying to get my head around. ETF firm has a revenue sharing agreement as well as other \"\"relations\"\" with GS. One of which is 50% back on commissions as soft dollars. On top of that GS has a program where if you do a set amount of \"\"VWAP +\"\" trades you are eligible for their corporate well-being programs and other \"\"sponsorship\"\" of ETF's interests including helping to pay for marketing, rent, computers, etc. Does that happen? Do these disclosures exist somewhere?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "baeda48ad38b88a95a6cbfd626419096", "text": "I've looked into Thinkorswim; my father uses it. Although better than eTrade, it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Interactive Brokers is a name I had heard a long time ago but forgotten. Thank you for that, it seems to be just what I need.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a1067988ca3dbd54832b06c64a3db0e8", "text": "Based on what you wrote, you would be better off with no position to start, and then enter a buy stop 10% above the market, and a sell stop 10% below the market, both to open positions depending on which way the market moves. If the market doesn't move that 10%, you stay flat. However, a long option straddle position requires that the market moves significantly one way or the other just so you recover the premium that you paid for the straddle. If the market doesn't move, you will lose money on your straddle due to theta decay and a drop in volatility. Alternatively, you could buy a strangle, with a call strike 10% out, and a put strike 10% out. The premiums would be much much lower, and these wculd take the place of the stop entries. Personally, I would never buy a straddle, but I do sometimes sell them, especially when implied volatility is very high.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc0fca384efd207079bd84b1a61cfe63", "text": "thanks! hence the etf - I hoped to get an ETF of say 20-25 positions, out of which 12 will lose in value, 10 will stay flat or lose a bit, and 2-3 go AAPL, bringing the total ETF up by a solid 10% or so :) and then the divident game begins.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c382ab89f323f5aa80febf3f096bc883", "text": "A DRIP plan with the ETF does just that. It provides cash (the dividends you are paid) back to the fund manager who will accumulate all such reinvested dividends and proportionally buy more shares of stock in the ETF. Most ETFs will not do this without your approval, as the dividends are taxed to you (you must include them as income for that year if this is in a taxable account) and therefore you should have the say on where the dividends go.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ed926f710629515a91067c59d843d108", "text": "Hi. Straddle: Buy a call and a put with an identical strike price. The strike is the price at which you can exercise the option. You pay a premium (cash) to buy the options. Typically you need a large amount of volatility in pricing movement in order to breakeven on the combined premium paid. Strangle: Purchasing a call and a put option with a non-identical strike price. Once again it is a volatility trading play. You need some type of price movement in the underlying security in order to break even or profit on the trade.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a38a79a2d92f9dc619c8dd5d99637ceb", "text": "A long straddle using equity would be more akin to buying a triple leveraged ETF and an inverse triple leveraged ETF, only because one side will approach zero while the other can theoretically increase to infinity, in a short time span before time decay hits in. The reason your analogy fails is because the delta is 1.0 on both sides of your trade. At the money options, a necessary requirement for a straddle, have a delta of .5 There is an options strategy that uses in the money calls and puts with a delta closer to 1.0 to create an in the money strangle. I'm not sure if it is more similar to your strategy, an analogous options strategy would be better than yours as it would not share the potential for a margin call.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f50a77edeff46066dd58bbd93707a0f4", "text": "Here are the specific Vanguard index funds and ETF's I use to mimic Ray Dalio's all weather portfolio for my taxable investment savings. I invest into this with Vanguard personal investor and brokerage accounts. Here's a summary of the performance results from 2007 to today: 2007 is when the DBC commodity fund was created, so that's why my results are only tested back that far. I've tested the broader asset class as well and the results are similar, but I suggest doing that as well for yourself. I use portfoliovisualizer.com to backtest the results of my portfolio along with various asset classes, that's been tremendously useful. My opinionated advice would be to ignore the local investment advisor recommendations. Nobody will ever care more about your money than you, and their incentives are misaligned as Tony mentions in his book. Mutual funds were chosen over ETF's for the simplicity of auto-investment. Unfortunately I have to manually buy the ETF shares each month (DBC and GLD). I'm 29 and don't use this for retirement savings. My retirement is 100% VSMAX. I'll adjust this in 20 years or so to be more conservative. However, when I get close to age 45-50 I'm planning to shift into this allocation at a market high point. When I approach retirement, this is EXACTLY where I want to be. Let's say you had $2.7M in your retirement account on Oct 31, 2007 that was invested in 100% US Stocks. In Feb of 2009 your balance would be roughly $1.35M. If you wanted to retire in 2009 you most likely couldn't. If you had invested with this approach you're account would have dropped to $2.4M in Feb of 2009. Disclaimer: I'm not a financial planner or advisor, nor do I claim to be. I'm a software engineer and I've heavily researched this approach solely for my own benefit. I have absolutely no affiliation with any of the tools, organizations, or funds mentioned here and there's no possible way for me to profit or gain from this. I'm not recommending anyone use this, I'm merely providing an overview of how I choose to invest my own money. Take or leave it, that's up to you. The loss/gain incured from this is your responsibility, and I can't be held accountable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3aa935aa25a7851ccd845e69c74c8def", "text": "\"There is a site that treats you like a fund manager in the real market, Marketoracy, http://marketocracy.com/. Each user is given 1 million in cash. You can have multiple \"\"mutual funds\"\", and the site allows use to choose between two types of strategies, buy/sell, short/cover. Currently, options are not supported. The real value of the site is that users are ranked against each other (of course, you can op out of the rankings). This is really cool because you can determine the real worth of your returns compared to the rest of investors across the site. A couple years back, the top 100 investors were invited to come on as real mutual fund managers - so the competition is legitimate. Take a look at the site, it's definitely worth a try. Were there other great sites you looked at?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39039f0f18b9a5f0ebc766f87a502934", "text": "In the past 10 years there have been mutual funds that would act as a single bucket of stocks and bonds. A good example is Fidelity's Four In One. The trade off was a management fee for the fund in exchange for having to manage the portfolio itself and pay separate commissions and fees. These days though it is very simple and pretty cheap to put together a basket of 5-6 ETFs that would represent a balanced portfolio. Whats even more interesting is that large online brokerage houses are starting to offer commission free trading of a number of ETFs, as long as they are not day traded and are held for a period similar to NTF mutual funds. I think you could easily put together a basket of 5-6 ETFs to trade on Fidelity or TD Ameritrade commission free, and one that would represent a nice diversified portfolio. The main advantage is that you are not giving money to the fund manager but rather paying the minimal cost of investing in an index ETF. Overall this can save you an extra .5-1% annually on your portfolio, just in fees. Here are links to commission free ETF trading on Fidelity and TD Ameritrade.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51a6ba3c5c5b04a242d6415f5793f7b8", "text": "Does anyone know if there is a way to set up a practice account? I only have index ETFs currently, and would like to play around and get a feel for other stocks/options before putting real money into it.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
5ff870b09014c11e3f303a50d1a34810
Put Option Pricing
[ { "docid": "6d312df32e59cafd30d39ede730a4e1b", "text": "Standard options are contracts for 100 shares. If the option is for $0.75/share and you are buying the contract for 100 shares the price would be $75 plus commission. Some brokers have mini options available which is a contract for 10 shares. I don't know if all brokers offer this option and it is not available on all stocks. The difference between the 1 week and 180 day price is based on anticipated price changes over the given time. Most people would expect more volatility over a 6 month period than a 1 week period thus the demand for a higher premium for the longer option.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "37746c35a5215dfe0fce2b7fab17a074", "text": "I use futures options as a sort of hedge to an underwater position that I want to hold onto. If I am short at 3900 on /NQ and it moves up 3910 then I can sell a put against my position. For example, I sell this month's 3850 put for 15.00. If the NQ continues up to 3920, I can probably buy back that put for ~12.00 and sell the 3860 for 15.00. Rinse and repeat if it keeps moving up. If then the NQ moves down to 3900 then my futures position will be up +10 where my futures options put position will only be down about -3 for a net of +7. I suppose you could also trade a futures option by itself instead of the future's contract if you didn't want to risk as much $ in a day trade. Keep in mind that price you see for a future's options relates to the underlying. For /NQ 1 point = $20 so if a 3850 put costs 15.00 that is really $300. ES (Sp 500 futures) 1 point = $50 so a 1900 put that costs 15.00 would really be $750.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c0d8c8068884d5e95389705b50c92ebb", "text": "Not necessarily though, since you can simply adjust the premium. I'm thinking an embedded option is just an option with longer maturity, and the increased price of that adjusted option can be reflected (like any other option) in the strike price or the premium. Am I missing something?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81cafbab05e74c278472f459ec1a270a", "text": "But if underlying goes to 103 at expiration, both the call and the put expire worthless If the stock closes at 103 on expiration, the 105 put is worth $2, not worthless.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93d2fe2b1e20f6d125c903df36baa9ca", "text": "Option prices are computed by determining the cost of obtaining the option returns using a strategy that trades the underlying asset continuously. It sounds like what you are describing is rapidly trading the option in order to obtain returns similar to those of the stock. The equality goes both ways. If the option is appropriately priced, then a strategy that replicates stock returns using the option will cost the same as buying the stock. Because you can't trade continuously, you won't actually be able to replicate the stock return, and it may seem like you are making arbitrage profit (puts may seem abnormally expensive), but you do so by bearing tail risk (i.e., selling puts loses more money than owning the associated stock if an unusually bad event occurs).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32ca0287dec65ed058c50e3065c832de", "text": "\"Suppose the stock is $41 at expiry. The graph says I will lose money. I think I paid $37.20 for (net debit) at this price. I would make money, not lose. What am I missing? The `net debit' doesn't have anything to do with your P/L graph. Your graph is also showing your profit and loss for NOW and only one expiration. Your trade has two expirations, and I don't know which one that graph is showing. That is the \"\"mystery\"\" behind that graph. Regardless, your PUTs are mitigating your loss as you would expect, if you didn't have the put you would simply lose more money at that particular price range. If you don't like that particular range then you will have to consider a different contract. it was originally a simple covered call, I added a put to protect from stock going lower.. Your strike prices are all over the place and NBIX has a contract at every whole number.... there is nothing simple about this trade. You typically won't find an \"\"always profitable\"\" combination of options. Also, changes in volatility can distort your projects greatly.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afb2514d0bcc317591e0880e2da56825", "text": "/u/NotMyRealFaceBook As a sniff test, I threw the following assumptions into a Black-Scholes options pricing calculator: * Stock Price and Strike Price = $200 * Valuation date = 10/31/2017 * Expiration date = 10/29/2027 (European style - no early exercise) * Volatility = 20% (on the low end for a tech. company - but again see the non-log-normal assumption point above) * Interest rate = 4% (on the high end - which means the option seller is over-charging you) * Dividend yield = 0% The calculator's theoretical call option price results in $82. Unless the company in question has a materially skewed upside given today's starting valuation, my opinion is the options you are offered are being priced via a Black-Scholes model and are over-priced.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a036dd6f6514c29d721f7415141b6b3", "text": "I'll just copypasta out of the book for the sake of clarity: * If you think about it, you see that the only brokers who touch the switch for light bulb number 64 are those whose numbers are divisors of 64. That is, light bulb 64 has its state changed by brokers whose numbers are factors of 64. This means brokers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64. Because light bulb 64 is originally off, it must be after this odd number of switches that it is on. * You want to be short a put if you expect a price rise. In this case, you expect to keep the option premium when the option expires worthless. There are a few pages worth of questions for the options, so the explanation for the IBM one is somewhat limited.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3d1e48c30b962e0ee872af3c0d3f9db", "text": "A few observations - A limit order can certainly work, as you've seen. I've put in such an order far beyond the true value, and gotten back a realistic bid/ask within 10 minutes or so. That at least gave me an idea where to set my limit. When this doesn't work, an exercise is always another way to go. You'll get the full intrinsic value, but no time value, by definition. Per your request in comment - You own a put, strike price $100. The stock (or ETF) is trading at $50. You buy the stock and tell the broker to exercise the put, i.e. deliver the stock to the buyer of the put.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "742924be536e77e72d8582ba9d07b79e", "text": "Understanding the BS equation is not needed. What is needed is an understanding of the bell curve. You seem to understand volatility. 68% of the time an event will fall inside one standard deviation. 16% of the time it will be higher, 16%, lower. Now, if my $100 stock has a STD of $10, there's a 16% chance it will trade above $110. But if the STD is $5, the chance is 2.3% per the chart below. The higher volatility makes the option more valuable as there's a highr chance of it being 'in the money.' My answer is an over simplification, per your request.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95990e2deb47c699cd1bc4ea73f3996b", "text": "As other uses have pointed out, your example is unusual in that is does not include any time value or volatility value in the quoted premiums, the premiums you quote are only intrinsic values. For well in-the-money options, the intrinsic value will certainly be the vast majority of the premium, but not the sole component. Having said that, the answer would clearly be that the buyer should buy the $40 call at a premium of $10. The reason is that the buyer will pay less for the option and therefore risk less money, or buy more options for the same amount of money. Since the buyer is assuming that the price will rise, the return that will be realised will be the same in gross terms, but higher in relative terms for the buyer of the $40 call. For example, if the underlying price goes to $60, then the buyer of the $40 call would (potentially) double their money when the premium goes from $10 to $20, while the buyer of the $30 call would realise a (potential) 50% profit when the premium goes from $20 to $30. Considering the situation beyond your scenario, things are more difficult if the bet goes wrong. If the underlying prices expires at under $40, then the buyer of the $40 call will be better off in gross terms but may be worse off in relative terms (if it expires above $30). If the underlying price expires between $40 and $50, then the buy of the $30 will be better off in relative term, having lost a smaller percentage of their money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82e097678b3ea048d84461ad7d38cdcc", "text": "\"One thing I would like to clear up here is that Black Scholes is just a model that makes some assumptions about the dynamics of the underlying + a few other things and with some rather complicated math, out pops the Black Scholes formula. Black Scholes gives you the \"\"real\"\" price under the assumptions of the model. Your definition of what a \"\"real\"\" price entails will depend on what assumptions you make. With that being said, Black Scholes is popular for pricing European options because of the simplicity and speed of using an analytic formula as opposed to having a more complex model that can only be evaluated using a numerical method, as DumbCoder mentioned (should note that, for many other types of derivative contracts, e.g. American or Bermudan style exercise, the Black Scholes analytic formula is not appropriate). The other important thing to note here is that the market does not necessarily need to agree with the assumptions made in the Black Scholes model (and they most certainly do not) to use it. If you look at implied vols for a set of options which have the same expiration but differing strike prices, you may find that the implied vols for each contract differ and this information is telling you to what degree the traders in the market for those contracts disagree with the lognormal distribution assumption made by Black Scholes. Implied vol is generally the thing to look at when determining cheapness/expensiveness of an option contract. With all that being said, what I'm assuming you are interested in is either called a \"\"delta-gamma approximation\"\" or more generally \"\"Greek/sensitivities based profit and loss attribution\"\" (in case you wanted to Google some more about it). Here is an example that is relevant to your question. Let's say we had the following European call contract: Popping this in to BS formula gives you a premium of $4.01, delta of 0.3891 and gamma of 0.0217. Let's say you bought it, and the price of the stock immediately moves to 55 and nothing else changes, re-evaluating with the BS formula gives ~6.23. Whereas using a delta-gamma approximation gives: The actual math doesn't work out exactly and that is due to the fact that there are higher order Greeks than gamma but as you can see here clearly they do not have much of an impact considering a 10% move in the underlying is almost entirely explained by delta and gamma.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "285a03c9ad4b1e6cab12e0675e95ec57", "text": "If we were to observe some call price (e.g., 15), and then derived implied volatilities from the BS formula depending on different strike prices but fixed maturity (i.e, maturity = 1, and strike goes from 80 to 140??), would we then see a smile? Yes. Market prices for various strikes and a given maturity often have higher implied volatilities from the Black-Scholes model away from at-the-money. It is not accounted for in the Black-Scholes model in the fact that volatility is not a function of strike, so volatility is assumed to be constant across strikes, but the market does not price options that way. I don't know that a quantitative theory has ever been proven; I've always just assumed that people are willing to pay slightly more for options deep in or out of the money based on their strategy, but I have no evidence to base that theory on.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4ea07c1d545d71f26856ad9d46c4ed8", "text": "Outside of software that can calculate the returns: You could calculate your possible returns on that leap spread as you ordinarily would, then place the return results of that and the return results for the covered call position side by side for any given price level of the stock you calculate, and net them out. (Netting out the dollar amounts, not percentage returns.) Not a great answer, but there ya go. Software like OptionVue is expensive", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df8af3e35f4d98e5f505d9e2009341ab", "text": "When dividend is announced the stock and option price may react to that news, but the actual payout of the dividend on the ex-dividend date is what you probably are referring to. The dividend payout affects the stock price on the ex-dividend date as the stock price will drop by the amount of paid out dividend (not taking into account other factors). This in turn drives the prices of all options. The amount of change in the option price for this event is not only dependent the dividend payout, but also on how far these are in our out of the money and what there time to expiration is. The price of a call option that is far out of the money would react less than the price of a put that would be far in the money. Therefore I would argue that these two will not necessarily offset each other.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ba855945cfa8e9af71a8036def16481", "text": "\"Bull means the investor is betting on a rising market. Puts are a type of stock option where the seller of a put option promises to buy 100 shares of stock from the buyer of the put option at a pre-agreed price called the strike price on any day before expiration day. The buyer of the put option does not have to sell (it is optional, thats why it is called buying an option). However, the seller of the put is required to make good on their promise to the buyer. The broker can require the seller of the put option to have a deposit, called margin, to help make sure that they can make good on the promise. Profit... The buyer can profit from the put option if the stock price moves down substantially. The buyer of the put option does not need to own the stock, he can sell the option to someone else. If the buyer of the put option also owns the stock, the put option can be thought of like an insurance policy on the value of the stock. The seller of the put option profits if the stock price stays the same or rises. Basically, the seller comes out best if they can sell put options that no one ends up using by expiration day. A spread is an investment consisting of buying one option and selling another. Let's put bull and put and spread together with an example from Apple. So, if you believed Apple Inc. AAPL (currently 595.32) was going up or staying the same through JAN you could sell the 600 JAN put and buy the 550 put. If the price rises beyond 600, your profit would be the difference in price of the puts. Let's explore this a little deeper (prices from google finance 31 Oct 2012): Worst Case: AAPL drops below 550. The bull put spread investor owes (600-550)x100 shares = $5000 in JAN but received $2,035 for taking this risk. EDIT 2016: The \"\"worst case\"\" was the outcome in this example, the AAPL stock price on options expiry Jan 18, 2013 was about $500/share. Net profit = $2,035 - $5,000 = -$2965 = LOSS of $2965 Best Case: AAPL stays above 600 on expiration day in JAN. Net Profit = $2,035 - 0 = $2035 Break Even: If AAPL drops to 579.65, the value of the 600 JAN AAPL put sold will equal the $2,035 collected and the bull put spread investor will break even. Commissions have been ignored in this example.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
2f5ff84301a1f3d46b57128cfb9a1eff
Calculating the profit earned from a leveraged futures contract
[ { "docid": "705edc8917c352edfecb5356b6058ef2", "text": "I'm not entirely sure about some of the details in your question, since I think you meant to use $10,000 as the value of the futures contract and $3 as the value of the underlying stock. Those numbers would make more sense. That being said, I can give you a simple example of how to calculate the profit and loss from a leveraged futures contract. For the sake of simplicity, I'll use a well-known futures contract: the E-mini S&P500 contract. Each E-mini is worth $50 times the value of the S&P 500 index and has a tick size of 0.25, so the minimum price change is 0.25 * $50 = $12.50. Here's an example. Say the current value of the S&P500 is 1,600; the value of each contract is therefore $50 * 1,600 = $80,000. You purchase one contract on margin, with an initial margin requirement1 of 5%, or $4,000. If the S&P 500 index rises to 1,610, the value of your futures contract increases to $50 * 1,610 = $80,500. Once you return the 80,000 - 4,000 = $76,000 that you borrowed as leverage, your profit is 80,500 - 76,000 = $4,500. Since you used $4,000 of your own funds as an initial margin, your profit, excluding commissions is 4,500 - 4,000 = $500, which is a 500/4000 = 12.5% return. If the index dropped to 1,580, the value of your futures contract decreases to $50 * 1,580 = $79,000. After you return the $76,000 in leverage, you're left with $3,000, or a net loss of (3,000 - 4000)/(4000) = -25%. The math illustrates why using leverage increases your risk, but also increases your potential for return. Consider the first scenario, in which the index increases to 1,610. If you had forgone using margin and spent $80,000 of your own funds, your profit would be (80,500 - 80,000) / 80000 = .625%. This is smaller than your leveraged profit by a factor of 20, the inverse of the margin requirement (.625% / .05 = 12.5%). In this case, the use of leverage dramatically increased your rate of return. However, in the case of a decrease, you spent $80,000, but gained $79,000, for a loss of only 1.25%. This is 20 times smaller in magnitude than your negative return when using leverage. By forgoing leverage, you've decreased your opportunity for upside, but also decreased your downside risk. 1) For futures contracts, the margin requirements are set by the exchange, which is CME group, in the case of the E-mini. The 5% in my example is higher than the actual margin requirement, which is currently $3,850 USD per contract, but it keeps the numbers simple. Also note that CME group refers to the initial margin as the performance bond instead.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "7b98ebb079f0d5f8f570aa1aab78fe5b", "text": "\"The fact that dividends grow in perpetuity does not prevent one from calculating duration. In fact, many academic papers look at exactly this problem, such as Lewin and Satchell. This Wilmott thread discusses some of the pros and cons of the concept in some detail. PS: Although I was already broadly familiar with the literature and I use the duration of equities in some of my every-day work as a professional working in finance, I found the links above doing a simple google search for \"\"equity duration.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c311dcf9b9b6b19634e28b5e0457ec5", "text": "In addition to the answer from CQM, let me answer your 'am I missing anything?' question. Then I'll talk about how your approach of simplifying this is making it both harder and easier for you. Last I'll show what my model for this would look like, but if you aren't capable of stacking this up yourself, then you REALLY shouldn't be borrowing 10,000 to try to make money on the margin. Am I missing anything? YES. You're forgetting (1) taxes, specifically income tax, and (2) sales commissions//transaction fees. On the first: You have not considered anything in your financial model for taxes. You should include at least 25% of your expected returns going to taxes, because anything that you buy... and then sell within 12 months... is taxed as income. Not capital gains. On the second: you will incur sales commissions and/or transaction fees depending on the brokerage you are using for your plan. These tend to vary widely, but I would expect to spend at least $25 per sale. So if I were building out this model I would think that your break-even would have to at least cover: monthly interest + monthly principal payment income tax when sold commissions and broker's fees every time you sell holdings On over-simplifying: You have the right idea with thinking about both interest and principal in trying to sketch this out. But as I mentioned above, you're making this both harder and easier for yourself. You are making it harder because you are doing the math wrong. The actual payment for this loan (assuming it is a normal loan) can be found most easily with the PMT function in Excel: =PMT(rate,NPER,PV,FV)... =PMT(.003, 24, -10000, 0). That returns a monthly payment (of principal + interest) of 432.47. So you actually are over-calculating the payment by $14/month with your ballpark approach. However, you didn't actually have all the factors in the model to begin with, so that doesn't matter much. You are making it artificially easier because you have not thought about the impact of repaying principal. What I mean is this--in your question you indicate: I'm guessing the necessary profit is just the total interest on this loan = 0.30%($10000)(24) = $720 USD ? So I'll break even on this loan - if and only if - I make $720 from stocks over 24 months (so the rate of return is 720/(10000 + 720) = 6.716%). This sounds great-- all you need is a 6.716% total return across two years. But, assuming this is a normal loan and not an 'interest-only' loan, you have to get rid of your capital a little bit at a time to pay back the loan. In essence, you will pay back 1/3 of your principal the first year... and then you have to keep making the same Fixed interest + principal payments out of a smaller base of capital. So for the first few months you can cover the interest easily, but by the end you have to be making phenomenal returns to cover it. Here is how I would build a model for it (I actually did... and your breakeven is about 1.019% per month. At that outstanding 12.228% annual return you would be earning a whopping $4.) At least as far as the variables are concerned, you need to be considering: Your current capital balance (because month 1 you may have $10,000 but month 2 you have just 9,619 after paying back some principal). Your rate of return (if you do this in Excel you can play with it some, but you should save the time and just invest somewhere else.) Your actual return that month (rate of return * existing capital balance). Loan payment = 432 for the parameters you gave earlier. Income tax = (Actual Return) * (.25). With this kind of loan, you're not actually making enough to preserve the 10,000 capital and you're selling everything you've gained each month. Commission = ($25 per month) ... assuming that covers your trade fees and broker commissions. I guarantee you that this is not the deal breaker in the model, so don't get excited if you think I'm over-estimating this and you realize that Scottrade or somewhere will let you have trades at $7.95 each. Monthly ending balance == next month's starting capital balance. Stack it all up in Excel for 24 months and see for yourself if you like. The key thing you left out is that you're repaying each month out of capital that you'd like to use to invest with. This makes you need much higher returns. Even if your initial description wasn't clear and this is an interest-only loan, you're still looking at a rate of about 7.6% annually that you need to hit in order to just break even on the costs of holding the loan and transferring your gains into cash.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "beb7a3a32f47ea4177fca8697fac9a34", "text": "Damn, helpful Harry above me. So, in general, when compounding the value of an investment, if you're seeing an annualized interest rate of 4%, and the interest compounds monthly (or n number of times per year), you're going to multiply the Principal P by the growth rate (the interest rate), adjusted for the number of periods that your investment grows in a year. P_end = P * (1 + 0.04/n)^(n * t), where n = number of periods, and t = number of years. If the interest compounds annually, you earn P *(1.04), if it compounds monthly, you earn (1 + 0.04/12)^(12 * 1). Apply this logic to discounting future cash flows to their net present value. When discounting future cash flows, you're essentially determing the opportunity cost of now being unable to put your investment elsewhere and earning that corresponding interest (discount) rate. Thus, you would discount $1000 by (1 + 0.08/12)^1, and $2000, $3000 in a similar fashion. Then, as icing on the cake, sum up to get your cumulative net present value. Please let me know if any portion of my explanation is unclear; I would be happy to elaborate!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92d9ad3a393cd412ba4c0ac770bd3171", "text": "\"When margin is calculated as the equity percentage of an account, the point at which a broker will forcibly liquidate is typically called \"\"maintenance margin\"\". In the US, this is 25% for equities. To calculate the price at which this will occur, the initial and maintenance margin must be known. The formula for a long with margin is: and for a short where P_m is the maintenance margin price, P_i is the initial margin price, m_i is the initial margin rate, and m_m is the maintenance margin rate. At an initial margin of 50% and a maintenance margin of 25%, a long equity may fall by 1/3 before forced liquidation, a short one may rise by 50%. This calculation can become very complex with different asset classes with differing maintenance margins because the margin debt is applied to all securities collectively.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7899255b9d21c5e86212fdc9fb628c00", "text": "\"The other two folks here are right with the math and such, so I'll just throw some intuition out there for you. The basis for this valuation model is really just tacking the Gordon growth model (which is really just a form of valuing a perpetuity) onto a couple of finite discounted cash flows. So that ending part is the Gordon growth model *at the future point* discounted back to the present. The Gordon growth model uses a \"\"next period\"\" dividend for the very simple reason that it's the next one you'd get if you bought the stock. Is that explanation clear enough, or were some of these points not adequately explained in your class? I'll help a bit more, if I can.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2e0d7a672ee7c3c4b620d4ded62c195", "text": "leveraged etf's are killer to hold because they seek to return some multiple of the DAILY price movement in an index. so twm seeks to return 2x the daily move in the russell 2000 Let's trace this out assuming (just to make it easy) large daily moves, and that you start with $1000 and the russell 2000 starts at 100. start of first day rusell 2000 == 100 you have $1000 end of first day (up 10% nice!) rusell 2000 == 110 you have $1200 end of second day (~9.1% down) russell 20000 == 100 you have $981.60 so the russell 2000 can move nowhere and you have lost money! This doesn't apply to all etf's just leveraged etf's. You would be better buying more of a straight inverse etf (RWM) and holding that for a longer time if you wanted to hedge.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc859b3b25fca1555b0fd5f6dddb8d2b", "text": "As Chris pointed out: If your expenses are covered by the income exactly, as you have said to assume, then you are basically starting with a $40K asset (your starting equity), and ending with a $200K asset (a paid for home, at the same value since you have said to ignore any appreciation). So, to determine what you have earned on the $40K you leveraged 5x, wouldn't it be a matter of computing a CAGR that gets you from $40K to $200K in 30 years? The result would be a nominal return, not a real return. So, if I set up the problem correctly, it should be: $40,000 * (1 + Return)^30 = $200,000 Then solve for Return. It works out to be about 5.51% or so.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8331c07f3c8f33cb5083b8dd9bff0e5e", "text": "The owner of a long futures contract does not receive dividends, hence this is a disadvantage compared to owning the underlying stock. If the dividend is increased, and the future price would not change, there is an arbitrage possibility. For the sake of simplicity, assume that the stock suddenly starts paying a dividend, and that the risk free rate is zero (so interest does not play a role). One can expect that the future price is (rougly) equal to the stock price before the dividend announcment. If the future price would not change, an investor could buy the stock, and short a futures contract on the stock. At expiration he has to deliver the stock for the price set in the contract, which is under the assumptions here equal to the price he bought the stock for. But because he owned the stock, he receives the announced dividend. Hence he can make a risk-free profit consisting of the divivends. If interest do play a role, the argument is similar.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbbbfb16fb026b997f1c90807b69104e", "text": "Is the following correct? The firm needs $20,000 for the investment. It borrows $6,000 @ 7%, and supplies $14,000 in equity. The interest expense on the borrowing is $420 ($6,000 times 7%). After one year, the firm receives $26,500 from its investment. Subtract $6,420 (return borrowings plus interest). The firm is left with $20,080. Divide by starting equity of $14,000. Subtract 1 from the ratio. **Levered return on equity is 43.4%.**", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5c63730d87e35c09bda1588e9024bd6", "text": "I have found a good explanation here: http://www.contracts-for-difference.com/Financing-charge.html Financing is calculated by taking the overall position size, and multiplying it by (LIBOR + say 2%) and then dividing by 365 x the amount of days the position is open. For instance, the interest rate applicable for overnight long positions may be 6% or 0.06. To calculate how much it would cost you to hold a long position for X number of days you would need to make this 'pro rata' meaning that you would need to divide the 0.06 by 365 and multiply it by X days and then multiply this by the trade size. So for example, for a trade size of $20,000, held for 30 days, the interest cost would be about $98.6. It is important to note that due to financing, long positions held for extended periods can reduce returns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd145cb1b9257d7f0fc1084a1d650913", "text": "I think you're missing the fact that the trader bought the $40 call but wrote the $45 call -- i.e. someone else bought the $45 call from him. That's why you have to subtract 600-100. At expiration, the following happens: So $600 + -$100 = $500 total profit. Note: In reality he would probably use the shares he gets from the first call to satisfy the shares he owes on the second call, so the math is even simpler:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a195aa123226790c73bc1995aee219f8", "text": "\"Of course, which is why you need to have a scoring function / utility function for the \"\"filters\"\", i.e. Are you going to value it by rate of accuracy hor by a metric where wins = +2, losses = -1, such that it uses a criteria like that to decide whether or not a filter adds value, (some even use a compound effect i.e. wins = 2+e^(1+w) where w is the consecutive wins). A metric like the above would capture the trade off between predictive power and profit. Also some traders watch their Max DD very carefully so they may be very risk averse.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d14fb27da79fc6cbf91391e62d5f4610", "text": "Ok so I used Excel solver for this but it's on the right track. Latest price = $77.19 Latest div = $1.50 3-yr div growth = 28% g = ??? rs = 14% So we'll grow out the dividend 3 years @ 28%, and then capitalize them into perpetuity using a cap rate of [rs - g], and take the NPV using the rs of 14%. We can set it up and then solve g assuming an NPV of the current share price of $77.19. So it should be: NPV = $77.19 = [$1.50 / (1+0.14)^0 ] + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^1 / (1+0.14)^1 ] + ... + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^3 / (1+0.14)^3 ] + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^3 x (1+g) / (0.14-g) / (1+0.14)^4 ] Which gives an implied g of a little under 9%. Let me know if this makes sense, and definitely check the work...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ece0faf30e26a03800214a0581508964", "text": "The initial margin is $5940 and maintenance margin $5400. A simple search of Comex Gold Margin gives the CME group site. You then need to specify CMX metals to see the margins. Gold is currently about $1300. A gold future is 100 oz. So the full contract is worth $130K. You want to 'go long' so you enter into a contract for Dec '14. You put up $5940, and if gold rises, you gain $100 for each $1 it goes up. Likewise on the downside. If gold drops $5.40, you lost $540 and will get a call to end the position or to put up more money. It's similar to stock margin requirements, only the numbers are much lower, your leverage with futures is over 20 to 1.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8ee07f460a8a1fe9480e40afe4f4815", "text": "Profit after tax can have multiple interpretations, but a common one is the EPS (Earnings Per Share). This is frequently reported as a TTM number (Trailing Twelve Months), or in the UK as a fiscal year number. Coincidentally, it is relatively easy to find the total amount of dividends paid out in that same time frame. That means calculating div cover is as simple as: EPS divided by total dividend. (EPS / Div). It's relatively easy to build a Google Docs spreadsheet that pulls both values from the cloud using the GOOGLEFINANCE() function. I suspect the same is true of most spreadsheet apps. With a proper setup, you can just fill down along a column of tickers to get the div cover for a number of companies at once.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
68764652d14d3ca3c9b61ea0be136245
How do I find the value of British Energy Nuclear Power Notes?
[ { "docid": "2d59784bb0ebcbdcc971ee9068ec0039", "text": "\"This BBC article says that nuclear power notes came about when the French energy company EDF purchased British Energy in 2008: The note changes in value with wholesale energy prices and power output levels from British Energy's existing nuclear stations. EDF Energy's website describes these notes under the section titled \"\"Nuclear Power Notes\"\": When EDF acquired British Energy in January 2009, Nuclear Power Notes were issued to British Energy shareholders who chose to take them in lieu of 74 pence of cash per British Energy share held. The Nuclear Power Notes are ten year financial instruments (2009 – 2019) which give ex British Energy shareholders a continuing interest in the “EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Fleet”. They are traded on the ICAP Securities & Derivatives Exchange (formerly known as the PLUS Quoted exchange). Each year a pre-defined calculation is performed to determine whether any cash will be paid to Nuclear Power Note holders. The calculation is dependent on the nuclear output of the EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Fleet (“Eligible Nuclear Output”) and market power prices (“Power Prices”). This calculation may or may not result in a cash payment each year to Nuclear Power Note holders. The MWh/TWh are figures you see are measures of watt-hours, i.e. energy output. The value of nuclear power notes is tied to this output. Looking at the most recent statement (June 2013), you can see a line that looks like this: Month Ahead Price in respect of July 2013: 47.46 GBP/MWh which is an energy spot price for the output of the nuclear plants. I'm not entirely sure of the relationship between this and the payment to shareholders, but if you look at the 2012 Yearly Payment Calculation Notice on the same page, you'll see this in the first section: (a) the Yearly Payment for the period 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2012, (the Relevant Year ) payable in respect of each CVR on 31 January 2013 shall be zero; The payments were also zero for 2010 and 2011. The 2009 calculation notice, however, states that (a) the Yearly Payment for the period 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2009, (the Relevant Year) payable in respect of each CVR on 31 January 2010 shall be 11.497164 pence stated to 6 decimal places I presume that payment would have appeared in whatever account holds these notes, e.g. your brokerage account. Technically, the financial statements above refer to a Contingent Value Rights (CVR) instrument, which is a derivative linked to the Nuclear Power Notes. This site sums it up better than I can: The British Energy CVRs were created by the issue of nuclear power notes (NPNs) to the target’s shareholders who opted to take up this alternative. The NPNs were issued by Barclays Bank plc and were linked to guaranteed contingent value rights instruments that were issued to Barclays by EDF’s acquisition vehicle (Lake Acquisitions) and which were ultimately guaranteed by EDF Energy plc (Lake CVRs). Barclays is required to make yearly payments to noteholders for 10 years, the amount of which is limited to the corresponding amount paid by Lake Acquisitions to Barclays for the Lake CVRs. Basically, there is a chain of payments through these derivatives that eventually links back to nuclear energy output.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "2bda2ab9afe3bb4914ac6723b18ab25f", "text": "So is it weird that I write my check to the name of the company on the power plant? I cannot for the life of me see any of the middle men in my distribution channel. Where I am, you usually get power right from the big energy company (Xcel in my case) or if you live out of town you can opt for the co-op (that buys from Xcel). The co-op is in theory the better deal because they can negotiate larger volume pricing and all profit from the co-op goes to its members, but there aren't very many steps either way. edit: after a bit of digging, my power provider is also a buyer, but most definitely the owner of a large nuclear plant near me.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc9c402008b52c0eafe34f56502c5e48", "text": "\"Some years ago, two \"\"academics,\"\" Ibbotson and Sinquefield did these calculations. (Roger) Ibbotson, is still around. So Google Roger Ibbotson, or Ibbotson Associates. There are a number of entries so I won't provide all the links.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1af4bacc58edd93fa4dde8b56d7b7766", "text": "Big solar fan here. I like your argument for nuclear. With the way that electricity power generation works, we need ideally 3 sources of power. Nuclear is one of them. Base load, if you will. Solar and nat gas can sort of fluctuate against each other as the sunlight changes. And once battery tech updates we can do away with nat gas. I don't know enough about price/economics on nuclear and if you have a few concise things to share I'd appreciate it. Not asking for you to type a tome. I can always research later but appreciate your input!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2136538e1c183dd41f933085eadd0b7f", "text": "\"The mathematics site, WolframAlpha, provides such data. Here is a link to historic p/e data for Apple. You can chart other companies simply by typing \"\"p/e code\"\" into the search box. For example, \"\"p/e XOM\"\" will give you historic p/e data for Exxon. A drop-down list box allows you to select a reporting period : 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, all data. Below the chart you can read the minimum, maximum, and average p/e for the reporting period in addition to the dates on which the minimum and maximum were applicable.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afa477c7daa7926a74e9d65618230edc", "text": "A quick search showed me that UEP merged into Ameren on Dec 31, 1997, and Ameren still exists today. So I took a look at Ameren's Investor Relations website. Unfortunately, they don't provide historical stock prices prior to Ameren forming, so starting with 1998. However, I've had good luck in the past emailing a company's investor relations contact and asking for data like this that isn't on the website. It's reasonably likely they'll have internal records they could look it up within.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4bef758a078cff5aded80dbc6fc24be", "text": "\"Matt explains the study numbers in his answer, but those are the valuation of the brand, not the value of the company or how \"\"rich\"\" the company is. Presuming that you're asking the value of the company, the usual way for a publicly traded company to be valued is by the market capitalization (1). Market capitalization is a fairly simple measure, basically the total value of all the shares of stock in that company. You can find the market cap for any publicly traded company on any of the usual finance sites like Google Finance or Yahoo Finance. If by rich you mean the total value of assets (assets being all property, including cash, real property, equipment, and licenses) a company owns, that information is included in a publicly traded company's quarterly SEC filing and investor releases, but isn't usually listed on the popular finance sites. An example can be seen at Duke Energy's Investor Relation Site (the same information can be found for all companies on EDGAR, the SEC's search tool). If you open the most recent 8-K (quarterly filing), and go to page 8, you can see that they have $33B+ in assets, and a high level breakdown of those. Note that the numbers are given in millions of dollars For a privately held company this information may or may not be available and you'd have to track it down if it is available. I picked Duke Energy because it's the first thing that popped into my mind. I have no affiliation with Duke, and I don't directly own any of their stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6bd677c1e3ea129e086763705a7bdad", "text": "\"The \"\"c.\"\" is probably circa, or \"\"about.\"\" Regulatory settlements is in blue because it's negative; the amount is in parentheses, which indicates a loss. WB and CB might be wholesale banking and commercial banking? BAU probably means \"\"business as usual\"\" or things that don't directly apply to the project. Incremental investment is the additional cash a company puts towards its long-term capital assets. FX is probably foreign exchange.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c81a552c36f71fd5895519436975081", "text": "Barton Biggs's book Wealth, War and Wisdom aims to answer the question of what investments are best-suited to preserving value despite large-scale catastrophes by looking at how various investments and assets performed in countries affected by WWII. In Japan, stocks and urban land turned out to be good investments; in France, farm land and gold did better. Stocks outperformed bonds in nearly every country. Phil Greenspun recently wrote a review of the book.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d027612ddcd870c80169012f36ef6d5", "text": "In general, the short answer is to use SEDAR, the Canadian database that compiles financial statements for Canadian companies. The financial statements for Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp can be found here. The long answer is that the data might be missing because in Canada, each province has their own agency to regulate securities. Yahoo might not compile information from such a wide array of sources. If other countries also have a decentralized system, Yahoo might not take the time to compile financial information from all these sources. There are a myriad of other reasons that could cause this too, however. This is why SEDAR is useful; it 's the Canadian equivalent of the SEC's EDGAR database, and it maintains a sizeable database of financial statements.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e70ce25572e4501bd61389f004a1910", "text": "Just buy a FTSE-100 tracker. It's cheap and easy, and will hedge you pretty well, as the FTSE-100 is dominated by big mining and oil companies who do most of their business in currencies other than sterling.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37202af557616c776a0513fe2b5ca89b", "text": "\"Normally I avoid any links pointing to guardian or telegraph or such sites but just was curios to what exactly the content of such a \"\"paper\"\" would be. As expected, it has the seeds of a world war and is a lab factory for future terrorism. How does one expect value without work. US atleast produces some value here and there, but the other countries are just decline stage. Seriously UK? It seems some people can just not let go off their easy life ride or \"\"way of life\"\" as it is often referred to - basically create a system highly stacked in one's own favor and then blatantly call out others as conspiracy theorists or some such noun to get them on the defensive. Elimination of public debt should not be allowed for these countries. There is so much cunningness, guile, cheating, lying in sneaky fashion and so much negativity hiding behind that theory - it is sometimes depressing how world operates and then people complain about it when there is real chance to put checks and balances to stop such disgusting things from taking form.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b69527e2707e44cc701c57fc239b10a", "text": "\"It's a form of debt issued by the United States Treasury. As the name implies, a 10-year note is held for 10 years (after which you get the face value in cash), and it pays interest twice per year. It's being used in the calculator to stand for a readily available, medium-term, nearly risk-free investment, as a means of \"\"discounting\"\" the value that the company gains. The explanation for why the discounting is done can be found on the page you linked. As a Canadian you could use the yield of comparable Canadian treasury securities as quoted by Bank of Canada (which seem to have had the bottom fall out since the new year), although I don't suppose American notes would be hard for a Canadian investor to come by, so if you wanted to be conservative you could use the US figure as long as it's higher.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ea4549ecee88d0ebf51be242700a3fa2", "text": "Am I missing something or is the author? EUP5 USP5 SUP5 PUS5 EDIT: Its not just currency pairs either, 5DEL; EU5L; 5UKL; EU5S; 5DES. Unless I misunderstood something, the authors worst nightmare has already arrived in Europe.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eaee5116f787fd1fc84c9ab7fec2d7e2", "text": "\"Fortunately, this can be solved by simply going to the website. Unfortunately, the website is not very well designed, so it took a while to find it! However, looking at the section about entering your own meter reading in, it is clear that this is indeed a \"\"credit\"\", meaning \"\"they owe you money\"\". Notice how the costs break down. They estimated an energy usage (cost equivalent) of £104.09, which resulted in a \"\"bill\"\" of £29.77 (credit). Then the customer entered a meter reading, which resulted in an actual energy usage (cost equivalent) of £142.45. Since it was £38.36 higher, it went from a credit to a debit of £8.59. Were £29.77 (Credit) to mean money was owed to SSE, they would owe a bit over £68 instead given the higher energy charges. You can see this help page to inquire about getting a refund, or simply allow this to carry over to your next bill. Or - consider doing a self-entered meter reading, if one hasn't been done recently, to make sure that any actual excessive usage comes out of your credit (rather than being a shock at one time).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6db30f454c040ad0bfefaf7151447a71", "text": "Good day! Did a little research by using oldest public company (Dutch East India Company, VOC, traded in Amsterdam Stock Exchange) as search criteria and found this lovely graph from http://www.businessinsider.com/rise-and-fall-of-united-east-india-2013-11?IR=T : Why it is relevant? Below the image I found the source of data - Global Financial Data. I guess the answer to your question would be to go there: https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/index.html Hope this helps and good luck in your search!", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
33e9dbb70564105f9f8f709371fb09d0
Historic prices for currencies, commodities,
[ { "docid": "9397e329af10fa55492a4a03e8725ced", "text": "My guess it's a legal agreement between Yahoo and data provider on what data can be stored, displayed and for how long. Check out this list of data providers", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "500707114934997f55ec17ae6020bf57", "text": "Gold isn't constant in value. If you look at the high price of $800 in January of 1980 and the low of $291 in 2001, you lost a lot of purchasing power, especially since money in 2001 was worth less than in 1980. People claim gold is a stable store of value but it isn't.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e27b4d067c78c5636685afe87425080c", "text": "No. The long-term valuation of currencies has to do with Purchasing Power Parity. The long-term valuation of stocks has to do with revenues, expenses, market sizes, growth rates, and interest rates. In the short term, currency and stock prices change for many reasons, including interest rate changes, demand for goods and services, asset price changes, political fears, and momentum investing. In any given time window, a currency or stock might be: The Relative Strength Index tries to say whether a currency or stock has recently been rising or falling; it does not inherently say anything about whether the current value is high or low.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9cf1a9d3d8234f8adeeb92f3ab10905", "text": "\"During Graham's career, gold and currency were the same thing because of the gold standard. Graham did not advise investing in currencies, only in bonds and stocks, the latter only for intelligent speculation. Graham died a couple of years after Nixon closed the gold window, ending the gold standard. Gold may be thought of as a currency even today, as endowments and other investors use it as a store of value or for diversification of risks. However, currency or commodities investing does not seem Graham-like. How could you reliably estimate intrinsic value of a currency or commodity, so that you can have a Graham-like margin of safety after subtracting the intrinsic value from the market value? Saying that gold is \"\"clearly underpriced in today's market\"\" is just hand-waving. A Graham analysis such as \"\"net net\"\" (valuing stocks by their current tangible assets net of all liabilities) is a quantitative analysis of accounting numbers audited by CPAs and offers a true margin of safety.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9a36dad5328565bc5ddca2e2b3bcdb6", "text": "\"The relative value of Gold (or any other commodity) as measured against any given currency (such as the USD), is not a constant function either. If you have inflationary pressure, the \"\"value\"\" of an ounce of gold (or barrel of oil, etc) may \"\"double\"\", but it's really because the underlying comparator has lost \"\"half\"\" its value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "660a8afdd994b4c948bc00ed4a36e93d", "text": "I commented about oil in response to u/timothyblomfield. I know way more about oil than any other commodities. But steel is another heavily scrutinized commodity. All the talk of China importing illegal steel, people losing steel jobs, etc. Commodities become important like this when international politics become involved.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "652a441b503ccae88a469cfbf4f0a0d6", "text": "I can't think of any specifically, but if you haven't already done so it would be worthwhile reading a textbook on macro-economics to get an idea of how money supply, exchange rates, unemployment and so on are thought to relate. The other thing which might be interesting in respect of the Euro crisis would be a history of past economic unions. There have been several of these, not least the US dollar (in the 19C, I believe); the union of the English and Scottish pound (early 1600s); and the German mark. They tend to have some characteristic problems, caused partly by different parts of the union being at different stages in an economic cycle. Unfortunately I can't think of a single text which gathers this together.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "50532dba417e7878dd4042a85918e8ac", "text": "Look into commodities futures & options. Unfortunately, they are not trivial instruments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ebda2a7bb0b077f8bc29ca0eb874729", "text": "Yes, this phenomenon is well documented. A collapse of an economy's exchange rate is coincidented with a collapse in its equities market. The recent calamities in Turkey, etc during 2014 had similar results. Inflation is highly correlated to valuations, and a collapse of an exchange rate is highly inflationary, so a collapse of an exchange rate is highly correlated to a collapse in valuations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "63351b4cb549ad41b342e0dbf094f410", "text": "The Federal Reserve Bank publishes exchange rate data in their H.10 release. It is daily, not minute by minute. The Fed says this about their data: About the Release The H.10 weekly release contains daily rates of exchange of major currencies against the U.S. dollar. The data are noon buying rates in New York for cable transfers payable in the listed currencies. The rates have been certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for customs purposes as required by section 522 of the amended Tariff Act of 1930. The historical EURUSD rates for the value of 1 EURO in US$ are at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h10/hist/dat00_eu.htm If you need to know USDEUR the value of 1 US$ in EUROS use division 1.0/EURUSD.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "542f6a65b035a8b2d4c2355dadc9390b", "text": "There are two ways to measure the value of money in the past. 1) As Victor mentioned there are inflation statistics covering the last 100 or so years that value the currency against an ever-changing basket of goods. This is sufficient when measuring general inflation over the period of the hundred years where there is data. This is how it was measured in your example. 2) For older time periods or where a value comparison is required between specific items (particularly where these were not in the basket of goods used for the inflation calculation) Historical records of the price of comparable goods can be used. This is in effect the same as mark to market valuations for illiquid financial instruments and requires poring through records to find the price of either a comparable basket of goods to one that would be used for inflation calculations today or a comparable set of items. An example of this is finding the value of a particular type of house (say a terraced house in London) in the 19th Century compared to the same house today by finding records of how much comparable houses would sell for, on average, then and now. This second measure is also used where the country in question didn't or doesn't keep reliable inflation statistics which may well be true of Colombia in the 90s. This means that there is a chance that this way of estimating Escobar's wealth in today's terms may have also been used. Another notable reason to use this methodology is that (unless you are using exchange rates in purchasing power parity terms) the value of money held in different currencies is different. This is even true today as the value of $1 in INR in India is likely to be higher than the value of a dollar in the US in terms of what you can buy. Using this methodology allows for a more accurate comparison in values where different countries and currencies are involved.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0221b08de55ce6d99cfc7df8255d9b26", "text": "Hey thanks for your response. The commodity is actually electricity, so definitely not able to store. Would you mind giving me a short summary of your thought process or an example of how you compare liquid markets vs illiquid ones when looking at more traditional commodities? If that is a bit much to ask, as I am sure it could get quite involved do you have any reading recommendations? This little project has sparked an interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73f0f5884654654b0658b3caef2f0620", "text": "You will most likely not be able to avoid some form of format conversion, regardless of which data you use since there is, afaik, no standard for this data and everyone exports it differently. One viable option would be, like you said yourself, using the free data provided by Dukascopy. Please take into consideration that those are spot currency rates and will most likely not represent the rate at which physical and business-related exchange would have happened at this time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6cd7ac20e75991e9a6c0b13fa77b122d", "text": "Inflation can be held at whatever level the international fiat banking system desires up until it hits the tipping point. Commodities are still high over a 3 year tracking (my uncle and cousin run a family farm of 1000 acres and they are in heaven this year with prices of beef, corn, and soy so high), and luxury goods are deflating because no one is buying them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1bd3a494c7eb6f42df17f00c2dd69910", "text": "For press releases about economic data, the Bureau of Economic Analysis press release page is helpful. Depending on the series, you could also look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release page. For time series of both historical and present data, the St. Louis Federal Reserve maintains a database such data, including numerous measures of GDP, called FRED. They list nearly 15,000 series related to GDP alone. FRED is extremely useful because it allows you to make graphs that indicate areas of recession, like this: On the series' homepage, there's a bold link on the left side to download the data. If you simply need the most recent data, it's listed below the graph on that page. If you're interested in a more in-depth analysis, you can use the Bureau of Economic Analysis as well, specifically the National Income and Product Accounts, which are most of the numbers that feed into the calculation of GDP. FRED also archives some of these data. Both FRED and the BEA compile data on numerous other economic benchmarks as well. Other general sources for a wide range of announcements are the Yahoo, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal economic calendars. These provide the dates of many economic announcements, e.g. existing home sales, durable orders, crude inventories, etc. Yahoo provides links to the raw data where available; Bloomberg and the WSJ provide links to their article where appropriate. This is a great way to learn about various announcements and how they affect the markets; for example, the somewhat disappointing durable orders announcement recently pushed markets down a few points. For Europe, look at Eurostat. On the left side of the page, they list links to common data, including GDP. They list the latest releases on the home page that I previously linked to. For the sake of keeping this question short, I'm lumping the rest of the world into this paragraph. Data for many other countries is maintained by their governments or central banks in a similar fashion. The World Bank's databank also has relevant data like Gross National Income (GNI), which isn't identical to GDP, but it's another (less common) macroeconomic indicator. You can also look at the economic calendar on livecharts.co.uk or xe.com, which list events for the US, Europe, Australasia, and some Latin American countries. If you're only interested in the US, the Bloomberg or Yahoo calendars may have a higher signal-to-noise ratio, but if you're interested in following how global markets like currency markets respond to new information, a global economic calendar is a must. Dailyfx.com also has a global economic calendar that, according to them, is specifically geared towards events that affect the forex market. As I said, governments and central banks compile a lot of this data, so to make searching easier, here are a few links to statistical agencies and central banks for major countries. I compiled this list a while ago on my personal machine, so although I think all the links are accurate, leave a comment if something isn't quite right. Statistics Australia / Brazil / Canada / Canada / China / Eurostat / France / Germany / IMF / Japan / Mexico / OECD / Thailand / UK / US Central banks Australia / Brazil / Canada / Chile / China / ECB / Hungary / India / Indonesia / Israel / Japan / Mexico / Norway / Russia / Sweden / Switzerland / Thailand / UK / US", "title": "" }, { "docid": "63b7637214edacc81cb96fc946aaab97", "text": "FYI...prices don't always go up. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. I'm simplifying greatly here: if more money is printed (or the money supply increases through fractional reserve banking) and it is chasing the same amount of goods then prices will go up. Conversely, if money is held constant and the economy becomes more productive, producing more goods, then a constant amount of money is chasing an increasing amount of goods and prices go down. After the Civil War the greenback went back to being on a gold standard in 1879. After 1879 greenbacks could be redeemed for gold. Gold restricts money growth since it is difficult to obtain. Here are the price and wage indexes from 1869 - 1889 (from here): Notice from 1879 to 1889 that wholesale and consumer prices fall but wages start to increase. Imagine your salary staying the same (or even increasing) but the prices of items falling. Still don't think inflation is a monetary phenomenon? Here is a CPI chart from 1800 to 2007: Notice how the curve starts to go drastically up around 1970. What happen then? The US dollar went off the gold-exchange standard and the US dollar became a purely fiat currency backed by nothing but government decree which allows the Federal Reserve to print money ad nauseum.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
7226e865803347505f3835e7276e1d84
What's a good way to find someone locally to help me with my investments?
[ { "docid": "c9cca61cae3777367618be2016ea092d", "text": "Dave Ramsey has a list of ELPs (Endorsed Local Providers) of which I've only heard good things. You can request an investment ELP here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "78026373933e19218386758995512731", "text": "I would start by talking to a Fee-Only Financial Planner to make sure the portfolio fits with your goals. You can find a list here: http://www.napfa.org/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39cd5f6296d8871d6cd2d2fbb1e9cf07", "text": "I strongly suggest personal referral. Ask all of your friends/family/neighbors/co-workers/dog-sitter what they think of their brokers until you find someone who loves his broker. As for transferring assets, I've found it to be quite easy. It's in the new broker's best interest to get those assets, so he should be more than willing to help.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3bf230205bb1a357e7a52292f2a695eb", "text": "\"There's several approaches to the stock market. The first thing you need to do is decide which you're going to take. The first is the case of the standard investor saving money for retirement (or some other long-term goal). He already has a job. He's not really interested in another job. He doesn't want to spend thousands of hours doing research. He should buy mutual funds or similar instruments to build diversified holdings all over the world. He's going to have is money invested for years at a time. He won't earn spectacular amazing awesome returns, but he'll earn solid returns. There will be a few years when he loses money, but he'll recover it just by waiting. The second is the case of the day trader. He attempts to understand ultra-short-term movements in stock prices due to news, rumors, and other things which stem from quirks of the market and the people who trade in it. He buys a stock, and when it's up a fraction of a percent half an hour later, sells it. This is very risky, requires a lot of attention and a good amount of money to work with, and you can lose a lot of money too. The modern day-trader also needs to compete with the \"\"high-frequency trading\"\" desks of Wall Street firms, with super-optimized computer networks located a block away from the exchange so that they can make orders faster than the guy two blocks away. I don't recommend this approach at all. The third case is the guy who wants to beat the market. He's got long-term aspirations and vision, but he does a lot more research into individual companies, figures out which are worth buying and which are not, and invests accordingly. (This is how Warren Buffett made it big.) You can make it work, but it's like starting a business: it's a ton of work, requires a good amount of money to get going, and you still risk losing lots of it. The fourth case is the guy who mostly invests in broad market indexes like #1, but has a little money set aside for the stocks he's researched and likes enough to invest in like #3. He's not going to make money like Warren Buffett, but he may get a little bit of an edge on the rest of the market. If he doesn't, and ends up losing money there instead, the rest of his stocks are still chugging along. The last and stupidest way is to treat it all like magic, buying things without understanding them or a clear plan of what you're going to do with them. You risk losing all your money. (You also risk having it stagnate.) Good to see you want to avoid it. :)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f2c218ee74e0d3479758e528248143a", "text": "\"Google Finance and Yahoo! Finance would be a couple of sites you could use to look at rather broad market information. This would include the major US stock markets like the Dow, Nasdaq, S & P 500 though also bond yields, gold and oil can also be useful as depending on which area one works the specifics of what are important could vary. If you were working at a well-known bond firm, I'd suspect that various bond benchmarks are likely to be known and watched rather than stock indices. Something else to consider here is what constitutes a \"\"finance practitioner\"\" as I'd imagine several accountants and actuaries may not watch the market yet there could be several software developers working at hedge funds that do so that it isn't just a case of what kind of work but also what does the company do.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e5444f4bbe5b36d3ea14dcbce9d3bd6", "text": "If you already have 500k in a Schwab brokerage account, go see your Schwab financial consultant. They will assign you one, no charge, and in my experience they're sharp people. Sure, you can get a second opinion (or even report back here, maybe in chat?), but they will get you started in the right direction. I'd expect them to recommend a lot of index funds, just a bit of bonds or blended funds, all weighted heavily toward equities. If you're young and expect the income stream to continue, you can be fairly aggressive. Ask about the fees the entire way and you'll be fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3ead6164c50ccbd9cdb1398b9d611c2", "text": "I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for but Seedrs sorta fits what you're looking for. Private companies can raise money through funding rounds on Seedrs website. It wouldn't necessarily be local companies though. I've only recently found it myself so not sure if it has a uk or European slant to it. Personally I think it's a very interesting concept, private equity through crowd funding.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc791ff7f4a2e648915913f2f2bc62ae", "text": "Yup. What I wanted to know was where they are pulling it up from. Have casually used Google finance for personal investments, but they suck at corp actions. Not sure if they provide free APIs, but that would probably suck too! :D", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1836169d4b281e472f6b660492a5e2ed", "text": "\"Question 1: How do I start? or \"\"the broker\"\" problem Get an online broker. You can do a wire transfer to fund the account from your bank. Question 2: What criticism do you have for my plan? Dividend investing is smart. The only problem is that everyone's currently doing it. There is an insatiable demand for yield, not just individual investors but investment firms and pension funds that need to generate income to fund retirements for their clients. As more investors purchase the shares of dividend paying securities, the share price goes up. As the share price goes up, the dividend yield goes down. Same for bonds. For example, if a stock pays $1 per year in dividends, and you purchase the shares at $20/each, then your yearly return (not including share price fluctuations) would be 1/20 = 5%. But if you end up having to pay $30 per share, then your yearly return would be 1/30 or 3.3% yield. The more money you invest, the bigger this difference becomes; with $100K invested you'd make about $1.6K more at 5%. (BTW, don't put all your money in any small group of stocks, you want to diversify). ETFs work the same way, where new investors buying the shares cause the custodian to purchase more shares of the underlying securities, thus driving up the price up and yield down. Instead of ETFs, I'd have a look at something called closed end funds, or CEFs which also hold an underlying basket of securities but often trade at a discount to their net asset value, unlike ETFs. CEFs usually have higher yields than their ETF counterparts. I can't fully describe the ins and outs here in this space, but you'll definately want to do some research on them to better understand what you're buying, and HOW to successfully buy (ie make sure you're buying at a historically steep discount to NAV [https://seekingalpha.com/article/1116411-the-closed-end-fund-trifecta-how-to-analyze-a-cef] and where to screen [https://www.cefconnect.com/closed-end-funds-screener] Regardless of whether you decide to buy stocks, bonds, ETFs, CEFs, sell puts, or some mix, the best advice I can give is to a) diversify (personally, with a single RARE exception, I never let any one holding account for more than 2% of my total portfolio value), and b) space out your purchases over time. b) is important because we've been in a low interest rate environment since about 2009, and when the risk free rate of return is very low, investors purchase stocks and bonds which results in lower yields. As the risk free rate of return is expected to finally start slowly rising in 2017 and gradually over time, there should be gradual downward pressure (ie selling) on the prices of dividend stocks and especially bonds meaning you'll get better yields if you wait. Then again, we could hit a recession and the central banks actually lower rates which is why I say you want to space your purchases out.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89284f3984c1f9da4e87b7bcd0d6f026", "text": "\"Many of my friends said I should invest my money on stocks or something else, instead of put them in the bank forever. I do not know anything about finance, so my questions are: First let me say that your friends may have the best intentions, but don't trust them. It has been my experience that friends tell you what they would do if they had your money, and not what they would actually do with their money. Now, I don't mean that they would be malicious, or that they are out to get you. What I do mean, is why would you take advise from someone about what they would do with 100k when they don't have 100k. I am in your financial situation (more or less), and I have friends that make more then I do, and have no savings. Or that will tell you to get an IRA -so-and-so but don't have the means (discipline) to do so. Do not listen to your friends on matters of money. That's just good all around advise. Is my financial status OK? If not, how can I improve it? Any financial situation with no or really low debt is OK. I would say 5% of annual income in unsecured debt, or 2-3 years in annual income in secured debt is a good place to be. That is a really hard mark to hit (it seems). You have hit it. So your good, right now. You may want to \"\"plan for the future\"\". Immediate goals that I always tell people, are 6 months of income stuck in a liquid savings account, then start building a solid investment situation, and a decent retirement plan. This protects you from short term situations like loss of job, while doing something for the future. Is now a right time for me to see a financial advisor? Is it worthy? How would she/he help me? Rather it's worth it or not to use a financial adviser is going to be totally opinion based. Personally I think they are worth it. Others do not. I see it like this. Unless you want to spend all your time looking up money stuff, the adviser is going to have a better grasp of \"\"money stuff\"\" then you, because they do spend all their time doing it. That being said there is one really important thing to consider. That is going to be how you pay the adviser. The following are my observations. You will need to make up your own mind. Free Avoid like the plague. These advisers are usually provided by the bank and make their money off commission or kickbacks. That means they will advise you of the product that makes them the most money. Not you. Flat Rate These are not a bad option, but they don't have any real incentive to make you money. Usually, they do a decent job of making you money, but again, it's usually better for them to advise you on products that make them money. Per Hour These are my favorite. They charge per hour. Usually they are a small shop, and will walk you through all the advise. They advise what's best for you, because they have to sit there and explain their choices. They can be hard to find, but are generally the best option in my opinion. % of Money These are like the flat rate advisers to me. They get a percentage of the money you give them to \"\"manage\"\". Because they already have your money they are more likely to recommend products that are in their interest. That said, there not all bad. % or Profit These are the best (see notes later). They get a percentage of the money they make for you. They have the most interest in making you money. They only get part of what you get, so there going to make sure you get the biggest pie, so they can get a bigger slice. Notes In the real world, all advisers are likely to get kickbacks on products they recommend. Make sure to keep an eye for that. Also most advisers will use 2-3 of the methods listed above for billing. Something like z% of profit +$x per hour is what I like to see. You will have to look around and see what is available. Just remember that you are paying someone to make you money (or to advise you on how to make money) so long as what they take leaves you with some profit your in a better situation then your are now. And that's the real goal.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3167b26b3d85953e30d252c7ae9aa5d5", "text": "You can look into specific market targeted mutual funds or ETF's. For Norway, for example, look at NORW. If you want to purchase specific stocks, then you'd better be ready to trade on local stock exchanges in local currency. ETrade allows trading on some of the international stock exchanges (in Asia they have Hong Kong and Japan, in Europe they have the UK, Germany and France, and in the Americas they have the US and Canada). Some of the companies you're interested in might be trading there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "762ab641a0efe27313282e4079dd8588", "text": "\"While you’re new or relatively new to this idea then the fitting idea is to perform a little research and primary get conversant in what’s possible with offshore investment opportunities. I couldn't agree more. A good way to begin this research would be to do an online search for an investment opportunity called \"\"Royal Siam Trust.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35d7b7bfa64a908279a2976bd2f45da3", "text": "The old school way would have been to identify some wealthy zip codes and cold call like a mofo. At present I would prefer to find some retiring advisor and buy his book (that may mean leaving your current firm).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "441f95afd6f679724e6c737d8e4a9369", "text": "Why should I give you a single minute of my time? Until you can answer that question, it doesn't matter *how* you go about reaching them. You have to look at it like sales situation. Unless you can demonstrate value to them within the first couple of sentences, you won't be given the time of day. These guys get pitched all day long -whether it's their employees, investors, people looking for investments or people looking for a mentor. I'd suggest looking locally first. Go to a couple business association meetings in your area (a lot of them are free or cost under $50). These meetings almost always have time for networking, but you'll only get out of it what you put into it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6dfeceee3dc0966885124b7ce7082da", "text": "Small purchases will have a disproportionate expense for commissions. Even a $5 trade fee is 5% on a $100 purchase. So on one hand, it's common to advise individuals just starting out to use mutual funds, specifically index funds with low fees. On the flip side, holding stocks has no annual fee, and if you are buying for the long term, you may still be better off with an eye toward cost, and learn over time. In theory, an individual stands a better chance to beat the experts for a number of reasons, no shareholders to answer to, and the ability to purchase without any disclosure, among them. In reality, most investor lag the average by such a wide margin, they'd be best off indexing and staying in for the long term.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83a6b4c01e2e4f682f1e9b327033b355", "text": "\"What you're referring to is usually called an \"\"investment club\"\". If you're serious about it, it's a great way of collectively learning about investing and organizing a cooperative venture. A friend of the family has been involved with an investment club for about 30 years. It's a great way to keep in touch, learn and invest.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "31a82b7ed7528351a9da8c523b16833e", "text": "\"Surprising that you have a \"\"finance background,\"\" but don't know what a cold-calling broker does - he calls people he's never met and tries to bullshit them into buying stock or making some other trade. You can call people from contact lists obtained from marketing firms, people who hopefully fit a certain income and age bracket best suited to investing. For some people it's ok, for others it's complete hell. If you fall into the latter category, your salary being based on how much trading you generate every month can make it even worse. If you want an idea of cold-calling, call 100 people today at random from the phonebook and try to convince them that they need to buy something.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ba84bfbdd386cc7be5016258b24fb99", "text": "If this matters to you a lot, I agree you should leave. My primary bank account raised chequing account and transaction fees. I left. When I was closing my account the teller asked for the reason (they needed to fill out a form) and I explained it was the monthly fees. Eventually, if a bank gets enough of these, they will change. I want to get back those features for the same price it cost when I opened it They are in their rights to cancel features or raise prices. Just as you are in your rights to withdraw if they don't give you a deal. The reason why I mention this is that this approach is comical in some instances. A grocery store may raise the price of carrots. Typically you either deal with it or change stores. Prices rise occasionally. thus they will lose a lot of money from my savings From my understanding, a bank makes a large chunk of their money from fees. Very little is from the floating kitty they can have because of your savings. If you have an investment account with your bank (not recommended) or your mortgage, that would matter more. I've had friends who have left banks (and moved their mortgages) because of the bank not giving them a better rate. Does the manager have any pressure into keeping the account to the point of giving away free products to keep the costumer or they don't really care? Depends. I've probably say no. One data point is an anecdote; it is expected in a client base of thousands that a few will leave for seemingly random reasons. Only if mass amounts of clients leave or complain will the manager or company care. A note: some banks waive monthly account or service fees if you keep a minimal account balance. I have one friend who keeps X thousand in his bank account to save the account fee; he budgets a month ahead of time and savings account rates are 0% so this costs him nothing.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
9e04e79378b1c9f68a535d2cda709e1e
Where to park money while saving for a car
[ { "docid": "3f665baca9e2e42ab39bf00e9fb75c8b", "text": "Bond aren't necessarily any safer than the stock market. Ultimately, there is no such thing as a low risk mutual fund. You want something that will allow you get at your money relatively quickly. In other words, CDs (since you you can pick a definite time period for your money to be tied up), money market account or just a plain old savings account. Basically, you want to match inflation and have easy access to the money. Any other returns on top of that are gravy, but don't fret too much about it. See also: Where can I park my rainy-day / emergency fund? Savings accounts don’t generate much interest. Where should I park my rainy-day / emergency fund?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a35f96a14a089886783b22be0a55d45", "text": "\"As you're saving up for an expenditure instead of investing for the long run, I would stay away from any sort of \"\"parking facility\"\" where you run the risk of not having the principal protected. The riskier investments that would potentially generate a bigger return also carry a bigger downside, ie you might not be able to get the money back that you put in. I'd shop around for a CD or a MMA/regular savings account with a half-decent interest rate. And yes, I'm aware that the return you might get is probably still less than inflation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28d242f7c2ac47f3f855c8fc7f4ac7c1", "text": "Nothing's generating a whole lot of interest right now. But more liquid and stable is better (cash or cash-like). But a related question: Why a new car? You can knock thousands of dollars off of the price of a comparable vehicle by buying one that's one or two years old. Your new vehicle loses thousands of dollars in value the moment it goes off the lot.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15ba43220578c9b495c2baeeb42ca862", "text": "\"I would split the savings as you may need some of it quickly for an emergency. At least 1/2 should be very liquid, such as cash or MMA/Checking. From there, look at longer term CDs, from 30 day to 180 day, depending upon your situation. Don't be surprised if by the time you've saved the money up, your desire for the car will have waned. How many years will it take to save up enough? 2? 5? 10? You may want to review your current work position instead, so you'll make more and hopefully save more towards what you do want. Important: Be prepared for the speed bumps of life. My landlord sold the house I was renting out from under me, as I was on a month-to-month contract. I had to have a full second deposit at the ready to put down when renting elsewhere, as well as the moving expenses. Luckily, I had done what my tax attorney had said, which is \"\"Create a cushion of liquid assets which can cover at least three months of your entire outgoing expenses.\"\" The Mormon philosophy is to carry at least one year's worth of supplies (food, water, materials) at all times in your home, for any contingency. Not Mormon, not religious, but willing to listen to others' opinions. As always, YMMV. Your Mileage May Vary.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8fee664c9a7b1e8ea08585dd44b8f382", "text": "Two to three years? That is one long gestation period! :^) Welcome. Congratulations on taking savings into your own hands, you are a winner for taking responsibility for your, and your family's life. If I was you my first priority would be to pay off your car and never buy one on time again. Or you could sell it and buy something with cash if that would be easier. It is tremendous that you are thinking and planning. You are already ahead of most people. Are you working on your basement as you have time/money like when work might be slow? If so great idea.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06401fa62af7f32b1642d8d2ea6771fc", "text": "\"Looking at your numbers, I would definitively consider selling the car, and use the public transportation instead. You could easily save $450 month, plus gas and maintenance. As you mentioned, public transportation will be only a fraction of this amount, so you might end up saving around $400 monthly. If you decide to keep the car, the amount that you will spent monthly is easily a payment for a brand-new car. What if, God forbid, for any kind of reason, you get a traffic ticket that can increase your insurance premium? What if the engine stops working, and you will need to spent thousands of dollars fixing the car? With this, and all of the other expenses pilled up, you might be unable to afford all this at some point. If you decide to sell the car, the money that you will save monthly can be put in a savings account (or in any other sort of \"\"safe\"\" investment instrument). In this way, if your situation changes where you need a car again, you will be able to easily afford a new car. Regarding your need to visit your friends on the suburbs every other weekend, I think you can just talk with them, and meet on places where public transportation is available, or ask them to pick you up in the nearest station to the suburbs. In conclusion, based on what you said, I do not think the \"\"little\"\" convenience that you get in owning the car outweighs the big savings that you get monthly, if you decide to sell the car.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "72aae8e12b2fe135a24c39334b88a09a", "text": "\"Do you guys think it's a good idea to put that much down on the car ? In my opinion, it depends on a lot of factors. If you have nothing to pay, and are not planning to invest in something that cost a lot soon (I.E an house, etc). Then I see no problem in put \"\"that much down on the car\"\". Remember that the more you pay at first, the less you will pay interest on. However, if you are planning on buying something big soon, then you might want to pay less and keep moneys for your future investment. I would honestly not finance a car with the garage as I find their interest rate to high. Possibilities depends a lot of your bank accounts, but what I would personally do is pay it cash using my credit margin with the bank which is only 2.8% interest rate. Garage where I live rarely finance under 7% interest rate. You may not have a credit margin, but maybe you could get a loan with the bank instead ? Many bank keep an history of your loan which will get you a better credit name when trying to buy an home later. On the other side, having a good credit name is not really useful in a garage. What interest rate is reasonable based on my credit score? I don't think it is possible to give a real answer to this as it change a lot around the world. However, I would recommend to simply compare with the interest rate asked when being loan by the bank.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6484f3b27a12e3a429a8088cd9b1973", "text": "There are many gas stations where I live that already have different prices if you pay for cash vs. credit. In addition, some small businesses are doing this as well. My wife bought a birthday cake from a bakery. If you paid with cash, you saved 5%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fbe3c32df23d6bab65850a0504a96d0d", "text": "Very generally speaking if you have a loan, in which something is used as collateral, the leader will likely require you to insure that collateral. In your case that would be a car. Yes certainly a lender will require you to insure the vehicle that they finance (Toyota or otherwise). Of course, if you purchase a vehicle for cash (which is advisable anyway), then the insurance option is somewhat yours. Some states may require that a certain amount of coverage is carried on a registered vehicle. However, you may be able to drop the collision, rental car, and other options from your policy saving you some money. So you buy a new car for cash ($25K or so) and store the thing. What happens if the car suffers damage during storage? Are you willing to save a few dollars to have the loss of an asset? You will have to insure the thing in some way and I bet if you buy the proper policy the amount save will be very minimal. Sure you could drop the road side assistance, rental car, and some other options, during your storage time but that probably will not amount to a lot of money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b792851016cf8ff3dd6156ff029a2333", "text": "\"So this has been bugging me for a while, because I am facing a similar dilemma and I don't think anyone gave a clear answer. I bought a 2012 kia soul in 2012. 36 months financing at 300/mo. Will be done with my car loan in 2015. I plan on keeping it, while saving the same amount of money 300/mo until I buy my next car. But, I also have an option of trading it in for the the next car. Question: should I trade it in in 2015. should I keep it for 2 years more? 3 years more, before I buy the next car? What makes most financial sense and savings. I tried to dig up some data on edmunds - the trade-in value and \"\"true cost to own\"\" calculator. The make and model of my car started in 2010, so I do not have historical data, as well as \"\"cost to own\"\" calculator only spans 5 years. So - this is what I came up with: Where numbers in blue are totally made up/because I don't have the data for it. Granted, the trade-in values for the \"\"future\"\" years are guesstimated - based on Kia Soul's trade-in values from previous years (2010, 2011, 2012) But, this is handy, and as it gets closer to 2015 and beyond, I can re-plug in the data where it is available and have a better understanding of the trade-in vs keep it longer decision. Hope this helps. If the analysis is totally off the rocker, please let me know - i'll adjust it/delete it. Thank you\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32c2294f4580f8255391a8dae4989cf4", "text": "\"If you're making big money at 18, you should be saving every penny you can in tax-advantaged retirement accounts. (If your employer offers it, see if you can do a Roth 401(k), as odds are good you'll be in a higher tax bracket at retirement than you are now and you will benefit from the Roth structure. Otherwise, use a regular 401(k). IRAs are also an option, but you can put more money into a 401(k) than you can into an IRA.) If you do this for a decade or two while you're young, you'll be very well set on the road to retirement. Moreover, since you think \"\"I've got the money, why not?\"\" this will actually keep the money from you so you can do a better job of avoiding that question. Your next concern will be post-tax money. You're going to be splitting this between three basic sorts of places: just plain spending it, saving/investing it in bank accounts and stock markets, or purchasing some other form of capital which will save you money or provide you with some useful capability that's worth money (e.g. owning a condo/house will help you save on rent - and you don't have to pay income taxes on that savings!) 18 is generally a little young to be setting down and buying a house, though, so you should probably look at saving money for a while instead. Open an account at Vanguard or a similar institution and buy some simple index funds. (The index funds have lower turnover, which is probably better for your unsheltered accounts, and you don't need to spend a bunch of money on mutual fund expense ratios, or spend a lot of time making a second career out of stock-picking). If you save a lot of your money for retirement now, you won't have to save as much later, and will have more income to spend on a house, so it'll all work out. Whatever you do, you shouldn't blow a bunch of money on a really fancy new car. You might consider a pretty-nice slightly-used car, but the first year of car ownership is distressingly close to just throwing your money away, and fancy cars only make it that much worse. You should also try to have some fun and interesting experiences while you're still young. It's okay to spend some money on them. Don't waste money flying first-class or spend tooo much money dining out, but fun/interesting/different experiences will serve you well throughout your life. (By contrast, routine luxury may not be worth it.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "121b78600c056243d50d16e83fcf7327", "text": "\"Personally, I would: a) consider selling the car and replacing it with a 'cheaper' one. If you only drive it once a month, you are probably not getting much 'value' from owning a nice car. b) move the car (either current or replacement) out to your parent's place. The cost of a plane ticket is about the same as the cost of the garage, and your parents would likely hold on to it for free (assuming they live in the suburbs, and parking is not an issue) option b should lower your insurance costs (very low annual mileage) and at least you'll get some frequent flier miles out of your $350 a month. That being said: this is a \"\"quality of life\"\" issue, which means that there isn't going to be a firm answer. If you are 25, have little debt, which you are paying off on time, have an emergency fund, and you are making regular contributions to your 401k, you are certainly NOT \"\"being seriously irresponsible\"\" by owning a nice car. But you may decide that the $1000 a month could be better spent somewhere else.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cc41e5f9dfa3cd2344fc7977f6f5230", "text": "There are several factors here. Firstly, there's opportunity cost, i.e. what you would get with the money elsewhere. If you have higher interest opportunities (investing, paying down debt) elsewhere, you could be paying that down instead. There's also domino effects: by reducing your liquid savings to or below the minimum, you can't move any of it into tax advantaged retirement accounts earning higher interest. Then there's the insurance costs. You are required to buy extra insurance to protect your lender. You should factor in the extra insurance you would buy vs the insurance required. Given that you can buy the car yourself, catastrophic insurance may not be necessary, or you may prefer a higher deductible than your lender will allow. If you're not sufficiently capitalized, you may need gap insurance to cover when your car depreciates faster than your loan is paid down. A 30 percent payment should be enough to not need it though. Finally, there's some value in having options. If you have the loan and the cash, you can likely pay it off without penalty. But it will be harder to get the loan if you don't finance it. Maybe you can take out a loan against the car later, but I haven't looked into the fees that might incur. If it's any help, I'm in the last stretch of a 3 year car loan. At the time paying in cash wasn't an option, and having done it I recognize that it's more complicated than it seems.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46e0fd4a0513b1e04e20f5ec1819ed82", "text": "Sometimes I think it helps to think of the scenario in reverse. If you had a completely paid off car, would you take out a title loan (even at 0%) for a few months to put the cash in a low-interest savings account? For me, I think the risk of losing the car due to non-payment outweighs the tens of dollars I might earn.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "086a9ad3b409d1498b7d28307f1f69f3", "text": "If you have the money to pay cash for the car. Then 0 months will save you the most money. There are of course several caveats. The money for the car has to be in a relatively liquid form. Selling stocks which would trigger taxes may make the pay cash option non-optimal. Paying cash for the car shouldn't leave you car rich but cash poor. Taking all your savings to pay cash would not be a good idea. Note: paying cash doesn't involve taking a wheelbarrow full of bills to the dealer; You can use a a check. If cash is not an option then the longest time period balanced by the rates available is best. If the bank says x percent for 12-23 months, y percent for 24-47 months, Z percent for 48 to... It may be best to take the 47 month loan, because it keeps the middle rate for a long time. You want to lock in the lowest rate you can, for the longest period they allow. The longer period keeps the required minimum monthly payment as low as possible. The lower rate saves you on interest. Remember you generally can pay the loan off sooner by making extra or larger payments. Leasing. Never lease unless you are writing off the monthly lease payment as a business expense. If the choice is monthly lease payments or depreciation for tax purposes the lease can make the most sense. If business taxes aren't involved then leasing only means that you have a complex deal where you finance the most expensive part of the ownership period, you have to watch the mileage for several years, and you may have to pay a large amount at the end of the period for damages and excess miles. Plus many times you don't end up with the car at the end of the lease. In the United States one way to get a good deal if you have to get a loan: take the rebate from the dealer; and the loan from a bank/credit Union. The interest rate at banking institution is a better range of rates and length. Plus you get the dealer cash. Many times the dealer will only give you the 0% interest rate if you pay in 12 months and skip the rebate; where the interest paid to the bank will be less than the rebate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "330bf78226ad31ceed4dba2a3dbe9b5e", "text": "\"It's also worth thinking about minor \"\"emergencies\"\" when the location of your cash may be more important than the amount. I keep a baggie of change and small bills in my glovebox for meters and tolls. I keep a ten dollar bill in my armband when I go out for a jog or bike. Those little stashes have saved me more than once. Zombie apocalypse money? I just have a couple hundred at home.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46ef1c349a7e585f5f3bd1e59c73d059", "text": "Here's how I think about money. There are only 3 categories / contexts (buckets) that my earned money falls into. Savings is my emergency fund. I keep 6 months of total expenses (expenses are anything in the consumption bucket). You can be as detailed as you want with this area but I tend to leave a fudge factor. In other words, if I estimate that I spend approximately $3,000 a month in consumption dollars then I'll save $3,500 times 6 in the bank. This money needs to be liquid. Some people use a HELOC, other people use their ROTH contributions. In any case, you need to put this money some place you can get access to it in case you go from accumulation (income exceed expenses) to decumulation mode (expenses exceed income). This money is distinct from consumption which I will cover in paragraph three. Investments are stocks, bonds, income producing real estate, small businesses, etc. These dollars require a strategy. The strategy can include some form of asset allocation but more importantly a timeline. These are the dollars that are working for you. Each dollar placed here will multiply over time. Once you put a dollar here it shouldn't be taken out unless there is some sort of catastrophe that your savings can't handle or your timeline has been achieved. Notice that rental real estate is included so liquidating stocks to purchase rental real estate is NOT considered removing investment dollars. Just reallocating based on your asset allocation. This bucket includes 401k's, IRAs, all tax-sheltered accounts, non-sheltered brokerage accounts, and rental real estate. In general your primary residence is not included in this bucket. Some people include the equity of their primary residence in the investment column but it can complicate the equation and I prefer to leave it out. The consumption bucket is the most important bucket and the one you spend the most time with. It requires a budget. This includes your $5 magazine and your $200 bottle of wine. Anything in this bucket is gone. You can recover a portion of it by selling it on ebay for $3 (these are earned dollars) but the original $5 is still considered spent. The reason your thought process in this area is distinct from the other two, the decisions made in this area will have the biggest impact on your personal finances. Warren Buffett was famous for skimping on haircuts because they are worth thousands of dollars down the road if they are invested instead. Remember this is a zero-sum game so every $1 not consumed is placed in one of the other buckets. Once your savings bucket is full every dollar not consumed is sent to investments. Remember to include everything that does not fit in the other two buckets. Most people forget their car insurance, life insurance, tax bill at the end of the year, accountant bill, etc. In conclusion, there are three buckets. Savings, which serve as your emergency bucket. This money should not be touched unless you switch from accumulation to decumulation. Investments, which are your dollars that are working for you over time. They require a strategy and a timeline. Consumption, which are your monthly expenses. These dollars keep you alive and contribute to your enjoyment. This is a short explanation of my use of money. It can get as complicated and detailed as you want it to be but as long as you tag your dollars correctly you'll be okay IMHO. HTH.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc597918ea889cc9c47e943265abc7d3", "text": "I suggest you buy a more reasonably priced car and keep saving to have the full amount for the car you really want in the future. If you can avoid getting loans it helps a lot in you financial situation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af223850d5c390d6a986d4bdb93cfedf", "text": "Establish good saving and spending habits. Build up your savings so that when you do buy a car, you can pay cash. Make spending decisions, especially for housing, transportation and entertainment, that allow you to save a substantial portion of your income. The goal is to get yourself to a place where you have enough net worth that the return on your assets is greater than the amount you can earn by working. (BTW, this is basically what I did. I put my two sons through top colleges on my dime and retired six years ago at the age of 56).", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d871b1a9d21291e302b9958e6ac79d25
How does one determine the width of a candlestick bar?
[ { "docid": "529e9dd9e67e4159ad7c8e03aca7a20c", "text": "Very common question. There is no any rule of thumb. This solely depends on your trading strategy. I will share my own experience. My day starts with the daily chart, if I have a signal, either I open my position or I check 30 minute chart to make sure that it won't go too much against my trade. and I open my position. If I am waiting for the signal the minimum timeframe is 4 hours for me. I use 30 minutes to find the best time to enter the market. So, this is totally something special for my trading strategy, that is why those things can change based on the different strategies. I also check weekly and monthly charts to confirm trend. I have been busy with forex since 2007 and I am a verified investor on etoro At the end, I never use 1,5,15,60 minute charts as they are against my strategy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f9221aa3d0a75d8bd967c04ee723e88", "text": "You could theoretically use any time period unit, but 1 minute and 30 minute seem to be the most common and useful. Especially for active traders. This also has the added advantage of giving you useful insight into the trade volumes throughout the day; assuming that is also included on the chart. I think most include that as a bar chart across the bottom. Here is a great example for crude oil on dailyfx: https://www.dailyfx.com/crude-oil Notice that the chart has time options at the top left which include 1 minute, 30 minutes, 1 hour, and 1 day.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e003e55aa2fde7af21278d34fbb608ee", "text": "There's no rule of thumb but the purpose of candlesticks of any kind (fixed, volume weighted etc.) is to display the intra-period price action. So if you'd fit 3 years worth of 1 minute bars on a chart, candlesticks become useless and you might as well use a line chart.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4c3f732a5bc61311ac05e7b3b95984e3", "text": "This strategy is called trading the 'Golden Cross' if the 50 day SMA moves above the 200 day, or the 'Death Cross' when the 50 day SMA moves below the 200 day SMA. Long-term indicators carry more weight than shorter-term indicators, and this cross, in a positive direction signals a change in momentum of the stock. You will not catch the very bottom using this method, but there is a better chance that you will catch a move near the beginning of a longer-term trend. Golden Cross Information - Zacks", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82379ac03993b758aa664cb67d6905ad", "text": "\"The size terminology for lumber is based on the rough cut dimensions from the mill, not the actual size of the board at Home Depot. There's post finishing done to 2x4's, etc from the big box stores. It's been that way for 50 years. If a couple of hipsters got their feelings hurt because they didn't know what they were doing, tell them to watch a youtube video about lumber before screwing up a home improvement project. They wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with an actual rough cut 1x6 anyway. They'd get home with it, and if by some miracle they managed to plane it, they'd realize they're left with a 3/4\"\"x5 3/4\"\" board, just like you get from Home Depot. Grow up, pansies.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9010a48577cb375e2eaddce4cbadae1", "text": "A shorter term MA would be used for short term changes in price whilst a long term MA would be used for longer term movements in price. A 200 day SMA is widely used to determine the trend of the stock, simply a cross above the 200 day SMA would mean the stock may be entering an uptrend and a cross below that the price may be entering a downtrend. If the price is continuosly going above and below in a short period of time it is usually range trading. Then there are EMAs (Expodential Moving Averages) and WMAs (weighted moving averages) which give more emphasis to the latest price data than the earlier price data in the period chosen compared to a SMA. MAs can be used in many different ways, too many to list all here. The best way to learn about them is to read some TA books and articles about them, then choose a couple of strategies where you can use them in combination with a couple of other indicators that are complimentary with each other.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "44f1ab095c641a83739fb97de363f3c0", "text": "Someone referred to the bend as a living hinge, I've heard it referred to as a kerf-bend. My office has a laser cutter and might be interested in putting it to use. What kind of volume are you looking for? If low-volume, PM me.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80a85c95c7462ad01c4b710df507a311", "text": "\"Hello! I am working on a project where I am trying to determine the profit made by a vendor if they hold our funds for 5 days in order to collect the interest on those funds during that period before paying a third party. Currently I am doing \"\"Amount x(Fed Funds Rate/365)x5\"\" but my output seems too low. Any advice?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f02a9257adc4e124ef1c014445d262a3", "text": "\"&gt; 41x92x1820mm 1.6\"\"x3.6\"\"x71.7\"\", which is more or less the same as in the US. 2\"\"x4\"\" is the rough cut board before drying and finishing. Anyone who regularly works with wood knows this. It's been the industry standard for decades.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e6f2ca28fbc7ff354ac7aedbcd7b225", "text": "http://dailyfinance.com Enter a stock ticker, then click on the Chain link to the left. Then, click on the option tickers to see their charts. EDIT: the site has changed, and there are no more option charts. So why are option charts so tough to find? Options are derivatives of the stock. Option prices are defined by a formula. The inputs are stock pricxe, strike, days to expiration, dividend, risk-free interest rate, and volatility. Volatility is the only thing that cannot be easily looked up. With a Black-Scholes calculator, and some reasonable volatility selections, it's possible to make your own fairly accurate option chart. I don't think it's very enlightening, though. The interesting things are: the stock price movement (as always), and the nature of option pricing behavior in general (understanding how the formula represents crowd behavior).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8c371e758fe5e0eb141b70578ba7536", "text": "\"You cannot determine this solely by the ticker length. However, there are some conventions that may help steer you there. Nasdaq has 2-4 base letters BATS has 4 base letters NYSE equity securities have 1-4 base letters. NYSE Mkt (formerly Amex) have 1-4 base letters. NYSE Arca has 4 base letters OTC has 4 base letters. Security types other than equities may have additional letters added, and each exchange (and data vendors) have different conventions for how this is handled. So if you see \"\"T\"\" for a US-listed security it would be only be either NASDAQ, NYSE or NYSE Mkt. If you see \"\"ANET\"\" then you cannot tell which exchange it is listed on. (In this case, ANET Arista Networks is actually a NYSE stock). For some non-equity security types, such as hybrids, and debt instruments, some exchanges add \"\"P\"\" to the end for \"\"preferreds\"\" (Nasdaq and OTC) and NYSE/NYSE Mkt have a variety of methods (including not adding anything) to the ticker. Examples include NYSE:TFG, NYSEMkt:IPB, Nasdaaq: AGNCP, Nasdaq:OXLCN. It all becomes rather confusing given the changes in conventions over the years. Essentially, you require data that provides you with ticker, listing location and security type. The exchanges allocate security tickers in conjunction with the SEC so there are no overlaps. eg. The same ticker cannot represent two different securities. However, tickers can be re-used. For example, the ticker AB has been used by the following companies:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adeb80ddb87ca61ed1643fd255493a12", "text": "Candlesticks and TA are a relic of pre-computer trading, period. Market makers use sophisticated algorithms not for trading, but manipulations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "428aa2334af0f19e86a32f71755c7c64", "text": "Why would I go to amazon at 9pm at night to buy 2-4 to fix a broken box spring? Or go to amazon to purchase a handful of the right size screw which I sit and measure with an extra screw I bring? (My last two trips)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d6a6df4590e71d80a5d36a08e59f60c", "text": "\"Each candlestick in a candlestick chart represents the open, close, high and low for a period of time. If you are looking at a daily chart it represents the open price, close price, high price and low price for that day. If you are looking at an hourly chart, then a single candlestick represents the open, close, high and low prices for an hour. If looking at a weekly chart, then a single candlestick will represent the opening price on Monday morning, the closing price on Friday afternoon, and the highest and lowest price for that week. The diagram below represents the two main types of candle sticks. When the price closes higher than they open for the period of the candlestick it is called a bullish candle and the main body is usually represented in green. When the price closes lower than they open for the period of the candlestick it is called a bearish candle and the main body is usually represented in red. In a bullish candle with a large real body and small shadows or wicks, where prices open near the low of the period and close near the top of the period, it represents a very bullish period (especially if volume is high). An example of this situation could be when good news is released to the market and most market participants want to buy the shares driving prices higher during the period. An example of a bullish candle with a small real body and a large upper shadow or wick could be when market participants start buying early during the period, then some negative news comes out or prices reach a major resistance level, then prices drop from their highs but still close higher than the open. The large upper shadow represents some indecision in prices moving higher. In a bearish candle with a large real body and small shadows or wicks, where prices open near the high of the period and close near the low of the period, it represents a very bearish period (especially if volume is high). An example of this situation could be when bad news is released to the market and most market participants want to sell the shares driving prices lower during the period. An example of a bearish candle with a small real body and a large lower shadow or wick could be when market participants start selling early during the period, then some positive news comes out or prices reach a major support level, then prices move up from their lows but still close lower than the open. The large lower shadow represents some indecision in prices moving lower. These are just some examples of what can be derived from looking at candlestick charts. There are plenty more and too much to include in this answer. Another type of candle is the Doji, represented in the diagram below. The Doji Candle represents indecision in the market. Prices open then move up to the high of the period then start falling past the open before reversing again and closing either at the open or very close to the open. The market participants can't decide whether the price should move up or down, so prices end up closing very close to where they opened. A doji Candle close to a market high or low could represent a turning point in the short term trend and could mean that over the next period or two prices could reverse and go in the opposite direction. There are many more definitions for candlestick charts, and I would recommend an introductory book on candlestick charting, like one from the \"\"Dummies\"\" series. The main things to keep in mind as a beginner it that a strong bullish candle with small shadows and large real body could represent further price movement upwards, a strong bearish candle with small shadows and large real body could represent further movement downwards, and any candle with large shadows could represent indecision and a reversal from the direction of the large shadow.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8838933d3993e7b20282d877697b072f", "text": "John Person has a pattern called the High Close Doji that is probably the most reliable signal in the world of candle patterns. I would check out Candle Stick and Pivot Point Trade Triggers. It all I use in trading stocks + forex.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ce76e74e90e31ed3b558302e0a2342f", "text": "\"Shhh... Don't tell them 1x lumber is actually 3/4\"\". There will be another lawsuit. I could see suing over being under the standard, as it would throw off all your plans. This is a national standard that has been in place for decades. Why should they pay for their customers' ignorance?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7839738fcc0f84de8f2d1459a0df1375", "text": "Right from Home Depot's website emphasis mine. Product Overview Every piece of 2 in. x 6 in. x 10 ft. Kiln-Dried Heat Treated Dimensional Lumber meets the highest grading standards for strength and appearance. This high quality lumber is ideal for a wide range of structural and nonstructural applications including framing of houses, barns, sheds, and commercial construction. Perfect for projects that require structural dimensional lumber that meets building codes. It can also be used for furniture and hobbies, and comes in a variety of widths and lengths. As long as lumber is properly primed and painted or sealed and stained it can be used in exterior applications. Each piece of this lumber meets the highest quality grading standards for strength and appearance Lumber can be primed and painted or sealed and stained. For interior or exterior use **Common: 2 in. x 4 in. x 10 ft.; Actual: 1.5 in. x 3.5 in. x 120 in.** Untreated Premium Grade Note: product may vary by store Click to learn how to select the right lumber for your project This is the **DUMBEST** thing i've read all day.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35ecc70f06b1d857067088599dea1266", "text": "\"Your questions In the world of technical analysis, is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets? It depends on how you define effective. But as a standalone and systematic strategy, it tends not to be profitable. See for example Market Timing with Candlestick Technical Analysis: Using robust statistical techniques, we find that candlestick trading rules are not profitable when applied to DJIA component stocks over 1/1/1992 – 31/12/2002 period. Neither bullish or bearish candlestick single lines or patterns provide market timing signals that are any better than what would be expected by chance. Basing ones trading decisions solely on these techniques does not seem sensible but we cannot rule out the possibility that they compliment some other market timing techniques. There are many other papers that come to the same conclusion. If used correctly, how accurate can they be in picking turning points in the market? Technical analysts generally fall into two camps: (i) those that argue that TA can't be fully automated and that interpretation is part of the game; (ii) those that use TA as part of a systematic investment model (automatically executed by a machine) but generally use a combination of indicators to build a working model. Both groups would argue (for different reasons) that the conclusions of the paper I quoted above should be disregarded and that TA can be applied profitably with the proper framework. Psychological biases It is very easy to get impressed by technical analysis because we all suffer from \"\"confirmation bias\"\" whereby we tend to acknowledge things that confirm our beliefs more than those that contradict them. When looking at a chart, it is very easy to see all the occurences when a certain pattern worked and \"\"miss\"\" the occurences when it did not work (and not missing those is much harder than it sounds). Conclusions\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
e7d7046d3530c98f026ddebd523ada00
Does SIPC protect securities purchased in foreign exchanges?
[ { "docid": "54bb445de033c81fb0cf87b81e81f6cb", "text": "I'll give it a shot, even though you don't seem to be responding to my comment. SIPC insures against fraud or abuse of its members. If you purchased a stock through a SIPC member broker and it was held in trust by a SIPC member, you're covered by its protection. Where you purchased the stock - doesn't matter. There are however things SIPC doesn't cover. That said, SIPC members are SEC-registred brokers, i.e.: brokers operating in the USA. If you're buying on the UK stock exchange - you need to check that you're still operating through a US SIPC member. As I mentioned in the comment - the specific company that you mentioned has different entities for the US operations and the UK operations. Buying through them on LSE is likely to bind you with their UK entity that is not SIPC member. You'll have to check that directly with them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efb02741e131bbeb35fabd25c9d5edb7", "text": "\"I have received a response from SIPC, confirming littleadv's answer: For a brief background, the protections available under the Securities Investor Protection Act (\"\"SIPA\"\"), are only available in the context of a liquidation proceeding of a SIPC member broker-dealer and relate to the \"\"custody\"\" of securities and related cash at the SIPC member broker-dealer. Thus, if a SIPC member broker-dealer were to fail at a time when a customer had securities and/or cash in the custody of the SIPC member broker-dealer, in most instances it would be SIPC's obligation to restore those securities and cash to the customer, within statutory limits. That does not mean, however, that the customer would necessarily receive the original value of his or her purchase. Rather, the customer receives the security itself and/or the value of the customer's account as of the day that the liquidation commenced. SIPC does not protect against the decline in value of any security. In a liquidation proceeding under the SIPA, SIPC may advance up to $500,000 per customer (including a $250,000 limit on cash in the account). Please note that this protection only applies to the extent that you entrust cash or securities to a U.S. SIPC member. Foreign broker dealer subsidiaries are not SIPC members. However, to the extent that any assets, including foreign securities, are being held by the U.S. broker dealer, the assets are protected by SIPC. Stocks listed on the LSE are protected by SIPC to the extent they are held with a SIPC member broker dealer, up to the statutory limit of $500,000 per customer. As I mentioned in the comments, in the case of IB, indeed they have a foreign subsidiary, which is why SIPC does not cover it (rather they are insured by Lloyds of London for such cases).\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d3b29e8075a13386c894ae62e8f3d167", "text": "According to this page on their website (http://www.kotaksecurities.com/internationaleq/homepage.htm), Kotak Securities is one big-name Indian broker that offers an international equities account to its Indian customers. Presumably, they should be able to answer all your questions. Since this is a competitive market, one can assume that others like ICICI Direct must also be doing so.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f773014a6042d754ea2057697b5efa0f", "text": "So, couple of things. Firstly, every international ETF includes risk disclosure language in the prospectus covering both market disruption events as well as geopolitical risk, so the sponsor would be pretty well insulated from direct liability for anything. If the Russian market were truly shut down there are true-up mechanisms in place but in the scenario you're describing the market is still open, it's just only a few participants can trade in it. First thing to do is shut down creates- that is, allow no new money to come into the fund. This at least prevents your problem from getting bigger. Second you're going to switch all redemptions to in kind only. MV itself can't trade in the underlying so they're kind of jammed here. An ETF sponsor can't really refuse your redemption request (can delay, but only for a short time), but they can control the form in which they respond to it. What theoretically should happen here is an AP not subject to sanctions will step in and handle redemptions. Issue is, they'll probably charge for this so you should expect the fund to start trading at a discount to NAV (you, as an investor, sell to them cheaply, they submit a redemption request, then sell the stocks locally). Someone else has pointed that market makers will start stat arbing the fund using correlated/substitute instruments, which totally will help keep things in line, but my guess is that you'd still see the name trading away from NAV regardless. Driver of this will be the amount of money desperate to get out - if investors are content to wait the sanctions out who knows.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d666c38057c10de0df25b0b819739a26", "text": "It doesn't matter which exchange a share was purchased through (or if it was even purchased on an exchange at all--physical share certificates can be bought and sold outside of any exchange). A share is a share, and any share available for purchase in New York is available to be purchased in London. Buying all of a company's stock is not something that can generally be done through the stock market. The practical way to accomplish buying a company out is to purchase a controlling interest, or enough shares to have enough votes to bind the board to a specific course of action. Then vote to sell all outstanding shares to another company at a particular fixed price per share. Market capitalization is an inaccurate measure of the size of a company in the first place, but if you want to quantify it, you can take the number of outstanding shares (anywhere and everywhere) and multiply them by the price on any of the exchanges that sell it. That will give you the market capitalization in the currency that is used by whatever exchange you chose.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a97a55ff1d603849bb7ca369e42394b4", "text": "\"SIPC is a corporation - a legal entity separate from its owners. In the case of SIPC, it is funded through the fees paid by its members. All the US brokers are required to be members and to contribute to SIPC funds. Can it go bankrupt? Of course. Any legal entity can go bankrupt. A person can go bankrupt. A country can go bankrupt. And so can anything in between. However, looking at the history of things, there are certain assumptions that can be made. These are mere guesses, as there's no law about any of these things (to the best of my knowledge), but seeing how things were - we can try and guess that they will also be like this in the future. I would guess, that in case of a problem for the SIPC to meet its obligation, any of the following would happen (or combinations): Too big to fail - large insurance companies had been bailed out before by the governments since it was considered that their failure would be more destructive to the economy than the bailout. AIG as an example in the US. SIPC is in essence is an insurance company. So is Lloyd's of London. Breach of trust of the individual investors that can lead to a significant market crash. That's what happened in the US to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They're now \"\"officially\"\" backed by the US government. If SIPC is incapable of meeting its obligation, I would definitely expect the US government to step in, even though there's no such obligation. Raising funds through charging other members. If the actuary calculations were incorrect, the insurance companies adjust them and raise premiums. That is what should happen in this case as well. While may not necessarily solve a cashflow issue, in the long term it will allow SIPC to balance, so that bridge loans (from the US government/Feds/public bonds) could be used in between. Not meeting obligations, i.e.: bankruptcy. That is an option, and insurance companies have gone bankrupt before. Not unheard of, but from the past experience - again, I'd expect the US government to step in. In general, I don't see any significant difference between SIPC in the US and a \"\"generic\"\" insurance coverage elsewhere. Except that in the US SIPC is mandatory, well regulated, and the coverage is uniform across brokerages, which is a benefit to the consumer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3783f309371faca4f765f50b3f0f6d3", "text": "&gt; Turns out inside updates via the SIP are received faster than the prop market data feed, and faster than updates received over an order entry connection. Under these circumstances the street knows a trade occurred before the participants in the trade. You're saying if IEX is the inside quote you see it disappear on a sip feed before you see it disappear from iex's MD feed? AND if it's your quote, even before you receive the trade report?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c09e0ca4cba8ddc88883306ee7d79eac", "text": "\"This sounds like a FATCA issue. I will attempt to explain, but please confirm with your own research, as I am not a FATCA expert. If a foreign institution has made a policy decision not to accept US customers because of the Foreign Financial Institution (FFI) obligations under FATCA, then that will of course exclude you even if you are resident outside the US. The US government asserts the principle of universal tax jurisdiction over its citizens. The institution may have a publicly available FATCA policy statement or otherwise be covered in a new story, so you can confirm this is what has happened. Failing that, I would follow up and ask for clarification. You may be able to find an institution that accepts US citizens as investors. This requires some research, maybe some legwork. Renunciation of your citizenship is the most certain way to circumvent this issue, if you are prepared to take such a drastic step. Such a step would require thought and planning. Note that there would be an expatriation tax (\"\"exit tax\"\") that deems a disposition of all your assets (mark to market for all your assets) under IRC § 877. A less direct but far less extreme measure would be to use an intermediary, either one that has access or a foreign entity (i.e. non-US entity) that can gain access. A Non-Financial Foreign Entity (NFFE) is itself subject to withholding rules of FATCA, so it must withhold payments to you and any other US persons. But the investing institutions will not become FFIs by paying an NFFE; the obligation rests on the FFI. PWC Australia has a nice little writeup that explains some of the key terms and concepts of FATCA. Of course, the simplest solution is probably to use US institutions, where possible. Non-foreign entities do not have foreign obligations under FATCA.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e92a5e3cfe7db5a782b9931710ff389d", "text": "\"You might find some of the answers here helpful; the question is different, but has some similar concerns, such as a changing economic environment. What approach should I take to best protect my wealth against currency devaluation & poor growth prospects. I want to avoid selling off any more of my local index funds in a panic as I want to hold long term. Does my portfolio balance make sense? Good question; I can't even get US banks to answer questions like this, such as \"\"What happens if they try to nationalize all bank accounts like in the Soviet Union?\"\" Response: it'll never happen. The question was what if! I think that your portfolio carries a lot of risk, but also offsets what you're worried about. Outside of government confiscation of foreign accounts (if your foreign investments are held through a local brokerage), you should be good. What to do about government confiscation? Even the US government (in 1933) confiscated physical gold (and they made it illegal to own) - so even physical resources can be confiscated during hard times. Quite a large portion of my foreign investments have been bought at an expensive time when our currency is already around historic lows, which does concern me in the event that it strengthens in future. What strategy should I take in the future if/when my local currency starts the strengthen...do I hold my foreign investments through it and just trust in cost averaging long term, or try sell them off to avoid the devaluation? Are these foreign investments a hedge? If so, then you shouldn't worry if your currency does strengthen; they serve the purpose of hedging the local environment. If these investments are not a hedge, then timing will matter and you'll want to sell and buy your currency before it does strengthen. The risk on this latter point is that your timing will be wrong.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0553814a9908284b274dbf815cae7682", "text": "The article http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/15/bearstearns-lehman-compliance-pf-ii-in_js_0915soapbox_inl.html does a nice job explaining SIPC insurance coverage. The coverage is currently $500k total / 250k of which can be cash, that's the one update I'd offer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca440ee1e73227aa5ca1ba0c59bff1fa", "text": "For cash, SIPC insurance is similar to FDIC insurance. Your losses are not covered, but you're covered in case of fraud. Since your cash is supposed to be in a trust account and not commingled with brokerage's funds, in case of bankruptcy you would still have your cash unless there was fraud.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bfe5f2d434119bfe551f072cfae1166", "text": "\"Depends. The short answer is yes; HSBC, for instance, based in New York, is listed on both the LSE and NYSE. Toyota's listed on the TSE and NYSE. There are many ways to do this; both of the above examples are the result of a corporation owning a subsidiary in a foreign country by the same name (a holding company), which sells its own stock on the local market. The home corporation owns the majority holdings of the subsidiary, and issues its own stock on its \"\"home country's\"\" exchange. It is also possible for the same company to list shares of the same \"\"pool\"\" of stock on two different exchanges (the foreign exchange usually lists the stock in the corporation's home currency and the share prices are near-identical), or for a company to sell different portions of itself on different exchanges. However, these are much rarer; for tax liability and other cost purposes it's usually easier to keep American monies in America and Japanese monies in Japan by setting up two \"\"copies\"\" of yourself with one owning the other, and move money around between companies as necessary. Shares of one issue of one company's stock, on one exchange, are the same price regardless of where in the world you place a buy order from. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll pay the same actual value of currency for the stock. First off, you buy the stock in the listed currency, which means buying dollars (or Yen or Euros or GBP) with both a fluctuating exchange rate between currencies and a broker's fee (one of those cost savings that make it a good idea to charter subsidiaries; could you imagine millions a day in car sales moving from American dealers to Toyota of Japan, converted from USD to Yen, with a FOREX commission to be paid?). Second, you'll pay the stock broker a commission, and he may charge different rates for different exchanges that are cheaper or more costly for him to do business in (he might need a trader on the floor at each exchange or contract with a foreign broker for a cut of the commission).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aad964023bfe20997bec03f865987ce6", "text": "\"Given that such activities are criminal and the people committing them have to hide them from the law, it's very unlikely that an investor could detect them, let alone one from a different country. The only things that can realistically help is to keep in mind the adage \"\"If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is\"\", and to stick to relatively large companies, since they have more auditing requirements and fraud is much harder to hide at scale (but not impossible, see Enron). Edit: and, of course, diversify. This kind of thing is rare, and not systematic, so diversification is a very good protection.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d53e34fe02d98329fad8b4a92043b8fb", "text": "not a chance. imagine how this could be abused. US stock exchanges rarely ever do any reversing of transactions. theres a million different ways the market can take your money. a loss from a typo is nothing special. its a mismanagement just like any other loss or profit for others.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c1c1437ed0dd486a5e53b6e385afb39", "text": "A protection similar to FDIC for banks is provided to brokerage accounts' owners by SIPC. Neither FDIC nor SIPC provide protection or insurance against identity thefts or frauds, only bank/brokerage failures. Your investment losses are obviously not insured either. For fraud liability check your bank/brokerage policies, you can get insurance for identity theft from your insurance provider (its an optional coverage with many home-owner/renter insurance policies).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f61879cd5e304871fb2370501d01e5f", "text": "\"How are derivatives like covered warrants or CFDs different from the bucket shops that were made illegal in the US? After reading up a little on the topic, the core difference seems to be that bucket shops were basically running betting pools, with everyone betting against the operator, whereas CFDs and similar derivatives are traded between speculators and the operator merely provides a market and checks the liquidity of participants. A CW seems to be a different matter that I'm not fully sure I understand (at least the description of Wikipedia seems to contradict your statement about not trade being performed on the underlying security). Should I worry that some regulator decides that my \"\"market maker\"\" is an illegal gambling operation? Not really. Nations with a mature financial industry (like Japan) invariably have heavy regulations that mandate constant auditing of institutions that sell financial instruments. In Japan, the Financial Services Agency is in charge of this. It's almost impossible that they would let an institution operate and later decide that its basic business model is illegal. What is possible are mainly two scenarios:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e6c723d9270816257b82bf1b4ecf93d7", "text": "\"If I buy the one from NSY, is it the \"\"real\"\" Sinopec? No - you are buying an American Depository Receipt. Essentially some American bank or other entity holds a bunch of Sinopec stock and issues certificates to the American exchange that American investors can trade. This insulates the American investors from the cost of international transactions. The price of these ADRs should mimic the price of the underlying stock (including changes the currency exchange rate) otherwise an arbitrage opportunity would exist. Other than that, the main difference between holding the ADR and the actual stock is that ADRs do not have voting rights. So if that is not important to you then for all intents and purposes trading the ADR would be the same as trading the underlying stock.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
70da672ef3424b7bd1663ead5e496918
Are binary options really part of trading?
[ { "docid": "4825e8a0962649b6904d3c1bcab7a93b", "text": "\"you bet that a quote/currency/stock market/anything will rise or fall within a period of time. ... So, what is the relationship with trading ? I see no trading at all since I don't buy or sell quotes. So, if you just wander in and say \"\"oh, hey, look, a bunch of options, i'm going to play games and have excitement\"\" then that is, in fact, some sort of gambling. Indeed, most trading activities will be like that to you. On the other hand, you might be engaged in other business where those things matter. You might be doing a lot of trading elsewhere in the market, for instance, and suddenly everyone freaks out and the stock market goes crazy and you lose a ton of money. To protect yourself from losing a ton of money, you might buy a binary option based on VIX (the volatility index) going over a certain level. If you're not in a business where you're buying it to protect yourself, then you should probably only buy the options if you have reason to think it'll be profitable and worth the risk. If you don't understand the risks, skip it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d35cff4fb7363e321d88241932eab2a0", "text": "\"If I really understood it, you bet that a quote/currency/stock market/anything will rise or fall within a period of time. So, what is the relationship with trading ? I see no trading at all since I don't buy or sell quotes. You are not betting as in \"\"betting on the outcome of an horse race\"\" where the money of the participants is redistributed to the winners of the bet. You are betting on the price movement of a security. To do that you have to buy/sell the option that will give you the profit or the loss. In your case, you would be buying or selling an option, which is a financial contract. That's trading. Then, since anyone should have the same technic (call when a currency rises and put when it falls)[...] How can you know what will be the future rate of exchange of currencies? It's not because the price went up for the last minutes/hours/days/months/years that it will continue like that. Because of that everyone won't have the same strategy. Also, not everyone is using currencies to speculate, there are firms with real needs that affect the market too, like importers and exporters, they will use financial products to protect themselves from Forex rates, not to make profits from them. [...] how the brokers (websites) can make money ? The broker (or bank) will either: I'm really afraid to bet because I think that they can bankrupt at any time! Are my fears correct ? There is always a probability that a company can go bankrupt. But that's can be very low probability. Brokers are usually not taking risks and are just being intermediaries in financial transactions (but sometime their computer systems have troubles.....), thanks to that, they are not likely to go bankrupt you after you buy your option. Also, they are regulated to insure that they are solid. Last thing, if you fear losing money, don't trade. If you do trade, only play with money you can afford to lose as you are likely to lose some (maybe all) money in the process.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1454b67dd5563224fd6d085491ecb8c0", "text": "As far as I have read, yes binary option is a part of trading. I saw tutorials on many sites like investopedia.com , verifyproducts.com etc. which clearly shows that in binary options, trader has to take a yes or no position on the price of any underlying asset and the resulting payoff will be either all or nothing. Due to such characteristic, it has become the easier way for beginners to enter in financial trading market.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8057d06cbcb766b7211eb29e90b52746", "text": "This sometimes happens to me. It depends on how liquid the option is. Normally what I see happening is that the order book mutates itself around my order. I interpret this to mean that the order book is primarily market makers. They see a retail investor (me) come in and, since they don't have any interest in this illiquid option, they back off. Some other retail investor (or whatever) steps in with a market order, and we get matched up. I get a fill because I become the market maker for a brief while. On highly liquid options, buy limits at the bid tend to get swallowed because the market makers are working the spread. With very small orders (a contract or two) on very liquid options, I've had luck getting quick fills in the middle of the spread, which I attribute to MM's rebalancing their holdings on the cheap, although sometimes I like to think there's some other anal-retentive like me out there that hates to see such a lopsided book. :) I haven't noticed any particular tendency for this to happen more with puts or calls, or with buy vs sell transactions. For a while I had a suspicion that this was happening with strikes where IV didn't match IV of other strikes, but I never cared enough to chase it down as it was a minor part of my overall P/L.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98ca4d549287c7ab43dc505cd88d3e6b", "text": "Not that I am aware. There are times that an option is available, but none have traded yet, and it takes a request to get a bid/ask, or you can make an offer and see if it's accepted. But the option chain itself has to be open.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "138fc9063c2e29695bc29c3ad98f991c", "text": "Just romped a competition my school had, won $100. I'm not participating in this, but the key is to trade options. I made 244% in 2 months off only 3 trades. Won another competition last semester in my investment analysis class as well", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a1a98051b627a029a57786061576c51", "text": "\"Options have legitimate uses as a way of hedging a bet, but in the hands of anyone but an expert they're gambling, not investing. They are EXTREMELY volatile compared to normal stocks, and are one of the best ways to lose your shirt in the stock market yet invented. How options actually work is that you're negotiating a promise that, at some future date or range of dates, they will let you purchase some specific number of shares (call), or they will let you sell them that number of shares (put), at a price specified in the option contract. The price you pay (or are paid) to obtain that contract depends on what the option's seller thinks the stock is likely to be worth when it reaches that date. (Note that if you don't already own the shares needed to back up a put option, you're promising to pay whatever it takes to buy those shares so you can sell them at the agreed upon price.) Note that by definition you're betting directly against experts, as opposed to a normal investment where you're usually trying to ride along with the experts. You are claiming that you can predict the future value of the stock better than they can, and that you will make a profit (on the difference between the value locked in by the option and the actual value at that time) which exceeds the cost of purchasing the option in the first place. Let me say that again: the option's price will have been set based on an expert's opinion of what the stock is likely to do in that time. If they think that it's really likely to be up $10 per share when the option comes due (really unlikely for a $20 stock!!!), they will try to charge you almost $10 per share to purchase the option at the current price. \"\"Almost\"\" because you're giving them a guaranteed profit now and assuming all the risk. If they're less sure it will go up that much, you'll pay less for the option -- but again, you're giving them hard money now and betting that you can predict the probabilities better than they can. Unless you have information that the experts don't have -- in which case you're probably committing insider trading -- this is a very hard bet to win. And it can be extremely misleading, since the price during the option period may cross back and forth over the \"\"enough that you'll make a profit\"\" line many times. Until you actually commit to exercising the option or not, that's all imaginary money which may vanish the next minute. Unless you are willing and able to invest pro-level resources in this, you'd probably get better odds in Atlantic City, and definitely get better odds in Las Vegas. If you don't see the sucker at the poker table, he's sitting in your seat. And betting against the guy who designed and is running the game is usually Not a Good Idea.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "12a44f72bcc6e299b061b76187cd394b", "text": "\"Great answer by @duffbeer. Only thing to add is that the option itself becomes a tradeable asset. Here's my go at filling out the answer from @duffbeer. \"\"Hey kid... So you have this brand-new video game Manic Mazes that you paid $50 for on Jan 1st that you want to sell two months from now\"\" \"\"Yes, Mr. Video Game Broker, but I want to lock in a price so I know how much to save for a new Tickle Me Elmo for my baby sister.\"\" \"\"Ok, for $3, I'll sell you a 'Put' option so you can sell the game to me for $40 in two months.\"\" Kid says \"\"Ok!\"\", sends $3 to Mr Game Broker who sends our kid a piece of paper saying: The holder of this piece of paper can sell the game Manic Mazes to Mr Game Broker for $40 on March 1st. .... One month later .... News comes out that Manic Mazes is full of bugs, and the price in the shops is heavily discounted to $30. Mr Options Trader realizes that our kid holds a contract written by Mr Game Broker which effectively allows our kid to sell the game at $10 over the price of the new game, so maybe about $15 over the price in the second-hand market (which he reckons might be about $25 on March 1st). He calls up our kid. \"\"Hey kid, you know that Put option that Mr Game Broker sold to you you a month ago, wanna sell it to me for $13?\"\" (He wants to get it a couple of bucks cheaper than his $15 fair valuation.) Kid thinks: hmmm ... that would be a $10 net profit for me on that Put Option, but I wouldn't be able to sell the game for $40 next month, I'd likely only get something like $25 for it. So I would kind-of be getting $10 now rather than potentially getting $12 in a month. Note: The $12 is because there could be $15 from exercising the put option (selling for $40 a game worth only $25 in the second-hand market) minus the original cost of $3 for the Put option. Kid likes the idea and replies: \"\"Done!\"\". Next day kid sends the Put option contract to Mr Options Trader and receives $13 in return. Our kid bought the Put option and later sold it for a profit, and all of this happened before the option reached its expiry date.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cde1f27c0432fe1c2c56d9cb5231181", "text": "If you're into math, do this thought experiment: Consider the outcome X of a random walk process (a stock doesn't behave this way, but for understanding the question you asked, this is useful): On the first day, X=some integer X1. On each subsequent day, X goes up or down by 1 with probability 1/2. Let's think of buying a call option on X. A European option with a strike price of S that expires on day N, if held until that day and then exercised if profitable, would yield a value Y = min(X[N]-S, 0). This has an expected value E[Y] that you could actually calculate. (should be related to the binomial distribution, but my probability & statistics hat isn't working too well today) The market value V[k] of that option on day #k, where 1 < k < N, should be V[k] = E[Y]|X[k], which you can also actually calculate. On day #N, V[N] = Y. (the value is known) An American option, if held until day #k and then exercised if profitable, would yield a value Y[k] = min(X[k]-S, 0). For the moment, forget about selling the option on the market. (so, the choices are either exercise it on some day #k, or letting it expire) Let's say it's day k=N-1. If X[N-1] >= S+1 (in the money), then you have two choices: exercise today, or exercise tomorrow if profitable. The expected value is the same. (Both are equal to X[N-1]-S). So you might as well exercise it and make use of your money elsewhere. If X[N-1] <= S-1 (out of the money), the expected value is 0, whether you exercise today, when you know it's worthless, or if you wait until tomorrow, when the best case is if X[N-1]=S-1 and X[N] goes up to S, so the option is still worthless. But if X[N-1] = S (at the money), here's where it gets interesting. If you exercise today, it's worth 0. If wait until tomorrow, there's a 1/2 chance it's worth 0 (X[N]=S-1), and a 1/2 chance it's worth 1 (X[N]=S+1). Aha! So the expected value is 1/2. Therefore you should wait until tomorrow. Now let's say it's day k=N-2. Similar situation, but more choices: If X[N-2] >= S+2, you can either sell it today, in which case you know the value = X[N-2]-S, or you can wait until tomorrow, when the expected value is also X[N-2]-S. Again, you might as well exercise it now. If X[N-2] <= S-2, you know the option is worthless. If X[N-2] = S-1, it's worth 0 today, whereas if you wait until tomorrow, it's either worth an expected value of 1/2 if it goes up (X[N-1]=S), or 0 if it goes down, for a net expected value of 1/4, so you should wait. If X[N-2] = S, it's worth 0 today, whereas tomorrow it's either worth an expected value of 1 if it goes up, or 0 if it goes down -> net expected value of 1/2, so you should wait. If X[N-2] = S+1, it's worth 1 today, whereas tomorrow it's either worth an expected value of 2 if it goes up, or 1/2 if it goes down (X[N-1]=S) -> net expected value of 1.25, so you should wait. If it's day k=N-3, and X[N-3] >= S+3 then E[Y] = X[N-3]-S and you should exercise it now; or if X[N-3] <= S-3 then E[Y]=0. But if X[N-3] = S+2 then there's an expected value E[Y] of (3+1.25)/2 = 2.125 if you wait until tomorrow, vs. exercising it now with a value of 2; if X[N-3] = S+1 then E[Y] = (2+0.5)/2 = 1.25, vs. exercise value of 1; if X[N-3] = S then E[Y] = (1+0.5)/2 = 0.75 vs. exercise value of 0; if X[N-3] = S-1 then E[Y] = (0.5 + 0)/2 = 0.25, vs. exercise value of 0; if X[N-3] = S-2 then E[Y] = (0.25 + 0)/2 = 0.125, vs. exercise value of 0. (In all 5 cases, wait until tomorrow.) You can keep this up; the recursion formula is E[Y]|X[k]=S+d = {(E[Y]|X[k+1]=S+d+1)/2 + (E[Y]|X[k+1]=S+d-1) for N-k > d > -(N-k), when you should wait and see} or {0 for d <= -(N-k), when it doesn't matter and the option is worthless} or {d for d >= N-k, when you should exercise the option now}. The market value of the option on day #k should be the same as the expected value to someone who can either exercise it or wait. It should be possible to show that the expected value of an American option on X is greater than the expected value of a European option on X. The intuitive reason is that if the option is in the money by a large enough amount that it is not possible to be out of the money, the option should be exercised early (or sold), something a European option doesn't allow, whereas if it is nearly at the money, the option should be held, whereas if it is out of the money by a large enough amount that it is not possible to be in the money, the option is definitely worthless. As far as real securities go, they're not random walks (or at least, the probabilities are time-varying and more complex), but there should be analogous situations. And if there's ever a high probability a stock will go down, it's time to exercise/sell an in-the-money American option, whereas you can't do that with a European option. edit: ...what do you know: the computation I gave above for the random walk isn't too different conceptually from the Binomial options pricing model.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "582717eb89dc9346c0ff6f09069b1c98", "text": "\"It depends on the volatility of the underlying stock. But for \"\"normal\"\" levels of volatility, the real value of that option is probably $3.50! Rough estimates of the value of the option depending on volatility levels: Bottom line: unless this is a super volatile stock, it is trading at $3.50 for a reason. More generally: it is extremely rare to find obvious arbitrage opportunities in the market.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e757a872f296ab3a1f8eeb62ebb919e2", "text": "Exchange traded options are issued in a way that there is no counter party risk. Consider, stocks and options are held in street name. So, for example, if I am short and you are long shares, no matter what happens on my end, your shares are yours. To be complete, it's possible to enter into a direct deal, where you have a contract for some non-standard option, but that would be very rare for the average investor.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b3223e6c6ae497ac0cf50ce1b853081", "text": "Yes, theoretically you can flip the shares you agreed to buy and make a profit, but you're banking on the market behaving in some very precise and potentially unlikely ways. In practice it's very tricky for you to successfully navigate paying arbitrarily more for a stock than it's currently listed for, and selling it back again for enough to cover the difference. Yes, the price could drop to $28, but it could just as easily drop to $27.73 (or further) and now you're hurting, before even taking into account the potentially hefty commissions involved. Another way to think about it is to recognize that an option transaction is a bet; the buyer is betting a small amount of money that a stock will move in the direction they expect, the seller is betting a large amount of money that the same stock will not. One of you has to lose. And unless you've some reason to be solidly confident in your predictive powers the loser, long term, is quite likely to be you. Now that said, it is possible (particularly when selling puts) to create win-win scenarios for yourself, where you're betting one direction, but you'd be perfectly happy with the alternative(s). Here's an example. Suppose, unrelated to the option chain, you've come to the conclusion that you'd be happy paying $28 for BBY. It's currently (June 2011) at ~$31, so you can't buy it on the open market for a price you'd be happy with. But you could sell a $28 put, promising to buy it at that price should someone want to sell it (presumably, because the price is now below $28). Either the put expires worthless and you pocket a few bucks and you're basically no worse off because the stock is still overpriced by your estimates, or the option is executed, and you receive 100 shares of BBY at a price you previously decided you were willing to pay. Even if the list price is now lower, long term you expect the stock to be worth more than $28. Conceptually, this makes selling a put very similar to being paid to place a limit order to buy the stock itself. Of course, you could be wrong in your estimate (too low, and you now have a position that might not become profitable; too high, and you never get in and instead just watch the stock gain in value), but that is not unique to options - if you're bad at estimating value (which is not to be confused with predicting price movement) you're doomed just about whatever you do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89940e315a6cc1493916b85e348e62eb", "text": "In my experience thanks to algorithmic trading the variation of the spread and the range of trading straight after a major data release will be as random as possible, since we live in an age that if some pattern existed at these times HFT firms would take out any opportunity within nanoseconds. Remember that some firms write algorithms to predict other algorithms, and it is at times like those that this strategy would be most effective. With regards to my own trading experience I have seen orders fill almost €400 per contract outside of the quoted range, but this is only in the most volatile market conditions. Generally speaking, event investing around numbers like these are only for top wall street firms that can use co-location servers and get a ping time to the exchange of less than 5ms. Also, after a data release the market can surge/plummet in either direction, only to recover almost instantly and take out any stops that were in its path. So generally, I would say that slippage is extremely unpredictable in these cases( because it is an advantage to HFT firms to make it so ) and stop-loss orders will only provide limited protection. There is stop-limit orders( which allow you to specify a price limit that is acceptable ) on some markets and as far as I know InteractiveBrokers provide a guaranteed stop-loss fill( For a price of course ) that could be worth looking at, personally I dont use IB. I hope this answer provides some helpful information, and generally speaking, super-short term investing is for algorithms.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f421dbba401128f5f86359abcdc613db", "text": "1) Yes, both of your scenarios would lead to earning $10 on the transaction, at the strike date. If you purchased both of them (call it Scenario 3), you would make $20. 2) As to why this transaction may not be possible, consider the following: The Call and Put pricing you describe may not be available. What you have actually created is called 'arbitrage' - 2 identical assets can be bought and sold at different prices, leading to a zero-risk gain for the investor. In the real marketplace, if an option to buy asset X in January cost $90, would an option to sell asset X in January provide $110? Without adding additional complexity about the features of asset x or the features of the options, buying a Call option is the same as selling a Put option [well, when selling a Put option you don't have the ability to choose whether the option is exercised, meaning buying options has value that selling options does not, but ignore that for a moment]. That means that you have arranged a marketplace where you would buy a Call option for only $90, but the seller of that same option would somehow receive $110. For added clarity, consider the following: What if, in your example, the future price ended up being $200? Then, you could exercise your call option, buying a share for $90, selling it for $200, making $110 profit. You would not exercise your put option, making your total profit $110. Now consider: What if, in your example, the future price ended up being $10? You would buy for $10, exercise your put option and sell for $110, making a profit of $100. You would not exercise your call option, making your total profit $100. This highlights that if your initial assumptions existed, you would earn money (at least $20, and at most, unlimited based on a skyrocketing price compared to your $90 put option) regardless of the future price. Therefore such a scenario would not exist in the initial pricing of the options. Now perhaps there is an initial fee involved with the options, where the buyer or seller pays extra money up-front, regardless of the future price. That is a different scenario, and gets into the actual nature of options, where investors will arrange multiple simultaneous transactions in order to limit risk and retain reward within a certain band of future prices. As pointed out by @Nick R, this fee would be very significant, for a call option which had a price set below the current price. Typically, options are sold 'out of the money' initially, which means that at the current share price (at the time the option is purchased), executing the option would lose you money. If you purchase an 'in the money' option, the transaction cost initially would by higher than any apparent gain you might have by immediately executing the option. For a more realistic Options example, assume that it costs $15 initially to buy either the Call option, or the Put option. In that case, after buying both options as listed in your scenarios you would earn a profit if the share price exceeded $120 [The $120 sale price less the $90 call option = $30, which is your total fee initially], or dropped below $80 [The $110 Put price less the $80 purchase price = $30]. This type of transaction implies that you expect the price to either swing up, or swing down, but not fall within the band between $80-$120. Perhaps you might do this if there was an upcoming election or other known event, which might be a failure or success, and you think the market has not properly accounted for either scenario in advance. I will leave further discussion on that topic [arranging options of different prices to create specific bands of profitability / loss] to another answer (or other questions which likely already exist on this site, or in fact, other resources), because it gets more complicated after that point, and is outside the root of your question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bba854ffdfbf0f35c47ae1787697e656", "text": "One broker told me that I have to simply read the ask size and the bid size, seeing what the market makers are offering. This implies that my order would have to match that price exactly, which is unfortunate because options contract spreads can be WIDE. Also, if my planned position size is larger than the best bid/best ask, then I should break up the order, which is also unfortunate because most brokers charge a lot for options orders.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ffa363ff5c09f42ad29c604cfe28039c", "text": "The option is exercised. The option is converted into shares. That is an optional condition in closing that contract, hence why they are called options.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebf74e54b59ea99d8e2245b5c5a37902", "text": "\"With stocks, you can buy or sell. If you sell first, that's called 'shorting.' As in \"\"I think linkedin is too high, I'm going to short it.\"\" With options, the terminology is different, the normal process is to buy to open/sell to close, but if you were shorting the option itself, you would first sell to open, i.e you are selling a position to start it, effectively selling it short. Eventually, you may close it out, by buying to close. Options trading is not for the amateur. If you plan to trade, study first and be very cautious.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "237b1c1a094558c6992a1cef49690e5c", "text": "\"Defining parity as \"\"parity is the amount by which an option is in the money\"\", I'd say there may be an arbitrage opportunity. If there's a $50 strike on a stock valued at $60 that I can buy for less than $10, there's an opportunity. Keep in mind, options often show high spreads, my example above might show a bid/ask of $9.75/$10.25, in which case the last trade of $9.50 should be ignored in favor of the actual ask price you'd pay. Mispricing can exist, but in this day and age, is far less likely.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
f916c871ecaae75630e5c14ed14a4ec2
Are mutual funds safe from defaults?
[ { "docid": "88df300e6b133556974c6289f78c352f", "text": "The only way for a mutual fund to default is if it inflated the NAV. I.e.: it reports that its investments worth more than they really are. Then, in case of a run on the fund, it may end up defaulting since it won't have the money to redeem shares at the NAV it published. When does it happen? When the fund is mismanaged or is a scam. This happened, for example, to the fund Madoff was managing. This is generally a sign of a Ponzi scheme or embezzlement. How can you ensure the funds you invest in are not affected by this? You'll have to read the fund reports, check the independent auditors' reports and check for clues. Generally, this is the job of the SEC - that's what they do as regulators. But for smaller funds, and private (i.e.: not public) investment companies, SEC may not be posing too much regulations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c57466025d8d434473eb16e19950d95", "text": "There are very strict regulations that requires the assets which a fund buys on behalf of its investors to be kept completely separate from the fund's own assets (which it uses to pay its expenses), except for the published fees. Funds are typically audited regularly to ensure this is the case. So the only way in which a default of the fund could cause a loss of invstor money would be if the fund managers broke the regulations and committed various crimes. I've never heard of this actually happening to a normal mutual fund. There is of course also a default risk when a fund buys bonds or other non-equity securities, and this may sometimes be non-obvious. For example, some ETFs which are nominally based on a stock index don't actually buy stocks; instead they buy or sell options on those stocks, which involves a counterparty risk. The ETF may or may not have rules that limit the exposure to any one counterparty.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a4108de7a8c8f8819cef2931d529cda", "text": "There is a measure of protection for investors. It is not the level of protection provided by FDIC or NCUA but it does exist: Securities Investor Protection Corporation What SIPC Protects SIPC protects against the loss of cash and securities – such as stocks and bonds – held by a customer at a financially-troubled SIPC-member brokerage firm. The limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash. Most customers of failed brokerage firms when assets are missing from customer accounts are protected. There is no requirement that a customer reside in or be a citizen of the United States. A non-U.S. citizen with an account at a brokerage firm that is a member of SIPC is treated the same as a resident or citizen of the United States with an account at a brokerage firm that is a member of SIPC. SIPC protection is limited. SIPC only protects the custody function of the broker dealer, which means that SIPC works to restore to customers their securities and cash that are in their accounts when the brokerage firm liquidation begins. SIPC does not protect against the decline in value of your securities. SIPC does not protect individuals who are sold worthless stocks and other securities. SIPC does not protect claims against a broker for bad investment advice, or for recommending inappropriate investments. It is important to recognize that SIPC protection is not the same as protection for your cash at a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured banking institution because SIPC does not protect the value of any security. Investments in the stock market are subject to fluctuations in market value. SIPC was not created to protect these risks. That is why SIPC does not bail out investors when the value of their stocks, bonds and other investment falls for any reason. Instead, in a liquidation, SIPC replaces the missing stocks and other securities when it is possible to do so.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e431c2f9d469ccc33da64dbcf88180e7", "text": "Short-term to intermediate-term corporate bond funds are available. The bond fund vehicle helps manage the credit risk, while the short terms help manage inflation and interest rate risk. Corporate bond funds will have fewer Treasuries bonds than a general-purpose short-term bond fund: it sounds like you're interested in things further out along the risk curve than a 0.48% return on a 5-year bond, and thus don't care for the Treasuries. Corporate bonds are generally safer than stocks because, in bankruptcy, all your bondholders have to be paid in full before any equity-holders get a penny. Stocks are much more volatile, since they're essentially worth the value of their profits after paying all their debt, taxes, and other expenses. As far as stocks are concerned, they're not very good for the short term at all. One of the stabler stock funds would be something like the Vanguard Equity Income Fund, and it cautions: This fund is designed to provide investors with an above-average level of current income while offering exposure to the stock market. Since the fund typically invests in companies that are dedicated to consistently paying dividends, it may have a higher yield than other Vanguard stock mutual funds. The fund’s emphasis on slower-growing, higher-yielding companies can also mean that its total return may not be as strong in a significant bull market. This income-focused fund may be appropriate for investors who have a long-term investment goal and a tolerance for stock market volatility. Even the large-cap stable companies can have their value fall dramatically in the short term. Look at its price chart; 2008 was brutal. Avoid stocks if you need to spend your money within a couple of years. Whatever you choose, read the prospectus to understand the risks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6216c82a3e886b3a0bbedc9202cbea4a", "text": "\"I experimented with Lending Club, lending a small amount of money in early 2008. (Nice timing right - the recession was December 2007 to June 2009.) I have a few loans still outstanding, but most have prepaid or defaulted by now. I did not reinvest as payments came in. Based on my experience, one \"\"catch\"\" is lack of liquidity. It's like buying individual bonds rather than a mutual fund. Your money is NOT just tied up for the 3-year loan term, because to get good returns you have to keep reinvesting as people pay off their loans. So you always have some just-reinvested money with the full 3 year term left, and that's how long it would take to get all your money back out. You can't just cash out when you feel like it. They have a trading platform (which I did not try out) if you want your money sooner, but I would guess the spreads are wide and you have to take a hit when you sell loans. Again though I did not try the trading platform. On the upside, the yields did seem fine. I got 19 eventual defaults from 81 loans, but many of the borrowers made a number of payments before defaulting so only part of the money was lost. The lower credit ratings default more often obviously, only one of 19 defaults had the top credit score. (I tried investing across a range of credit ratings.) The interest rates appear to cover the risk of default, at least on average. You can of course have varying luck. I made only a slight profit over the 3 years, but I did not reinvest after the first couple months, and it was during a recession. So the claimed yields look plausible to me if you reinvest. They do get people's credit scores, report nonpayment on people's credit reports, and even send people to collections. Seems like borrowers have a reason to pay the bill. In 2008 I think this was a difference compared to the other peer lending sites, but I don't know if that's still true. Anyway, for what it's worth the site seemed to work fine and \"\"as advertised\"\" for me. I probably will not invest more money there for a couple reasons: However as best I could tell from my experiment, it is a perfectly reasonable place to put a portion of your portfolio you might otherwise invest in something like high-yield bonds or some other sub-investment-grade fixed income. Update: here's a useful NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/your-money/05money.html\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5790337078c1c0fd24948a1f5458e974", "text": "Your idea is a good one, but, as usual, the devil is in the details, and implementation might not be as easy as you think. The comments on the question have pointed out your Steps 2 and 4 are not necessarily the best way of doing things, and that perhaps keeping the principal amount invested in the same fund instead of taking it all out and re-investing it in a similar, but different, fund might be better. The other points for you to consider are as follows. How do you identify which of the thousands of conventional mutual funds and ETFs is the average-risk / high-gain mutual fund into which you will place your initial investment? Broadly speaking, most actively managed mutual fund with average risk are likely to give you less-than-average gains over long periods of time. The unfortunate truth, to which many pay only Lipper service, is that X% of actively managed mutual funds in a specific category failed to beat the average gain of all funds in that category, or the corresponding index, e.g. S&P 500 Index for large-stock mutual funds, over the past N years, where X is generally between 70 and 100, and N is 5, 10, 15 etc. Indeed, one of the arguments in favor of investing in a very low-cost index fund is that you are effectively guaranteed the average gain (or loss :-(, don't forget the possibility of loss). This, of course, is also the argument used against investing in index funds. Why invest in boring index funds and settle for average gains (at essentially no risk of not getting the average performance: average performance is close to guaranteed) when you can get much more out of your investments by investing in a fund that is among the (100-X)% funds that had better than average returns? The difficulty is that which funds are X-rated and which non-X-rated (i.e. rated G = good or PG = pretty good), is known only in hindsight whereas what you need is foresight. As everyone will tell you, past performance does not guarantee future results. As someone (John Bogle?) said, when you invest in a mutual fund, you are in the position of a rower in rowboat: you can see where you have been but not where you are going. In summary, implementation of your strategy needs a good crystal ball to look into the future. There is no such things as a guaranteed bond fund. They also have risks though not necessarily the same as in a stock mutual fund. You need to have a Plan B in mind in case your chosen mutual fund takes a longer time than expected to return the 10% gain that you want to use to trigger profit-taking and investment of the gain into a low-risk bond fund, and also maybe a Plan C in case the vagaries of the market cause your chosen mutual fund to have negative return for some time. What is the exit strategy?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5dbae56ad4aca8a1caeb2c6a7ab08472", "text": "\"Your question is one of semantics. ETFs and mutual funds have many things in common and provide essentially the same service to investors with minimal differences. It's reasonably correct to say \"\"An ETF is a mutual fund that...\"\" and then follow up with some stuff that is not true of a typical mutual fund. You could do the same with, for example, a hedge fund. \"\"A hedge fund is a mutual fund that doesn't comply with most SEC regulations and thus is limited to accredited investors.\"\" As a matter of practice, when people say \"\"mutual fund\"\" they are talking about traditional mutual funds and pretty much never including ETFs. So is an ETF a mutual fund as the word is commonly used? No.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "282c4838e580e0be743822cbeeb88683", "text": "\"Liquid cash (emergency, rainy day fund) should be safe from a loss in value. Mutual funds don't give you this, especially stock funds. You can find \"\"high yield\"\" savings accounts that are now at around .8% to .9% APY which is much better than .05% and will hopefully go up. Barclays US and American Express are two big banks that normally have the highest rates. Most/all Savings and Money Market accounts should be FDIC insured. Mutual funds are not, though the investment IRA, etc. holding them may be.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "647740b4ae71f5a6f13b36593cb3f041", "text": "The default of the country will affect the country obligations and what's tied to it. If you have treasury bonds, for example - they'll get hit. If you have cash currency - it will get hit. If you're invested in the stock market, however, it may plunge, but will recover, and in the long run you won't get hit. If you're invested in foreign countries (through foreign currency or foreign stocks that you hold), then the default of your local government may have less affect there, if at all. What you should not, in my humble opinion, be doing is digging holes in the ground or probably not exchange all your cash for gold (although it is considered a safe anchor in case of monetary crisis, so may be worth considering some diversifying your portfolio with some gold). Splitting between banks might not make any difference at all because the value won't change, unless you think that one of the banks will fail (then just close the account there). The bottom line is that the key is diversifying, and you don't have to be a seasoned investor for that. I'm sure there are mutual funds in Greece, just pick several different funds (from several different companies) that provide diversified investment, and put your money there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7755f8c87469a7bce12e478865efa8ef", "text": "When interest rates rise, the price of bonds fall because bonds have a fixed coupon rate, and since the interest rate has risen, the bond's rate is now lower than what you can get on the market, so it's price falls because it's now less valuable. Bonds diversify your portfolio as they are considered safer than stocks and less volatile. However, they also provide less potential for gains. Although diversification is a good idea, for the individual investor it is far too complicated and incurs too much transaction costs, not to mention that rebalancing would have to be done on a regular basis. In your case where you have mutual funds already, it is probably a good idea to keep investing in mutual funds with a theme which you understand the industry's role in the economy today rather than investing in some special bonds which you cannot relate to. The benefit of having a mutual fund is to have a professional manage your money, and that includes diversification as well so that you don't have to do that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e502be83fed29fd4641cda992b6c127", "text": "\"Mutual funds can be relatively low risk and a good starting point. Really it depends on you. What are your goals? This is a pretty open ended question. These can all be low risk and provide some return. Note \"\"Less Knowledge\"\" is never a good qualifier for an investment. Your money is your business and you are entitled to know what your business is up to.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a92f7d57341d16580b73939484db1966", "text": "Risk. Volatility. Liquidity. Etc. All exist on a spectrum, these are all comparative measures. To the general question, is a mutual fund a good alternative to a savings account? No, but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea for your to allocate some of your assets in to one right now. Mutual funds, even low volatility stock/bond blended mutual funds with low fees still experience some volatility which is infinitely more volatility than a savings account. The point of a savings account is knowing for certain that your money will be there. Certainty lets you plan. Very simplistically, you want to set yourself up with a checking account, a savings account, then investments. This is really about near term planning. You need to buy lunch today, you need to pay your electricity bill today etc, that's checking account activity. You want to sock away money for a vacation, you have an unexpected car repair, these are savings account activities. This is your foundation. How much of a foundation you need will scale with your income and spending. Beyond your basic financial foundation you invest. What you invest in will depend on your willingness to pay attention and learn, and your general risk tolerance. Sure, in this day and age, it is easy to get money back out of an investment account, but you don't want to get in the habit of taping investments for every little thing. Checking: No volatility, completely liquid, no risk Savings: No volatility, very liquid, no principal risk Investments: (Pick your poison) The point is you carefully arrange your near term foundation so you can push up the risk and volatility in your investment endeavors. Your savings account might be spread between a vanilla savings account and some CDs or a money market fund, but never stock (including ETF/Mutual Funds and blended Stock/Bond funds). Should you move your savings account to this mutual fund, no. Should you maybe look at your finances and allocate some of your assets to this mutual fund, sure. Just look at where you stand once a year and adjust your checking and savings to your existing spending. Savings accounts aren't sexy and the yields are awful at the moment but that doesn't mean you go chasing yield. The idea is you want to insulate your investing from your day to day life so you can make unemotional deliberate investment decisions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1abc18736c5ab5314bf49da7f5ab4ea", "text": "Without providing direct investment advice, I can tell you that bond most assuredly are not recession-proof. All investments have risk, and each recession will impact asset-classes slightly differently. Before getting started, BONDS are LOANS. You are loaning money. Don't ever think of them as anything but that. Bonds/Loans have two chief risks: default risk and inflation risk. Default risk is the most obvious risk. This is when the person to whom you are loaning, does not pay back. In a recession, this can easily happen if the debtor is a company, and the company goes bankrupt in the recessionary environment. Inflation risk is a more subtle risk, and occurs when the (fixed) interest rate on your loan yields less than the inflation rate. This causes the 'real' value of your investment to depreciate over time. The second risk is most pronounced when the bonds that you own are government bonds, and the recession causes the government to be unable to pay back its debts. In these circumstances, the government may print more money to pay back its creditors, generating inflation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "600627b380e6ff8992b9348e5bac161f", "text": "There's some risk, but it's quite small: The only catastrophic case I can think of is if the brokerage firm defrauded you about purchasing the assets in the first place; e.g., when you ostensibly put money into a mutual fund, they just pocketed it and displayed a fictitious purchase on their web site. In that case, you'd have no real asset to legally recover. I think the more realistic risks you should be concerned with are: The only major brokerage firm that I'm aware of that accepts liability for theft is Charles Schwab: http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/legal_compliance/schwabsafe/security_guarantee.html If you're going to diversify for security reasons, be sure to use different passwords, email addresses, and secret question answers on the two accounts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a33d5eb9bc725b18b470d8583fd3aa9", "text": "\"I don't know whether you'd consider buying a single bond instead of a fund. Strips are Treasuries where the coupons have been \"\"stripped\"\" to produce debt instruments with a fixed maturity date. They pay zero interest. Their value comes from the fact that you buy them at a price less than 100 and they are worth exactly 100 at some point in the future. You can buy them with any year/month that you wish. They are backed by the federal government and are considered to have no default risk. Like most bonds the price is actually a percentage and they mature at a 100. The one that expires 9/30/2018 costs 91.60 and returns 100 on the expiration date. The price list is here There's more information about them here First of all, they are still T-bonds (in all but the most legalistic sense) which means they are the safest, most risk-free investment possible. The U.S. federal government has stellar credit and a record of never defaulting. These bonds have no call features, so the timing and distribution of bond payments cannot be altered by any foreseeable occurrence. They are sold at a known - and generally deep - discount off a known face value that can be redeemed at a known date, so buyers know exactly how much they will earn from an investment in STRIPS.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7efd44b6df5887ee927806d2e802c81", "text": "\"For instance he is recommending moving money into HYD which seems to have a higher risk at an average return ( for this asset class )ABHFX seems to have a higher return at a lower risk. Often [his recommendations] are on the lower end of best performing funds in the class. Historical Mutual Fund performance has little to no predictive power for future performance so this shouldn't be an immediate disqualification. Some good starting questions for you to evaluate a manager: Does this mean it's a mistake to use UBS (or any bank limited in its fund offerings from other institutions) as the \"\"wealth management\"\" institution? All wealth management institutions have restrictions on possible investments. Obviously, if your relative can't invest in the funds she wants that is an issue. Do these [Morningstar] ratings mean anything at all? This has been studied pretty carefully and the academic consensus appears to be that they have no consistant predictive power. Kräussl and Sandelowsky wrote a particularly comprehensive paper on the subject.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "041245ddb1f9ce5576e6d63afde087e8", "text": "\"The danger to your savings depends on how much sovereign debt your bank is holding. If the government defaults then the bank - if it is holding a lot of sovereign debt - could be short funds and not able to meet its obligations. I believe default is the best option for the Euro long term but it will be painful in the short term. Yes, historically governments have shut down banks to prevent people from withdrawing their money in times of crisis. See Argentina circa 2001 or US during Great Depression. The government prevented people from withdrawing their money and people could do nothing while their money rapidly lost value. (See the emergency banking act where Title I, Section 4 authorizes the US president:\"\"To make it illegal for a bank to do business during a national emergency (per section 2) without the approval of the President.\"\" FDR declared a banking holiday four days before the act was approved by Congress. This documentary on the crisis in Argentina follows a woman as she tries to withdraw her savings from her bank but the government has prevented her from withdrawing her money.) If the printing press is chosen to avoid default then this will allow banks and governments to meet their obligations. This, however, comes at the cost of a seriously debased euro (i.e. higher prices). The euro could then soon become a hot potato as everyone tries to get rid of them before the ECB prints more. The US dollar could meet the same fate. What can you do to avert these risks? Yes, you could exchange into another currency. Unfortunately the printing presses of most of the major central banks today are in overdrive. This may preserve your savings temporarily. I would purchase some gold or silver coins and keep them in your possession. This isolates you from the banking system and gold and silver have value anywhere you go. The coins are also portable in case things really start to get interesting. Attempt to purchase the coins with cash so there is no record of the purchase. This may not be possible.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a452388558c5efe9cfa6b7e1088836e9", "text": "\"Give me your money. I will invest it as I see fit. A year later I will return the capital to you, plus half of any profits or losses. This means that if your capital under my management ends up turning a profit, I will keep half of those profits, but if I lose you money, I will cover half those losses. Think about incentives. If you wanted an investment where your losses were only half as bad, but your gains were only half as good, then you could just invest half your assets in a risk-free investment. So if you want this hypothetical instrument because you want a different risk profile, you don't actually need anything new to get it. And what does the fund manager get out of this arrangement? She doesn't get anything you don't: she just gets half your gains, most of which she needs to set aside to be able to pay half your losses. The discrepancy between the gains and losses she gets to keep, which is exactly equal to your gain or loss. She could just invest her own money to get the same thing. But wait -- the fund manager didn't need to provide any capital. She got to play with your money (for free!) and keep half the profits. Not a bad deal, for her, perhaps... Here's the problem: No one cares about your thousands of dollars. The costs of dealing with you: accounting for your share, talking to you on the phone, legal expenses when you get angry, the paperwork when you need to make a withdrawal for some dental work, mailing statements and so on will exceed the returns that could be earned with your thousands of dollars. And then the SEC would probably get involved with all kinds of regulations so you, with your humble means and limited experience, isn't constantly getting screwed over by the big fund. Complying with the SEC is going to cost the fund manager something. The fund manager would have to charge a small \"\"administrative fee\"\" to make it worthwhile. And that's called a mutual fund. But if you have millions of free capital willing to give out, people take notice. Is there an instrument where a bunch of people give a manager capital for free, and then the investors and the manager share in the gains and losses? Yes, hedge funds! And this is why only the rich and powerful can participate in them: only they have enough capital to make this arrangement beneficial for the fund manager.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a691e711bbbf8d0ce686c057191372e4
How does the spread on an orderbook affect shorting?
[ { "docid": "aba856be4280e28f88d44a0ed5966ced", "text": "A bid is an offer to buy something on an order book, so for example you may post an offer to buy one share, at $5. An ask is an offer to sell something on an order book, at a set price. For example you may post an offer to sell shares at $6. A trade happens when there are bids/asks that overlap each other, or are at the same price, so there is always a spread of at least one of the smallest currency unit the exchange allows. Betting that the price of an asset will go down, traditionally by borrowing some of that asset and then selling it, hoping to buy it back at a lower price and pocket the difference (minus interest). So, let's say as per your example you borrow 100 shares of company 'X', expecting the price of them to go down. You take your shares to the market and sell them - you make a market sell order (a market 'ask'). This matches against a bid and you receive a price of $5 per share. Now, let's pretend that you change your mind and you think the price is going to go up, you instantly regret your decision. In order to pay back the shares, you now need to buy back your shares as $6 - which is the price off the ask offers on the order book. Because of this spread, you have lost money. You sold at a low price and bought at a high price, meaning it costs you more money to repay your borrowed shares. So, when you are shorting you need the spread to be as tight as possible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d502149a85e0fe587f5e0b9b1570ba9c", "text": "It this a real situation or is it a made up example? Because for a stock that has a last traded priced of $5 or $6 and volume traded over $4M (i.e. it seems to be quite liquid), it is hardly likely that the difference from bid to ask would be as large as $1 (maybe for a stock that has volume of 4 to 5 thousand, but not for one having volume of 4 to 5 million). In regards to your question, if you were short selling the order would go in exactly the same as if you were selling a stock you owned. So your order would be on the ask side and would need to be matched up with a price on the bid side for there to be a trade.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "5f504ec4770251af8ae3520601a718ca", "text": "To short a stock you actually borrow shares and sell them. The shorter gets the money from selling immediately, and pays interest for the share he borrows until he covers the short. The amount of interest varies depending on the stock. It's typically under 1% a year for large cap stocks, but can be 20% or more for small, illiquid, or heavily shorted stocks. In this scam only a few people own the shares that are lent to shorters, so they essentially have a monopoly and can set really high borrow costs. The shorter probably assumes that a pump-and-dump will crash quickly, so wouldn't mind paying a high borrow cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8057d06cbcb766b7211eb29e90b52746", "text": "This sometimes happens to me. It depends on how liquid the option is. Normally what I see happening is that the order book mutates itself around my order. I interpret this to mean that the order book is primarily market makers. They see a retail investor (me) come in and, since they don't have any interest in this illiquid option, they back off. Some other retail investor (or whatever) steps in with a market order, and we get matched up. I get a fill because I become the market maker for a brief while. On highly liquid options, buy limits at the bid tend to get swallowed because the market makers are working the spread. With very small orders (a contract or two) on very liquid options, I've had luck getting quick fills in the middle of the spread, which I attribute to MM's rebalancing their holdings on the cheap, although sometimes I like to think there's some other anal-retentive like me out there that hates to see such a lopsided book. :) I haven't noticed any particular tendency for this to happen more with puts or calls, or with buy vs sell transactions. For a while I had a suspicion that this was happening with strikes where IV didn't match IV of other strikes, but I never cared enough to chase it down as it was a minor part of my overall P/L.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e6390bc4bd318df463271b969ab2ba9", "text": "This has never really adequately explained it for me, and I've tried reading up on it all over the place. For a long time I thought that in a trade, the market maker pockets the spread *for that trade*, but that's not the case. The only sensible explanation I've found (which I'm not going to give in full...) is that the market maker will provide liquidity by buying and selling trades they have no actual view on (short or long), and if the spread is higher, that contributes directly to the amount they make over time when they open and close positions they've made. It would be great to see a single definitive example somewhere that shows how a market maker makes money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd9d434a2adaf3a25464738a3a6b48e3", "text": "Fair enough. I would imagine the ETF could get a better option pricing if that were the case, plus liquidity and counterpart risk concerns but your point is well taken. Serves me right to shoot my mouth off on something I do not do (short). Speaking of which, do you do a lot of shorting? Cover positions or speculation?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f66ae91750684fb0c60a2d4db4cbfe4", "text": "1) Explicitly, how a company's share price in the secondary market affects the company's operations. (Simply: How does it matter to a company that its share price drops?) I have a vague idea of the answer, but I'd like to see someone cover it in detail. 2) Negative yield curves, or bonds/bills with negative yields Thanks!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8761688711d9496cff3d147c2fd93d8", "text": "I don't think that the trading volume would impact a broker's ability to find shares to short. You might think that a lot more people are trying to short a stock during regular trading hours than in the pre-market, and that's probably true. But what's also true is that a lot more people are covering their shorts during regular trading hours than in the pre-market. For stocks that have difficulty in finding shares to short, any time someone covers a short is an opportunity for you to enter a short. If you want to short a stock and your broker is rejecting your order because they can't find shares to short, then I would recommend that you continue placing that order throughout the day. You might get lucky and submit one of those orders right after someone else has covered their short and before anyone else can enter a short. I have had success doing this in the past.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e215380be65e1d229d6662ffc05ffa45", "text": "A bullish (or 'long') call spread is actually two separate option trades. The A/B notation is, respectively, the strike price of each trade. The first 'leg' of the strategy, corresponding to B, is the sale of a call option at a strike price of B (in this case $165). The proceeds from this sale, after transaction costs, are generally used to offset the cost of the second 'leg'. The second 'leg' of the strategy, corresponding to A, is the purchase of a call option at a strike price of A (in this case $145). Now, the important part: the payoff. You can visualize it as so. This is where it gets a teeny bit math-y. Below, P is the profit of the strategy, K1 is the strike price of the long call, K2 is the strike price of the short call, T1 is the premium paid for the long call option at the time of purchase, T2 is the premium received for the short call at the time of sale, and S is the current price of the stock. For simplicity's sake, we will assume that your position quantity is a single option contract and transaction costs are zero (which they are not). P = (T2 - max(0, S - K2)) + (max(0, S - K1) - T1) Concretely, let's plug in the strikes of the strategy Nathan proposes, and current prices (which I pulled from the screen). You have: P = (1.85 - max(0, 142.50 - 165)) - (max(0, 142.50 - 145)) = -$7.80 If the stock goes to $150, the payoff is -$2.80, which isn't quite break even -- but it may have been at the time he was speaking on TV. If the stock goes to $165, the payoff is $12.20. Please do not neglect the cost of the trades! Trading options can be pretty expensive depending on the broker. Had I done this trade (quantity 1) at many popular brokers, I still would've been net negative PnL even if NFLX went to >= $165.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3372ab2c637d4541156521cfb61737d7", "text": "\"Learn something new every day... I found this interesting and thought I'd throw my 2c in. Good description (I hope) from Short Selling: What is Short Selling First, let's describe what short selling means when you purchase shares of stock. In purchasing stocks, you buy a piece of ownership in the company. You buy/sell stock to gain/sell ownership of a company. When an investor goes long on an investment, it means that he or she has bought a stock believing its price will rise in the future. Conversely, when an investor goes short, he or she is anticipating a decrease in share price. Short selling is the selling of a stock that the seller doesn't own. More specifically, a short sale is the sale of a security that isn't owned by the seller, but that is promised to be delivered. Still with us? Here's the skinny: when you short sell a stock, your broker will lend it to you. The stock will come from the brokerage's own inventory, from another one of the firm's customers, or from another brokerage firm. The shares are sold and the proceeds are credited to your account. Sooner or later, you must \"\"close\"\" the short by buying back the same number of shares (called covering) and returning them to your broker. If the price drops, you can buy back the stock at the lower price and make a profit on the difference. If the price of the stock rises, you have to buy it back at the higher price, and you lose money. So what happened? The Plan The Reality Lesson I never understood what \"\"Shorting a stock\"\" meant until today. Seems a bit risky for my blood, but I would assume this is an extreme example of what can go wrong. This guy literally chose the wrong time to short a stock that was, in all visible aspects, on the decline. How often does a Large Company or Individual buy stock on the decline... and send that stock soaring? How often does a stock go up 100% in 24 hours? 600%? Another example is recently when Oprah bought 10% of Weight Watchers and caused the stock to soar %105 in 24 hours. You would have rued the day you shorted that stock - on that particular day - if you believed enough to \"\"gamble\"\" on it going down in price.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0781f8a4ea12589a43b6447b9e7066ea", "text": "\"To summarize, there are three basic ways: (3) is the truly dangerous one. If there is a lot of short interest in a stock, but for some reason the stock goes up, suddenly a lot of people will be scrambling to buy that stock to cover their short position -- which will drive the price up even further, making the problem worse. Pretty soon, a bunch of smart rich guys will be poor guys who are suddenly very aware that they aren't as smart as they thought they were. Eight years ago, such a \"\"short squeeze\"\", as it's called, made the price of VW quadruple in two days. You could hear the Heinies howl from Hamburg to Haldenwanger. There are ways to protect yourself, of course. You can go short but also buy a call at a much higher price, thereby limiting your exposure, a strategy called a \"\"straddle\"\", but you also reduce your profit if you guessed right. It comes down to, as it always does, do you want to eat well, or to sleep well?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02d2b13e35b38e12d934800189817837", "text": "\"Below is just a little information on short selling from my small unique book \"\"The small stock trader\"\": Short selling is an advanced stock trading tool with unique risks and rewards. It is primarily a short-term trading strategy of a technical nature, mostly done by small stock traders, market makers, and hedge funds. Most small stock traders mainly use short selling as a short-term speculation tool when they feel the stock price is a bit overvalued. Most long-term short positions are taken by fundamental-oriented long/short equity hedge funds that have identified some major weaknesses in the company. There a few things you should consider before shorting stocks: Despite all the mystique and blame surrounding short selling, especially during bear markets, I personally think regular short selling, not naked short selling, has a more positive impact on the stock market, as: Lastly, small stock traders should not expect to make significant profits by short selling, as even most of the great stock traders (Jesse Livermore, Bernard Baruch, Gerald Loeb, Nicolas Darvas, William O’Neil, and Steven Cohen,) have hardly made significant money from their shorts. it is safe to say that odds are stacked against short sellers. Over the last century or so, Western large caps have returned an annual average of between 8 and 10 percent while the returns of small caps have been slightly higher. I hope the above little information from my small unique book was a little helpful! Mika (author of \"\"The small stock trader\"\")\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1276e1f81743f47e0912964e2eba3635", "text": "\"Your strategy fails to control risk. Your \"\"inversed crash\"\" is called a rally. And These kind of things often turn into bigger rallies because of short squeezes, when all the people that are shorting a stock are forced to close their stock because of margin calls - its not that shorts \"\"scramble\"\" to close their position, the broker AUTOMATICALLY closes your short positions with market orders and you are stuck with the loss. So no, your \"\"trick\"\" is not enough. There are better ways to profit from a bearish outlook.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36f74a656015e3e432d501b97ff69860", "text": "Not really. The lender is not buying the stock back at a lower price. Remember, he already owns it, so he need not buy it again. The person losing is the one from whom the short seller buys back the stock, provided that person bought the stock at higher price. So if B borrowed from A(lender) and sold it to C, and later B purchased it back from C at a lower price, then B made profit, C made loss and A made nothing .", "title": "" }, { "docid": "047bbaca3bc59067c6795a62c83cc9ce", "text": "SeekingAlpha has an article about short squeezes that states: The higher the number of days to cover means the possibility for a short squeeze is greater, and the potential size of the short squeeze is also greater Logically, this makes sense. A short squeeze occurs when a lack of supply meets excess demand for a stock, so the potential for a squeeze increases when supply and demand begin to get out of equilibrium. Think of two things that would cause the days to cover to increase and what effect they would have on supply and demand. The current short interest (numerator) increases. This implies that if some event triggers short sellers to cover their position, there are a higher number of short sellers who will need to do so. This heightens the chances that demand will exceed supply. The average daily volume (denominator) decreases. This implies that fewer investors are trading the stock, so if an event triggers short sellers to cover their positions, there might not be enough traders in the market willing to sell their shares. (Obviously, if a short-squeeze occurs, volume may increase because traders who were unwilling to sell their shares become willing).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c56ce18ddd5d3201fd1a73b21475e23f", "text": "While volume per trade is higher at the open and to a lesser extent at the close, the overall volume is actually lower, on average. Bid ask spreads are widest at the open and to a lesser extent at the close. Generally, bid ask spreads are inversely proportional to overall volumes. Why this is the case hasn't been sufficiently clearly answered by academia yet, but some theories are that", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a708ffe12cffb35fe9351333386cd171", "text": "They mostly make money off of the spread between your order and the spread of the buy and sell currently in the market. As others have previously explained, their buy/sell spreads are a little lacklustre.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ee05e37b2beae6ae460a6a7e0f13cea7
How best to grow my small amount of money starting at a young age? [duplicate]
[ { "docid": "3b463b0f734e7d008506b1e57b6c5756", "text": "\"(Congrats on earning/saving $3K and not wanting to blow it all on immediate gratification!) I currently have it invested in sector mutual funds but with the rise and fall of the stock market, is this really the best way to prepare long-term? Long-term? Yes! However... four years is not long term. It is, in fact, borderline short term. (When I was your age, that was incomprehensible too, but trust me: it's true.) The problem is that there's an inverse relationship between reward and risk: the higher the possible reward, the greater the risk that you'll lose a big chunk of it. I invest that middle-term money in a mix of junk high yield bond funds and \"\"high\"\" yield savings accounts at an online bank. My preferences are HYG purchased at Fidelity (EDIT: because it's commission-free and I buy a few hundred dollars worth every month), and Ally Bank.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43e29fa4421236af230cf2f47a04c70e", "text": "\"I would like to add my accolades in saving $3000, it is an accomplishment that the majority of US households are unable to achieve. source While it is something, in some ways it is hardly anything. Working part time at a entry level job will earn you almost three times this amount per year, and with the same job you can earn about as much in two weeks as this investment is likely to earn, in the market in one year. All this leads to one thing: At your age you should be looking to increase your income. No matter if it is college or a high paying trade, whatever you can do to increase your life time earning potential would be the best investment for this money. I would advocate a more patient approach. Stick the money in the bank until you complete your education enough for an \"\"adult job\"\". Use it, if needed, for training to get that adult job. Get a car, a place of your own, and a sufficient enough wardrobe. Save an emergency fund. Then invest with impunity. Imagine two versions of yourself. One with basic education, a average to below average salary, that uses this money to invest in the stock market. Eventually that money will be needed and it will probably be pulled out of the market at an in opportune time. It might worth less than the original 3K! Now imagine a second version of yourself that has an above average salary due to some good education or training. Perhaps that 3K was used to help provide that education. However, this second version will probably earn 25,000 to 75,000 per year then the first version. Which one do you want to be? Which one do you think will be wealthier? Better educated people not only earn more, they are out of work less. You may want to look at this chart.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "beb115f4b44422283c389edc50a1b8ed", "text": "Congrats! That's a solid accomplishment for someone who is not even in college yet. I graduated college 3 years ago and I wish I was able to save more in college than I did. The rule of thumb with saving: the earlier the better. My personal portfolio for retirement is comprised of four areas: Roth IRA contributions, 401k contributions, HSA contributions, Stock Market One of the greatest things about the college I attended was its co-op program. I had 3 internships - each were full time positions for 6 months. I strongly recommend, if its available, finding an internship for whatever major you are looking into. It will not only convince you that the career path you chose is what you want to do, but there are added benefits specifically in regards to retirement and savings. In all three of my co-ops I was able to apply 8% of my paycheck to my company's 401k plan. They also had matching available. As a result, my 401k had a pretty substantial savings amount by the time I graduated college. To circle back to your question, I would recommend investing the money into a Roth IRA or the stock market. I personally have yet to invest a significant amount of money in the stock market. Instead, I have been maxing out my retirement for the last three years. That means I'm adding 18k to my 401k, 5.5k to my Roth, and adding ~3k to my HSA (there are limits to each of these and you can find them online). Compounded interest is amazing (I'm just going to leave this here... https://www.moneyunder30.com/power-of-compound-interest).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67c31d2f35d612cbf8002be1e740d5fd", "text": "while not stated, if you have any debt at all, use the $3000 to pay it off. That's the best investment in the short term. No risk and guaranteed reward. College can invite all sorts of unexpected expenses and opportunities, so stay liquid, protect working capital.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "af1e7f772ced48852837068b40ff5770", "text": "Investments earn income relative to the principal amounts invested. If you do not have much to invest, then the only way to 'get rich' by investing is to take gambles. And those gambles are more likely to fail than succeed. The simplest way for someone without a high amount of 'capital' [funds available to invest] to build wealth, is to work more, and invest in yourself. Go to school, but only for proven career paths. Take self-study courses. Learn and expand your career opportunities. Only once you are stable financially, have minimal debt [or, understand and respect the debt you plan to pay down slowly, which some people choose to do with school and house debt], and are able to begin contributing regularly to investment plans, can you put your financial focus on investing. Until then, any investment gains would pale in comparison to gains from building your career.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "159163ada398165908c5f22bd363d270", "text": "Start as early as possible and you will want to kiss your younger self when you get to retirement age. I know you (and everyone else at that age) thinks that they don't make enough to start saving and leans towards waiting until you get established in your career and start making better money. Don't put it off. Save some money out of each paycheck even if it is only $50. Trust me, as little as you make now, you probably have more disposable income than you will when you make twice as much. Your lifestyle always seems to keep up with your income and you will likely ALWAYS feel like you don't have money left over to save. The longer you wait, the more you are going to have to stuff away to make up for that lost time you could have been compounding your returns as shown in this table (assuming 9.4 percent average gain annually, which has been the average return on the stock market from 1926-2010). I also suggest reading this article when explains it in more detail: Who Wants to be a millionaire?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d6f220dd1677d35b3bed386d664808f", "text": "Investing in mutual funds, ETF, etc. won't build a large pool of money. Be an active investor if your nature aligns. For e.g. Invest in buying out a commercial space (on bank finance) like a office space and then rent it out. That would give you better return than a savings account. In few years time, you may be able to pay back your financing and then the total return is your net return. Look for options like this for a multiple growth in your worth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "198bb468a2b916a466c48eaab959c272", "text": "\"There are books like, \"\"The Millionaire Mind\"\" that could be of interest when it comes to basics like living below your means, investing what you save, etc. that while it is common sense, it is uncommonly done in the world. Something to consider is how actively do you want your money management to be? Is it something to spend hours on each week or a few hours a year tops? You have lots of choices and decisions to make. I would suggest keeping part of your savings as an emergency fund just in case something happens. As for another part, this is where you could invest in a few different options and see what happens. There would be a couple of different methods I could see for breaking into finance that I'd imagine: IT of a finance company - In this case you'd likely be working on customizations for what the bank, insurance or other kind of financial firm requires. This could be somewhat boring as you are basically a part of the backbone that keeps the company going but not really able to take much of the glory when the company makes a lot of money. Brains of a hedge fund - In this case, you may have to know some trading algorithms and handle updating the code so that the trading activities can be done by a computer with lightning speed. Harder to crack into since these would be the secretive people to find and join in a way.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a65594a18d3dd998b566955e0836c790", "text": "If you're sure you want to go the high risk route: You could consider hot stocks or even bonds for companies/countries with lower credit ratings and higher risk. I think an underrated cost of investing is the tax penalties that you pay when you win if you aren't using a tax advantaged account. For your speculating account, you might want to open a self-directed IRA so that you can get access to more of the high risk options that you crave without the tax liability if any of those have a big payout. You want your high-growth money to be in a Roth, because it would be a shame to strike it rich while you're young and then have to pay taxes on it when you're older. If you choose not to make these investments in a tax-advantaged account, try to hold your stocks for a year so you only get taxed at capital gains rates instead of as ordinary income. If you choose to work for a startup, buy your stock options as they vest so that if the company goes public or sells privately, you will have owned those stocks long enough to qualify for capital gains. If you want my actual advice about what I think you should do: I would increase your 401k percentage to at least 10% with or without a match, and keep that in low cost index funds while you're young, but moving some of those investments over to bonds as you get closer to retirement and your risk tolerance declines. Assuming you're not in the 25% tax bracket, all of your money should be in a Roth 401k or IRA because you can withdraw it without being taxed when you retire. The more money you put into those accounts now while you are young, the more time it all has to grow. The real risk of chasing the high-risk returns is that when you bet wrong it will set you back far enough that you will lose the advantage that comes from investing the money while you're young. You're going to have up and down years with your self-selected investments, why not just keep plugging money into the S&P which has its ups and downs, but has always trended up over time?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81dc5a3ab1f76785932744c1f2a511a9", "text": "\"I get the sense that this is a \"\"the world is unfair; there's no way I can succeed\"\" question, so let's back up a few steps. Income is the starting point to all of this. That could be a job (or jobs), or running your own business. From there, you can do four things with your income: Obviously Spend and Give do not provide a monetary return - they give a return in other ways, such as quality of life, helping others, etc. Save gives you reserves for future expenses, but it does not provide growth. So that just leaves Invest. You seem to be focused on stock market investments, which you are right, take a very long time to grow, although you can get returns of up to 12% depending on how much volatility you're willing to absorb. But there are other ways to invest. You can invest in yourself by getting a degree or other training to improve your income. You can invest by starting a business, which can dramatically increase your income (in fact, this is the most common path to \"\"millionaire\"\" in the US, and probably in other free markets). You can invest by growing your own existing business. You can invest in someone else's business. You can invest in real estate, that can provide both value appreciation and rental income. So yes, \"\"investment\"\" is a key aspect of wealth building, but it is not limited to just stock market investment. You can also look at reducing expenses in order to have more money to invest. Also keep in mind that investment with higher returns come with higher risk (both in terms of volatility and risk of complete loss), and that borrowing money to invest is almost always unwise, since the interest paid directly reduces the return without reducing the risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8fa04eaae270a59d75c5b36c12e036b", "text": "\"Between \"\"fresh out of college\"\" and \"\"I have no debts, and a support system in place which because of which I can take higher risks.\"\" I would put every penny I could afford in the riskiest investment platform I was willing to. Holding onto money in a bank account is likely to cost you %1-%2 a year depending on what interest rates are and what inflation looks like. Money invested in a market could loose it all for you or you could become an overnight millionaire. Loosing it all would suck but you are young you will bounce back. Losing it slowly to inflation is just silly when you are young. If there is something you know you have to do in the next few years start to save for it but otherwise use the fact that you are young and have a safety net to try to make money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3968f1cb85779ffc3e09b528b1322831", "text": "\"Well, I understand this forum is about money but I think you would be far better off if you invest the money in your daughters education or something similar that can bring much more significant future gains. I am a big fan of compound interest and investing in stocks but $700 sitting until she's 21 wont grow into a significant amount. When she's 21, what would you \"\"hope\"\" she'd spend the money on? something valuable like education right? so why don't you take the first step now so she will get a much bigger return than the monitory value. If I were you I'd invest in a home library or something similar.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db1ccbc57a778e7a93f06a6a95ab0dde", "text": "\"Consultant, I commend you for thinking about your financial future at such an early age. Warren Buffet, arguably the most successful investor ever lived, and the best known student of Ben Graham has a very simple advice for non-professional investors: \"\"Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.)\"\" This quote is from his 2013 letter to shareholders. Source: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2013ltr.pdf Buffet's annual letters to shareholders are the wealth of useful and practical wisdom for building one's financial future. The logic behind his advice is that most investors cannot consistently pick stock \"\"winners\"\", additionally, they are not able to predict timing of the market; hence, one has to simply stay in the market, and win over in the long run.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb3edd01ffe10ab7f4564f86141ff5e3", "text": "\"You need to track all of your expenses first, inventarize all of your assets and liabilities, and set financial goals. For example, you need to know your average monthly expenses and exactly what percentages interest each loan charges, and you need to know what to save for (your children, retirement, large purchases, etc). Then you create an emergency fund: keep between 4 to 6 months worth of your monthly expenses in a savings account that you can readily access. Base the size of your emergency fund on your expenses rather than your salary. This also means its size changes over time, for example, it must increase once you have children. You then pay off your loans, starting with the loan charging the highest interest. You do this because e.g. paying off $X of a 7% loan is equivalent to investing $X and getting a guaranteed 7% return. The stock market does generally does not provide guarantees. Starting with the highest interest first is mathematically the most rewarding strategy in the long run. It is not a priori clear whether you should pay off all loans as fast as possible, particularly those with low interest rates, and the mortgage. You need to read up on the subject in order to make an informed decision, this would be too personal advice for us to give. After you've created that emergency fund, and paid of all high interest loans, you can consider investing in vessels that achieve your set financial goals. For example, since you are thinking of having children within five years, you might wish to save for college education. That implies immediately that you should pick an investment vessels that is available after 20 year or so and does not carry too much risk (e.g. perhaps bonds or deposits). These are a few basic advices, and I would recommend to look further on the internet and perhaps read a book on the topic of \"\"personal finance\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cae39c5b0872f5074bc5027490eb1da5", "text": "Given that you are starting with a relatively small amount, you want a decent interest rate, and you want flexibility, I would consider fixed deposit laddering strategy. Let's say you have ₹15,000 to start with. Split this in to three components: Purchase all of the above at the same time. 30 days later, you will have the first FD mature. If you need this money, you use it. If you don't need it, purchase another 90-day fixed deposit. If you keep going this way, you will have a deposit mature every 30 days and can choose to use it or renew the fixed deposit. This strategy has some disadvantages to consider: As for interest rates, the length of the fixed deposit in positively related to the interest rate. If you want higher interest rates, elect for longer fixed deposit cycles.For instance, when you become more confident about your financial situation, replace the 30, 60, 90 day cycle with a 6, 12, 18 month cycle The cost of maintaining the short term deposit renewals and new purchases. If your bank does not allow such transactions through on line banking, you might spend more time than you like at a bank or on the phone with the bank You want a monthly dividend but this might not be the case with fixed deposits. It depends on your bank but I believe most Indian banks pay interest every three months", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30feb5a4ba881b67248e3400ceb0ad70", "text": "\"What a lovely position to find yourself in! There's a lot of doors open to you now that may not have opened naturally for another decade. If I were in your shoes (benefiting from the hindsight of being 35 now) at 21 I'd look to do the following two things before doing anything else: 1- Put 6 months worth of living expenses in to a savings account - a rainy day fund. 2- If you have a pension, I'd be contributing enough of my salary to get the company match. Then I'd top up that figure to 15% of gross salary into Stocks & Shares ISAs - with a view to them also being retirement funds. Now for what to do with the rest... Some thoughts first... House: - If you don't want to live in it just yet, I'd think twice about buying. You wouldn't want a house to limit your career mobility. Or prove to not fit your lifestyle within 2 years, costing you money to move on. Travel: - Spending it all on travel would be excessive. Impromptu travel tends to be more interesting on a lower budget. That is, meeting people backpacking and riding trains and buses. Putting a resonable amount in an account to act as a natural budget for this might be wise. Wealth Managers: \"\"approx. 12% gain over 6 years so far\"\" equates to about 1.9% annual return. Not even beat inflation over that period - so guessing they had it in ultra-safe \"\"cash\"\" (a guaranteed way to lose money over the long term). Give them the money to 'look after' again? I'd sooner do it myself with a selection of low-cost vehicles and equal or beat their return with far lower costs. DECISIONS: A) If you decided not to use the money for big purchases for at least 4-5 years, then you could look to invest it in equities. As you mentioned, a broad basket of high-yielding shares would allow you to get an income and give opportunity for capital growth. -- The yield income could be used for your travel costs. -- Over a few years, you could fill your ISA allowance and realise any capital gains to stay under the annual exemption. Over 4 years or so, it'd all be tax-free. B) If you do want to get a property sooner, then the best bet would to seek out the best interest rates. Current accounts, fixed rate accounts, etc are offering the best interest rates at the moment. Usual places like MoneySavingExpert and SavingsChampion would help you identify them. -- There's nothing wrong with sitting on this money for a couple of years whilst you fid your way with it. It mightn't earn much but you'd likely keep pace with inflation. And you definitely wouldn't lose it or risk it unnecessarily. C) If you wanted to diversify your investment, you could look to buy-to-let (as the other post suggested). This would require a 25% deposit and likely would cost 10% of rental income to have it managed for you. There's room for the property to rise in value and the rent should cover a mortgage. But it may come with the headache of poor tenants or periods of emptiness - so it's not the buy-and-forget that many people assume. With some effort though, it may provide the best route to making the most of the money. D) Some mixture of all of the above at different stages... Your money, your choices. And a valid choice would be to sit on the cash until you learn more about your options and feel the direction your heart is pointing you. Hope that helps. I'm happy to elaborate if you wish. Chris.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5390f71696cf24ff56cc70ff71c024be", "text": "Well, a couple things to keep in mind: Even if you have enough to meet the minimum initial amount, you need to have at least that much income in the year you make the contribution. You'll probably be best served saving up in a savings account so that by the time you have an income (and can thus make contributions), you have enough cash to meet the minimum initial contribution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f1640e23ad8d51220d1245790777b31", "text": "First, congratulations on even thinking about investing while you are still young! Before you start investing, I'd suggest you pay off your cc balance if you have any. The logic is simple: if you invest and make say 8% in the market but keep paying 14% on your cc balance, you aren't really saving. Have a good supply of emergency fund that is liquid (high yielding savings bank like a credit union. I can recommend Alliant). Start small with investing. Educate yourself on the markets before getting in. Ignorance can be expensive. Learn about IRA (opening an IRA and investing in the markets have (good)tax implications. I didn't do this when I was young and I regret that now) Learn what is 'wash sales' and 'tax loss harvesting' before putting money in the market. Don't start out by investing in individual stocks. Learn about indexing. What I've give you are pointers. Google (shameless plug: you can read my blog, where I do touch upon most of these topics) for the terms I've mentioned. That'll steer you in the right direction. Good luck and stay prosperous!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95bb327dabf621795a92207ce1106bb2", "text": "This post has been wrote in 2014, so if you read this text be aware. At the time, and since France does tax a lot investment, I'd suggest you start a PEA and filling in using the lazy investment portfolio. That means buying European and/or French ETFs & index, and hold them as long as you can. You can fill your PEA (Plan d'Epargne en Action) up to 150.000€ for a period of at least 8 years as long as you fill it with European and French stocks. After the period of 8 years your profit is taxed at only mere 15%, instead of the 33% you see in a raw broker account. Since you are young, I think a 100% stocks is something you can hold on. If you can't sleep at night with 100% stocks, take some bonds up to 25%, even more. Anyway, the younger you start investing, the more ahead you may eventually go.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a9618c1f8c08a27eef43fbe40933b837
How do I build wealth?
[ { "docid": "d88ea6d3db2934d532c3712b7aab4397", "text": "Another possibility is that a lot of it is bought using borrowed money. Especially if much of your own money is in the stock market, it may be beneficial to take out a loan to buy something compared to selling other assets to raise the same amount of cash. Even going by the likely relatively conservative £200K/year before taxes, you are looking at a very nice house going for perhaps around 3-5 years' worth of pre-tax income. Let's say you have good contacts at the bank and can secure a loan for £500K at 3.5% interest (not at all unreasonable if you make half that before taxes in a single year and purchase something that can be used as collateral for the money borrowed; with a bit of negotiating, I wouldn't be surprised if one could push the interest rate even lower, and stock in a publicly traded company can also trivially be used as collateral). That's less than £1500/month in interest, before any applicable tax effects -- less than 10% of the before-tax income. And like @Victor wrote, I think it's reasonable to say that especially if the company is publicly traded, the CEO makes more than £200K/year. Given an income of £200K/year and assuming 30% taxes on that amount (the marginal tax would likely be higher, and this includes e.g. interest expense deductions), the money left over after taxes and interest payments on a £500K 3.5% debt is still about £10K/month. Even with a pretty rapid amortization schedule and even if the actual tax rate is higher, that leaves quite a bit of money to be socked away in savings and other investments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c6f3549be214f03c742df273784cdee", "text": "Share options. If you get options on £200,000-worth of a company and then its share price increases five-fold then you make £800,000, which is often taxed more favourably than salary.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a8684858339cf2b2fcef9ec073368bd", "text": "\"As others have stated, CEO's often make more than 200K, and when they do, they're compensated with stock options and other lucrative bonuses and deals that allow them to build wealth above and beyond the face value of their salary. However, remember that having wealth makes it easier to build further wealth. As Victor pointed out, having wealth allows you to increase your wealth in different kinds of investments. Also, it gives you access to more human capital, e.g. wealth management services at firms like Northern Trust, a greater ability to diversify into investments like hedge funds, more abilities to invest abroad through foreign trusts, etc. Also, you have to realize that wealthier people often pay a lower percentage in taxes than people who earn a salary. In the US, long-term capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than income, so wealthy individuals who earn much of their money from long-term investments won't pay nearly as high a rate. In my case, my current salary places me at the top of the 25% tax bracket (in the US), but if I earned all of my income through long-term capital gains instead of salary, I would only pay around 15-20% in taxes. Plus, I could afford numerous tax accounting firms to help me find ways to pay fewer taxes. It's not altruism that causes CEOs like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to take a $1 salary. This isn't directly related to CEOs, and I'm not leveling accusations of corruption against high net worth individuals, but I remember spending a few months in a small town in a country known for its corruption. The mayor had recently purchased a home worth the equivalent of several million dollars, on his annual civil servant salary of approximately $20K. One of the students asked him how he managed to afford such a sizable property, and he replied \"\"I live very frugally.\"\" This is probably a relatively rare case (I'm sure it depends on the country), but nevertheless, it illustrates another way that some people build wealth.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88ab9f9eb83e88b5b691d94aa1f7100e", "text": "Many CEOs I have heard of earn a lot more than 200k. In fact a lot earn more than 1M and then get bonuses as well. Many wealthy people increase there wealth by investing in property, the stock market, businesses and other assets that will produce them good capital growth. Oh yeh, and luck usually has very little to do with their success.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d4cdd04f8a72d8845bcb0ccb5f675ec", "text": "\"You got some answers that essentially inform you that CEOs that have £200k written on their paysheet may in fact get much more. I'll take the opposite point of view and talk about people who (according to whatever definition) have a £200k/year income. How can they afford it Guess no 1: not all of them can (in the sense that it is quite possible to end up with negative net worth at £200k/year income - particularly if you immediately want to show off with brand new luxury cars, luxury holidays and a large house in a very representative region). Guess no 2: not all of the £200k/year CEOs are equally visible. There is a trade-off between going for wealth, large house, and luxury car. I deliberately ordered the three points according to increased display of \"\"wealth\"\". However, display of wealth usually comes at a cost (in a very monetary sense). And there are ways to get much display without having much wealth (see below: lease the car, also the mortgage on the house usually isn't displayed on the outside). You also need to take into account how long they are already building up wealth. I guess the typical CEO with £200k/year you're asking about did not just finish school and enter his work life in this position. It would be very interesting to see how income, accumulating wealth (and possibly \"\"displayed wealth\"\") correlate. My guess is that the correlation between income and accumulated wealth isn't that high, and the correlation between displayed and actual wealth is probably even lower. they possess luxury cars, large house and huge savings Are you sure these are the same managers? E.g. the ones with the huge savings are and the ones with the luxury cars? I'm asking particularly about the luxury cars, because such cars loose value very quickly and/or are often not owned by the driver but rather by the bank or leasing company. Which on the other hand offers the more savings-oriented CEO who is not that much interested in having a brand new luxury car the possibility to go for a one-year-old and save the rest. Knowing that, your CEO should be able to buy a one-year-old Mercedes SL 350 / year. Or a new one every 1 1/2 years (without building up savings or buying a house). However, building up wealth will be much faster with the CEO going for the one-year-old as the brand-new car option amounts to loosing ca. £20 - 30k within a year. An even-more-savings-oriented CEO who keeps his existing Mercedes 300 TD for another few years, thinking that this conservative choice of car will be trust-inspiring to the customers. Or goes for the SLK thinking that most people anyways don't know that the K between SL and SLK halves the price... However, if you just want to be seen with the car: after an initial payment of say £8-10k, you can get a decent SLK 350 (not the base model, either) at a monthly rate of ca. 600£/month or less than £7k/year. Note however, that this money does not count towards any kind of wealth, it's just renting a nice car. In other words: If driving the SLK 350 is your absolute goal, you could in theory have that with a net salary of £25k/year (according to your tax calculation, that should be somewhere around £35k / year gross), if you have the savings for the initial payment (being able to make the initial payment may also help convincin the leasing company that you're serious about it and able to pay your rates). There are also huge differences in value between large houses, compare e.g. these 2: And, last but not least, there is a decided one-way component in the timing of priorities here: it is much easier to go and get a luxury car when you have savings than first going for the luxury car and then trying to make up with the savings... I forgot to answer the question in the caption of your question: How do I build wealth By going on to live as if your income were only £50k (as far as that is compatible with your job) - I gather the median gross income in the UK is about £30k, so aiming at £50k leaves you a very comfortable budget for luxury spending. If you want to build up wealth faster, adjust that. In general, if you can manage to withhold much of any income increase from spending, that will help (trivial but powerful truth). From the leasing calculation you can conclude that you basically have no chance to show off your wealth by luxury cars. That is, you'd need to go for luxury cars that are completely incompatible with with building if you want to show your built up wealth by the car: there are too many people who even destroy their existing wealth in order to display luxury. At least if anyone is around who has either a correct idea what luxury cars cost (or don't cost) or will look that up in the internet. Also, people who know such things may also have the idea that the probability that such a car was downright paid (wealth) is small compared to the probability of meeting a leased or (mortgaged) car. Which means, the plan to show off doesn't work out that well with the people you'd want to impress. As for the other people: just a bit of display you can get far cheaper: If you really want to drive the SLK, rent it for an occasion (weekend) rather than for years. I met a sales manager who told me which rental cars they get when important customers from far east are visiting. The rest of the year they drive normal business cars. You may want to choose a rental company that doesn't write their name on the license plate. Apply the same ideas to the decision of buying a house. Think about what you want for yourself, and then look where you can get how much of that for how much money. Oh, and by the way: if I understand correctly, the average UK CEO wage is £120k, not £200k.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e3c2bf5082767d139d12ff84390b311", "text": "CEOs are compensated with stocks and options on top of their salary. Most is in the form of stocks and options. You may see them with a fancy car, but they don't necessarily possess the car, house, etc. They merely control it, which is nearly as good. You may lease it, or time share it. It might be owned by the company and provided as a perk. To earn a million, there are 4 ways: a job, self-employed, own a business, and invest. The fastest way is to own a business. The slowest way is a job or self-employed. Investing is medium. To learn more, read Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrants.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "81dc5a3ab1f76785932744c1f2a511a9", "text": "\"I get the sense that this is a \"\"the world is unfair; there's no way I can succeed\"\" question, so let's back up a few steps. Income is the starting point to all of this. That could be a job (or jobs), or running your own business. From there, you can do four things with your income: Obviously Spend and Give do not provide a monetary return - they give a return in other ways, such as quality of life, helping others, etc. Save gives you reserves for future expenses, but it does not provide growth. So that just leaves Invest. You seem to be focused on stock market investments, which you are right, take a very long time to grow, although you can get returns of up to 12% depending on how much volatility you're willing to absorb. But there are other ways to invest. You can invest in yourself by getting a degree or other training to improve your income. You can invest by starting a business, which can dramatically increase your income (in fact, this is the most common path to \"\"millionaire\"\" in the US, and probably in other free markets). You can invest by growing your own existing business. You can invest in someone else's business. You can invest in real estate, that can provide both value appreciation and rental income. So yes, \"\"investment\"\" is a key aspect of wealth building, but it is not limited to just stock market investment. You can also look at reducing expenses in order to have more money to invest. Also keep in mind that investment with higher returns come with higher risk (both in terms of volatility and risk of complete loss), and that borrowing money to invest is almost always unwise, since the interest paid directly reduces the return without reducing the risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d696be3accd2d8bed9b97bb58476c7ae", "text": "Don't be too scared of investing in the market. It has ups and downs, but over the long haul you make money in it. You can't jump in and out, just consistently add money to investments that you 1) understand and 2) trust. When I say understand, what I mean is you can follow how the money is generated, either because a company sells products, a government promises to pay back the bond, or compounding interest makes sense. You don't need to worry about the day to day details, but if you don't understand how the money is made, it isn't transparent enough and a danger could be afoot. Here are some basic rules I try (!) to follow The biggest trick is to invest what you can, and do so consistently. You can build wealth by earning more and spending less. I personally find spending less a lot easier, but earning more is pretty easy with some simple investment tools.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "164f357b28487a92dd220457fa1bda24", "text": "\"I tell you how I started as an investor: read the writings of probably the best investor of the history and become familiarized with it: Warren Buffett. I highly recommend \"\"The Essays of Warren Buffett\"\", where he provides a wise insight on how a company generates value, and his investment philosophy. You won't regret it! And also, specially in finance, don't follow the advice from people that you don't know, like me.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "990d7cea7a0d872a8b50cca148e7d234", "text": "\"This is a common and good game-plan to learn valuable life skills and build a supplemental income. Eventually, it could become a primary income, and your strategic risk is overall relatively low. If you are diligent and patient, you are likely to succeed, but at a rate that is so slow that the primary beneficiaries of your efforts may be your children and their children. Which is good! It is a bad gameplan for building an \"\"empire.\"\" Why? Because you are not the first person in your town with this idea. Probably not even the first person on the block. And among those people, some will be willing to take far more extravagant risks. Some will be better capitalized to begin with. Some will have institutional history with the market along with all the access and insider information that comes with it. As far as we know, you have none of that. Any market condition that yields a profit for you in this space, will yield a larger one for them. In a downturn, they will be able to absorb larger losses than you. So, if your approach is to build an empire, you need to take on a considerably riskier approach, engage with the market in a more direct and time-consuming way, and be prepared to deal with the consequences if those risks play out the wrong way.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "438b91c98be455e4df5330943498f0be", "text": "You mean in response to OP? Investors should buy physical gold and silver, and wait out the storm. The US Bond market is negative when you factor in inflation, that's a bubble that's going to burst eventually. Riding the gold horse will keep you high and dry. But if you mean in response to Fearan? I would say that the way to reduce income inequality is to stop all the market distortions and malinvestment due to regulations. The countries with the most income disparity are the ones with the most regulations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69cbc69ac62683bd3f6e8483896dcb81", "text": "\"You can't get started investing. There are preliminary steps that must be taken prior to beginning to invest: Only once these things are complete can you think about investing. Doing so before hand will only likely lose money in the long run. Figure these steps will take about 2.5 years. So you are 2.5 years from investing. Read now: The Total Money Makeover. It is full of inspiring stories of people that were able to turn things around financially. This is good because it is easy to get discouraged and believe all kind of toxic beliefs about money: The little guy can't get ahead, I always will have a car payment, Its too late, etc... They are all false. Part of the book's resources are budgeting forms and hints on budgeting. Read later: John Bogle on Investing and Bogle on Mutual Funds One additional Item: About you calling yourself a \"\"dummy\"\". Building personal wealth is less about knowledge and more about behavior. The reason you don't have a positive net worth is because of how you behaved, not knowledge. Even sticking a small amount in a savings account each paycheck and not spending it would have allowed you to have a positive net worth at this point in your life. Only by changing behavior can you start to build wealth, investing is only a small component.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5b7a01c6f647e9a59ef22f7f031ff54", "text": "If you are looking to build wealth, leasing is a bad idea. But so is buying a new car. All cars lose value once you buy them. New cars lose anywhere between 30-60% of their value in the first 4 years of ownership. Buying a good quality, used car is the way to go if you are looking to build wealth. And keeping the car for a while is also desirable. Re-leasing every three years is no way to build wealth. The American Car Payment is probably the biggest factor holding many people back from building wealth. Don't fall into the trap - buy a used car and drive it for as long as you can until the maintenance gets too pricey. Then upgrade to a better used car, etc. If you cannot buy a car outright with cash, you cannot afford it. Period.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3799199cc1a37a3e5988e37f91eb8788", "text": "\"Well... (in the US, at least) \"\"making investments and building assets\"\" is how you save for retirement. The investments just happen to be in the stock market, and the federal legislature has directed the US version of Inland Revenue Services to give special tax breaks to investments which are not withdrawn until age 59 1/2. I don't know if there are such tax breaks in Pakistan, or what the stock market is like there, so I'm presuming that by saying, \"\"building lucrative assets\"\", your father is referring to buying real estate and/or becoming a trader. Anyway, it's a good thing that you are looking so far ahead in life instead of only thinking of fast cars and pretty girls.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e184c0cd8d3f7bc4dcbd439d32568f5", "text": "I realize you're probably looking for methods on the large scale. However, I sell a lot of homes to wealth advisers and was always curious about how they consistently pull in business. The obvious answer is networking, then word of mouth. Do right by your clients and they'll brag to their equally high networth friends. One buddy of mine spends a lot of time taking his clients (and their friends) out to dinners, golfing, and mini-vacations. Surprise, surprise, those friends become clients too. Rinse and repeat. Other than that, hang out at high end bars and other places higher networth people in their 30's and 40's would hang out. Then ABC.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8c45dfb0a3b8c673dc945c612a14c60", "text": "In addition to Rocky's answer, and IF you have already saved an adequate emergency fund, then best way to increase your wealth (not your income) is to invest your extra money. If you have no extra money then you need to lower your expenses or work towards getting better income. They aren't really any tricks to this, but there are some tips that may help:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "08b36956c1393a520c26e6e1678bc54b", "text": "Thanks for including a summary for lurkers in your comment. I didn't realize how quickly I was responding, and I did not know you edited. I appreciate you not letting me look ridiculous to browsers. To change course a little bit, I'd like to talk to the idea that if successful people deserve success, unsuccessful people must deserve their lot also. Outside of money, the biggest thing I think we will leave to our kids is what we have learned about money, nutrition, health, and social interaction. Nothing we know is secret knowledge, but at the same time these are fields that are not taught to competence in school, and plenty of hucksters advertise nonsense that make it difficult to quickly learn what makes sense. If you're a 25 year old guy making 35-40k, and you eat at subway because it is endorsed by the American heart association and you assume it's healthy, and you spend 30% of your pre tax income on a house because your mortgage broker said that's normal and your financial advisor said houses are assets, and you buy what you like on credit cards and pay monthly minimums, and you take out an auto lease or a 6 year loan on a purchase to keep payments low, and you diversify what little you have left into mutual funds and bonds, you are doing two things - you are acting like a totally responsible young adult according to societal norms and people who are supposed to give you advice, and you are totally fucking yourself. You are burdening yourself with debt, you aren't investing in yourself, you're neutering your money's ability to help you live a life you actually want to live, and you are shackling yourself to monthly payments that limit your ability to make choices about what you want and how you want to live. Is that your fault? You followed common wisdom and your trusted advisors. Unless you happen to see a different way, or someone comes along and tells you otherwise, you may never know what opportunities you could've had. I'll even concede that having the opportunity to think differently may be luck. But here is where I have a point of contention. What if you've concluded generational wealth is simply luck by the time you have someone try to show you differently? You may dismiss your opportunity as bullshit, and remained trapped in the standard American day to day wage/debt slavery. This is why I hate these semantics so much - I think they rob people of their opportunities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf1771fdc7d94d39168a44bfe92006e8", "text": "It is one thing to take the advice of some numb-skulls on a web site, it is another thing to take the advice of someone who is really wealthy. For myself, I enjoy a very low interest rate (less than 3%) and am aggressively paying down my mortgage. One night I was contemplating slowing that down, and even the possibility of borrowing more to purchase another rental property. I went to bed and picked up Kevin O'Leary's book(Cold Hard Truth On Men, Women, and Money: 50 Common Money Mistakes and How to Fix Them), which I happened to be reading at the time. The first line I read, went something like: The best investment anyone can make is to pay off their mortgage early. He then did some math with the assumption that the person was making a 3% mortgage payment. Any conflicting advice has to be weighted against what Mr. O'Leary has accomplished in his life. Mark Cuban also has a similar view on debt. From what I heard, 70% of the Forbes richest list would claim that getting out of debt is a critical step to wealth building. My plan is to do that, pay off my home in about 33 (September '16) more weeks and see where I can go from there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80fbe8a7696a020cf9b413b76c940fb9", "text": "1. Read history (Money of the Mind, Lords of Finance, bios of volker/greenspan, Against the Gods, Monetary History of the US, Citibank 1812-1970, If There Were No Losses, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital) 2. Learn Python 3. Take accounting classes 4. Learn about whatever interests you and figure out how to build a thesis around it. Don't forget step 1.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adcb7cb80bc15e69a3f853fbeb045fd2", "text": "Even with a good investment strategy, you cannot expect more than 8-10% per year in average. Reducing this by a 3% inflation ratio leaves you with 5 - 7%, which means 15k$ - 21k$. Consider seriously if you could live from that amount as annual income, longterm. If you think so, there is a second hurdle - the words in average. A good year could increase your capital a bit, but a bad year can devastate it, and you would not have the time to wait for the good years to average it out. For example, if your second year gives you a 10% loss, and you still draw 15k$ (and inflation eats another 3%), you have only 247k$ left effectively, and future years will have to go with 12k$ - 17k$. Imagine a second bad year. As a consequence, you either need to be prepared to go back to work in that situation (tough after being without job for years), or you can live on less to begin with: if you can make it on 10k$ to begin with (and do, even in good years), you have a pretty good chance to get through your life with it. Note that 'make it with x' always includes taxes, health care, etc. - nothing is free. I think it's possible, as people live on 10k$ a year. But you need to be sure you can trust yourself to stay within the limit and not give in and spent more - not easy for many people.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0fe9d39e7b405c0ae005431e91c3633b", "text": "\"You don't seem to understand wealth. It's not money, really. Wealth is more good stuff to people. It really doesn't matter how it's distributed for it to be wealth. If you just give poor people money, you might actually improve things, like lobotomia might improve brains. Mix it, and it might settle in better order. The economy \"\"grows\"\" because people get more good stuff done than they consume. If you pay people for doing nothing in massive scale, you're just making them consume, but not to make any good stuff. They probably spend the money on something that will make more good stuff to people, that's true. And that's the reason why you might get a way with one time lobotomia, but it's terrible if you are competing with countries who don't do missteps, and every expense they do increases the economy in itself + the effect above. How you should give money away? As an investment to a company that is making a new conquer. Jobs, goods and more competition, all good.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ce2ec65187935a7860b50c6a976cd1d5
Where or how can I model historical market purchases
[ { "docid": "5596b89a7503739bfe1ed3ba97b4b993", "text": "Robert Shiller has an on-line page with links to download some historical data that may be what you want here. Center for the Research in Security Prices would be my suggestion for another resource here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ae5b3ba22a931c7b9cae5e2055c751f", "text": "This site should help you to accomplish what you are looking for: https://www.quantopian.com", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "341d6a2a406972d0c1356d6762328b87", "text": "\"Unfortunately, there is very little data supporting fundamental analysis or technical analysis as appropriate tools to \"\"time\"\" the market. I will be so bold to say that technical analysis is meaningless. On the other hand, fundamental analysis has some merits. For example, the realization that CDOs were filled with toxic mortgages can be considered a product of fundamental analysis and hence provided traders with a directional assumption to buy CDSs. However, there is no way to tell when there is a good or bad time to buy or sell. The market behaves like a random 50/50 motion. There are many reasons for this and interestingly, there are many fundamentally sound companies that take large dips for no reason at all. Depending on your goal, you can either believe that this volatility will smooth over long periods and that the market has generally positive drift. On the other hand, I feel that the appropriate approach is to remain active. You will be able to mitigate the large downswings by simply staying small and diversifying - not in the sense of traditional finance but rather looking for uncorrelated products. Remember, volatility brings higher levels of correlation. My second suggestion is to look towards products like options to provide a method of shaping your P/L - giving up upside by selling calls against a long equity position is a great example. Ground your trades with fundamental beliefs if need be, but use your tools and knowledge to combat risks that may create long periods of drawdown.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efd0097229164057ef16b3e11f442cf7", "text": "The closest I can think of from the back of my head is http://finviz.com/map.ashx, which display a nice map and allows for different intervals. It has different scopes (S&P500, ETFs, World), but does not allow for specific date ranges, though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c0eb9d6fadbe1fe4754c9d470eabf64", "text": "well there are many papers on power spot price prediction, for example. It depends on what level of methodology you would like to use. Linear regression is one of the basic steps, then you can continue with more advanced options. I'm a phd student studying modelling the energy price (electricity, gas, oil) as stochastic process. Regarding to your questions: 1. mildly speaking, it's really hard, due to its random nature! (http://www.dataversity.net/is-there-such-a-thing-as-predictive-analytics/) 2. well, i would ask what kind of measure of success you mean? what level of predicted interval one could find successful enough? 3. would you like me to send you some of the math-based papers on? 4. as i know, the method is to fully capture all main characteristics of the price. If it's daily power price, then these are mean-reversion effect, high volatility, spike, seasonality (weekly, monthly, yearly). Would you tell me what kind of method you're using? Maybe we can discuss some shared ideas? Anna", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e30ca5efd5d21101a2e6d781d8bcf48", "text": "Some personal finance packages can track basis cost of individual purchase lots or fractions thereof. I believe Quicken does, for example. And the mutual funds I'm invested in tell me this when I redeem shares. I can't vouch for who/what would make this visible at times other than sale; I've never had that need. For that matter I'm not sure what value the info would have unless you're going to try to explicitly sell specific lots rather than doing FIFO or Average accounting.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f59413ac77aa486091797a12cd9d78e", "text": "Robert Shiller published US Stock Market data from 1871. Ken French also has historical data on his website. Damodaran has a bunch of historical data, here is some historical S&P data.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e152f6b5bba8fdb5ea92ad24f628b2ec", "text": "\"To answer your question directly.. you can investigate by using google or other means to look up research done in this area. There's been a bunch of it Here's an example of search terms that returns a wealth of information. effect+of+periodic+rebalancing+on+portfolio+return I'd especially look for stuff that appears to be academic papers etc, and then raid the 'references' section of those. Look for stuff published in industry journals such as \"\"Journal of Portfolio Management\"\" as an example. If you want to try out different models yourself and see what works and what doesn't, this Monte Carlo Simulator might be something you would find useful The basic theory for those that don't know is that various parts of a larger market do not usually move in perfect lockstep, but go through cycles.. one year tech might be hot, the next year it's healthcare. Or for an international portfolio, one year korea might be doing fantastic only to slow down and have another country perform better the next year. So the idea of re-balancing is that since these things tend to be cyclic, you can get a higher return if you sell part of a slice that is doing well (e.g. sell at the high) and invest it in one that is not (buy at the low) Because you do this based on some criteria, it helps circumvent the human tendency to 'hold on to a winner too long' (how many times have you heard someone say 'but it's doing so well, why do I want to sell now\"\"? presuming trends will continue and they will 'lose out' on future gains, only to miss the peak and ride the thing down back into mediocrity.) Depending on the volatility of the specific market, and the various slices, using re balancing can get you a pretty reasonable 'lift' above the market average, for relatively low risk. generally the more volatile the market, (such as say an emerging markets portfolio) the more opportunity for lift. I looked into this myself a number of years back, the concensus I came was that the most effective method was to rebalance based on 'need' rather than time. Need is defined as one or more of the 'slices' in your portfolio being more than 8% above or below the average. So you use that as the trigger. How you rebalance depends to some degree on if the portfolio is taxable or not. If in a tax deferred account, you can simply sell off whatever is above baseline and use it to buy up the stuff that is below. If you are subject to taxes and don't want to trigger any short term gains, then you may have to be more careful in terms of what you sell. Alternatively if you are adding funds to the portfolio, you can alter how your distribute the new money coming into the portfolio in order to bring up whatever is below the baseline (which takes a bit more time, but incurs no tax hit) The other question is how will you slice a given market? by company size? by 'sectors' such as tech/finance/industrial/healthcare, by geographic regions?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cde469018b3cfb591796938d77a8ff2d", "text": "I don't see balance sheet in what you're looking at, and I'd definitely suggest learning how to read a balance sheet and looking at it, if you're going to buy stock in a company, unless you know that the recommendations you're buying on are already doing that and you're willing to take that risk. Also, reading past balance sheets and statements can give you an idea about how accurate the company is with their predictions, or if they have a history of financial integrity. Now, if you're going the model portfolio route, which has become popular, the assumption that many of these stock buyers are making is that someone else is doing that for them. I am not saying that this assumption is valid, just one that I've seen; you will definitely find a lot of skeptics, and rightly so, about model portfolios. Likewise, people who trade based on what [Person X] does (like Warren Buffett or David Einhorn) are assuming that they're doing the research. The downside to this is if you follow someone like this. Yeah, oops. I should also point out that technical analysis, especially high probability TA, generally only looks at history. Most would define it as high risk and there are many underlying assumptions with reading the price movements by high probability TA types.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db2f63f6fc2c53219ecac35428d7ce7d", "text": "You need a source of delisted historical data. Such data is typically only available from paid sources. According to my records, Lawson Software Inc listed on the NASDAQ on 7 Dec 2001 and delisted on 6 Jul 2011. Its final traded price was $11.23. It was taken over by Infor who bid $11.25 per share. Source: Symbol LWSN-201107 within Premium Data US delisted stocks historical data set available from http://www.premiumdata.net/products/premiumdata/ushistorical.php Disclosure: I am a co-owner of Norgate / Premium Data.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "138446b35e5b8053b604db40cab61b74", "text": "\"The effect of making a single purchase, of size and timing described, would not cause market disequilibrium, it would only hurt you (and your P&L). As @littleadv said, you would be unlikely to get your order filled. You asked about making a \"\"sudden\"\" purchase. Let's say you placed the order and were willing to accept a series of partial fills e.g. in 5,000 or 10,000 share increments at a time, over a period of hours. This would be a more moderate approach. Even spread out over the span of a day, this remains unwise. A better approach would be to buy small lots over the course of a week or month. But your transaction fees would increase. Investors make money in pink sheets and penny stocks due to increases in share price of 100% (on the low end), with a relatively small number of shares. It isn't feasible to earn speculator profits by purchasing huge blocks (relative to number of shares outstanding) of stock priced < $1.00 USD and profit from merely 25% price increases on large volume.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6626c4f142e3832bfc708cd93472796d", "text": "You can easily build a Google Sheet spreadsheet to track what you want as Sheet has a 'googlefinance()' function to look-up the same prices and data you can enter and track in a Google Finance portfolio, except you can use it in ways you want. For example, you can track your purchase price at a fixed exchange rate, track the current market value as the product of the stock's price times the floating exchange rate, and then record your realized profit and loss using another fixed exchange rate. You don't have to record the rates either, as googlefinance() func is able to lookup prices as of a particular date. You can access Google Sheet through a web browser or Android app.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f5a6fad920bf300d899ba37a7bfacb3", "text": "\"Yeah, you could literally just set up a fixed amount of states, set up a simple AR model based on normal components, find the optimal parameters for the state spaces and the AR model and you're done. Or you could set up a VAR model with student's t components instead which makes it more complicated by a couple of magnitudes. With student's t components the regression is structurally complicated so I've found I need to apply copluas (or is it copulae? or copuli? I have no damn idea lmao) instead to be able to sample properly. I might not be very bright but I wouldn't say that's basic math. Also the regression for state spaces is a bit more complicated as well. It'd be like me saying that valuating exotic derivatives is \"\"literally just solving PDE's with simple numerical methods.\"\" It's a *little* bit more work to it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df9b83154409d75086d28fcae731b329", "text": "\"Ugh... yes, you have to tell us what information you have available. It would be a completely different answer if, for example, you had a balance sheet for a prior period and an income statement for the current period and had to estimate the working capital accounts. If you can't be bothered to \"\"want to give the problem\"\" nobody is going to be bothered to help you with it. Inventory days = days of COGS in inventory. (15 / 360 times cogs). AR is 35 days of sales in AR. 35/360* sales. Vendor credit is accounts payable -- 40 /360 * COGS. If your sales and COGs are given by operating cycle rather than annually, use 50 instead of 360. (for whatever reason, convention says use 360 instead of 365).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2085c643e0903e0166fcd669c5cb5a4d", "text": "It would be difficult, but it's a statistical task, and you'd need to refer to a competent statistician to really get a sense of what sort of certainty could be derived from the available data. I believe that you'd start by looking over your state-by-state data on a granular level to try to find if there was any persistent correlation between Amazon's market penetration in a particular area and employment data from the retail industry. With regards to Ma &amp; Pa's complaint, you're sort of wrong and sort of right. Obviously they have no direct knowledge that online retail was responsible for the decline in sales that they saw. In terms of sustainability and mismanagement, however, they can show you their books. If the business had been established from some time it would be easy to see whether it had indeed been a sustainable business model in prior years. Sustainability and mismanagement, however, are Scotsmen when it comes to reasoning about causes. In measuring the effect of Amazon's entry into the market on local businesses, we can just as easily use a model that assumes a perfect market, that inefficiencies on the part of Ma^1 &amp; Pa^1 would lead them to be displaced by Ma^2 &amp; Pa^2, and that on average Ma^x &amp; Pa^x manage their business sufficiently well to extract an optimal return on effort. If circumstances are such that the role of vendor is not fungible, and the supply of Mas and Pas does not respond to the demand for family stores, then I don't actually know how to do the math, but on the other hand I do recognize a smoking gun.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "12c634220fc3e2dc46fc247bc28c4557", "text": "I couldn't find historical data either, so I contacted Vanguard Canada and Barclays; Vanguard replied that This index was developed for Vanguard, and thus historical information is available as of the inception of the fund. Unfortunately, that means that the only existing data on historical returns are in the link in your question. Vanguard also sent me a link to the methodology Barclay's uses when constructing this index, which you might find interesting as well. I haven't heard from Barclays, but I presume the story is the same; even if they've been collecting data on Canadian bonds since before the inception of this index, they probably didn't aggregate it into an index before their contract with Vanguard (and if they did, it might be proprietary and not available free of charge).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97330482e6e670d33a0ce5701967eabd", "text": "\"How/when does my employer find out? Do they get a report from their bank stating that \"\"check 1234 for $1212.12 paid to John Doe was never deposited\"\" or does it manifest itself as an eventual accounting discrepancy that somebody has to work to hunt down? The accounting department or the payroll company they use will report that the check was not deposited. The bank has no idea that a check was written, but the accounting deportment will know. The bank reports on all the checks that were cashed. Accounting cares because the un-cashed check for $1212.12 is a liability. They have to keep enough money in the bank to pay all the liabilities. It shouldn't be hard for them to track down the discrepancy, they will know what checks are outstanding. Can my employer punish me for refusing the money in this way? Do they have any means to force me to take what I am \"\"owed?\"\" They can't punish you. But at some time in the future they will will tell their bank not to honor the check. They will assume that it was lost or misplaced, and they will issue a new one to you. When tax time comes, and I still have not accepted the money, would it be appropriate to adjust my reported income down by the refused amount? You can't decide not to report it. The company knows that in year X they gave you a check for the money. They are required to report it, since they also withheld money for Federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, 401K, insurance. They also count your pay as a business expense. If you try and adjust the numbers on the W-2 the IRS will note the discrepancy and want more information. Remember the IRS get a copy of every W-2. The employer has to report it because some people who aren't organized may not have cashed a December check before the company has to generate the W-2 in late January. It would confuse everything if they could skip reporting income just because a check wasn't cashed by the time they had to generate the W-2.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d46c61da936b7d58b3a502b04b6a1057
Stocks given by company vest if I quit?
[ { "docid": "e8df4a19f9fc0bed3f4001f92f69ef45", "text": "\"You were probably not given stock, but stock options. Those options have a strike price and you can do some more research on them if needed. Lets assume that you were given 5K shares at a strike of 20, and they vest 20% per year. Assume the same thing in your second year and you are going to leave in year three. You would have 2K shares from your year 1 grant, and 1K shares from your year 2 grant, so 2K total. If you leave no more shares would be vested. If you leave you have one of two options: To complicate matters subsequent grants may have different strike prices, so perhaps year two grant is at $22 per share. However, in pre-public companies that is not likely the case. For a bit of history, I worked at a pre-ipo company and we were all going to get rich. I was given generous grants, but decided to leave. I really wanted to buy my options but simply didn't have the money. Shortly after I left the company folded, so the money would have been thrown away anyway. When a company is private the motivate their employees with tales of riches, but they are not required to disclose financial data. This company did a very good job of convincing employees that all was fine, when it wasn't. Also I received options in a publicly traded company. Myself and other employees received options that were \"\"underwater\"\" or worth far less than the strike price. You could let them expire so one did not owe money, but they were worthless. Hopefully that answers your question.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8c306b677f5d103ee555099fdd8e9b4", "text": "Vesting typically stops after you quit. So, if your plan vests 20% per year for 5 years, and you received a one-time stock grant as part of this plan (i.e., ignoring the fact that these often involve new grants each year that vest separately), and you were hired in 2014 and leave at the end of 2016, then you vested 20% in 2015 and 20% in 2016, so would have 40% of the stock vested when you quit, and would never have more than that.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "b690c669a900ba8cb6e625b06c76349b", "text": "I do not know for sure so do not quote me on this. But I would assume that you will get paid out to what the value of the buyout is. Example if your company has 100 private shares and you own 1 share (1%), and the company sells for $1,000,000. Your share will be worth 1% of the $1 million.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f9e3b718f2286cd9f3c623979bd83b7", "text": "\"&gt;If you're in a VP+/Director position, you don't get blindsided by this shit no matter what which division you're responsible for ... \"\"Blindsided\"\" is very different from \"\"responsible for.\"\" The Director of HR might know that the CEO is tanking the company, but have no means by which to repair or stop the damage. You're just making an empty connection to justify your overly broad, \"\"tough guy\"\" fantasy. &gt;Okay, let 'em quit. Any stock options they have / other benefits get cashed out and applied to outstanding debts accrued under them before any payout reaches them. 1) Many of those benefits may have already vested, or otherwise vest when you constructively terminate them by withholding their salary. What that means is that they no longer belong to the company, and can't just be seized to play God with. The equivalent would be your employer reaching into your 401k and clawing back vested matching. 2) You're still just engaging in tough-guy fantasy, and ignoring the problem of a rudderless, headless company. Beating you chest and roaring won't stop the employees from being fucked over even harder when inventory stops showing up in the warehouse.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5c139ed3029e9807a71ba21e3f37f4dc", "text": "Yes, you would. You owe it to the person you borrowed the shares from. (source)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4b7a84d38a6e0206518d8453f5ea09a", "text": "For one, the startup doesn't exist yet, so until March I will get nothing on hand, though I have enough reserves to bridge that time. I would not take this deal unless the start-up exists in some form. If it's just not yet profitable, then there's a risk/reward to consider. If it doesn't exist at all, then it cannot make a legal obligation to you and it's not worth taking the deal yet. If everything else is an acceptable risk to you, then you should be asking the other party to create the company and formalize the agreement with you. As regards reserves, if you're really getting paid in shares instead of cash, then you may need them later. Shares in a start-up likely are not easy to sell (if you're allowed to sell them at all), so it may be a while before a paycheck given what you've described. For a second, who pays the tax? This is my first non-university job so I don't exactly know, but usually the employer has to/does pay my taxes and some other stuff from my brutto-income (that's what I understood). If brutto=netto, where is the tax? This I cannot answer for Germany. In the U.S. it would depend in part on how the company is organized. It's likely that some or all of the tax will be deferred until you monetize your shares, but you should get some professional advice on that before you move forward. As an example, it's likely that you'd get taxed (in part or in whole) on what we'd call capital gains (maybe Abgeltungsteuer in German?) that would only be assessed when you sell the shares. For third, shares are a risk. If I or any other in the startup screw really, my pay might be a lot less than expected. Of course, if it works out I'm rich(er). This is the inherent risk of a start-up, so there's no getting around the fact that there's a chance that the business may fail and your shares become worthless. Up to you if you think the risk is acceptable. Where you can mitigate risk is in ensuring that there's a well-written and enforceable set of documents that define what rights go with the shares, who controls the company, how profits will be distributed, etc. Don't do this by spoken agreement only. Get it all written down, and then get it checked by a lawyer representing your interests.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5113b7444d0fc0998ef14da59956b5ec", "text": "I agree with the other comments that you should not buy/hold your company stock even if given at a discount. If equity is provided as part of the compensation package (Options/Restrictive Stock Units RSU)then this rule does not apply. As a matter of diversification, you should not have majority equity stake of other companies in the same sector (e.g. technology) as your employer. Asset allocation and diversification if done in the right way, takes care of the returns. Buying and selling on the same day is generally not allowed for ESPP. Taxation headaches. This is from personal experience (Cisco Systems). I had options issued in Sept 2008 at 18$ which vested regularly. I exited at various points - 19$,20$,21$,23$ My friend held on to all of it hoping for 30$ is stuck. Options expire if you leave your employment. ESPP shares though remain.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94ca522ac3e692fc40a81e334445cace", "text": "\"Many companies (particularly tech companies like Atlassian) grant their employees \"\"share options\"\" as part of their compensation. A share option is the right to buy a share in the company at a \"\"strike price\"\" specified when the option is granted. Typically these \"\"vest\"\" after 1-4 years so long as the employee stays with the company. Once they do vest, the employee can exercise them by paying the strike price - typically they'd do that if the shares are now more valuable. The amount they pay to exercise the option goes to the company and will show up in the $2.3 million quoted in the question.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7976020809b0020375b57fb5be4dbcb", "text": "Is the remaining amount tax free? As in, if the amount shown (which I can sell) on etrade is $5000 then if I sell the entire shares will my bank account be increased by $5000? The stocks they sell are withholding. So let's say you had $7000 of stock and they sold $2000 for taxes. That leaves you with $5000. But the actual taxes paid might be more or less than $2000. They go in the same bucket as the rest of your withholding. If too much is withheld, you get a refund. Too little and you owe them. Way too little and you have to pay penalties. At the end of the year, you will show $7000 as income and $2000 as withheld for taxes from that transaction. You may also have a capital gain if the stock increases in price. They do not generally withhold on stock sales, as they don't necessarily know what was your gain and what was your loss. You usually have to handle that yourself. The main point that I wanted to make is that the sale is not tax free. It's just that you already had tax withheld. It may or may not be enough.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "915e6ec3c328a2e4c2e8506fe7bc97cb", "text": "\"This is several questions wrapped together: How can I diplomatically see the company's financial information? How strong a claim does a stockholder or warrantholder have to see the company's financials? What information do I need to know about the company financials before deciding to buy in? I'll start with the easier second question (which is quasi implicit). Stockholders typically have inspection rights. For example, Delaware General Corporate Law § 220 gives stockholders the right to inspect and copy company financial information, subject to certain restrictions. Check the laws and corporate code of your company's state of incorporation to find the specific inspection right. If it is an LLC or partnership, then the operating agreement usually controls and there may be no inspection rights. If you have no corporate stock, then of course you have no statutory inspection rights. My (admittedly incomplete) understanding is that warrantholders generally have no inspection rights unless somehow contracted for. So if you vest as a corporate stockholder, it'll be your right to see the financials—which may make even a small purchase valuable to you as a continuing employee with the right to see the financials. Until then, this is probably a courtesy and not their obligation. The first question is not easy to answer, except to say that it's variable and highly personal for small companies. Some people interpret it as prying or accusatory, the implication being that the founders are either hiding something or that you need to examine really closely the mouth of their beautiful gift horse. Other people may be much cooler about the question, understanding that small companies are risky and you're being methodical. And in some smaller companies, they may believe giving you the expenses could make office life awkward. If you approach it professionally, directly, and briefly (do not over-explain yourself) with the responsible accountant or HR person (if any), then I imagine it should not be a problem for them to give some information. Conversely, you may feel comfortable enough to review a high-level summary sheet with a founder, or to find some other way of tactfully reviewing the right information. In any case, I would keep the request vague, simple, and direct, and see what information they show you. If your request is too specific, then you risk pushing them to show information A, which they refuse to do, but a vague request would've prompted them to show you information B. A too-specific request might get you information X when a vague request could have garnered XYZ. Vague requests are also less aggressive and may raise fewer objections. The third question is difficult to say. My personal understanding is some perspective of how venture capitalists look at the investment opportunity (you didn't say how new this startup is or what series/stage they are on, so I'll try to stay vague). The actual financials are less relevant for startups than they are for other investments because the situation will definitely change. Most venture capital firms like to look at the burn rate or amount of cash spent, usually at a monthly rate. A high burn rate relative to infusions of cash suggests the company is growing rapidly but may have a risk of toppling (i.e. failing before exit). Burn rate can change drastically during the early life of the startup. Of course burn rate needs the context of revenues and reserves (and latest valuation is helpful as a benchmark, but you may be able to calculate that from the restricted share offer made to you). High burn rate might not be bad, if the company is booming along towards a successful exit. You might also want to look at some sort of business plan or info sheet, rather than financials alone. You want to gauge the size of the market (most startups like to claim 9- or 10-figure markets, so even a few percentage points of market share will hit revenue into the 8-figures). You'll also have to have a sense for the business plan and model and whether it's a good investment or a ridiculous rehash (\"\"it's Twitter for dogs meets Match.com for Russian Orthodox singles!\"\"). In other words, appraise it like an investor or VC and figure out whether it's a prospect for decent return. Typical things like competition, customer acquisition costs, manufacturing costs are relevant depending on the type of business activity. Of course, I wouldn't ignore psychology (note that economists and finance people don't generally condone the following sort of emotional thinking). If you don't invest in the company and it goes big, you'll kick yourself. If it goes really big, other people will either assume you are rich or feel sad for you if you say you didn't get rich. If you invest but lose money, it may not be so painful as not investing and losing out the opportunity. So if you consider the emotional aspect of personal finance, it may be wise to invest at least a little, and hedge against \"\"woulda-shoulda\"\" syndrome. That's more like emotional advice than hard-nosed financial advice. So much of the answer really depends on your particular circumstances. Obviously you have other considerations like whether you can afford the investment, which will be on you to decide. And of course, the § 83(b) election is almost always recommended in these situations (which seems to be what you are saying) to convert ordinary income into capital gain. You may also need cash to pay any up-front taxes on the § 83(b) equity, depending on your circumstances.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7912721aeec16df874e5977ea2a9eaa0", "text": "Here's an article on it that might help: http://thefinancebuff.com/restricted-stock-units-rsu-sales-and.html One of the tricky things is that you probably have the value of the vested shares and withheld taxes already on your W-2. This confuses everyone including the IRS (they sent me one of those audits-by-mail one year, where the issue was they wanted to double-count stock compensation that was on both 1099-B and W-2; a quick letter explaining this and they were happy). The general idea is that when you first irrevocably own the stock (it vests) then that's income, because you're receiving something of value. So this goes on a W-2 and is taxed as income, not capital gains. Conceptually you've just spent however many dollars in income to buy stock, so that's your basis on the stock. For tax paid, if your employer withheld taxes, it should be included in your W-2. In that case you would not separately list it elsewhere.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd9e7e87b025c85a7d5b4444cdca051a", "text": "Do not take the cash! You might be able to leave the money with the large company. Ask the HR people at the company. If you are satisfied with their work, no sense leaving if you don't have to. I have coworkers that have 401K all over from all the buyouts the company went through. If you don't want to leave it behind, do a rollover into your own account with a low cost carrier. (Vanguard, Fidelity and Charles Schwab are popular) Whoever you choose for your own account can help you rollover the funds without penalty. (Schwab helped me over the phone, it was pretty simple) More about rolling over a Roth 401K", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2bdde0d4794fe9988782373b8a264726", "text": "This should all be covered in your stock grant documentation, or the employee stock program of which your grant is a part. Find those docs and it should specify how or when you can sale your shares, and how the money is paid to you. Generally, vested shares are yours until you take action. If instead you have options, then be aware these need to be exercised before they become shares. There is generally a limited time period on how long you can wait to exercise. In the US, 10 years is common. Unvested shares will almost certainly expire upon your departure of the company. Whether your Merrill Lynch account will show this, or show them as never existing, I can't say. But either way, there is nothing you can or should do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa4a0c6adca42d26c09ea9e94ba3ad8f", "text": "I've been offered a package that includes 100k stock options at 5 dollars a share. They vest over 4 years at 25% a year. Does this mean that at the end of the first year, I'm supposed to pay for 25,000 shares? Wouldn't this cost me 125,000 dollars? I don't have this kind of money. At the end of the first year, you will generally have the option to pay for the shares. Yes, this means you have to use your own money. You generally dont have to buy ANY until the whole option vests, after 4 years in your case, at which point you either buy, or you are considered 'vested' (you have equity in the company without buying) or the option expires worthless, with you losing your window to buy into the company. This gives you plenty of opportunity to evaluate the company's growth prospects and viability over this time. Regarding options expiration the contract can have an arbitrarily long expiration date, like 17 years. You not having the money or not isn't a consideration in this matter. Negotiate a higher salary instead. I've told several companies that I don't want their equity despite my interest in their business model and product. YMMV. Also, options can come with tax consequences, or none at all. its not a raw deal but you need to be able to look at it objectively.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43f5f0ff7d12fa5c9f382dac08ecce0f", "text": "The broker that is issuing the moneys after vesting is more than likely deducting a notional amount of tax and NI based on UK income tax laws. If you are not a UK resident, then you should pay income tax on those stock options based on your own tax residency. Best thing to do is speak directly with the broker to explain the situation, ask them to not deduct anything from your stock options - but keep in mind that you will need to declare these earnings yourself and pay the correct rate of tax. From my own personal experience, the UK employer more than likely receives the net value (after the notional tax and NI have been deducted) and in usual circumstances create a tax liability on your payslip (if you were working and had earnings). If of course this deduction is being made by the employer, then you can simply ask them to correct this (most UK payroll software will automatically deduct tax and NI for payments after leaving unless manually intervened, so they probably aren't aware if it is them doing so).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "54c8b95482efb17d27bb5df4bdffc267", "text": "My answer would be yes. In addition, I'm not sure that anything requires you to roll your current 401(k) into a new one if you don't like the investment options. Keeping existing funds in your current 401(k) if you like their investment options might make sense for you (though they obviously wouldn't be adding funds once you're no longer an employee). As for the terms of the potential new 401(k), the matching percentage and vesting schedule match what I've seen at past employers. My current employer offers the same terms, but there's no vesting schedule.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "559e3242a47e027a1305f24643f9a308", "text": "No, unvested money returns to the employer, its not yours. They should send you W2 which will only show the actual (vested) monies you got.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
0edf0c839c714bb923da015ae30571a3
Is this comparison of a 15-year vs. a 30-year mortgage reasonable?
[ { "docid": "033272001584b44ca78b60db0b437eab", "text": "\"I think your analysis is very clear, it's a sensible approach, and the numbers sound about right to me. A few other things you might want to think about: Tax In some jurisdictions you can deduct mortgage interest against your income tax. I see from your profile that you're in Texas, but I don't know the exact situation there and I think it's better to keep this answer general anyway. If that's the case for you, then you should re-run your numbers taking that into account. You may also be able to make your investments tax-advantaged, for example if you save them in a retirement account. You'll need to apply the appropriate limits for your specific situation and take an educated guess as to how that might change over the next 30 years. Liquidity The money you're not spending on your mortgage is money that's available to you for other spending or emergencies - i.e. even though your default assumption is to invest it and that's a sensible way to compare with the mortgage, you might still place some extra value on having more free access to it. Overpayments Would you have the option to pay extra on the mortgage? That's another way of \"\"investing\"\" your money that gets you a guaranteed return of the mortgage rate. You might want to consider if you'd want to send some of your excess money that way.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e7ceb82cec37d7d2d2ae175bc6f4b249", "text": "The best way to look at it is this: I would suspect most people would say no. Most people do not have the time, skill, or risk tolerance to be able to leverage capital as large as the value of their own home. Remember that a 15-year fixed has a slightly lower interest rate than a 30-year fixed (difference of 0.5–1%). If you won't have the discipline to invest every cent left in your pocket, then you are better off with the 15-year and the lower rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94b7b27feac8a3dcef63056fa43001dd", "text": "It seems like you are asking two different questions, one is, how do I know if I can afford a house? The other is, how do I know what type of mortage to get? The first question is fairly simple to answer, there's plenty of calculators out there that will tell you what you can afford, but rule of thumb is 30% of income can goto housing. Now what type of mortgage to get can be much more confusing, because the mortgage industry makes money off of these confusing products. The best thing to do in my opionion in situations like this is to keep it simple. You need to be careful buying a house. So much money is changing hands and there are so many parasites involved in the transaction I would be extremely wary of anybody who is going to tell you what mortgage to get. I've never heard of a fee only independent mortgage broker, and if I found one that claimed to be I wouldn't believe him. I would just ignore all the exotic non-conforming products and just answer one simple question. Are you the type of person that buys an insurance policy or that likes to self insure? If you like insurance, get a 30 year fixed mortgage. If you like to self insure, get a 7 year ARM. The average lenghth someone owns a house is 7 years, plus in 7 years time, it might not adjust up, and even if it does, you can just accelerate your payments and pay it off quickly (this is the self insurance part of it). If you're like me, I'm willing to pay an extra .5% for the 30 year so that my payment never changes and I'm never forced to move (which is admitedly extremely unlikely, but I like the safety). I don't like 15 year term loans because rates are so low, you can get way better returns in the stock market right now, so why pay off sooner then you need to. Heck, if I had a paid off house right now I'd refi into a 30 year and invest the money. In summary, pick 30 year or ARM, then just shop around to find the lowest rate (which is extremely easy).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8a3ebfa6c633c4958363319222831edb", "text": "\"Consider the \"\"opportunity cost\"\" of the extra repayment on a 15 year loan. If you owe money at 30% p.a. and money at 4% p.a. then it is a no brainer that the 30% loan gets paid down first. Consider too that if the mortgage is not tax deductable and you pay income tax, that you do not pay tax on money you \"\"save\"\". (i.e. in the extreme $1 saved is $2 earned). Forward thinking is key, if you are paying for someone's college now, then you would want to pay out of an education plan for which contributions are tax deductable, money in, money out. In my country most mortgages, be they 15,25,30 years tend to last 6-8 years for the lender. People move or flip or re-finance. I would take the 15 for the interest rate but only if I could sustain the payments without hardship. Maybe a more modest home ? If you cannot afford the higher repayments you are probably sailing a bit close to the wind anyway. Another thing to consider is that tax benefits can be altered with the stroke of a pen, but you may still have to meet repayments.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17b2928bee6da11bfcbf89b118b27938", "text": "I'll compare it to a situation that is different, but will involve the same cash flow. Imagine the buyer agrees that you buy only 70% of the house right now, and the remaining 30% in 7 years time. It would be obviously fair to pay 70% of today's value today, pay 30% of a reasonable rent for 7 years (because 30% of the house isn't owned by you), then pay 30% of the value that the house has in 7 years time. 30% of the value in 7 years is the same as 30% of the value today, plus 30% of whatever the house gained in value. Instead you pay 70% of today's value, you pay no rent for the 30% that you don't own, then in 7 years time you pay 30% of today's value, plus 50% of whatever the house gained in value. So you are basically exchanging 30% of seven years rent, plus interest, for 20% of the gain in value over 7 years. Which might be zero. Or might be very little. Or a lot, in which case you are still better off. Obviously you need to set up a bullet proof contract. A lawyer will also tell you what to put into the contract in case the house burns down and can't be rebuilt, or you add an extension to the home which increases the value. And keep in mind that this is a good deal if the house doesn't increase in value, but if the house increases in value a lot, you benefit anyway. A paradoxical situation, where the worse the deal turns out to be after 7 years, the better the result for you. In addition, the relative carries the risk of non-payment, which the bank obviously is not willing to do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92cf2a5b6ac5bd821fb15796a37bf18d", "text": "Here is something that should help your decision: Currently you are 57, suppose that means that you will still work for 10 years, and then be retired for another 20 before you sell the house. Your retirement account is nearly flat, so you will have to support yourself with your own income. If there are no surprises, you and your wife could expect to earn 1.16 million over the next 10 years. There will be interest on your savings, but also inflation, so to simplify I will ignore both. That means you will have an average of 40k (gross?) per year available to live from during the next 30 years. If you get a mortgage where you only pay nett 3% interest (no payback of the loan), that would cost you 6k per year on interest (based on 350k-150k), if you also want to pay back the 200k difference within 30 years, it would totally be close to 13k in annual interest+payback. Now consider whether you would rather live on 40k per year in your current place, or on a lower amount in a bigger place. Personally I would not choose to make a 200k investment at this point, perhaps after trying to live on a budget for a while. (This has the additional benefit that you can even build some cash reserve before buying anything.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2dfd25ee497ab4abeeec00ed7e0d01a", "text": "There are banks that will do 5-year fixed. Alternatively, if you pay off a 15-year mortgage as if it were a five-year fixed, with the extra money going to pay down principal, the cost isn't very different and you have more safety buffer. Talk to banks about options, or find a mortgage broker who'd be willing to research this for you. Just to point out an alternative: refinancing at lower rate but without shortening the duration would lower your payments; investing the difference, even quite conservatively, is likely to produce more income than the loan would be costing you at today's rates. This is arguably the safest leveraged investment you'll ever have the opportunity to make. (I compromised: I cut my term from 20 years to 15ish, lowered the interest rate to 3.5ish, and am continuing to let the loaned money sit in my investments and grow.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e6bafc178dad29c3bf694d00227deaf5", "text": "\"If I were you, I would rent. Wait to buy a home. Here is why: When you say that renting is equal in cost to a 30-year mortgage, you are failing to consider several aspects. See this recent answer for a list of things that need to be considered when comparing buying and renting. You have no down payment. Between the two of you, you have $14,000, but this money is needed for both your emergency fund and your fiancée's schooling. In your words: \"\"we can’t reeaallllly afford a home.\"\" A home is a big financial commitment. If you buy a home before you are financially ready, it will be continuous trouble. If you need a cosigner, you aren't ready to buy a home. I would absolutely advise whoever you are thinking about cosigning for you not to do so. It puts them legally on the hook for a house that you can't yet afford. You aren't married yet. You should never buy something as big as a home with someone you aren't married to; there are just too many things that can go wrong. (See comments for more explanation.) Wait until you are married before you buy. Your income is low right now. And that is okay for now; you've been able to avoid the credit card debt that so many people fall into. However, you do have student loans to pay, and taking on a huge new debt right now would be potentially disastrous for you. Your family income will eventually increase when your fiancée gets her degree and gets a job, and at that time, you will be in a much better situation to consider buying a house. You need to move \"\"ASAP.\"\" Buying a house when you are in a hurry is a generally a bad idea. When you look for a home, you need to take some time looking so you aren't rushed into a bad deal that you will regret. Even if you decide you want to buy, you should first find a place to rent; then you can take your time finding the right house. To answer your question about escrow: When you own a house, two of the required expenses that you will have besides the mortgage payment are property taxes and homeowner's insurance. These are large payments that are only due once a year. The bank holding the mortgage wants to make sure that they get paid. So to help you budget for these expenses and to ensure that these expenses are paid, the bank will add these to your monthly mortgage payment, and set them aside in a savings account (called an escrow account). Then when these bills come due once a year, they are paid for out of the escrow account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76cbac1d8c3e18b9fb441b9ae4daec38", "text": "There is no simple way to calculate how much house any given person can afford. In the answer keshlam gave, several handy rules of thumb are mentioned that are used as common screening devices to reject loans, but in every case further review is required to approve any loan. The 28% rule is the gold standard for estimating how much you can afford, but it is only an estimate; all the details (that you don't want to provide) are required to give you anything better than an estimate. In the spirit of JoeTaxpayer's answer I'm going to give you a number that you can multiply your gross income by for a good estimate, but my estimate is based on a 15 year mortgage. Assuming a 15 year mortgage with a 3% interest rate, it will cost $690.58 per $100,000 borrowed. So to take those numbers and wrap it up in a bow, you can multiply your income by 3.38 and have the amount of mortgage that most people can afford. If you have a down-payment saved add it to the number above for the total price of the home you can buy after closing costs are added in. Property taxes and insurance rates vary widely, and those are often rolled into the mortgage payment to be paid from an escrow account, banks may consider all of these factors in their calculators but they may not be transparent. If you can't afford to pay it in 15 years, you really can't afford it. Compare the same $100k loan: In 30 years at 4% you pay about $477/month with a total of about $72k in interest over the life of the loan. In 15 years at 3% you pay about $691/month but the total interest is only $24k, and you are out of the loan in half of the time. The equity earned in the first 5 years is also signficantly different with 28.5% for the 15 year loan vs. 9.5% on the 30 year loan. Without straying too far into general economics, 15 year loans would also have averted the mortgage crisis of 2008, because more people would have had enough equity that they wouldn't have walked out on their homes when there was a price correction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c2347a4ed4cd25bf7adcbdf7126f9d7", "text": "The rules of thumb are there for a reason. In this case, they reflect good banking and common sense by the buyer. When we bought our house 15 years ago it cost 2.5 times our salary and we put 20% down, putting the mortgage at exactly 2X our income. My wife thought we were stretching ourselves, getting too big a house compared to our income. You are proposing buying a house valued at 7X your income. Granted, rates have dropped in these 15 years, so pushing 3X may be okay, the 26% rule still needs to be followed. You are proposing to put nearly 75% of your income to the mortgage? Right? The regular payment plus the 25K/yr saved to pay that interest free loan? Wow. You are over reaching by double, unless the rental market is so tight that you can actually rent two rooms out to cover over half the mortgage. Consider talking to a friendly local banker, he (or she) will likely give you the same advice we are. These ratios don't change too much by country, interest rate and mortgages aren't that different. I wish you well, welcome to SE.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d9f61c3c251be6934c53b4e584cac7d1", "text": "\"This doesn't say the whole story (like the length of the HELOC). if you have 15 years left on a mortgage and \"\"refinance\"\" into a 30 year HELOC then yes, your payments maybe 20% lower, but you add 15 years to pay it off. Just remember that interest occurs daily on what you owe. If you move 100K of debt from 5% mortgage to 6% HELOC you'll be paying more to the banks no matter how you slice it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4ad104e5fbb185e64fd29522d177b86", "text": "I'm calculating that to about a 7% apr, which given loan rates available today seems a bit high. I wouldn't get too caught up on what that equates to over the life of the loan. There are a lot of forces in play over a 30 year period, namely the time value of money. 30 years from now a dollar will be less valuable in real terms due to the forces of inflation. At 2% per year in inflation today's $1 will be worth about $0.55 in 30 years.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fe97ab9324115953f523140fad02459", "text": "\"Yes. It does cost the same to pay off a \"\"15 year in 15\"\" year versus a \"\"30 year in 15 year\"\" mortgage. After all, the 30 year amortization period is only used by the lender to calculate the monthly payment he'll expect, while, unbeknownst to him, you are using a 15 year amortization and the same rate to calculate the payments you'll really make. One factor: Can you make extra payments at the level you want, without incurring penalties from the lender? Most mortgages have prepayment limits. After all. he's seeing his nice steady 30 years of cash flow suddenly shortened. He has to go out and find someone else to lend the unexpected payments to... EDIT: Closed mortgages, with pre-payment charges are the norm here in Canada; open mortgages predominate in the US http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/corp/nero/jufa/jufa_018.cfm\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c26765078c78e8b309ff703f65207fe4", "text": "Different bonds (and securitized mortgages are bonds) that have similar average lives tend to have similar yields (or at least trade at predictable yield spreads from one another). So, why does a 30 year mortgage not trade in lock-step with 30-year Treasuries? First a little introduction: Mortgages are pooled together into bundles and securitized by the Federal Agencies: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. Investors make assumptions about the prepayments expected for the mortgages in those pools. As explained below: those assumptions show that mortgages tend to have an average life similar to 10-year Treasury Notes. 100% PSA, a so-called average rate of prepayment, means that the prepayment increases linearly from 0% to 6% over the first 30 months of the mortgage. After the first 30 months, mortgages are assumed to prepay at 6% per year. This assumption comes from the fact that people are relatively unlikely to prepay their mortgage in the first 2 1/2 years of the mortgage's life. See the graph below. The faster the repayments the shorter the average life of the mortgage. With 150% PSA a mortgage has an average life of nine years. On average your investment will be returned within 9 years. Some of it will be returned earlier, and some of it later. This return of interest and principal is shown in the graph below: The typical investor in a mortgage receives 100% of this investment back within approximately 10 years, therefore mortgages trade in step with 10 year Treasury Notes. Average life is defined here: The length of time the principal of a debt issue is expected to be outstanding. Average life is an average period before a debt is repaid through amortization or sinking fund payments. To calculate the average life, multiply the date of each payment (expressed as a fraction of years or months) by the percentage of total principal that has been paid by that date, summing the results and dividing by the total issue size.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b8a4333402bf954d50caee744a65301b", "text": "One will find that the fixed 30 year mortgage rate is tightly correlated to the 10 year treasury. An adder of 2-2.5% or so, changing slightly with the rest of the economy, as money can get tight or loose independent of the rate itself. In 2011 we are witnessing low rates yet tough loan standards, this is the phenomenon I am referencing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cabd6507f50414dfaa6ef94b564f4d3a", "text": "\"The reason to put more money down or accept a shorter maximum term is because the bank sweetens the deal (or fails to sour it in some fashion). For example, typically, if there is less than 20% down, you have to pay an premium called \"\"Private Mortgage Insurance\"\", which makes it bad deal. But I see banks offering the same rate for a 15%-year mortgage as for a 30-year one, and I think: fools and their money. Take the 30-year and, if you feel like it pay more every month. Although why you would feel like it, I don't know, since it's very difficult to get that money back if you need it.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
dffdd0a8c8369418a32a3070fa026561
Where to park money low-risk on interactivebrokers account?
[ { "docid": "ee81a90148d0f963fa707fa0e5631b6c", "text": "\"The standard low-risk/gain very-short-term parking spot these days tends to be a money market account. However, you have only mentioned stock. For good balance, your portfolio should consider the bond market too. Consider adding a bond index fund to diversify the basic mix, taking up much of that 40%. This will also help stabilize your risk since bonds tend to move opposite stocks (prperhaps just because everyone else is also using them as the main alternative, though there are theoretical arguments why this should be so.) Eventually you may want to add a small amount of REIT fund to be mix, but that's back on the higher risk side. (By the way: Trying to guess when the next correction will occur is usually not a winning strategy; guesses tend to go wrong as often as they go right, even for pros. Rather than attempting to \"\"time the market\"\", pick a strategic mix of investments and rebalance periodically to maintain those ratios. There has been debate here about \"\"dollar-cost averaging\"\" -- see other answers -- but that idea may argue for investing and rebalancing in more small chunks rather than a few large ones. I generally actively rebalance once a year or so, and between those times let maintainng the balance suggest which fund(s) new money should go into -- minimal effort and it has worked quite well enough.,)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3569d0d1efd08759ff7184142cfa4a06", "text": "I would refrain from commenting on market timing strategy, but please don't park extra AUD cash in IB. Park cash in your local bank high interest savings, and get a Margin account at IB. When you want to pull the trigger, use margin loan to buy stocks immediately, then transfer cash from local bank to IB afterwards.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "5551e1d6c53d78ac4f021ce3d5c4c4b4", "text": "I traded futures for a brief period in school using the BrokersXpress platform (now part of OptionsXpress, which is in turn now part of Charles Schwab). They had a virtual trading platform, and apparently still do, and it was excellent. Since my main account was enabled for futures, this carried over to the virtual account, so I could trade a whole range of futures, options, stocks, etc. I spoke with OptionsXpress, and you don't need to fund your acount to use the virtual trading platform. However, they will cancel your account after an arbitrary period of time if you don't log in every few days. According to their customer service, there is no inactivity fee on your main account if you don't fund it and make no trades. I also used Stock-Trak for a class and despite finding the occasional bug or website performance issue, it provided a good experience. I received a discount because I used it through an educational institution, and customer service was quite good (probably for the same reason), but I don't know if those same benefits would apply to an individual signing up for it. I signed up for top10traders about seven years ago when I was in secondary school, and it's completely free. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and the interface was poorly designed and slow. Furthermore, at that time, there were no restrictions that limited the number of shares you could buy to the number of outstanding shares, so you could buy as many as you could afford, even if you exceeded the number that physically existed. While this isn't an issue for large companies, it meant you could earn a killing trading highly illiquid pink sheet stocks because you could purchase billions of shares of companies with only a few thousand shares actually outstanding. I don't know if these issues have been corrected or not, but at the time, I and several other users took advantage of these oversights to rack up hundreds of trillions of dollars in a matter of days, so if you want a realistic simulation, this isn't it. Investopedia also has a stock simulator that I've heard positive things about, although I haven't used it personally.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3244cb5dd6f3993ed5ce0f950901c5ab", "text": "Other than the possibility of minimal entry price being prohibitively high, there's no reason why you couldn't participate in any global trading whatsoever. Most ETFs, and indeed, stockbrokers allows both accounts opening, and trading via the Internet, without regard to physical location. With that said, I'd strongly advice you to do a proper research, and reality check both on your risk/reward profile, and on the vehicles to invest in. As Fools write, money you'll need in the next 6 months have no place on the stockmarket. Be prepared, that you can indeed loose all of your investment, regardless of the chosen vehicle.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "274f148b0a145f15618ebf92b4b0a936", "text": "\"You most definitely can invest such an amount profitably, but it makes it even more important to avoid fees, um, at all costs, because fees tend to have a fixed component that will be much worse for you than for someone investing €200k. So: Edit: The above assumes that you actually want to invest in the long run, for modest but relatively certain gains (maybe 5% above inflation) while accepting temporary downswings of up to 30%. If those €2000 are \"\"funny money\"\" that you don't mind losing but would be really excited about maybe getting 100% return in less than 5 years, well, feel free to put them into an individual stock of an obscure small company, but be aware that you'd be gambling, not investing, and you can probably get better quotes playing Roulette.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "174df252db3033dd38bbf830ef5356d5", "text": "Tell your broker. You can usually opt to have certain positions be FIFO and others LIFO. Definitely possible with Interactive Brokers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5bdd92b794541937b4f697a658e0170", "text": "\"General advice is to keep 6 months worth of income liquid -- in your case, you might want to leave 1 year liquid since, even though your income is stable now, it is not static (i.e., you're not drawing salary from an employer). The rest of it? If you don't plan on using it for any big purchases in the next 5 or so years, invest it. If you don't, you will probably lose money in the long term due to inflation (how's that for a risk? :). There are plenty of options for the risk averse, many of which handily beat inflation, though without knowing your country of residence, it's hard to say. In all likelihood, though, you'll want to invest in index funds -- such as ETFs -- that basically track industries, rather than individual companies. This is basically free portfolio diversity -- they lose money only when an entire sector loses value. Though even with funds of this type, you still want to ensure you purchase multiple different funds that track different industries. Don't just toss all of your funds into an IT index, for example. Before buying, just look at the history of the fund and make sure it has had a general upward trajectory since 2008 (I've bought a few ETFs that remained static...not what we're looking for in an investment!). If the brokerage account you choose doesn't offer commission free trades on any of the funds you want (personally, I use Schwab and their ETF portfolio), try to \"\"buy in bulk.\"\" That way you're not spending so much on trades. There are other considerations (many indexed funds have high management costs, but if you go with ETFs, they don't, and there's the question of dividends, etc), but that is getting into the weeds as far as investing knowledge is concerned. Beyond that, just keep in mind it'll take 1-2 weeks for you to see that money if you need it, and there's obviously no guarantee it'll be there if you do need it for an emergency.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2e963a985a9bfcb61d6590bd0e46d14d", "text": "Try something like this: http://www.halifax.co.uk/sharedealing/our-accounts/fantasy-trader/ Virtual or fantasy trading is a great way to immerse yourself in that world and not lose your money whilst you make basic mistakes. Once real money is involved, there are some online platforms that are cheaper for lower amount investing than others. This article is a good, recent starting point for you: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/article-1718291/Pick-best-cheapest-investment-Isa-platform.html Best of luck in the investment casino! (And only risk money you can afford to lose - as with any form of investment, gambling, etc)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bb6162ba093499fdf62d7ca8942e860", "text": "Where you can put the money really depends on your risk tolerance. You could take $50k and put it into a good share class municipal and government bond fund that would likely be tax exempt. In a few years span I don't think you're likely to lose much in a tax-managed bond fund but it's certainly possible! Here is a link for Vanguard tax-exempt bond funds by state of residency: https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/vanguard-mutual-funds-list?assetclass=bond&taxeff=xmpt These funds have returns well exceeding CD's or standard savings accounts. Risk of loss is real, but returns are possible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f23a77c2c5432db5c7cf786f6e890560", "text": "I find this site to be really poor for the virtual play portion, especially the options league. After you place a trade, you can't tell what you actually traded. The columns for Exp and type are blank. I have had better luck with OptionsXpress virtual trader. Although they have recently changed their criteria for a non funded accounts and will only keep them active for 90 days. I know the cboe has a paper trading platform but I haven't tried it out yet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51a6ba3c5c5b04a242d6415f5793f7b8", "text": "Does anyone know if there is a way to set up a practice account? I only have index ETFs currently, and would like to play around and get a feel for other stocks/options before putting real money into it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f07032dc0d4e06f537d847062dfa7294", "text": "\"If you have a big pocket there are quite a few.. not sure if they take us clients though. Vcap, Barclays, Icap, Fixi, Fc Stone, Ikon.. Then there are probably a few banks that have x options also but i don't know if a private investor can trade them. A few im not sure if they have fx options or if they are \"\"good\"\": GFTFOREX, Gain capital, XTB, hmslux, Ifx Markets, Alpari, us.etrade.com Betonmarkets might be something if you are interested in \"\"exotic options\"\" maybe?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0626a96a27ac1db6932091ee4ff8eac2", "text": "Look at a mixture of low-fee index funds, low-fee bond funds, and CDs. The exact allocation has to be tailored to your appetite for risk. If you only want to park the money with essentially no risk of loss then you need FDIC insured products like CDs or a money market account (as opposed to a money market fund which is not FDIC insured). However as others have said, interest rates are awful now. Since you are in your early 30's, and expect to keep this investment for 10+ years, you can probably tolerate a bit of risk. Also considering speaking to a tax professional to determine the specific tax benefits/drawbacks of one investment strategy (funds and CDs) versus another (e.g. real estate).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e7f88b56677a917045c41db97d6ced0", "text": "\"I'd suggest you start by looking at the mutual fund and/or ETF options available via your bank, and see if they have any low-cost funds that invest in high-risk sectors. You can increase your risk (and potential returns) by allocating your assets to riskier sectors rather than by picking individual stocks, and you'll be less likely to make an avoidable mistake. It is possible to do as you suggest and pick individual stocks, but by doing so you may be taking on more risk than you suspect, even unnecessary risk. For instance, if you decide to buy stock in Company A, you know you're taking a risk by investing in just one company. However, without a lot of work and financial expertise, you may not be able to assess how much risk you're taking by investing in Company A specifically, as opposed to Company B. Even if you know that investing in individual stocks is risky, it can be very hard to know how risky those particular individual stocks are, compared to other alternatives. This is doubly true if the investment involves actions more exotic than simply buying and holding an asset like a stock. For instance, you could definitely get plenty of risk by investing in commercial real estate development or complicated options contracts; but a certain amount of work and expertise is required to even understand how to do that, and there is a greater likelihood that you will slip up and make a costly mistake that negates any extra gain, even if the investment itself might have been sound for someone with experience in that area. In other words, you want your risk to really be the risk of the investment, not the \"\"personal\"\" risk that you'll make a mistake in a complicated scheme and lose money because you didn't know what you were doing. (If you do have some expertise in more exotic investments, then maybe you could go this route, but I think most people -- including me -- don't.) On the other hand, you can find mutual funds or ETFs that invest in large economic sectors that are high-risk, but because the investment is diversified within that sector, you need only compare the risk of the sectors. For instance, emerging markets are usually considered one of the highest-risk sectors. But if you restrict your choice to low-cost emerging-market index funds, they are unlikely to differ drastically in risk (at any rate, far less than individual companies). This eliminates the problem mentioned above: when you choose to invest in Emerging Markets Index Fund A, you don't need to worry as much about whether Emerging Markets Index Fund B might have been less risky; most of the risk is in the choice to invest in the emerging markets sector in the first place, and differences between comparable funds in that sector are small by comparison. You could do the same with other targeted sectors that can produce high returns; for instance, there are mutual funds and ETFs that invest specifically in technology stocks. So you could begin by exploring the mutual funds and ETFs available via your existing investment bank, or poke around on Morningstar. Fees will still matter no matter what sector you're in, so pay attention to those. But you can probably find a way to take an aggressive risk position without getting bogged down in the details of individual companies. Also, this will be less work than trying something more exotic, so you're less likely to make a costly mistake due to not understanding the complexities of what you're investing in.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ed2cb593ee57de5f9f887f837964aa8", "text": "A CDIC-insured high-interest savings bank account is both safe and liquid (i.e. you can withdraw your money at any time.) At present time, you could earn interest of ~1.35% per year, if you shop around. If you are willing to truly lock in for 2 years minimum, rates go up slightly, but perhaps not enough to warrant loss of liquidity. Look at GIC rates to get an idea. Any other investments – such as mutual funds, stocks, index funds, ETFs, etc. – are generally not consistent with your stated risk objective and time frame. Better returns are generally only possible if you accept the risk of loss of capital, or lock in for longer time periods.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8082d5dbe8ace4746ececb5fbe53dea7", "text": "Unfortunately the answer is, almost none. Almost everything has a risk of decreasing; but given your short time horizon and presumably given that you want back your principal in full, plus a little bit, you have few choices. (Some of the following may be Canadian specific terms, but hopefully they are generic enough to apply) Savings accounts, money-market funds and the like should be available at any bank. Interest won't pay you much right now, but the money should be safe (I presume Israel has some kind of deposit insurance for normal bank accounts?) Slightly more risky would be a short-to-maturity bond or stripped bond coupon. The entry amount of money for one of these may be more than you have on hand, or the setup fee for an investment account might be more than you want to bother with for a one-off investment. Given that you seem to indicate that you might need access to the money during the time-frame in question, the bank-account option seems to be the only one really available.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "baeda48ad38b88a95a6cbfd626419096", "text": "I've looked into Thinkorswim; my father uses it. Although better than eTrade, it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Interactive Brokers is a name I had heard a long time ago but forgotten. Thank you for that, it seems to be just what I need.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a86a03ea26f46f782f482882ee0a1c40
Pros/cons of replicating a “fund of funds” with its component funds in my IRA?
[ { "docid": "6bc71668a8b9096a2bcfb406c5bacf23", "text": "In your entire question, the only time you mention that this is an investment inside an IRA is when you say Every quarter, six months, whatever Id have to rebalance my IRA while Vanguard would do this for the fund of funds without me needing to. Within an IRA, there are no tax implications to the rebalancing. But if this investment were not inside an IRA, then the rebalancing done by you will have tax implications. In particular, any gains realized when you sell shares in one fund and buy shares in another fund during the rebalancing process are subject to income tax. Similarly, losses also might be realized (and will affect your taxes). However, if you are invested in a fund of funds, there are no capital gains (or capital losses) when re-balancing is done; you have gains or losses only when you sell shares of the fund of funds for a price different than the price you paid for them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56290eb39d292df78b8af33f4e308903", "text": "Mostly you nailed it. It's a good question, and the points you raise are excellent and comprise good analysis. Probably the biggest drawback is if you don't agree with the asset allocation strategy. It may be too much/too little into stocks/bonds/international/cash. I am kind of in this boat. My 401K offers very little choices in funds, but offers Vanguard target funds. These tend to be a bit too conservative for my taste, so I actually put money in the 2060 target fund. If I live that long, I will be 94 in 2060. So if the target funds are a bit too aggressive for you, move down in years. If they are a bit too conservative, move up.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0bb2a4215b16908865c4b679a895a316", "text": "\"Since you have emphasized that you don't mind about variability, and that you have other funds you could liquidate, then I think a solution is to do with this money the same thing that you are already doing with those other funds. Then when you need the money, if the market has gone up sell the lots that were part of your original \"\"other funds\"\", which presumably have aged enough to qualify for long term gains rates, and let the newly purchased shares take their place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91ac8519ecdfef7fe122c4fde90a549d", "text": "\"Note that an index fund may not be able to precisely mirror the index it's tracking. If enough many people invest enough money into funds based on that index, there may not always be sufficient shares available of every stock included in the index for the fund to both accept additional investment and track the index precisely. This is one of the places where the details of one index fund may differ from another even when they're following the same index. IDEALLY they ought to deliver the same returns, but in practical terms they're going to diverge a bit. (Personally, as long as I'm getting \"\"market rate of return\"\" or better on average across all my funds, at a risk I'm comfortable with, I honestly don't care enough to try to optimize it further. Pick a distribution based on some stochastic modelling tools, rebalance periodically to maintain that distribution, and otherwise ignore it. That's very much to the taste of someone like me who wants the savings to work for him rather than vice versa.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4693068364d85fcfd6bc49a34620ab6e", "text": "In a taxable account you're going to owe taxes when you sell the shares for a gain. You're also going to owe taxes on any distributions you receive from the holdings in the account; these distributions can happen one or more times a year. Vanguard has a writeup on mutual fund taxation. Note: for a fund like you linked, you will owe taxes annually, regardless of whether you sell it. The underlying assets will pay dividends and those are distributed to you either in cash, or more beneficially as additional shares of the mutual fund (look into dividend reinvestment.) Taking VFIAX's distributions as an example, if you bought 1 share of the fund on March 19, 2017, on March 20th you would have been given $1.005 that would be taxable. You'd owe taxes on that even if you didn't sell your share during the year. Your last paragraph is based on a false premise. The mutual fund does report to you at the end of the year the short and long term capital gains, along with dividends on a 1099-DIV. You get to pay taxes on those transactions, that's why it's advantageous to hold low turnover mutual funds in taxable accounts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8abab3a7c58f602a64ee42553c53c2d9", "text": "\"I don't think you have your head in the right space - you seem to be thinking of these lifecycle funds like they're an annuity or a pension, but they're not. They're an investment. Specifically, they're a mutual fund that will invest in a collection of other mutual funds, which in turn invest in stock and bonds. Stocks go up, and stocks go down. Bonds go up, and bonds go down. How much you'll have in this fund next year is unknowable, much less 32 years from now. What you can know, is that saving regularly over the next 32 years and investing it in a reasonable, and diversified way in a tax sheltered account like that Roth will mean you have a nice chunk of change sitting there when you retire. The lifecycle funds exist to help you with that \"\"reasonable\"\" and \"\"diversified\"\" bit.They're meant to be one stop shopping for a retirement portfolio. They put your money into a diversified portfolio, then \"\"age\"\" the portfolio allocations over time to make it go from a high risk, (potentially) high reward allocation now to a lower risk, lower reward portfolio as you approach retirement. The idea is is that you want to shoot for making lots of money now, but when you're older, you want to focus more on keeping the money you have. Incidentally, kudos for getting into seriously saving for retirement when you're young. One of the biggest positive effects you can have on how much you retire with is simply time. The more time your money can sit there, the better. At 26, if you're putting away 10 percent into a Roth, you're doing just fine. If that 5k is more than 10 percent, you'll do better than fine. (That's a rule of thumb, but it's based on a lot of things I've read where people have gamed out various scenarios, as well as my own, cruder calculations I've done in the past)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4df4ef31459c723e37be3d006ae61558", "text": "$10.90 for every $1000 per year. Are you kidding me!!! These are usually hidden within the expense ratio of the plan funds, but >1% seems to be quite a lot regardless. FUND X 1 year return 3% 3 year return 6% 10 year return 5% What does that exactly mean? This is the average annual rate of return. If measured for the last 3 years, the average annual rate of return is 6%, if measured for 1 year - it's 3%. What it means is that out of the last 3 years, the last year return was not the best, the previous two were much better. Does that mean that if I hold my mutual funds for 10 years I will get 5% return on it. Definitely not. Past performance doesn't promise anything for the future. It is merely a guidance for you, a comparison measure between the funds. You can assume that if in the past the fund performed certain way, then given the same conditions in the future, it will perform the same again. But it is in no way a promise or a guarantee of anything. Since my 401K plan stinks what are my options. If I put my money in a traditional IRA then I lose my pre tax benefits right! Wrong, IRA is pre-tax as well. But the pre-tax deduction limits for IRA are much lower than for 401k. You can consider investing in the 401k, and then rolling over to a IRA which will allow better investment options. After your update: Just clearing up the question. My current employer has a 401K. Most of the funds have the expense ratio of 1.20%. There is NO MATCHING CONTRIBUTIONS. Ouch. Should I convert the 401K of my old company to Traditional IRA and start investing in that instead of investing in the new employer 401K plan with high fees. You should probably consider rolling over the old company 401k to a traditional IRA. However, it is unrelated to the current employer's 401k. If you're contributing up to the max to the Roth IRA, you can't add any additional contributions to traditional IRA on top of that - the $5000 limit is for both, and the AGI limitations for Roth are higher, so you're likely not able to contribute anything at all to the traditional IRA. You can contribute to the employer's 401k. You have to consider if the rather high expenses are worth the tax deferral for you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56c0eb30c722c9f3e6541bf13bab17b2", "text": "\"You can have as many IRA accounts as you want (whether Roth or Traditional), so you can have a Roth IRA with American Funds and another Roth IRA with Vanguard if you like. One disadvantage of having too many IRA accounts with small balances in each is that most custodians (including Vanguard) charge an annual fee for maintaining IRA accounts with small balances but waive the fee if the balance is large. So it is best to keep your Roth IRA in just one or two funds with just one or two custodians until such time as investment returns plus additional contributions made over the years makes the balances large enough to diversify further. Remember also that you cannot contribute the maximum to each IRA; the sum total of all your IRA contributions (doesn't matter whether to Roth or to Traditional IRAs) for any year must satisfy the limit for that year. You can move money from one IRA of yours to another IRA (of the same type) of yours without any tax issues to worry about. Such movements (called rollovers or transfers) are not contributions and do not count towards the annual contribution limit. The easiest way to do move money from one IRA account to another IRA account is by a trustee-to-trustee transfer where the money goes directly from one custodian (American Funds in this case) to the other custodian (Vanguard in this case). The easiest way of accomplishing this is to call Vanguard or go online on their website, tell them that you are wanting to establish a Roth IRA with them, and that you want to fund it by transferring money held in a Roth IRA with American Funds. Give Vanguard the account number of your existing American Funds IRA, tell them how much you want to transfer over -- $1000 or $20,000 or the entire balance as the case may be -- and tell Vanguard to go get the money. In a few days' time, the money will appear in your new Vanguard Roth IRA and the American Funds Roth IRA will have a smaller balance, possibly a zero balance, or might even be closed if you told Vanguard to collect the entire balance. DO NOT approach American Funds and tell them that you want to transfer money to a new Roth IRA with Vanguard: they will bitch and moan and drag their heels about doing so because they are unhappy to lose your business, and will probably screw up the transfer. Talk to Vanguard only. They are eager to get their hands on your IRA money and will gladly take care of the whole thing for you at no charge to you. DO NOT cash in any stock shares, or mutual fund shares, or whatever is in your Roth IRA in preparation for \"\"cashing out of the old account\"\". There is a method where you take a \"\"rollover distribution\"\" from your American Funds Roth IRA and then deposit the money into your new Vanguard Roth IRA within 60 days, but I recommend most strongly against using this because too many people manage to screw it up. It is 60 days, not two months; the clock starts from the day American Funds cuts your check, not when you get the check, and it is stopped when the money gets deposited into your new account, not the day you mailed the check to Vanguard or the day that Vanguard received it, and so on. In short, DO NOT try this at home: stick to a trustee-to-trustee transfer and avoid the hassles.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e1a32fd89b6eb8df2bf94f74df763da", "text": "\"First of all, it's great you're now taking full advantage of your employer match – i.e. free money. Next, on the question of the use of a life cycle / target date fund as a \"\"hedge\"\": Life cycle funds were introduced for hands-off, one-stop-shopping investors who don't like a hassle or don't understand. Such funds are gaining in popularity: employers can use them as a default choice for automatic enrollment, which results in more participation in retirement savings plans than if employees had to opt-in. I think life cycle funds are a good innovation for that reason. But, the added service and convenience typically comes with higher fees. If you are going to be hands-off, make sure you're cost-conscious: Fees can devastate a portfolio's performance. In your case, it sounds like you are willing to do some work for your portfolio. If you are confident that you've chosen a good equity glide path – that is, the initial and final stock/bond allocations and the rebalancing plan to get from one to the other – then you're not going to benefit much by having a life cycle fund in your portfolio duplicating your own effort with inferior components. (I assume you are selecting great low-cost, liquid index funds for your own strategy!) Life cycle are neat, but replicating them isn't rocket science. However, I see a few cases in which life cycle funds may still be useful even if one has made a decision to be more involved in portfolio construction: Similar to your case: You have a company savings plan that you're taking advantage of because of a matching contribution. Chances are your company plan doesn't offer a wide variety of funds. Since a life cycle fund is available, it can be a good choice for that account. But make sure fees aren't out of hand. If much lower-cost equity and bond funds are available, consider them instead. Let's say you had another smaller account that you were unable to consolidate into your main account. (e.g. a Traditional IRA vs. your Roth, and you didn't necessarily want to convert it.) Even if that account had access to a wide variety of funds, it still might not be worth the added hassle or trading costs of owning and rebalancing multiple funds inside the smaller account. There, perhaps, the life cycle fund can help you out, while you use your own strategy in your main account. Finally, let's assume you had a single main account and you buy partially into the idea of a life cycle fund and you find a great one with low fees. Except: you want a bit of something else in your portfolio not provided by the life cycle fund, e.g. some more emerging markets, international, or commodity stock exposure. (Is this one reason you're doing it yourself?) In that case, where the life cycle fund doesn't quite have everything you want, you could still use it for the bulk of the portfolio (e.g. 85-95%) and then select one or two specific additional ETFs to complement it. Just make sure you factor in those additional components into the overall equity weighting and adjust your life cycle fund choice accordingly (e.g. perhaps go more conservative in the life cycle, to compensate.) I hope that helps! Additional References:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b255e47ebb7c1a770f6272185f798254", "text": "At a very high-level, the answer is yes, that's a good idea. For money that you want to invest on the scale of decades, putting money into a broad, market-based fund has historically given the best returns. Something like the Vanguard S&P 500 automatically gives you a diverse portfolio, with super low expenses. As it sounds like you understand, the near-term returns are volatile, and if you really think you might want this money in the next few years, then the stock market might not be the best choice. As a final note, as one of the comments mentioned, it makes sense to hold a broad, market-based fund for your IRA as well, if possible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e769761effd1d77533856624ea79940", "text": "If you have 100% of your money in one security that is inherently more risky than splitting your money 50/50 between two securities, regardless of the purported riskiness of the two securities. The calculations people use to justify their particular breed of diversification may carry some assumptions related risk/reward calculations. But these particular justifications don't change the fact that spreading your money across different assets protects your money from value variances of the individual assets. Splitting your $100 between Apple and Microsoft stock is probably less valuable (less well diversified) than splitting your money between Apple and Whole Foods stock but either way you're carrying less risk than putting all $100 in to Apple stock regardless of the assumed rates of return for any of these companies stock specifically. Edit: I'm sure the downvotes are because I didn't make a big deal about correlation and measuring correlation and standard deviations of returns and detailed portfolio theory. Measuring efficacy and justifying your particular allocations (that generally uses data from the past to project the future) is all well and good. Fact of the matter is, if you have 100% of your money in stock that's more stock risk than 25% in cash, 25% in bonds and 50% in stock would be because now you're in different asset classes. You can measure to your hearts delight the effects of splitting your money between different specific companies, or different industries, or different market capitalizations, or different countries or different fund managers or different whatever-metrics and doing any of those things will reduce your exposure to those specific allocations. It may be worth pointing out that currently the hot recommendation is a plain vanilla market tracking S&P 500 index fund (that just buys some of each of the 500 largest US companies without any consideration given to risk correlation) over standard deviation calculating actively managed funds. If you ask me that speaks volumes of the true efficacy of hyper analyzing the purported correlations of various securities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a92f7d57341d16580b73939484db1966", "text": "Risk. Volatility. Liquidity. Etc. All exist on a spectrum, these are all comparative measures. To the general question, is a mutual fund a good alternative to a savings account? No, but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea for your to allocate some of your assets in to one right now. Mutual funds, even low volatility stock/bond blended mutual funds with low fees still experience some volatility which is infinitely more volatility than a savings account. The point of a savings account is knowing for certain that your money will be there. Certainty lets you plan. Very simplistically, you want to set yourself up with a checking account, a savings account, then investments. This is really about near term planning. You need to buy lunch today, you need to pay your electricity bill today etc, that's checking account activity. You want to sock away money for a vacation, you have an unexpected car repair, these are savings account activities. This is your foundation. How much of a foundation you need will scale with your income and spending. Beyond your basic financial foundation you invest. What you invest in will depend on your willingness to pay attention and learn, and your general risk tolerance. Sure, in this day and age, it is easy to get money back out of an investment account, but you don't want to get in the habit of taping investments for every little thing. Checking: No volatility, completely liquid, no risk Savings: No volatility, very liquid, no principal risk Investments: (Pick your poison) The point is you carefully arrange your near term foundation so you can push up the risk and volatility in your investment endeavors. Your savings account might be spread between a vanilla savings account and some CDs or a money market fund, but never stock (including ETF/Mutual Funds and blended Stock/Bond funds). Should you move your savings account to this mutual fund, no. Should you maybe look at your finances and allocate some of your assets to this mutual fund, sure. Just look at where you stand once a year and adjust your checking and savings to your existing spending. Savings accounts aren't sexy and the yields are awful at the moment but that doesn't mean you go chasing yield. The idea is you want to insulate your investing from your day to day life so you can make unemotional deliberate investment decisions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6d52b842cc2405c33403cbfcbd53cbb", "text": "\"The root of the advice Bob is being given is from the premise that the market is temporarily down. If the market is temporarily down, then the stocks in \"\"Fund #1\"\" are on-sale and likely to go up soon (soon is very subjective). If the market is going to go up soon (again subjective) you are probably better in fictitious Fund #1. This is the valid logic that is being used by the rep. I don't think this is manipulative based on costs. It's really up to Bob whether he agrees with that logic or if he disagrees with that logic and to make his own decision based on that. If this were my account, I would make the decision on where to withdraw based on my target asset allocation. Bob (for good or bad reasons) decided on 2/3 Fund 1 and 1/3 Fund 2. I'd make the withdraw that returns me to my target allocation of 2/3 Fund 1 and 1/3 Fund 2. Depending on performance and contributions, that might be selling Fund 1, selling Fund 2, or selling some of both.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "188dd86c3c336b20a110fb5413285e31", "text": "\"Answers: 1. Is this a good idea? Is it really risky? What are the pros and cons? Yes, it is a bad idea. I think, with all the talk about employer matches and tax rates at retirement vs. now, that you miss the forest for the trees. It's the taxes on those retirement investments over the course of 40 years that really matter. Example: Imagine $833 per month ($10k per year) invested in XYZ fund, for 40 years (when you retire). The fund happens to make 10% per year over that time, and you're taxed at 28%. How much would you have at retirement? 2. Is it a bad idea to hold both long term savings and retirement in the same investment vehicle, especially one pegged to the US stock market? Yes. Keep your retirement separate, and untouchable. It's supposed to be there for when you're old and unable to work. Co-mingling it with other funds will induce you to spend it (\"\"I really need it for that house! I can always pay more into it later!\"\"). It also can create a false sense of security (\"\"look at how much I've got! I got that new car covered...\"\"). So, send 10% into whatever retirement account you've got, and forget about it. Save for other goals separately. 3. Is buying SPY a \"\"set it and forget it\"\" sort of deal, or would I need to rebalance, selling some of SPY and reinvesting in a safer vehicle like bonds over time? For a retirement account, yes, you would. That's the advantage of target date retirement funds like the one in your 401k. They handle that, and you don't have to worry about it. Think about it: do you know how to \"\"age\"\" your account, and what to age it into, and by how much every year? No offense, but your next question is what an ETF is! 4. I don't know ANYTHING about ETFs. Things to consider/know/read? Start here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp 5. My company plan is \"\"retirement goal\"\" focused, which, according to Fidelity, means that the asset allocation becomes more conservative over time and switches to an \"\"income fund\"\" after the retirement target date (2050). Would I need to rebalance over time if holding SPY? Answered in #3. 6. I'm pretty sure that contributing pretax to 401k is a good idea because I won't be in the 28% tax bracket when I retire. How are the benefits of investing in SPY outweigh paying taxes up front, or do they not? Partially answered in #1. Note that it's that 4 decades of tax-free growth that's the big dog for winning your retirement. Company matches (if you get one) are just a bonus, and the fact that contributions are tax free is a cherry on top. 7. Please comment on anything else you think I am missing I think what you're missing is that winning at personal finance is easy, and winning at personal finance is hard\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a06e2230f0a32d5ad721d1d6602a9af", "text": "\"In case other people arrive at this page wondering whether they should enable automatic reinvestment of dividends and capital gains for taxable (non-retirement) accounts (which is what I was searching for when I first arrived on this page): You might want to review https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Reinvesting_dividends_in_a_taxable_account and http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2011/01/26/why-you-shouldnt-automatically-reinvest-dividends/. The general idea is that--assuming you plan to regularly manually rebalance your portfolio to ensure that all of the \"\"pieces of the pie\"\" are the relative sizes that you want--there are approaches you can use to minimize taxes (and also fees, although at Vanguard I don't think that's a concern) if you choose a \"\"SpecID cost basis\"\" and manual reinvestment. Then you can go to \"\"Change your dividends and capital gains distribution elections\"\" at https://personal.vanguard.com/us/DivCapGainAccountSelection.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fafadcfd9f83fb1d1779e89d4919ee50", "text": "Actually the Fidelity hypothetical example (with same marginal tax rates) is super misleading. They are putting the money saved up front from the traditional 401k in to at taxable account. Why? If you put the actual money used for the Roth that would be saved into traditional 401k they look the same no matter the timeline (with a hypothetical unchanging tax rate). Check this out. So there are only two things to consider when choosing traditional vs roth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3aace6c8e0679a8a4f70b3956a899c4", "text": "Your tax efficient reasoning is solid for where you want to distribute your assets. ETFs are often more tax efficient than their equivalent mutual funds but the exact differences would depend on the comparison between the fund and ETF you were considering. The one exception to this rule is Vanguard funds and ETFs which have the exact same tax-efficiency because ETFs are a share class of the corresponding mutual fund.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
73368a5d0d1c18ab14d00c5600d15044
How can I compare the risk of different investing opportunities?
[ { "docid": "58b4d3e97ef5bd7787febc8e5c69e50a", "text": "Let us consider the risks in the investment opportunities: Now, what are the returns in each of the investment: What are the alternatives to these investments, then?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45fa1c42cb802137959a1d984b7e7935", "text": "\"First of all, setting some basics: What is a sound way to measure the risk of each investment in order to compare them with each other ? There is no single way that can be used across all asset classes / risks. Generally speaking, you want to perform both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of risks that you identify. Quantitative risk assessment may involve historical data and/or parametric or non-parametric models. Using historical data is often simple but may be hard in cases where the amount of data you have on a given event is low (e.g. risk of bust by investing in a cryptocurrency). Parametric and non-parametric risk quantification models exist (e.g. Value at Risk (VaR), Expected Shortfall (ES), etc) and abound but a lot of them are more complicated than necessary for an individual's requirements. Qualitative risk assessment is \"\"simply\"\" assessing the likelihood and severity of risks by using intuition, expert judgment (where that applies), etc. One may consult with outside parties (e.g. lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc) where their advisory may help highlighting some risks or understanding them better. To ease comparing investment opportunities, you may want to perform a risk assessment on categories of risks (e.g. investing in the stock market vs bond market). To compare between those categories, one should look at the whole picture (quantitative and qualitative) with their risk appetite in mind. Of course, after taking those macro decisions, you would need to further assess risks on more micro decisions (e.g. Microsoft or Google ?). You would then most likely end up with better comparatives as you would be comparing items similar in nature. Should I always consider the worst case scenario ? Because when I do that, I always can lose everything. Generally speaking, you want to consider everything so that you can perform a risk assessment and decide on your risk mitigating strategy (see Q4). By assessing the likelihood and severity of risks you may find that even in cases where you are comparatively as worse-off (e.g. in case of complete bust), the likelihood may differ. For example, keeping gold in a personal stash at home vs your employer going bankrupt if you are working for a large firm. Do note that you want to compare risks (both likelihood and severity) after any risk mitigation strategy you may want to put in place (e.g. maybe putting your gold in a safety box in a secure bank would make the likelihood of losing your gold essentially null). Is there a way to estimate the probability of such events, better than intuition ? Estimating probability or likelihood is largely dependent on data on hand and your capacity to model events. For most practical purposes of an individual, modelling would be way off in terms of reward-benefits. You may therefore want to simply research on past events and assign them a 1-5 (1 being very low, 5 being very high) risk rating based on your assessment of the likelihood. For example, you may assign a 1 on your employer going bankrupt and a 2 or 3 on being burglarized. This is only slightly better than intuition but has the merit of being based on data (e.g. frequency of burglary in your neighborhood). Should I only consider more probable outcomes and have a plan for them if they occur? This depends largely on your risk appetite. The more risk averse you are, the more thorough you will want to be in identifying, tracking and mitigating risks. For the risks that you have identified as relevant, or of concern, you may opt to establish a risk mitigating strategy, which is conventionally one of accepting, sharing (by taking insurance, for example), avoiding and reducing. It may not be possible to share or reduce some risks, especially for individuals, and so often the response will be either to accept or avoid the given risks by opting in or out on an opportunity.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "1507aaef499b0cce4fb9076b9116d3d3", "text": "How about looking into the market price of risk? Ive always wanted to know if risk is or should be priced the same across markets/asset classes/etc. Eh? Let me know what you figure out. Edit: I just realized you people probably consider it to be the Sharpe ratio. That's not what I meant. I meant in the sense of option pricing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ad64b8995684cf9541d506b431cd2c60", "text": "\"I don't think \"\"cost of carry\"\" is the right word here. Yes, you have the opportunity cost (what you could have earned during that time if you had invested the money somehwere else) and then you also have interest rate risk and default risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0a7f714f0a3b50be1430a11363a34698", "text": "Aswath Damodaran's [Investment Valuation 3rd edition](http://www.amazon.com/Investment-Valuation-Techniques-Determining-University/dp/1118130731/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1339995852&amp;sr=8-12&amp;keywords=aswath+damodaran) (or save money and go with a used copy of the [2nd edition](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0471414905/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=used)) He's a professor at Stern School of Business. His [website](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/) and [blog](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/) are good resources as well. [Here is his support page](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/Inv3ed.htm) for his Investment Valuation text. It includes chapter summaries, slides, ect. If you're interested in buying the text you can get an idea of what's in it by checking that site out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b814e2e4f943f77864610939f302e619", "text": "\"I find it interesting that you didn't include something like [Total Bond Market](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBMFX), or [Intermediate-Term Treasuries](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBIIX), in your graphic. If someone were to have just invested in the DJI or SP500, then they would have ignored the tenants of the Modern Portfolio Theory and not diversified adequately. I wouldn't have been able to stomach a portfolio of 100% stocks, commodities, or metals. My vote goes for: 1.) picking an asset allocation that reflects your tolerance for risk (a good starting point is \"\"age in bonds,\"\" i.e. if you're 30, then hold 30% in bonds); 2.) save as if you're not expecting annualized returns of %10 (for example) and save more; 3.) don't try to pick the next winner, instead broadly invest in the market and hold it. Maybe gold and silver are bubbles soon to burst -- I for one don't know. I don't give the \"\"notion in the investment community\"\" much weight -- as it always is, someday someone will be right, I just don't know who that someone is.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf4b54232565c484c451ff5804b48d6e", "text": "It all depends on how much risk you take. The problem is you have no idea what the risks are, and so you will lose all your money. I would say zero. But if you want to have a go, try reading reminiscences of a stock operator, then try reading my own attempt to make sense of the same stuff Hey, as you're a student you could even try making sense of my FX and MM training on the same website. Good luck", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d9723d9c0973eba47a049d0c9b17649", "text": "Different risks require different hedges. You won't find a single hedge that will protect you against any risk. The best way to think about this is who would benefit if those events occurred? Those are the people you want to invest in. So if a war broke out, who would benefit? Defense contractors. Security companies. You get the idea. You also need to think about if you really need to hedge against those things now or not. For example, I wouldn't bother to hedge against global warming or peak oil. It's not like one morning you're going to wake up, turn on CNNfn and see that the stock market is down 500 points because global warming or peak oil just hit. These are things that happen gradually and you can react to them gradually as they happen.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb1442dc3f4f3e60bf8c5d6bcbaed8b8", "text": "\"My gut is to say that any time there seems to be easy money to be made, the opportunity would fade as everyone jumped on it. Let me ask you - why do you think these stocks are priced to yield 7-9%? The DVY yields 3.41% as of Aug 30,'12. The high yielding stocks you discovered may very well be hidden gems. Or they may need to reduce their dividends and subsequently drop in price. No, it's not 'safe.' If the stocks you choose drop by 20%, you'd lose 40% of your money, if you made the purchase on 50% margin. There's risk with any stock purchase, one can claim no stock is safe. Either way, your proposal juices the effect to creating twice the risk. Edit - After the conversation with Victor, let me add these thoughts. The \"\"Risk-Free\"\" rate is generally defined to be the 1yr tbill (and of course the risk of Gov default is not zero). There's the S&P 500 index which has a beta of 1 and is generally viewed as a decent index for comparison. You propose to use margin, so your risk, if done with an S&P index is twice that of the 1X S&P investor. However, you won't buy S&P but stocks with such a high yield I question their safety. You don't mention the stocks, so I can't quantify my answer, but it's tbill, S&P, 2X S&P, then you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fe71dad8b6df9ac042bb484b3097c02", "text": "I use two measures to define investment risk: What's the longest period of time over which this investment has had negative returns? What's the worst-case fall in the value of this investment (peak to trough)? I find that the former works best for long-term investments, like retirement. As a concrete example, I have most of my retirement money in equity, since the Sensex has had zero returns over as long as a decade. Since my investment time-frame is longer, equity is risk-free, by this measure. For short-term investments, like money put aside to buy a car next year, the second measure works better. For this purpose, I might choose a debt fund that isn't the safest, and has had a worst-case 8% loss over the past decade. I can afford that loss, putting in more money from my pocket to buy the car, if needed. So, I might choose this fund for this purpose, taking a slight risk to earn higher return. In any case, how much money I need for a car can only be a rough guess, so having 8% less than originally planned may turn out to be enough. Or it may turn out that the entire amount originally planned for is insufficient, in which case a further 8% shortfall may not be a big deal. These two measures I've defined are simple to explain and understand, unlike academic stuff like beta, standard deviation, information ratio or other mumbo-jumbo. And they are simple to apply to a practical problem, as I've illustrated with the two examples above. On the other hand, if someone tells me that the standard deviation of a mutual fund is 15%, I'll have no idea what that means, or how to apply that to my financial situation. All this suffers from the problem of being limited to historical data, and the future may not be like the past. But that affects any risk statistic, and you can't do better unless you have a time machine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "234d69bfb72ed4adf33d3eb4134b168c", "text": "\"Ryan's suggestion to index for your main strategy is dead on. Your risk is highest with one given stock, and decreases as you diversify. Yet, picking the stocks one at a time is an effort, when done right, it's time consuming. For what one can say about Jim \"\"mad money\"\" Cramer, his advice to spend an hour a month studying each stock you own, is pretty decent advice. Penny stocks are sub one dollar priced, typically small companies which in theory can grow to be large companies, but the available information tends to be tougher to get hold of. Options are a discussion for a different thread, I discussed the covered call strategy elsewhere and show that options are not necessarily high risk, it depends how they are used.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "13bb3594d0833e52ea096698f9bc2d70", "text": "Basically, diversifying narrows the spread of possible results, raising the center of the returns bell-curve by reducing the likelihood of extreme results at either the high or low end. It's largely a matter of basic statistics. Bet double-or-nothing on a single coin flip, and those are the only possible results, and your odds of a disaster (losing most or all of the money) are 50%. Bet half of it on each of two coin flips, and your odds of losing are reduced to 25% at the cost of reducing your odds of winning to 25%, with 50% odds that you retain your money and can try the game again. Three coins divides the space further; the extremes are reduced to 12.5% each, with the middle being most likely. If that was all there was, this would be a zero-sum game and pure gambling. But the stock market is actually positive-sum, since companies are delivering part of their profits to their stockholder owners. This moves the center of the bell curve up a bit from break-even, historically to about +8%. This is why index funds produce a profit with very little active decision; they treat the variation as mostly random (which seems to work statistically) and just try to capture average results of a (hopefully) slightly above-average bucket of stocks and/or bonds. This approach is boring. It will never double your money overnight. On the other hand, it will never wipe you out overnight. If you have patience and are willing to let compound interest work for you, and trust that most market swings regress to the mean in the long run, it quietly builds your savings while not driving you crazy worrying about it. If all you are looking for is better return than the banks, and you have a reasonable amount of time before you need to pull the funds out, it's one of the more reliably predictable risk/reward trade-off points. You may want to refine this by biasing the mix of what you're holding. The simplest adjustment is how much you keep in each of several major investment categories. Large cap stocks, small cap stocks, bonds, and real estate (in the form of REITs) each have different baseline risk/return curves, and move in different ways in response to news, so maintaining a selected ratio between these buckets and adding the resulting curves together is one simple way to make fairly predictable adjustments to the width (and centerline) of the total bell curve. If you think you can do better than this, go for it. But index funds have been outperforming professionally managed funds (after the management fees are accounted for), and unless you are interested in spending a lot of time researching and playing with your money the odds of your doing much better aren't great unless you're willing to risk doing much worse. For me, boring is good. I want my savings to work for me rather than the other way around, and I don't consider the market at all interesting as a game. Others will feel differently.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97ba7c78d9da95d26c6773d89ff25ec3", "text": "\"It's interesting that you use so many different risk measures. Here's what I'd like to know more in detail: 1) About the use of VaR. I've heard (from a friend, may be unreliable) that some investment managers like Neuberger Berman doesn't use VaR for assessing risk and maintaining capital adequacy requirements. Rather, some firms only rely on tracking error, beta, standard deviation, etc. Why do you think is this so? Isn't VaR supposed to be a widely accepted risk measure. 2) The whole \"\"Expected Shortfall vs. VaR\"\" debate. I've read some papers comparing Expected Shortfall and VaR. Mainly, they criticize VaR for not being able to consider the 1% probability left where losses can (probably) skyrocket to infinity. If I need to choose between the two, which do you think is better and why?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca41d7db1b793e37d2a3a3973139132e", "text": "\"Wow, this analysis really surprised me. Very complete and useful, but i think my teacher request was easier. He just said: \"\"Try to build a diversified portfolio. Then try to add a commodity (like silver or gold) and understand how the risk vary introducing an asset like this.\"\" So, i'm basically making a stocks portfolio and i'm calculating its expected return and risk. (for example 40%FB, 10%JNJ, 20%GS, 10%F and 20%MCD) then i'm adding GLD (so now i have something like 20%FB, 10%JNJ, 10%GS, 10%F and 20%MCD 30%GLD) and i'm actually making an excel spreadsheet where i calculate all the: -Expected returns -St Deviation -Covariance At the end i compare the returns and the risks on the 2 different portfolios.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9daac524bddb7ad59fcf8b78ff44ab6f", "text": "Since you seem determined to consider this, I'd like to break down for you why I believe it is an incredibly risky proposition: 1) In general, picking individual stocks is risky. Individual stocks are by their nature not diversified assets, and a single company-wide calamity (a la Volkswagen emissions, etc.) can create huge distress to your investments. The way to mitigate this risk is of course to diversify (invest in other types of assets, such as other stocks, index funds, bonds, etc.). However, you must accept that this first step does have risks. 2) Picking stocks on the basis of financial information (called 'fundamental analysis') requires a very large amount of research and time dedication. It is one of the two main schools of thought in equity investing (as opposed to 'technical analysis', which pulls information directly from stock markets, such as price volatility). This is something that professional investors do for a living - and that means that they have an edge you do not have, unless you dedicate similar resources to this task. That information imbalance between you and professional traders creates additional risk where you make determinations 'against the grain'. 3) Any specific piece of public information (and this is public information, regardless of how esoteric it is) may be considered to be already 'factored into' public stock prices. I am a believer in market efficiency first and foremost. That means I believe that anything publically known related to a corporation ['OPEC just lowered their oil production! Exxon will be able to increase their prices!'] has already been considered by the professional traders currently buying and selling in the market. For your 'new' information to be valuable, it would need to have the ability to forecast earnings in a way not already considered by others. 4) I doubt you will be able to find the true nature of the commercial impact of a particular event, simply by knowing ship locations. So what if you know Alcoa is shipping Aluminium to Cuba - is this one of 5 shipments already known to the public? Is this replacement supplies that are covering a loss due to damaged goods previously sent? Is the boat only 1/3 full? Where this information gets valuable, is when it gets to the level of corporate espionage. Yes, if you had ship manifests showing tons of aluminum being sold, and if this was a massive 'secret' shipment about to be announced at the next shareholders' meeting, you could (illegally) profit from that information. 5) The more massive the company, the less important any single transaction is. That means the super freighters you may see transporting raw commodities could have dozens of such ships out at any given time, not to mention news of new mine openings and closures, price changes, volume reports, etc. etc. So the most valuable information would be smaller companies, where a single shipment might cover a month of revenue - but such a small company is (a) less likely to be public [meaning you couldn't buy shares in the company and profit off of the information]; and (b) less likely to be found by you in the giant sea of ship information. In summary, while you may have found some information that provides insight into a company's operations, you have not shown that this information is significant and also unknown to the market. Not to mention the risks associated with picking individual stocks in the first place. In this case, it is my opinion that you are taking on additional risk not adequately compensated by additional reward.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5b9a2379fe0e363b5e4f935c7eda594", "text": "\"Defining risk tolerance is often aided with a series of questions. Such as - You are 30 and have saved 3 years salary in your 401(k). The market drops 33% and since you are 100% S&P, you are down the same. How do you respond? (a) move to cash - I don't want to lose more money. (b) ride it out. Keep my deposits to the maximum each year. Sleep like a baby. A pro will have a series of this type of question. In the end, the question resolves to \"\"what keeps you up at night?\"\" I recall a conversation with a coworker who was so risk averse, that CDs were the only right investment for her. I had to explain in painstaking detail, that our company short term bond fund (sub 1 year government paper) was a safe place to invest while getting our deposits matched dollar for dollar. In our conversations, I realized that long term expectations (of 8% or more) came with too high a risk for her, at any level of her allocation. Zero it was.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1492fef953735b5f6997e04a1d5492e", "text": "\"The professional financial advisors do have tools which will take a general description of a portfolio and run monte-carlo simulations based on the stock market's historical behavior. After about 100 simulation passes they can give a statistical statement about the probable returns, the risk involved in that strategy, and their confidence in these numbers. Note that they do not just use the historical data or individual stocks. There's no way to guarantee that the same historical accidents would have occurred that made one company more successful than another, or that they will again. \"\"Past performance is no guarantee of future results\"\"... but general trends and patterns can be roughly modelled. Which makes that a good fit for those of us buying index funds, less good for those who want to play at a greater level of detail in the hope of doing better. But that's sorta the point; to beat market rate of return with the same kind of statistical confidence takes a lot more work.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
73ae1508f119e2b85c7f1b22060c65d1
Does material nonpublic information cover knowledge of unannounced products?
[ { "docid": "3789224d6218b2b1cdfff7f2b268c49e", "text": "\"There's the question whether knowledge about unannounced products is actually \"\"material\"\" if everyone (the public) knows that something new will be released. If you work at Apple on the development of the iPhone 8, that's not material. If you worked at Apple and you knew that they stopped developing new phones, that would be very, very, very material information. The important thing as far as the stock market is concerned is what sales look like, and that's not something you know as a product developer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "739b7375d58d91d8094464eb6a7b3760", "text": "\"So is knowledge of unannounced products simply not considered material nonpublic information? Well \"\"material\"\" is relative but it certainly is nonpublic information. And trading based on that information would likely be considered illegal if it is actually material. Many companies require that employees with material non-public info get stock trades approved by their legal department. This protects not only the employee but the employer from SEC scrutiny. If the legal department determines that the employee has non-public info that is the genesis of the stock trade, they might deny the request. In many cases these employees receive stock through ESPP, ISO and/or RSUs and often sell while in possession of information about unannounced products. Just receiving stock as part of as part of a compensation program would not be illegal, provided it was part of a normal compensation package and not deliberately awarded in advance of these types of events. Selling or outright buying stock (including RSUs) with that kind of information would certainly be scrutinized. An employee is granted RSUs, they vest 7 months before announcement of a new product. The employee knows the exact specifications of the product. If they sell the vested stock before the announcement would this constitute insider trading or not? Why? The law is not meant to prevent people from investing in their own company just because they know future plans. So knowledge of an announcement 7 months out may not be considered material. If, however, you sold stock the day (or a week) before some announcement that caused the stock to fall, then that would probably be scrutinized. Or, if you traded shortly before an announcement of a new, revolutionary product that was set to be released in seven months, and the stock rose, then you might be scrutinized. So there is a lot of gray area, but remember that the spirit of the law is to prevent people from benefiting unfairly with non-public information. It would be hard to prove that gaining on a stock trade 7 months before a product announcement would be considered \"\"unfair gain\"\". A lot can happen in that time.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "97bc32553a9af221bb08bc2e513dbf7c", "text": "I am a flight attendant on a private jet and I hear a bank CEO discussing a merger or a buyout. I proceed to purchase that stock before the announcement. The CEO did not tell me to buy it, I just overheard him. If you are a flight attendant on a private jet that is operated by one of the principals, probably including a bank, attorney, consultant, broker, etc., in the merger or buyout, then you probably have a fiduciary duty to safeguard the information and are prohibited from trading. Please see: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T052-C008-S001-would-you-be-guilty-of-insider-trading.html You’re a janitor at a major company. You hear members of the company’s board convening outside the room you’re cleaning and decide to hide in the closet. The board okays a deal to sell the company for a fat premium to the current share price. You load up on the shares. Illegal insider trading? Definitely. This is not a public place, and “you’d be in a position to understand that confidential information was being disclosed, which changes the calculus,” says Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based securities lawyer. Also see: http://meyersandheim.com/how-to-win-an-insider-trading-case/ However, between these two extremes of a bystander with no duty to the corporation and a corporate officer with a clear duty to the corporation stood a whole group of people such as printers, lawyers and others who were involved in non-public transactions that did not necessarily have a duty to the company whose securities they traded. To address this group of people the courts developed the misappropriation theory. The misappropriation theory covers people who posses inside information and who are prohibited from trading on such information because they owe a duty to a third party and not the corporation whose securities are traded. Yours is the perfect example. You owe a duty to your employer to operate in its best interests. As for the broader, more common example, where you overhear information in an elevator, restaurant, in line at the coffee shop, etc., trading on such information was found not to be insider trading in SEC v. Switzer: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/590/756/2247092/ In this case, Mr. Switzer overheard information at a track meet and traded on it with profits. The court found: The information was inadvertently overheard by Switzer at the track meet. Rule 10b-5 does not bar trading on the basis of information inadvertently revealed by an insider. On the basis of the above findings of fact and conclusions of law, the court orders judgment in favor of defendants.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d97c06abad3c4a42d88565ee028e4e58", "text": "\"It appears as others have said that companies are not required to state this on as any sort of Asset. I remembered a friend of mine is a lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property Rights so asked him and confirmed that there's no document companies are required to file which states all patent holdings as assets. There are two ways he suggested for finding out. Once you find a company you're interested in can search patents by company using one of the two following: US Patent Office website's advanced search: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm aanm/company for example entering into the textarea, \"\"aanm/google\"\" without the quotation marks will find patents by Google. The other is a Google Patent Search: http://www.google.com/patents/\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fd158fc978e77f97c208794758af071", "text": "\"I believe transparency when it comes to our food is important. So far the laws have always favored the industry, going so far as to suspend first amendment rights when it comes to \"\"Disparaging food products.\"\" The profits of large agricultural companies shouldn't silence all dissent, reporting and discussion. They should absolutely have the right to use and sell pink slime, and we deserve the right to know that the're hiding it in our food.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1e3880cd6b479618d8f67aa17c10f770", "text": "\"Marketing, namely advertising (Facebook, Google ads, maybe magazines, etc.) Despite all the nice words about \"\"healthy, green, and socially responsible\"\", the business of this company (and many, many similar ones) is not \"\"providing information\"\". It's affiliate marketing - getting people to click through to retail sites and buy stuff, on which the company earns commissions (often they also get paid for registrations). In a very real sense, their product is customers. They sell paying customers to the retail sites, and before that, they basically have to buy \"\"raw customers\"\" through advertising. The times when you could rely on getting enough people to visit your website for free are largely over - there is too much competition for peoples' attention. They can only be profitable if they can get the raw customers cheap enough, and can convert enough of them to paying customers. And this is really how it's talked about internally, in what is by now a highly organized industry: key performance measures are CPC (how much does it cost to get someone to come to your website), conversion rate (what percentage of visitors register) and ARPU (average revenue per user).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da058ebde0a2b5ea058c7391f620ca07", "text": "\"Secret formulas are legal, \"\"privileged information\"\" is not. And that may be the whole point. People are allowed to trade stocks profitably if doing so results only from their skill. A \"\"secret formula\"\" (for evaluating information) is part of that skill. But having \"\"privileged information\"\" is not considered skill. It is considered an unfair, illegal advantage. Because company officials (and others) with privileged information are 1) not permitted to trade stocks while that information is privileged and 2) are not allowed to share that information with others. Inevitably, some do one or the other, which is why they are prosecuted. \"\"Raj\"\" took the process to new highs (or lows). He not only \"\"dealt\"\" in privileged information, he PAID for it. Anything from a new car or house to $500,000 a year in cash. In essence, he had a bunch of strategically placed \"\"spies\"\" inside or close to corporations including one on the board of Goldman Sachs, \"\"selling out\"\" their companies, and thereby practicing a form of corporate \"\"treason.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "915e6ec3c328a2e4c2e8506fe7bc97cb", "text": "\"This is several questions wrapped together: How can I diplomatically see the company's financial information? How strong a claim does a stockholder or warrantholder have to see the company's financials? What information do I need to know about the company financials before deciding to buy in? I'll start with the easier second question (which is quasi implicit). Stockholders typically have inspection rights. For example, Delaware General Corporate Law § 220 gives stockholders the right to inspect and copy company financial information, subject to certain restrictions. Check the laws and corporate code of your company's state of incorporation to find the specific inspection right. If it is an LLC or partnership, then the operating agreement usually controls and there may be no inspection rights. If you have no corporate stock, then of course you have no statutory inspection rights. My (admittedly incomplete) understanding is that warrantholders generally have no inspection rights unless somehow contracted for. So if you vest as a corporate stockholder, it'll be your right to see the financials—which may make even a small purchase valuable to you as a continuing employee with the right to see the financials. Until then, this is probably a courtesy and not their obligation. The first question is not easy to answer, except to say that it's variable and highly personal for small companies. Some people interpret it as prying or accusatory, the implication being that the founders are either hiding something or that you need to examine really closely the mouth of their beautiful gift horse. Other people may be much cooler about the question, understanding that small companies are risky and you're being methodical. And in some smaller companies, they may believe giving you the expenses could make office life awkward. If you approach it professionally, directly, and briefly (do not over-explain yourself) with the responsible accountant or HR person (if any), then I imagine it should not be a problem for them to give some information. Conversely, you may feel comfortable enough to review a high-level summary sheet with a founder, or to find some other way of tactfully reviewing the right information. In any case, I would keep the request vague, simple, and direct, and see what information they show you. If your request is too specific, then you risk pushing them to show information A, which they refuse to do, but a vague request would've prompted them to show you information B. A too-specific request might get you information X when a vague request could have garnered XYZ. Vague requests are also less aggressive and may raise fewer objections. The third question is difficult to say. My personal understanding is some perspective of how venture capitalists look at the investment opportunity (you didn't say how new this startup is or what series/stage they are on, so I'll try to stay vague). The actual financials are less relevant for startups than they are for other investments because the situation will definitely change. Most venture capital firms like to look at the burn rate or amount of cash spent, usually at a monthly rate. A high burn rate relative to infusions of cash suggests the company is growing rapidly but may have a risk of toppling (i.e. failing before exit). Burn rate can change drastically during the early life of the startup. Of course burn rate needs the context of revenues and reserves (and latest valuation is helpful as a benchmark, but you may be able to calculate that from the restricted share offer made to you). High burn rate might not be bad, if the company is booming along towards a successful exit. You might also want to look at some sort of business plan or info sheet, rather than financials alone. You want to gauge the size of the market (most startups like to claim 9- or 10-figure markets, so even a few percentage points of market share will hit revenue into the 8-figures). You'll also have to have a sense for the business plan and model and whether it's a good investment or a ridiculous rehash (\"\"it's Twitter for dogs meets Match.com for Russian Orthodox singles!\"\"). In other words, appraise it like an investor or VC and figure out whether it's a prospect for decent return. Typical things like competition, customer acquisition costs, manufacturing costs are relevant depending on the type of business activity. Of course, I wouldn't ignore psychology (note that economists and finance people don't generally condone the following sort of emotional thinking). If you don't invest in the company and it goes big, you'll kick yourself. If it goes really big, other people will either assume you are rich or feel sad for you if you say you didn't get rich. If you invest but lose money, it may not be so painful as not investing and losing out the opportunity. So if you consider the emotional aspect of personal finance, it may be wise to invest at least a little, and hedge against \"\"woulda-shoulda\"\" syndrome. That's more like emotional advice than hard-nosed financial advice. So much of the answer really depends on your particular circumstances. Obviously you have other considerations like whether you can afford the investment, which will be on you to decide. And of course, the § 83(b) election is almost always recommended in these situations (which seems to be what you are saying) to convert ordinary income into capital gain. You may also need cash to pay any up-front taxes on the § 83(b) equity, depending on your circumstances.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d26ef83f96ca1f239f366e28a6761f8", "text": "I don't think so, but: - It depends on the product, some products are simple (Vodka) others have plenty of restrictions (Plutonium). So without you naming what your product is nobody can help you. - Regulation differ for each country. Greece and Italy are different countries. For most products you pay some import duty, the applicable VAT and some customs fees and all is well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "55a0d333889d17fdcc8812906c972d7c", "text": "Technically yes, but getting investigated also depends on the connection that can be established. If you learned something from information obtained at work or by affiliation (family/friend), you probably can't trade. If you (hypothetically) stumbled across information perhaps by eavesdropping or peeking on some stranger's conversation, it'd be hard to find the connection unless you went and told people how you came about it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5c340d3fe50a1f2fb12a38f17eda9b95", "text": "Work on your own site is certainly not relevant here, that's just a part of your trade, not a service you provided to yourself. The business received the benefit of that work, not you. Suppose your business sold televisions. If you took a TV from stock for your own lounge, that would be included in this box because you have effectively paid yourself with a TV rather than cash. If you take a TV from stock to use as a demo model, that's part of your trade and not goods you have taken out of the business for your own use. For services provided to your dad it's less clear. As Skaty said, it depends whether it's your business providing the service, or you personally. If you gave your dad a free TV then it would be clear that you have effectively paid yourself with another TV and then given it to your dad as a gift. With services it's less clear whether you're receiving services from the business for free. You might consider how it would be treated by your employer if you weren't self-employed. If you were just applying your skills to help your dad in your free time, your employer wouldn't care. If you used your employer's equipment or facilities, or hosted his site on a server that your employer pays for, your employer would be more likely to discipline you for effectively stealing services from them, as they would if you took a TV from their warehouse for him.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18f25613ea83ef5b09b0c7ad445b0861", "text": "I can't tell you it came about in this particular case because I don't believe it is yet in the public domain, but this information will be included in the joint circular. I will, however, say that there are lots of ways these things can proceed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf8347d24340c229ece84b1cafe3d938", "text": "It's almost nice, in that it doesn't draw negative attention to an organization for being a spammer. If the org can figure out how they got on the list, resolve the issue, and get back to good standing, then we can all move on civilly. There might even be a legal reason why the list isn't public. Libel?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "455ed166eb7e627286d56be7073dcf01", "text": "\"These people are pretty off. Insider trading cases, outside of a tender offer context, require some sort of a breach of duty. It's not simply \"\"non-public material information\"\". You have to trade securities in interstate, based on or while in possession of the material non-public information, and in doing so is a breach of duty owed to the company or to the information source. Now simply saying \"\"personal info\"\" about an executive does not tell me much about its materiality. So assuming it passes the materiality test, and assuming you yourself aren't a corporate insider, then the only thing left to discuss is whether or not it is misappropriation. To be misappropriation you need to be breaching some duty owed to your information source. Now this isn't just principal-agent duty, this can extend to friends and family if there is a pattern of keeping confidences. So unless you're this guys brother or doctor there really isn't a strong claim against you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "370db2ab44ce562600a75cc918e662b4", "text": "While the article correctly points out that 90% is done in store, I would be more interested to see how this breaks down by category. Things like groceries and clothing are notoriously difficult to showcase and browse online. If I had a guess there are wild swings in % share for things like electronics.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e00415f5ff94621197e5f22dbca4dde", "text": "To be flippant: it is illegal because it is against the law; there is no considered involved, it just is. To elaborate, part of the illusion of the stock exchange and other market-like entities is that of (apparent) fairness. If I think a stock will go up because it is involved in a growing industry, that is generally public information. Conversely if I have a dim view of a particular company because of its track record of product launches, that is similarly out in the open. A secret formula is something that I invented or discovered, not (presumably) something that I stole from someone else. To stretch that further: If I notice that Company X stock always moves with Company Y stock, that is indeed something that I have found, that I can try to profit from. It is secret to me, but not particularly dependent upon information not available to others, just that my interpretation is better. So trading on information in the public domain is fine, as it preserves the principal of fairness I mentioned, whereas inside knowledge breaks that principal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "61189ddea51fcb5402a76250b4054db1", "text": "\"Companies absolutely know who ALL their shareholders are. Ownership is filed on Form 3/4 and in 10-Q/Ks. Look there. Guidelines for required disclosure are as follows: 1) Individuals must disclose when their ownership exceeds 5%; 2) Non-individual legal entities (read: companies; e.g. a hedge fund) must disclose when their ownership exceeds 10% (Form 13-F); and 3) All Officers and Directors Notice the word \"\"required.\"\" For example, a entity (individual/company) may file \"\"confidentiality letter\"\" (which allows them to delay disclosing ownership) with the SEC as they are building a position. So at any given point in time the information that is publicaly available may not be \"\"up-to-date.\"\" And in all cases beneficial owner(ship).\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
06f3e25125797d82412f65028bfad2ae
What exactly is the profit and loss of a portfolio?
[ { "docid": "11ac7193d83c134cf94524ff5242facc", "text": "When we 'delta-hedge', we make the value of a portfolio 0. No - you make the risk relative to some underlying 0. The portfolio does have a value, but if whatever underlying you're hedging against changes slightly the value of your portfolio should not change. But, what is the derivative of a portfolio? It's the instantaneous rate of change of the portfolio) relative to some underlying phenomenon. With a portfolio of many stocks, there's not one single factor that drives the value of your portfolio. You have sensitivity to each underlying stock (price and volatility), interest rates, the market as a whole, etc. For simplicity, we might imagine a portfolio that has holdings in .... a call .... a stock .... and a bank account (to borrow and lend money). You will have a delta relative to the stock and a delta relative to the underlying instrument on the option, etc. Those can only be aggregated for each factor (e.g. if the call is an option on the same stock) Theta is the only one you can calculate for the portfolio as a whole - it will be the aggregate theta of all of your positions (since change in time is constant across all investments). All of the others are not aggregatable since they are measuring sensitivities to different phenomena.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "70d63e6d6967e380b926dcbec8186683", "text": "Variance of a single asset is defined as follows: σ2 = Σi(Xi - μ)2 where Xi's represent all the possible final market values of your asset and μ represents the mean of all such market values. The portfolio's variance is defined as σp2 = Σiwi2σi2 where, σp is the portfolio's variance, and wi stands for the weight of the ith asset. Now, if you include the borrowing in your portfolio, that would classify as technically shorting at the borrowing rate. Thus, this weight would (by the virtue of being negative) increase all other weights. Moreover, the variance of this is likely to be zero (assuming fixed borrowing rates). Thus, weights of risky assets rise and the investor's portfolio's variance will go up. Also see, CML at wikipedia.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37e2d6eedafa33632362dc3b7976108c", "text": "The difference is downside risk. Your CD, assuming you are in the US and the CD is purchased from a deposit bank, will be FDIC insured, your $10,000 is definitely coming back to you. Your stock portfolio has no such guarantee and can lose money. Your potential upside is theoretically correlated to the risk that some or all of your money may not be returned to you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b9eedb32654953aa200daa767763194", "text": "A long put - you have a small initial cost (the option premium) but profit as the stock goes down. You have no additional risk if the shock rises, even a lot. Short a stock - you gain if the stock drops, but have unlimited risk if it rises, the call mitigates this, by capping that rising stock risk. The profit/loss graph looks similar to the long put when you hold both the short position and the long call. You might consider producing a graph or spreadsheet to compare positions. You can easily sketch put, call, long stock, short stock, and study how combinations of positions can synthetically look like other positions. Often, when a stock has no shares to short, the synthetic short can help you put your stock position in place.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c2d820127fc0e4f738cd3f7504e58d6a", "text": "\"Financing a portfolio with debt (on margin) leads to higher variance. That's the WHOLE POINT. Let's say it's 50-50. On the downside, with 100% equity, you can never lose more than your whole equity. But if you have assets of 100, of which 50% is equity and 50% is debt, your losses can be greater than 50%, which is to say more than the value of your equity. The reverse is true. You can make money at TWICE the rate if the market goes up. But \"\"you pay your money and you take your chances\"\" (Punch, 1846).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d14c004981443285c0e14072fc0a322", "text": "The biggest benefit to having a larger portfolio is relatively reduced transaction costs. If you buy a $830 share of Google at a broker with a $10 commission, the commission is 1.2% of your buy price. If you then sell it for $860, that's another 1.1% gone to commission. Another way to look at it is, of your $30 ($860 - $830) gain you've given up $20 to transaction costs, or 66.67% of the proceeds of your trade went to transaction costs. Now assume you traded 10 shares of Google. Your buy was $8,300 and you sold for $8,600. Your gain is $300 and you spent the same $20 to transact the buy and sell. Now you've only given up 6% of your proceeds ($20 divided by your $300 gain). You could also scale this up to 100 shares or even 1,000 shares. Generally, dividend reinvestment are done with no transaction cost. So you periodically get to bolster your position without losing more to transaction costs. For retail investors transaction costs can be meaningful. When you're wielding a $5,000,000 pot of money you can make your trades on a larger scale giving up relatively less to transaction costs.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b9b7a9442c2fc7ba68d446c2c09c18b", "text": "\"You're talking about modern portfolio theory. The wiki article goes into the math. Here's the gist: Modern portfolio theory (MPT) is a theory of finance that attempts to maximize portfolio expected return for a given amount of portfolio risk, or equivalently minimize risk for a given level of expected return, by carefully choosing the proportions of various assets. At the most basic level, you either a) pick a level of risk (standard deviation of your whole portfolio) that you're ok with and find the maximum return you can achieve while not exceeding your risk level, or b) pick a level of expected return that you want and minimize risk (again, the standard deviation of your portfolio). You don't maximize both moments at once. The techniques behind actually solving them in all but the most trivial cases (portfolios of two or three assets are trivial cases) are basically quadratic programming because to be realistic, you might have a portfolio that a) doesn't allow short sales for all instruments, and/or b) has some securities that can't be held in fractional amounts (like ETF's or bonds). Then there isn't a closed form solution and you need computational techniques like mixed integer quadratic programming Plenty of firms and people use these techniques, even in their most basic form. Also your terms are a bit strange: It has correlation table p11, p12, ... pij, pnn for i and j running from 1 to n This is usually called the covariance matrix. I want to maximize 2 variables. Namely the expected return and the additive inverse of the standard deviation of the mixed investments. Like I said above you don't maximize two moments (return and inverse of risk). I realize that you're trying to minimize risk by maximizing \"\"negative risk\"\" so to speak but since risk and return are inherently a tradeoff you can't achieve the best of both worlds. Maybe I should point out that although the above sounds nice, and, theoretically, it's sound, as one of the comments points out, it's harder to apply in practice. For example it's easy to calculate a covariance matrix between the returns of two or more assets, but in the simplest case of modern portfolio theory, the assumption is that those covariances don't change over your time horizon. Also coming up with a realistic measure of your level of risk can be tricky. For example you may be ok with a standard deviation of 20% in the positive direction but only be ok with a standard deviation of 5% in the negative direction. Basically in your head, the distribution of returns you want probably has negative skewness: because on the whole you want more positive returns than negative returns. Like I said this can get complicated because then you start minimizing other forms of risk like value at risk, for example, and then modern portfolio theory doesn't necessarily give you closed form solutions anymore. Any actively managed fund that applies this in practice (since obviously a completely passive fund will just replicate the index and not try to minimize risk or anything like that) will probably be using something like the above, or at least something that's more complicated than the basic undergrad portfolio optimization that I talked about above. We'll quickly get beyond what I know at this rate, so maybe I should stop there.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d36d3ab2aaeb8734fd16cff48398a62a", "text": "\"He's calculating portfolio variance. The general formula for the variance of a portfolio composed of two securities looks like this: where w_a and w_b are the weights of each stock in the portfolio and the sigmas represent the standard deviation/risk of each asset or portfolio. In the case of perfect positive or negative correlation, applying some algebra to the formula relating covariance to the correlation coefficient (rho, the Greek letter that looks like \"\"p\"\"): tells us that the covariance we need in the original formula is simply the product of the standard deviations and the correlation coefficient (-1 in this case). Combining that result with our original formula yields this calculation: Technically we've calculated the portfolio's variance and not it's standard deviation/risk, but since the square root of 0 is still 0, that doesn't matter. The Wikipedia article on Modern Portfolio Theory has a section that describes the mathematical methods I used above. The entire article is worth a read, however.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1226b18f17ae68a16316ef098513605", "text": "Very likely this refers to trading/speculating on leverage, not investing. Of course, as soon as you put leverage into the equation this perfectly makes sense. 2007-2009 for example, if one bought the $SPX at its highs in 2007 at ~$1560.00 - to the lows from 2009 at ~$683.00 - implicating that with only 2:1 leverage a $1560.00 account would have received a margin call. At least here in Europe I can trade index CFD's and other leveraged products. If i trade lets say >50:1 leverage it doesn’t take much to get a margin call and/or position closed by the broker. No doubt, depending on which investments you choose there’s always risk, but currency is a position too. TO answer the question, I find it very unlikely that >90% of investors (referring to stocks) lose money / purchasing power. Anyway, I would not deny that where speculators (not investors) use leverage or try to trade swings, news etc. have a very high risk of losing money (purchasing power).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "44eb02cae8302ba335d2032af7a43460", "text": "You can only lose your 7%. The idea that a certain security is more volatile than others in your portfolio does not mean that you can lose more than the value of the investment. The one exception is that a short position has unlimited downside, but i dont think there are any straight short mutual funds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af1e7597d17b0a48cccebd7e7c4c402a", "text": "\"Month to date For the month to date (MTD), the price on Feb 28th is $4.58 and the price on March 16th is $4.61 so the return is which can be written more simply as The position is 1000 shares valued at $4580 on Feb 28th, so the profit on the month to date is Calendar year to date For the calendar year to date (YTD), the price on Dec 31st is $4.60 and the price on Feb 28th is $4.58 so the return to Feb 28th is The return from Feb 28th to March 16th is 0.655022 % so the year to date return is or more directly So the 2011 YTD profit on 1000 shares valued at $4600 on Dec 31st is Year to date starting Dec 10th For the year to date starting Dec 10th, the starting value is and the value on Dec 31st is 1000 * $4.60 = $4600 so the return is $4600 / $4510 - 1 = 0.0199557 = 1.99557 % The year to date profit is therefore Note - YTD is often understood to mean calendar year to date. To cover all the bases state both, ie \"\"calendar YTD (2011)\"\" and \"\"YTD starting Dec 10th 2010\"\". Edit further to comment For the calendar year to date, with 200 shares sold on Jan 10th with the share price at $4.58, the return from Dec 31st to Jan 10th is The return from Jan 10th to Feb 28th is The return from Feb 28th to March 16th is The profit on 1000 shares from Dec 31st to Jan 10th is $4600 * -0.00434783 = -$20 The profit on 800 shares from Jan 10th to Feb 28th is zero. The profit on 800 shares from Feb 28th to March 16th is So the year to date profit is $4.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "99f5a86c40bb640dd563d824d274a358", "text": "The management expense ratio (MER) is the management fee, plus all of the other costs required to run the fund, excluding any trading costs. Here's a pretty good explanation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "005ae68f6b6c32c422f0c8118e17c5a7", "text": "There is no difference. When dealing with short positions, talking about percentages become very tricky since they no longer add up to 100%. What does the 50% in your example mean? Unless there's some base amount (like total amount of the portfolio, then the percentages are meaningless. What matters when dealing with long and short positions is the net total - meaning if you are long 100 shares on one stock trade and short 50 shares on another, then you are net long 50 shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3659ad6a4c1d4d2f9e0aa0439187186", "text": "You have got it wrong. The profit or loss for smaller investor or big investor is same in percentage terms.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4f69ccdb76cbda9b9628b622c45fcca", "text": "There are two ways that an asset can generate value. One is that the asset generates some revenue (e.g. you buy a house for $100,000 and rent it out for $1,000 per month) and the second way is that the asset appreciates (e.g you buy a house for $100,000, you don't rent it out and 5 years later you sell it for $200,000). Stocks are the same.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3fa31b1975e0d7a3e9f65372d31635a5", "text": "Capital losses do mirror capital gains within their holding periods. An asset or investment this is certainly held for a year into the day or less, and sold at a loss, will create a short-term capital loss. A sale of any asset held for over a year to your day, and sold at a loss, will create a loss that is long-term. When capital gains and losses are reported from the tax return, the taxpayer must first categorize all gains and losses between long and short term, and then aggregate the sum total amounts for every single regarding the four categories. Then the gains that are long-term losses are netted against each other, therefore the same is done for short-term gains and losses. Then your net gain that is long-term loss is netted against the net short-term gain or loss. This final net number is then reported on Form 1040. Example Frank has the following gains and losses from his stock trading for the year: Short-term gains - $6,000 Long-term gains - $4,000 Short-term losses - $2,000 Long-term losses - $5,000 Net short-term gain/loss - $4,000 ST gain ($6,000 ST gain - $2,000 ST loss) Net long-term gain/loss - $1,000 LT loss ($4,000 LT gain - $5,000 LT loss) Final net gain/loss - $3,000 short-term gain ($4,000 ST gain - $1,000 LT loss) Again, Frank can only deduct $3,000 of final net short- or long-term losses against other types of income for that year and must carry forward any remaining balance.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
50b45c4a028b6eb0e325b80b1cf20489
Determining amount of inflation between two dates
[ { "docid": "4632d162208887143d785bc7d59d1586", "text": "You want percent change between the two numbers listed under whatever heading you'll be using in the CPI. As an example, you'd probably want to use the All Items heading listed here on Page 4 of the August 2016 CPI tables as 240.853, and from August 2015 was listed as 238.316. Percent change is So 1.06% inflation from August 2015 to August 2016.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "832fdc8c674902d98b80c697574456cb", "text": "The price inflation isn't a percentage, it's a fixed amount. If the dealer adds $R to the price of both the trade-in and the purchased car, then everyone ends up with the right amount of money in their pockets. So your formula should be: D + T + R = 0.1 * (P + R)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "340b75b1e37eecd052b891c6d5bbe629", "text": "Inflation can be a misleading indicator. Partly because it is not measured as a function of the change in prices of everything in the economy, just the basket of goods deemed essential. The other problem is that several things operate on it, the supply of money, the total quantity of goods being exchanged, and the supply of credit. Because the supply of goods divides - as more stuff is available prices drop - it's not possible to know purely from the price level, if prices are rising because there's an actual shortage (say a crop failure), or simply monetary expansion. At this point it also helps to know that the total money supply of the USA (as measured by total quantity of money in bank deposits) doubles every 10 years, and has done that consistently since the 1970's. USA Total Bank Deposits So I would say Simon Moore manages to be right for the wrong reasons. Despite low inflation, cash holdings are being proportionally devalued as the money supply increases. Most of the increase, is going into the stock market. However, since shares aren't included in the measures of inflation, then it doesn't influence the inflation rate. Still, if you look at the quantity of shares your money will buy now, as opposed to 5 years ago, it's clear that the value of your money has dropped substantially. The joker in the pack is the influence of the credit supply on the price level.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3e2f1b61d32cacf842186f073f09885", "text": "\"Note that the series you are showing is the historical spot index (what you would pay to be long the index today), not the history of the futures quotes. It's like looking at the current price of a stock or commodity (like oil) versus the futures price. The prompt futures quote will be different that the spot quote. If you graphed the history of the prompt future you might notice the discontinuity more. How do you determine when to roll from one contract to the other? Many data providers will give you a time series for the \"\"prompt\"\" contract history, which will automatically roll to the next expiring contract for you. Some even provide 2nd prompt, etc. time series. If that is not available, you'd have to query multiple futures contracts and interleave them based on the expiry rules, which should be publicly available. Also is there not a price difference from the contract which is expiring and the one that is being rolled forward to? Yes, since the time to delivery is extended by ~30 days when you roll to the next contract. but yet there are no sudden price discontinuities in the charts. Well, there are, but it could be indistinguishable from the normal volatility of the time series.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "931efdb6af74a7feffd7a87fd30575f2", "text": "Inflation is not applicable in the said example. You are better off paying 300 every month as the balance when invested will return you income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1e649f5d1205d4ae6da83c2df3596483", "text": "While the standard measure of inflation, the CPI, has [severe problems](https://www.forbes.com/sites/perianneboring/2014/02/03/if-you-want-to-know-the-real-rate-of-inflation-dont-bother-with-the-cpi/), there are still a huge range of inflation statistics from the various M values to specific commodity prices. Regardless of the relative value of any of these, stealing pension funds is immoral, evil, and destabilizing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5118f81051f23c2de558ebb01684b73", "text": "\"Inflation is an attempt to measure how much less money is worth. It is a weighted average of some bundle of goods and services price's increase. Money's value is in what you can exchange it for, so higher prices means money is worth less. Monthly inflation is quoted either as \"\"a year, ending on that month\"\" or \"\"since the previous month\"\". As the values differ by more than a factor of 10, you can usually tell which one is being referred to when they say \"\"inflation in August was 0.4%, a record high\"\" or \"\"inflation in August was 3.6%\"\". You do need some context of the state of the economy, and how surprised the people talking about the numbers are. Sometimes they refer to inflation since the last month, and then annualize it, which adds to the confusion. \"\"Consumer Inflation\"\"'s value depends on what the basket of goods is, and what you define as the same \"\"good\"\". Is a computer this year the same as the last? If the computer is 10x faster, do you ignore that, or factor it in? What basket do you use? The typical monthly consumables purchased by a middle class citizen? By a poor citizen? By a rich citizen? A mixture, and if so which mixture? More detailed inflation figures can focus on inflation facing each quntile of the population by household income, split durable goods from non-durable goods from services, split wage from non-wage inflation, ignore volatile things like food and energy, etc. Inflation doesn't directly cause prices to raise; instead it is a measure of how much raise in prices happened. It can easily be a self-fullfilling prophesy, as inflation expectations can lead to everyone automatically increasing the price they charge for everything (wages, goods, etc). Inflation can be viewed as a measurement of the \"\"cost of holding cash\"\". At 10% inflation per year, holding a million dollars in cash for a year costs you 100,000$ in buying power. At 1% inflation it costs 10,000$. At 0.1% inflation, 1000$. Inflation of 10% in one year, followed by 10% the next, adds up to 1.1*1.1-1 = 21% inflation over the two years. For low inflation numbers this acts a lot like adding; the further from 0% you get the more the lower-order terms make the result larger. 1% inflation for two years adds up to 2.01%, 10% over two years 21%, 100% over two years 300%, 1000% over two years 12000%, etc. (and yes, some places suffer 1000% inflation)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e21331efcf4b1348c1afe3ad08025a41", "text": "\"When you're calculating the cash flows used to compute an IRR, with regard to the expenses used to calculate those cash flows: Do you assume that expenses are going to be higher than they would be today, by using an assumed inflation rate? Or is everything (all cash flows) assumed to be in today's dollars, and you account for inflation's effect on your actual returns at \"\"the end\"\" by subtracting off the inflation rate from the IRR?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5335ecf49cf360aa289d99ecc552d636", "text": "Inflation is basically this: Over time, prices go up! I will now address the 3 points you have listed. Suppose over a period of 10 years, prices have doubled. Now suppose 10 years ago I earned $100 and bought a nice pair of shoes. Now today because prices have doubled I would have to earn $200 in order to afford the same pair of shoes. Thus if I want to compare my earnings this year to 10 years ago, I will need to adjust for the price of goods going up. That is, I could say that my $100 earnings 10 years ago is the same as having earned $200 today, or alternatively I could say that my earnings of $200 today is equivalent to having earned $100 10 years ago. This is a difficult question because a car is a depreciating asset, which means the real value of the car will go down in value over time. Let us suppose that inflation doesn't exist and the car you bought for $100 today will depreciate to $90 after 1 year (a 10% depreciation). But because inflation does exist, and all prices will be 0.5% higher in 1 years time, we can calculate the true selling price of the car 1 in year as follows: 0.5% of $90 = 0.005*90 = $0.45 Therefore the car will be $90 + $0.45 = $90.45 in 1 years time. If inflation is low, then the repayments do not get much easier to pay back over time because wages have not risen by as much. Similarly the value of your underlying asset will not increase in value by as much. However as compensation, the interest rates on loans are usually lower when inflation is lower. Therefore generally it is better to get a loan in times of high inflation rather than low inflation, however it really depends on how the much the interest rates are relative to the inflation rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "685969de8f725ad8bdedd6839e4ee42c", "text": "The general discussion of inflation centers on money as a medium of exchange and a store of value. It is impossible to discuss inflation without considering time, since it is a comparison between the balance between money and goods at two points in time. The whole point of using money, rather than bartering goods, is to have a medium of exchange. Having money, you are interested in the buying power of the money in general more than the relative price of a specific commodity. If some supply distortion causes a shortage of tobacco, or gasoline, or rental properties, the price of each will go up. However, if the amount of circulating money is doubled, the price of everything will be bid up because there is more money chasing the same amount of wealth. The persons who get to introduce the additional circulating money will win at the expense of those who already hold cash. Most of the public measures that are used to describe the economy are highly suspect. For example, during the 90s, the federal government ceased using a constant market basket when computing CPI, allowing substitutions. With this, it was no longer possible to make consistent comparisons over time. The so-called Core CPI is even worse, as it excludes food and energy, which is fine provided you don't eat anything or use any energy. Therefore, when discussing CPI, it is important to understand what exactly is being measured and how. Most published statistics understate inflation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "799a9ee5e202bf0686256b32b8c4a361", "text": "\"As Michael McGowan says, just because gold has gone up lots recently does not mean it will continue to go up by the same amount. This plot: shows that if your father had bought $20,000 in gold 30 years ago, then 10 years ago he would have slightly less than $20,000 to show for it. Compare that with the bubble in real estate in the US: Update: I was curious about JoeTaxpayer's question: how do US house prices track against US taxpayer's ability to borrow? To try to answer this, I used the house price data from here, the 30 year fixed mortgages here and the US salary information from here. To calculate the \"\"ability to borrow\"\" I took the US hourly salary information, multiplied by 2000/12 to get a monthly salary. I (completely arbitrarily) assumed that 25 per cent of the monthly salary would be used on mortgage payments. I then used Excel's \"\"PV\"\" (Present Value) function to calculate the present value of the thirty year fixed rate mortgage. The resulting graph is below. The correlation coefficient between the two plots is 0.93. There are so many caveats on what I've done in ~15 minutes, I don't want to list them... but it certainly \"\"gives one furiously to think\"\" !! Update 2: OK, so even just salary information correlates very well with the house price increases. And looking at the differences, we can see that perhaps there was a spike or bubble in house prices over and above what might be expected from salary-only or ability-to-borrow.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "72a2701b1f51d5da47456b2cbe3a98a0", "text": "I have been charting the CPI reported inflation rate vs . the yeald on the 10-year T-note. Usually, the two like to keep pace with each other. Sometimes the T-note is a bit higher than the inflation rate, sometimes the inflation rate is a bit higher than the T-note yeald. One does not appear to follow the other, but (until recently) the two do not diverge from each other by much. But all that changed recently and I am without an explanation as to why. Inflation dropped to zero (or a bit negative) yet the yeald on the 10-year T-note seemed to seek 2%. Edit: If you give this response a downvote then please be kind enough to explain why in a comment. Edit-2: CPI and 10-year T-note are what I have tracked, and continue to track. If you do not like my answer then provide a better one, yourself.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96e5fbb09d4c74156d9282ebfb6837e8", "text": "Annual inflation was 15%+ in 1979, call it what you want, I call that hyper inflation. And the CPI might say 1% since 2000 but the cost of gasoline and energy, the lifeblood of the economy, is left out in their calculation since ~1992. Inflation right now is 10% if you calculate it the same way we did before 1980.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "47ae54c33da604d2225616426525aae9", "text": "EDIT: After reading one of the comments on the original question, I realized that there is a much more intuitive way to think about this. If you look at it as a standard PV calculation and hold each of the cashflows constant. Really what's happening is that because of inflation the discount rate isn't the full value of the interest rate. Really the discount rate is only the portion of the interest rate above the inflation rate. Hence in the standard perpetuity PV equation PV = A / r r becomes the interest rate less the inflation rate which gives you PV = A / (i - g). That seems like a much better way to get to the answer than all the machinations I was originally trying. Original Answer: I think I finally figured this out. The general term for this type of system in which the payments increase over time is a gradient series annuity. In this specific example since the payment is increasing by a percentage each period (not a constant rate) this would be considered a geometric gradient series. According to this link the formula for the present value of a geometric gradient series of payments is: Where P is the present value of this series of cashflows. A_1 is the initial payment for period 1 (i.e. the amount you want to withdraw adjusted for inflation). g is the gradient or growth rate of the periodic payment (in this case this is the inflation rate) i is the interest rate n is the number of payments This is almost exactly what I was looking for in my original question. The only problem is this is for a fixed amount of time (i.e. n periods). In order to figure out the formula for a perpetuity we need to find the limit of the right side of this equation as the number of periods (n) approaches infinity. Luckily in this equation n is already well isolated to a single term: (1 + g)^n/(1 + i)^-n}. And since we know that the interest rate, i, has to be greater than the inflation rate, g, the limit of that factor is 0. So after replacing that term with 0 our equation simplifies to the following: Note: I don't do this stuff for a living and honestly don't have a fantastic finance IQ. It's been a while since I've done any calculus or even this much algebra so I may have made an error in the math.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80a85c95c7462ad01c4b710df507a311", "text": "\"Hello! I am working on a project where I am trying to determine the profit made by a vendor if they hold our funds for 5 days in order to collect the interest on those funds during that period before paying a third party. Currently I am doing \"\"Amount x(Fed Funds Rate/365)x5\"\" but my output seems too low. Any advice?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f78c7392739b1b493469ea702c6e2a40", "text": "As BrenBarn points out in his comment, the real values are inflation adjusted values using the consumer price index (CPI) included in the spreadsheet. The nominal value adjusted by the CPI gives the real value in terms of today's dollars. For example, the CPI for the first month (Jan 1871) is given as 12.46 while the most recent month (Aug 2016) has a reported CPI of 240.45. Thus, the real price (in today's dollars) for the 4.44 S&P index level at Jan 1871 is calculated as 4.44 x 240.45 / 12.46 = 85.68 (actually reported as 85.65 due to rounding of the reported CPIs). And similarly for the other real values reported.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
300f27de6cae04323ebaea5475a7cc73
Understanding highly compensated employees within 401ks
[ { "docid": "aee2b2e587e167beaf774fe2fa8645c9", "text": "HCE is defined as being above 120k$ or in the top 20 % of the company. The exact cutoff point might be different for each company. Typically, only the base salary is considered for that, but it's the company's (and 401(k)-plan's) decision. The IRS does not require HCE treatment; the IRS requires that 401(k) plans have a 'fair' distribution of usage between all employees. Very often, employees with lower income save (over-proportionally) less in their 401(k), and there is a line where the 401(k) plan is no longer acceptable to the IRS. HCE is a way for companies to ensure this forced balance; by limiting the amount of 401(k) savings for HCE, the companies ensure that the share of all contributions by below-HCE is appropriate. They will calculate/define the HCE cutoff point so that the required distribution is surely achieved. One of the consequences is that when you move over the HCE cutoff point, you can suddenly save a lot less in your 401(k). Nothing can be done about that. See this IRS page: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/definitions Highly Compensated Employee - An individual who: Owned more than 5% of the interest in the business at any time during the year or the preceding year, regardless of how much compensation that person earned or received, or For the preceding year, received compensation from the business of more than $115,000 (if the preceding year is 2014; $120,000 if the preceding year is 2015 or 2016), and, if the employer so chooses, was in the top 20% of employees when ranked by compensation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "01a8d67d87bc2e887865b146dfa421d3", "text": "There are some nuances with HCE definition. To answer your questions. It's compensation as defined by the plan. Usually it's gross comp, but it can exclude things like fringe benefits, overtime pay, commissions, bonuses, etc. The compensation test is also a look-back test, meaning that an EE is determined to be an HCE in the current year if their compensation in the previous year was over the limit. I'm not sure how stock options affect this, but I expect they would be counted. Probably have an ESOP plan at that point too which is a whole other can-o-woms. The 5% owner test applies to the current year and also has a one-year look-back period. If at ANY point, even for a day, an employee was more than 5% owner, they are HCE for that year and next. Yes there is a limit. A company may limit the amount of HCE's to the top 20% of employees by pay like Aganju said. They can also disregard employees that may otherwise have been excluded under the plan using statutory exclusions. Example, they can disregard employees under 21 years and with less than 1 year of service. Hahaha, the IRS does not like to concisely define things. You can look here, that's probably as concise as you'll get. Hope this helps!", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "b104f49adf443934010e70fee6ba78f9", "text": "4% of 30k ($1,200) is dwarfed by an $18,000 base pay increase. At 48k maxing out IRA will take ~11.5% of gross income, so at current position (30k salary) 401k contributions would likely be limited to the matching portion anyway. The long-term benefit of a deferred tax retirement plan can't fully be known since tax rates can change over time. If rates increase, the benefit can be mitigated. Personally, I only contribute to 401k enough to get full employer matching, and then I prioritize HSA, IRA, after those, some people like to go back to 401k to max, but I prefer other investments. At this low of an income range, the increase in base pay is far too significant to worry over potential differences in tax-deferred vs after tax investments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2872c54aa6d39f2befbdf243277e0511", "text": "\"On thing the questioner should do is review the Summary Plan Description (SPD) for the 401(k) plan. This MAY have details on any plan imposed limits on salary deferrals. If the SPD does not have sufficient detail, the questioner should request a complete copy of current plan document and then review this with someone who knows how to read plan documents. The document for a 401(k) plan CAN specify a maximum percentage of compensation that a participant in the 401(k) plan can defer REGARDLESS of the maximum dollar deferral limit in Internal Revenue Code Section 402(g). For example, the document for a 401(k) plan can provide that participants can elect to defer any amount of their compensation (salary) BUT not to exceed ten percent (10%). Thus, someone whose salary is $50,000 per year will effectively be limited to deferring, at most, $5,000. Someone making $150,000 will effectively be limited to deferring, at most, $15,000. This is true regardless of the fact that the 2013 dollar limit on salary deferrals is $17,500. This is also true regardless of whether or not a participant may want to defer more than ten percent (10%) of compensation. This \"\"plan imposed\"\" limit on salary deferral contributions is permissible assuming it is applied in a nondiscriminatory manner. This plan imposed limit is entirely separate from any other rules or restrictions on salary deferral amounts that might be as a result of things like the average deferral percentage test.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8278b4e51960984a764e5fa69a584add", "text": "401K accounts, both regular and Roth, generally have loans available. There are maximum amounts that are based on federal limits, and your balance in the program. These rules also determine the amount of time you have to repay the loan, and what happens if you quit or are fired while the loan is outstanding. In these loan programs the loan comes from your 401K funds. Regarding matching funds. This plan is not atypical. Some match right away, some make you wait. Some put in X percent regardless of what you contribute. Some make you opt out, others make you opt in. Some will direct their automatic amounts to a specific fund, unless you tell them otherwise. The big plus for the fund you describe is the immediate vesting. Some companies will match your investments but then only partially vest the funds. They don't want to put a bunch of matching funds into your account, and then have you leave. So they say that if you leave before 5 years is up, they will not let you keep all the funds. If you leave after 2 years you keep 25%, if you leave after 3 years you keep 50%... The fact they immediately vest is a very generous plan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76fdec82f23aeb8c14fab73c29211526", "text": "\"Your employer could consider procuring benefits via a third party administrator, which provides benefits to and bargains collectively on behalf of multiple small companies. I used to work for a small start-up that did exactly that to improve their benefits across the board, including the 401k. The fees were still higher than buying a Vanguard index or ETF directly, but much better than the 1% you're talking about. In the meantime, here's my non-professional advice from personal experience and hindsight: If you're in a low/medium tax bracket and your 401k sucks, you might be better off to pay the tax up front and invest in a taxable account for the flexibility (assuming you're disciplined enough that you don't need the 401k to protect you from yourself). If you max out a crappy 401k today, you might miss a better opportunity to contribute to a 401k in the future. Big expenses could pop up at exactly the same time you get better investment options. Side note: if not enough employees participate in the 401k, the principals won't be able to take full advantage of it themselves. I think it's called a \"\"nondiscrimination test\"\" to ensure that the plan benefits all employees, not just the owners and management. So voting with your feet might be the best way to spark improvement with your employer. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f637d28ed2f20cecce20e34bab4e0cd2", "text": "The managers of the 401(k) have to make their money somewhere. Either they'll make it from the employer, or from the employees via the expense ratio. If it's the employer setting up the plan, I can bet whose interest he'll be looking after. Regarding your last comment, I'd recommend looking outside your 401(k) for investing. If you get free money from your employer for contributing to your 401(k), that's a plus, but I wouldn't -- actually, I don't -- contribute anything beyond the match. I pay my taxes and I'm done with it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8062fa4da670f6ef56710ff322996e40", "text": "\"The \"\"Deferral\"\" for the 401k means that you're not collecting your pay immediately, but instead diverting it to a retirement account (Roth 401k in this case). This article defines deferral well: What is the difference between a regular 401(k) deferral (pre-tax) and a Roth 401(k) deferral? Under either a regular 401(k) deferral or a Roth 401(k) deferral, you make a deferral contribution by electing to set aside part of your pay (by either a certain percentage or a certain dollar amount). For a regular 401(k) deferral, the taxable wages on your W-2 are reduced by the deferral contribution; therefore, you pay less current income tax. However, you will eventually pay tax on these contributions and earnings when the plan distributes the regular 401(k) deferrals and earnings to you. The result is that the tax on the regular 401(k) deferrals and earnings is only postponed. A Roth 401(k) deferral is an after-tax contribution, which means you must pay current income tax on the deferral. Since you have already paid tax on the deferral, you won’t pay tax on it again when you receive a distribution of your Roth 401(k) deferral. In addition, if you satisfy cer tain distribution conditions, then you won’t have to pay tax on the earnings either. This means that the distribution of the Roth 401(k) earnings can be tax free not just tax postponed. Traditionally, this deferred compensation typically was directed to a 401k, but now that Roth 401k is another available option, deferred compensation can be directed there as well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8ddb50e2148b787850e7151971e34bb", "text": "Employer matches (even for Roth 401Ks) are put into traditional 401K accounts and are treated as pre-tax income. Traditional 401K plans are tax deferred accounts, meaning you won't owe any taxes on it this year, but will have to pay taxes on it when you take the money out (likely after retirement). 401K contributions (including the match) are reported to the IRS and are entered in box 12 on the W2 form.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "48200c2619731735e1decc0ae5936cd2", "text": "\"It seems I can make contributions as employee-elective, employer match, or profit sharing; yet they all end up in the same 401k from my money since I'm both the employer and employee in this situation. Correct. What does this mean for my allowed limits for each of the 3 types of contributions? Are all 3 types deductible? \"\"Deductible\"\"? Nothing is deductible. First you need to calculate your \"\"compensation\"\". According to the IRS, it is this: compensation is your “earned income,” which is defined as net earnings from self-employment after deducting both: So assuming (numbers for example, not real numbers) your business netted $30, and $500 is the SE tax (half). You contributed $17.5 (max) for yourself. Your compensation is thus 30-17.5-0.5=12. Your business can contribute up to 25% of that on your behalf, i.e.: $4K. Total that you can contribute in such a scenario is $21.5K. Whatever is contributed to a regular 401k is deferred, i.e.: excluded from income for the current year and taxed when you withdraw it from 401k (not \"\"deducted\"\" - deferred).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0f370bf139ba17fef15ce4b63eea3f6f", "text": "Read this. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/one-participant-401k-plans The example makes it very clear.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a5ee4a4e9b317c00c127ed24f0fa870", "text": "It's not a 60% raise. He made 60% more than the previous year. There's lots of things that could account for that. One of them is an annual bonus that was larger than his previous annual bonus - the calculation of that bonus was likely negotiated as part of his contract. A large chunk of the gains seems to be between that and stock/option awards. Often stock/option vest differently in the first year than remaining years, and the value changes over time as the stock market moves. If you have options granted with a strike price set based on the closing price of stock the day you start, and you cash them out as you get them, after a year if it's gone up 5% you make a bit. After the second year if it's gone up 10%, you doubled your income from that source even though you didn't receive any more options that year. His salary raise doesn't seem out of line. I've gotten larger raises in my career. Now... suppose all of his compensation was spread out evenly across all of the employees. CAT has a bit over 100K employees. His total compensation was $16M 16M / 100K = $160. You could give every employee $160/yr more for the cost of the CEO's entire compensation package. That comes out at 7-8 cents/hour. If you only do it with his raise and not the one time bonuses and returns from stock/option grants well... $3/employee/yr. The best way to invest in people is to offer training to help them move to higher value jobs. Things like tuition reimbursement programs based on maintaining good performance in classes are solid benefits to offer. Or even job training to those who show aptitude for different classes of work. Maybe some merit based bonus structure - people who come up with good ideas for cutting costs, improving efficiency, etc and work to see them implemented qualify for some sort of bonus based on a percentage of the value of that change. The bigger problem with those types of programs is that collective bargaining agreements tend to forbid any sort of merit based pay. They also make jumping line in seniority impossible - i.e. the union agreement would say that the person most qualified for the extra training is the one who's been in the job the longest. Some of these rules make sense if your goal is that everybody is equal and your idea of fairness is based on avoiding inequality. To justify it, they'll throw up things like the boss's cousin's brother-in-law's ex-wife's son could get preferential treatment if the contract doesn't prevent it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "08272c221245feb74c609aa96ec5c5e3", "text": "I've never seen anything in any IRS publication that placed limits on the balance of a 401K, only on what you can contribute (and defer from taxes) each year. The way the IRS 'gets theirs' as it were is on the taxes you have to pay (for a traditional IRA anyway) which would not be insubstantial when you start to figure out the required minimum distribution if the balance was 14Mill.. You're required to take out enough to in theory run the thing out of money by your life expectancy.. The IRS has tables for this stuff to give you the exact numbers, but for the sake of a simple example, their number for someone age 70 (single or with a spouse who is not more than 10 years younger) is 27.4.. If we round that to 28 to make the math nice, then you would be forced to withdraw and pay taxes on around $500,000 per year. (So there would be a hefty amount of taxes to be paid out for sure). So a lot of that $500K a year going to pay taxes on your distributions, but then, considering you only contributed 660,000 pre-tax dollars in the first place, what a wonderful problem to have to deal with. Oh don't throw me in THAT briar patch mr fox!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36a804f76053758e3c670904a4eed573", "text": "\"typically, your employer will automatically stop making contributions once you hit the 18k$ limit. it is worth noting that employer contributions (e.g. \"\"matching\"\") do not count towards the 18k$ employee pre-tax contribution limit. however, if you have 2 employers during the year their combined payroll deductions might exceed the limit if you do not inform your later employer of the contributions you made at your former employer (or they ignore the info). in which case, you must request a refund of \"\"excess contributions\"\" from one of the plans (your choice). you must report the refund as taxable income on your taxes. if you do not make this request by the time you file your taxes, the tax man will reject your filing and \"\"adjust\"\" your return with more taxes and penalties. sometimes requesting a refund of excess contributions might cause your employer to remove \"\"matching\"\" funds, but i am not clear on the rules behind that. there are some 401k plans that allow \"\"supplemental after-tax contributions\"\" up to the combined employee/employer limit (53k$ in 2015 and 2016). it is a rare feature, and if your company offers it, you probably already know. however, generally it is governed by a separate contribution election that only take effect once you hit the employee pre-tax contribution limit (18k$ in 2015 and 2016). you could ask your hr department to be sure. 401k plans can be changed if there is enough employee demand for a rule change. especially in a small company, simply asking for them to allow dollar based contributions instead of percent based contributions can cause them to change the plan to allow it. similarly, you could request they allow \"\"supplemental after-tax contributions\"\", but that might be a harder change to get.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f2c1b00df06d1bb3490603195f864b2e", "text": "\"The only way to know the specific explanation in your situation is to ask your employer. Different companies do it differently, and they will have their reasons for that difference. I've asked \"\"But why is it that way?\"\" enough times to feel confident in telling you it's rarely an arbitrary decision. In the case of your employer's policy, I can think of a number of reasons why they would limit match earnings per paycheck: Vesting, in a sense - Much as stock options have vesting requirements where you have to work for a certain amount of time to receive the options, this policy works as a sort of vesting mechanism for your employer matching funds. Without it, you could rapidly accumulate your full annual match amount in a few pay periods at the beginning of the year, and then immediately leave for employment elsewhere. You gain 100% of the annual match for only 1-2 months of work, while the employees who remain there all year work 12 months to gain the same 100%. Dollar Cost Averaging - By purchasing the same investment vehicle at different prices over time, you can reduce the impact of volatility on your earnings. For the same reason that 401k plans usually restrict you to a limited selection of mutual funds - namely, the implicit assumption is that you probably have little to no clue about investing - they also do other strategic things to encourage employees to invest (at least somewhat) wisely. By spacing their matching fund out over time, they encourage you to space your contributions over time, and they thereby indirectly force you to practice a sensible strategy of dollar cost averaging. Dollar Cost Averaging, seen from another angle - Mutual funds are the 18-wheeler trucks of the investment super-highway. They carry a lot of cargo, but they are difficult to start, stop, or steer quickly. For the same reasons that DCA is smart for you, it's also smart for a fund. The money is easier to manage and invest according to the goals of the fund if the investments trickle in over time and there are no sudden radical changes. Imagine if every employer that does matching allowed the full maximum match to be earned on the first paycheck of the year - the mutual funds in 401ks would get big balloons of money in January followed by a drastically lower investment for the rest of the year. And that would create volatility. Plan Administration Fees - Your employer has to pay the company managing the 401k for their services. It is likely that their agreement with the management company requires them to pay on a monthly basis, so it potentially makes things convenient for the accounting people on both ends if there's a steady monthly flow of money in and out. (Whether this point is at all relevant is very much dependent on how your company's agreement is structured, and how well the folks handling payroll and accounting understand it.) The Bottom Line - Your employer (let us hope) makes profits. And they pay expenses. And companies, for a variety of financial reasons, prefer to spread their profits and expenses as evenly over the year as they can. There are a lot of ways they achieve this - for example, a seasonal business might offer an annual payment plan to spread their seasonal revenue over the year. Likewise, the matching funds they are paying to you the employees are coming out of their bottom line. And the company would rather not have the majority of those funds being disbursed in a single quarter. They want a nice, even distribution. So once again it behooves them to create a 401k system that supports that objective. To Sum Up Ultimately, those 401k matching funds are a carrot. And that carrot manipulates you the employee into behaving in a way that is good for your employer, good for your investment management company, and good for your own investment success. Unless you are one of the rare birds who can outperform a dollar-cost-averaged investment in a low-cost index fund, there's very little to chafe at about this arrangement. If you are that rare bird, then your investment earning power likely outstrips the value of your annual matching monies significantly, in which case it isn't even worth thinking about.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a948ca629d5ad936371714b200b5f236", "text": "if you have a work-sponsored retirement plan A 401k plan counts as a work-sponsored retirement plan. If you are a highly compensated employee (this is $115,000 for 2012), even your 401k contributions are limited. Given that, is there any difference at all between having a traditional IRA and a normal, taxable (non-retirement) investment account? You should consider a Roth IRA if you are making too much for a traditional IRA. When you make even more, then you can't contribute to a Roth, but can only contribute post-tax money to a traditional IRA. Use Form 8606 to keep track of non-deductable contributions over the years. Publication 590 is the official IRS explanation of what is deductable or not.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60226c4c78a21e8633b978e579059da9", "text": "I routinely max out my 401k contributions. The company's stupid website actually forces me to make two contributions -- one for the regular contribution, and another for the Catchup Contribution. I routinely adjust my 401k contribution throughout the year -- at the first of the year, I calculate how much to withhold such that I can adjust withholding to 6% of salary more than before, once I hit the SS tax limit. At the first of the year, I ignore bonuses. I re-adjust (if needed) once I know bonuses. I've worked for my company for almost 30 years now.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
531b61ef21e74fb82c67262bc8927fa9
Former public employer that we have options in just sold
[ { "docid": "effa41e39c6b1e428b8b06012d137836", "text": "The deal is expected to close sometime in Q4. The fluctuation though the day is just noise. The price will reflect a discount to the full takeover value, reflecting the risk of the deal falling through. Cashless exercise is a good idea if you don't wish to own any QVC shares.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4abb0b19a0c5f907b80017b1f1b1ef0d", "text": "\"Simply put, yes. I bought that call. I was betting the shares would rise in value by Jan 2018, and chose the $130 strike. With a strike nearly a year away, I paid a premium that was all time value as the shares traded at Now the shares are replaced by $128. The time value has gone to zero, and there is no intrinsic \"\"in the money\"\" value. If the shares were bought at $140, the time value stills drops to zero, but the option is closed at $10 in the money. My answer was for a cash deal. In a case where the old shares are replaced by new shares or a combination of shares and money, the options terms are changed to reflect the combination of new assets for old. Update based on disclosure that it's Monsanto we are discussing. Bayer and Monsanto have announced that they signed a definitive agreement under which Bayer will acquire Monsanto for USD 128 per share in an all-cash transaction. Based on Monsanto’s closing share price on May 9, 2016, the day before Bayer’s first written proposal to Monsanto, the offer represents a premium of 44 percent to that price. You can see that the deal has been in the works for some time now. Further research shows they expect the deal to close by \"\"the end of 2017\"\". It's not a done deal. This is why the options are still trading. Now the shares are replaced by $128. The time value has gone to zero, and there is no intrinsic \"\"in the money\"\" value. If the shares were bought at $140, the time value stills drops to zero, but the option is closed at $10 in the money. My answer was for a cash deal. In a case where the old shares are replaced by new shares or a combination of shares and money, the options terms are changed to reflect the combination of new assets for old. Update based on disclosure that it's Monsanto we are discussing. Bayer and Monsanto have announced that they signed a definitive agreement under which Bayer will acquire Monsanto for USD 128 per share in an all-cash transaction. Based on Monsanto’s closing share price on May 9, 2016, the day before Bayer’s first written proposal to Monsanto, the offer represents a premium of 44 percent to that price. You can see that the deal has been in the works for some time now. Further research shows they expect the deal to close by \"\"the end of 2017\"\". It's not a done deal. This is why the options are still trading.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b33667625868aa72db975098d0a594ef", "text": "I'm afraid you're not going to get any good news here. The US government infused billions of dollars in capital as part of the bankruptcy deal. The old shares have all been cancelled and the only value they might have to you are as losses to offset other gains. I would definitely contact a tax professional to look at your current and previous returns to create a plan that best takes advantage of an awful situation. It breaks my heart to even think about it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f5e2b5519a30ae098566977ca938227", "text": "Is my understanding correct? It's actually higher than that - he exercised options for 94,564 shares at $204.16 and sold them for $252.17 for a gain of about $4.5 Million. There's another transaction that's not in your screenshot where he sold the other 7,954 shares for another $2 Million. What do executive directors usually do with such profit? It's part of his compensation - it's anyone's guess what he decided to do with it. Is it understood that such trade profits should be re-invested back to the company? No - that is purely compensation for his position (I'm assuming the stock options were compensation rather then him buying options in the open market). There generally is no expectation that trading profits need to go back into the company. If the company wanted the profits reinvested they wouldn't have distributed the compensation in the first place.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a8a3c216908f110c3f8039d8e1ba396", "text": "I've never heard of an employer offering this kind of arrangement before, so my answer assumes there is no special tax treatment that I'm not aware of. Utilizing the clause is probably equivalent to exercising some of your options, selling the shares back to your employer at FMV, and then exercising more options with the proceeds. In this case if you exercise 7500 shares and sell them back at FMV, your proceeds would be 7500 x $5 = $37,500, with which you could exercise the remaining 12,500 options. The tax implications would be (1) short-term capital gains of 7500 x ($5 - $3) = $15,000 and (2) AMT income of 12,500 x ($5 - $3) = $25,000, assuming you don't sell the shares within the calendar year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b62038a9eb815d630306ea48aa79014e", "text": "\"Sycamore Partners \"\"saves\"\" brick and mortars from the ultimate death. By going private, these companies do not face the pressure of Wall Street and they can usually be saved and turn around a profit ( The Limited and Talbots are a few saved consumer shops)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "311702bd6331c4f3d930e495eb3b943c", "text": "Sad to hear. I hope the job market is okay enough in NJ to compensate the mass layoffs. I wonder how much money each casino could save if they invested in rooftop windmill farms. Electricity is their biggest cost or second after employee payroll.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0be785cc82104b96db67210d940236d7", "text": "Read this- [Out of Control: The Coast-to-Coast Failures of Outsourcing Public Services to For-Profit Corporations](http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/1213%20Out_of_Control.pdf) Free trade agreements mandate a one way street to privatization of almost all public jobs and publicly procured services because it puts those jobs into play, they can then become bargaining chips in the globalization trading game. For example, US teaching jobs could be traded for national treatment in trade deals like TiSA- They could become valuable in the context of the fact that countries like India have a rapidly growing market and a surplus of people with degrees who speak perfect English. the US pharmaceutical industry might be able to trade access to those contracts for something like the curtailment of Indias policy on making cheap generic drugs. That kind of thing makes the US pharmaceutical industry see red. There has been a longstanding dispute with Australia over Australia's public health care systems' buying of drugs at a discount. The US claims thats prohibited by an FTA. I think its the US's position is that that is unfair discrimination against corporations. Only private for-profit companies are allowed to negotiate discounts. You can probably find more here: http://www.bilaterals.org/?-US-Australia- or here http://www.italaw.com (plug in the word Australia) Privatization is often mostly about looting public resources for some goal that is very much against the public interest! For example, look at the National City Lines fiasco- the reason the US went from having one of the very best to one of the worst public transit systems in the developed world - in only 30 years- is now addicted to oil and gas.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6f1061862d29930fecfddd11df34c74", "text": "I've had stock options at two different jobs. If you are not getting a significant ownership stake, but rather just a portion of options as incentive to come work there, I would value them at $0. If you get the same salary and benefits, but no stock options at another company and you like the other company better, I'd go to the other company. I say this because there are so many legal changes that seem to take value from you that you might as well not consider the options in your debate. That being said, the most important question I'd want to know is what incentive does the company have to going public or getting bought? If the company is majority owned by investors, the stock options are likely to be worth something if you wait long enough. You are essentially following someone else's bet. If the company is owned by 2 or 3 individuals who want to make lots of money, they may or may not decide to sell or go public.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d55cbb74ff3bda52e2ca5a1bd0fd6e10", "text": "Its important that you carefully read the agreement, if you accept the job. The options agreement will usually specify the vesting schedule, the strike price, and the number of options you will have. When you start vesting options, you can choose to buy stock at the strike price. When you do exercise the options, your employer will likely withhold state and federal income tax. The strike price will hopefully be well below the market price. Unlike stock, when your employment ends, you usually are not able to hold on to your options. There's typically a small window of time in which you can exercise your options. You should read this part of the agreement carefully and plan accordingly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d62d84853dcd1a2c31e36d5c397c1a6", "text": "The company may not permit a transfer of these options. If they do permit it, you simply give him the money and he has them issue the options in your name. As a non-public company, they may have a condition where an exiting employee has to buy the shares or let them expire. If non-employees are allowed to own shares, you give him the money to exercise the options and he takes possession of the stock and transfers it to you. Either way, it seems you really need a lawyer to handle this. Whenever this kind of money is in motion, get a lawyer. By the way, the options are his. You mean he must purchase the shares, correct?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "33b4275e9bb59b0589f6cdbf6a6d52fb", "text": "I just received a transfer offer - Seems to me, they don't care what I do with the proceeds. Options 1 & 2 make that clear.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7fb2ffdbc44f0f39716c4966623450b3", "text": "\"First, you mentioned your brother-in-law has \"\"$100,000 in stock options (fully vested)\"\". Do you mean his exercise cost would be $100,000, i.e. what he'd need to pay to buy the shares? If so, then what might be the estimated value of the shares acquired? Options having vested doesn't necessarily mean they possess value, merely that they may be exercised. Or did you mean the estimated intrinsic value of those options (estimated value less exercise cost) is $100,000? Speaking from my own experience, I'd like to address just the first part of your question: Have you treated this as you would a serious investment in any other company? That is, have you or your brother-in-law reviewed the company's financial statements for the last few years? Other than hearing from people with a vested interest (quite literally!) to pump up the stock with talk around the office, how do you know the company is: BTW, as an option holder only, your brother-in-law's rights to financial information may be limited. Will the company share these details anyway? Or, if he exercised at least one option to become a bona-fide shareholder, I believe he'd have rights to request the financial statements – but company bylaws vary, and different jurisdictions say different things about what can be restricted. Beyond the financial statements, here are some more things to consider: The worst-case risk you'd need to accept is zero liquidity and complete loss: If there's no eventual buy-out or IPO, the shares may (effectively) be worthless. Even if there is a private market, willing buyers may quickly dry up if company fortunes decline. Contrast this to public stock markets, where there's usually an opportunity to witness deterioration, exit at a loss, and preserve some capital. Of course, with great risk may come great reward. Do your own due diligence and convince yourself through a rigorous analysis — not hopes & dreams — that the investment might be worth the risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ca9adafc2dd1effc7b43af95f937c0c", "text": "\"This is a great question. I've participated in a deal like that as an employee, and I also know of friends and family who have been involved during a buyout. In short: The updated part of your question is correct: There is no single typical treatment. What happens to unvested restricted stock units (RSUs), unvested employee stock options, etc. varies from case to case. Furthermore, what exactly will happen in your case ought to have been described in the grant documentation which you (hopefully) received when you were issued restricted stock in the first place. Anyway, here are the two cases I've seen happen before: Immediate vesting of all units. Immediate vesting is often the case with RSUs or options that are granted to executives or key employees. The grant documentation usually details the cases that will have immediate vesting. One of the cases is usually a Change in/of Control (CIC or COC) provision, triggered in a buyout. Other immediate vesting cases may be when the key employee is terminated without cause, or dies. The terms vary, and are often negotiated by shrewd key employees. Conversion of the units to a new schedule. If anything is more \"\"typical\"\" of regular employee-level grants, I think this one would be. Generally, such RSU or option grants will be converted, at the deal price, to a new schedule with identical dates and vesting percentages, but a new number of units and dollar amount or strike price, usually so the end result would have been the same as before the deal. I'm also curious if anybody else has been through a buyout, or knows anybody who has been through a buyout, and how they were treated.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "284c486ca2a8ccd6a4b1fab62921e22f", "text": "Options or Shares vest by date they are granted. It would strike me as odd for anyone to say their shares were given with 4 year vesting, but the clock was pre-started years prior. In my opinion, you have nothing to complain about.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8df4a19f9fc0bed3f4001f92f69ef45", "text": "\"You were probably not given stock, but stock options. Those options have a strike price and you can do some more research on them if needed. Lets assume that you were given 5K shares at a strike of 20, and they vest 20% per year. Assume the same thing in your second year and you are going to leave in year three. You would have 2K shares from your year 1 grant, and 1K shares from your year 2 grant, so 2K total. If you leave no more shares would be vested. If you leave you have one of two options: To complicate matters subsequent grants may have different strike prices, so perhaps year two grant is at $22 per share. However, in pre-public companies that is not likely the case. For a bit of history, I worked at a pre-ipo company and we were all going to get rich. I was given generous grants, but decided to leave. I really wanted to buy my options but simply didn't have the money. Shortly after I left the company folded, so the money would have been thrown away anyway. When a company is private the motivate their employees with tales of riches, but they are not required to disclose financial data. This company did a very good job of convincing employees that all was fine, when it wasn't. Also I received options in a publicly traded company. Myself and other employees received options that were \"\"underwater\"\" or worth far less than the strike price. You could let them expire so one did not owe money, but they were worthless. Hopefully that answers your question.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
773a210c7a049f25db13264930a46cf1
First 401K portfolio with high expense ratios - which funds to pick? (24yo)
[ { "docid": "c8b263ff314dc2a10885ee319673b4b7", "text": "\"If you're willing to do a little more work and bookkeeping than just putting money into the 401(k) I would recommend the following. I note that you said you chose some funds based on performance since the expense ratios are all high. I would recommend against chasing performance because active funds will almost always falter; honor the old saw: \"\"past performance is no guarantee of future returns\"\". Assuming the cash in your Ally account is an emergency fund, I would use it to pay off your credit card debt to avoid the interest payments. Use free cash flow in the coming months to bring the emergency fund balance back up to an acceptable level. If the Ally account is not an emergency fund, I would make it one! With no debt and an emergency fund for 3-12 months of living expenses (pick your risk tolerance), then you can concentrate on investing. Your 401(k) options are unfortunately pretty poor. With those choices I would invest this way: Once you fill up your choice of IRA, then you have the tougher decision of where to put any extra money you have to invest (if any). A brokerage account gives you the freedom of investment choices and the ability to easily pull out money in the case of a dire emergency. The 401(k) will give you tax benefits, but high fund expenses. The tax benefits are considerable, so if I were at a job where I plan on moving on in a few years, I'd fund the 401(k) up to the max with the knowledge that I'd roll the 401(k) into a rollover IRA in the (relatively) short term. If I saw myself staying at the employer for a long time (5+ years), I'd probably take the taxable account route since those high fund fees will add up over time. One you start building up a solid base, then I might look into having a small allocation in one of my accounts for \"\"play money\"\" to pick individual stocks, or start making sector bets.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56efd744e24c4319e3e397316128ffd5", "text": "If it was me, I would withdraw money from savings and be debt free today. I would then pour the $500 into building back your savings. Then of course, never again carry a balance on your CC. At your age MSFRX is a losing game. You can handle the volatility of better performing funds, I would have zero in there. If it was me, I would do something totally different then you are doing: Keep in mind you are doing very good as is. The best way to win with money is to make good moves overtime, and given your debt level, savings, and willingness to contribute to a 401K your moves are pretty darn good. Keep in mind you will probably want to start saving a down payment for a house. This should be done outside of your 401K. Overall good work!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "338626ea8f640e3e473a95c5587d7eb9", "text": "Yours two funds are redundant. Both are designed to have a mix of bonds and stocks and allow you to put all your money in them. Pick the one that has the lowest fees and stick with that (I didn't look at the funds you didn't select...they didn't look great either). Although all your funds have high fees, some are higher than others, so don't ignore fees. When you have decided on your portfolio weights, prioritize your money thus: Contribute enough to your 401(k) to get the full match from your employer Put everything else toward paying off that credit card until you have 0 balance. It's ok to use the card, but let it be little enough that you pay your statement balance off each month so you pay no interest. Then set aside some savings and invest any retirement money into a Roth IRA. At your income level your taxes are low so Roth is better than traditional IRA or 401(k). If you max out your Roth, put any other retirement savings in your 401(k).", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "551e04ec2baa8f1a64f61ef6cd41daff", "text": "The vanilla advice is investing your age in bonds and the rest in stocks (index funds, of course). So if you're 25, have 75% in stock index fund and 25% in bond index. Of course, your 401k is tax sheltered, so you want keep bonds there, assuming you have taxable investments. When comparing specific funds, you need to pay attention to expense ratios. For example, Vanguard's SP 500 index has an expense ratio of .17%. Many mutual funds charge around 1.5%. That means every year, 1.5% of the fund total goes to the fund manager(s). And that is regardless of up or down market. Since you're young, I would start studying up on personal finance as much as possible. Everyone has their favorite books and websites. For sane, no-nonsense investment advise I would start at bogleheads.org. I also recommend two books - This is assuming you want to set up a strategy and not fuss with it daily/weekly/monthly. The problem with so many financial strategies is they 1) don't work, i.e. try to time the market or 2) are so overly complex the gains are not worth the effort. I've gotten a LOT of help at the boglehead forums in terms of asset allocation and investment strategy. Good luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "25e9235db8a378409eeffee310d4fb6c", "text": "\"If I were in your shoes I'd probably take the Vanguard Total Market fund with Admiral shares, then worry about further diversification when there is more in the account. Many times when you \"\"diversify\"\" in to multiple funds you end up with a lot of specific security overlap. A lot of the big S&P 500 constituents will be in all of them, etc. So while the 10 or so basis points difference in expense ratio doesn't seem like enough of a reason NOT to spread in to multiple funds, once you split up the money between Large, Mid, Small cap funds and Growth, Value, Dividend funds you'll probably have a collection of holdings that looks substantially similar to a total market fund anyway. Unless you're looking for international or some specific industry segment exposure and all of the money is going to equities anyway, an inexpensive total market fund makes a lot of sense.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65f01efd7b05088c5b84148dd818e886", "text": "Expenses matter. At the back end, retirement, the most often quoted withdrawal rate is 4%. How would it feel to be paying 1/4 of each years' income to fees, separate from the taxes due, separate from whether the market is up or down? Kudos to you for learning this lesson so early. Your plan is great, and while I often say 'don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog' being mindful of the tax hit in any planned transaction is worthwhile. Selling and moving enough funds to stay at 0% is great, a no-brainer, as they say. Selling more depends on the exact numbers involved. Do a fake return, and see how an extra $1000/$2000 etc, worth of fund sale impacts the taxes. It will depend on how much gain there is for each $XXX of fund. Say you are up 25%, So $1000 has $200 of gain. 15% of $200 is $30. A 1%/yr fee cost you $10/yr, so it's worth waiting till January to sell the next shares of the fund. Keep in mind, the 'test' return will still have the 2013 rates and brackets, I suggest this only as an estimating tool.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "624d64de9d677b3001fe738a4e116cac", "text": "\"One other thing to consider, particularly with Vanguard, is the total dollar amount available. Vanguard has \"\"Admiralty\"\" shares of funds which offer lower expense ratios, around 15-20% lower, but require a fairly large investment in each fund (often 10k) to earn the discounted rate. It is a tradeoff between slightly lower expense ratios and possibly a somewhat less diverse holding if you are relatively early in your savings and only have say 20-30k (which would mean 2 or 3 Admiralty share funds only).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e64bc9a36eabafc5305f8e430cbb9fde", "text": "Every 401(k) has managers to make the stock choices. They all have different rates. You want to see that fidelity or Vangard is handling your 401(k).(and I am sure others) If you have a mega bank managing your funds or an insurance company odds are you are paying way to high management fees. So find out, the management fees should be available should be less than 1%. They can get as high as 2%...Ouch", "title": "" }, { "docid": "568cdc8bc1ffceb1b886706a7fa2092e", "text": "The first question is essentially asking for specific investment advice which is off-topic per the FAQ, but I'll take a stab at #2 and #3 (2) If my 401k doesn't change before I leave my job (not planned in the near future), I should roll it over into my Roth IRA after I leave due to these high expense ratios, correct? My advice is that you should roll over a 401K into an IRA the first chance you get (usually when you leave the job). 401K plans are NOTORIOUS for high expense ratios and why leave your money in a plan where you have a limited choice of investments anyway versus a self-directed IRA where you can invest in anything you want? (3) Should I still max contribute with these horrible expense ratios? If they are providing a match, yes. Even with the expense ratios it is hard to beat the immediate return of an employer match. If they aren't matching, the answer is still probably yes for a few reasons: You already are maxing out your ability to contribute to sheltered accounts, so assuming you still want to sock away that money for retirement, the tax benefits are still valuable and probably offset the expense ratios. Although you seem to be an exception, it is hard for most people to be disciplined enough to put money in a retirement account after they have it in their hands (versus auto-deduction from paychecks).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "352ae26769c4ba7b9868bfb94afe8813", "text": "\"You absolutely should consider expenses. Why do they matter when the \"\"sticker price\"\" already includes them? Because you can be much more certain about what the expense ratio will be in the future than you can about what the fund performance will be in the future. The \"\"sticker price\"\" mixes generalized economic growth (i.e., gains you could have gotten from other funds) with gains specific to the fund, but the expense ratio is completely fund-specific. In other words, when looking at the \"\"sticker price\"\" performance of a fund, it's difficult to determine how that performance will extend into the future. But the expense ratio will definitely carry into the future. It is rare for funds to drastically change their expense ratios, but common for funds to change their performance. Suppose you find a fund that has returned a net of 8% over some time period and has a 1% expense ratio, and another fund that has returned a net of 10% but has a 2% expense ratio. So the first fund returned 9%-1% = 8% and the second returned 12%-2%=10%. There are decent odds that, over some future time period, the first fund will return 10%-1%=9% while the second fund will return 10%-2%=8%. In order for the second fund to be better than the first, it has to reliably outperform it by 1%; this is harder than it may sound. Simply put, there is a lot of \"\"noise\"\" in the fund performance, but the expense ratio is \"\"all signal\"\". Of course, if you find a fund that will reliably return 20% after expenses of 3%, it would probably make sense to choose that over one that returns 10% after expenses of 1%. But \"\"will reliably return\"\" is not the same as \"\"has returned over the past N years\"\", and the difference between the two phrases becomes greater and greater the smaller N is. When you find a fund that seems to have performed staggeringly well over some time period, you should be cautious; there is a good chance that the future holds some regression to the mean, and the fund will not continue to be so stellar. You may want to take a look at this question which asked about Morningstar fund ratings, which are essentially a measure of past performance. My answer references a study done by Morningstar comparing its own star ratings vs. fund expenses as a predictor of overall results. I'll repeat here the take-home message: How often did it pay to heed expense ratios? Every time. How often did it pay to heed the star rating? Most of the time, with a few exceptions. How often did the star rating beat expenses as a predictor? Slightly less than half the time, taking into account funds that expired during the time period. In other words, Morningstar's own study showed that its own star ratings (that is, past fund performance) are not as good at predicting success as simply looking at the expense ratios of the funds.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56290eb39d292df78b8af33f4e308903", "text": "Mostly you nailed it. It's a good question, and the points you raise are excellent and comprise good analysis. Probably the biggest drawback is if you don't agree with the asset allocation strategy. It may be too much/too little into stocks/bonds/international/cash. I am kind of in this boat. My 401K offers very little choices in funds, but offers Vanguard target funds. These tend to be a bit too conservative for my taste, so I actually put money in the 2060 target fund. If I live that long, I will be 94 in 2060. So if the target funds are a bit too aggressive for you, move down in years. If they are a bit too conservative, move up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2e5bb05701d5b40caffbc5d98be9d723", "text": "Domini offers such a fund. It might suit you, or it might include things you wish to avoid. I'm not judging your goals, but would suggest that it might be tough to find a fund that has the same values as you. If you choose individual stocks, you might have to do a lot of reading, and decide if it's all or none, i.e. if a company seems to do well, but somehow has an tiny portion in a sector you don't like, do you dismiss them? In the US, Costco, for example, is a warehouse club, and treats employees well. A fair wage, benefits, etc. But they have a liquor store at many locations. Absent the alcohol, would you research every one of their suppliers?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd2ff40e912f08c9192831e67f19e90d", "text": "Look through the related questions. Make sure you fund the max your tax advantaged retirement funds will take this year. Use the 30k to backstop any shortfalls. Invest the rest in a brokerage account. In and out of your tax advantaged accounts, try to invest in index funds. Your feeling that paying someone to manage your investments might not be the best use is shared by many. jlcollinsnh is a financial independence blogger. He, and many others, recommend the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Admiral Shares. I have not heard of a lower expense ratio (0.05%). Search for financial independence and FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early). Use your windfall to set yourself on that road, and you will be less likely to sit where I am 25 years from now wishing you had done things differently. Edit: Your attitude should be that the earliest money in your portfolio is in there the longest, and earns the most. Starting with a big windfall puts you years ahead of where you'd normally be. If you set your goal to retire at 40, that money will be worth significantly more in 20 years. (4x what you start with, assuming 7% average yearly return).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80df8f80a32972fa0445cd1e0d529ac9", "text": "This is the chart going back to the first full year of this fund. To answer your question - yes, a low cost ETF or Mutual fund is fine. Why not go right to an S&P index? VOO has a .05% expense. Why attracted you to a choice that lagged the S&P by $18,000 over this 21 year period? (And yes, past performance, yada, yada, but that warning is appropriate for the opposite example. When you show a fund that beat the S&P short term, say 5 years, its run may be over. But this fund lagged the S&P by a significant margin over 2 decades, what makes you think this will change?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d67e11a7c3b69dc6f4b90c0aaaa9054", "text": "I don't know what you mean by 'major'. Do you mean the fund company is a Fidelity or Vanguard, or that the fund is broad, as in an s&P fund? The problem starts with a question of what your goals are. If you already know the recommended mix for your age/risk, as you stated, you should consider minimizing the expenses, and staying DIY. I am further along, and with 12 year's income saved, a 1% hit would be 12% of a year's pay, I'd be working 1-1/2 months to pay the planner? In effect, you are betting that a planner will beat whatever metric you consider valid by at least that 1% fee, else you can just do it yourself and be that far ahead of the game. I've accepted the fact that I won't beat the average (as measured by the S&P) over time, but I'll beat the average investor. By staying in low cost funds (my 401(k) S&P fund charges .05% annual expense) I'll be ahead of the investors paying planner fees, and mutual fund fees on top of that. You don't need to be a CFP to manage your money, but it would help you understand the absurdity of the system.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2ec2427254f72cd84022316064dcb81", "text": "I would stay away from the Actively Managed Funds. Index funds or the asset allocation funds are your best bet since they have the lowest fees. What is your risk tolerance? How old are you? I would suggest reading:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f0cca52044dd1b928369fc8e2ad8a9e", "text": "\"First, decide on your asset allocation; are you looking for a fund with 60% stocks/risky-stuff, or 40% or 20%? Second, look for funds that have a mix of stocks and bonds. Good keywords would be: \"\"target retirement,\"\" \"\"lifecycle,\"\" \"\"balanced,\"\" \"\"conservative/moderate allocation.\"\" As you discover these funds, probably the fund website (but at least Morningstar.com) will tell you the percentage in stocks and risk assets, vs. in conservative bonds. Look for funds that have the percentage you decided on, or as close to it as possible. Third, build a list of funds that meet your allocation goal, and compare the details. Are they based on index funds, or are they actively managed? What is the expense ratio? Is the fund from a reputable company? You could certainly ask more questions here if you have several candidates and aren't sure how to choose. For investing in US dollars one can't-go-wrong choice is Vanguard and they have several suitable funds, but unfortunately if you spend in NIS then you should probably invest in that currency, and I don't know anything about funds in Israel. Update: two other options here. One is a financial advisor who agrees to do rebalancing for you. If you get a cheap one, it could be worth it. Two is that some 401k plans have an automatic rebalancing feature, where you have multiple funds but you can set it up so their computer auto-rebalances you. That's almost as good as having a single fund, though it does still encourage some \"\"mental accounting\"\" so you'd have to try to only look at the total balance, not the individual fund balances, over time. Anyway both of these could be alternatives ways to go on autopilot, besides a single fund.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "258fe10941770d167bff3dadc9d48eef", "text": "\"If you're referring to times when they pay nothing (or receive a refund) at the end of the year, it's because they're paying taxes throughout the year. At the end of the year, the accountants find that they paid exactly what they needed to (or more), so they don't have to pay anything (or get money back) on their yearly forms. I don't think there's a US corporation paying \"\"almost zero tax\"\" in the US.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
56522c87d61010620ff7a6c66a67c03b
Source of income: from dividends vs sale of principal or security
[ { "docid": "d3758f89694c049210e7beac9efa2c3a", "text": "The trend in ETFs is total return: where the ETF automatically reinvests dividends. This philosophy is undoubtedly influenced by that trend. The rich and retired receive nearly all income from interest, dividends, and capital gains; therefore, one who receives income exclusively from dividends and capital gains must fund by withdrawing dividends and/or liquidating holdings. For a total return ETF, the situation is even more limiting: income can only be funded by liquidation. The expected profit is lost for the dividend as well as liquidating since the dividend can merely be converted back into securities new or pre-existing. In this regard, dividends and investments are equal. One who withdraws dividends and liquidates holdings should be careful not to liquidate faster than the rate of growth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fb1a5e99230c501515c7bc122565527", "text": "\"Some people have this notion that withdrawing dividends from savings is somehow okay but withdrawing principal is not. Note, this notion. Would someone please explain the \"\"mistake\"\" on P214 and why it's a mistake? Because there may be times where withdrawing principal may be a good idea as one could sell off something that has gained enough that in re-balancing the portfolio there are capital gains that could be used for withdrawing in retirement. How and why does the sale of financial instrument equate to the receipt of dividends? In either case, one has cash equivalents that could be withdrawn. If you take the dividends in cash or sell a security to raise cash, you have cash. Thus, it doesn't matter what origin it has. If I sell a financial instrument that later appreciates in value, then this profit opportunity is lost. In the case of a dividend, I'd still possess the financial security and benefit from the stock's appreciation? One could argue that the in the case of a dividend, by not buying more of the instrument you are missing out on a profit opportunity as well. Thus, are you out to make the maximum profit overall or do you have reason for taking the cash instead of increasing your holding?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c225f0d51cc196dd2a9a93844144f5cb", "text": "All that it is saying is that if you withdraw money from your account it doesn't matter whether it has come from dividends or capital gains, it is still a withdrawal. Of course you can only withdraw a capital gain if you sell part of the assets. You would only do this if it was the right time for you to sell the asset.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "388d68c4bbd62a93432eb56c917bba4e", "text": "The sentence you quoted does not apply in the case where you sell the stock at a loss. In that case, you recognize zero ordinary income, and a capital loss (opposite of a gain) for the loss. Reference: http://efs.fidelity.com/support/sps/article/article2.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b75f0705566b077e94ec8e033f33d09e", "text": "Inflows to the US equity market can come from a variety of sources; for instance: You were paid a year-end bonus and decided to invest it in US equities instead of foreign equities, bonds, savings or debt reduction. You sold foreign equities, bonds, or other non-US equities and decided to invest in US equities. You decided a better use of cash in a savings account, CD or money market fund, was to invest in US equities. If for every buyer, there's a seller, doesn't that also mean that there were $25B in outflows in the same time period? Not necessarily. Generally, the mentions we see of inflows and outflows are net; that is, the gross investment in US equities, minus gross sales of US equities equals net inflows or outflows. The mere fact that I sold my position in, say, Caterpillar, doesn't mean that I had to re-invest in US equities. I may have bought a bond or a CD or a house. Because of fluctuations in existing stocks market value, bankruptcies and new issues, US equities never are and never will be a zero-sum game.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "24edd62c7ed2bda08884eda0e9dcf42b", "text": "\"In the US, and in most other countries, dividends are considered income when paid, and capital gains/losses are considered income/loss when realized. This is called, in accounting, \"\"recognition\"\". We recognize income when cash reaches our pocket, for tax purposes. So for dividends - it is when they're paid, and for gains - when you actually sell. Assuming the price of that fund never changes, you have this math do to when you sell: Of course, the capital loss/gain may change by the time you actually sell and realize it, but assuming the only price change is due to the dividends payout - it's a wash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "829ff126b899af4b65aa225ce89badc3", "text": "Lets just get to the point...Ordinary income (gains) earned from S-Corp operations (i.e. income earned after all expenses for providing services or selling products) is passed through to the owners/shareholders and taxed at the owner's personal tax rate. Separately, if an S-Corp earns capital gains (i.e. the S-Corp buys and sells stock, earns dividends from investments, etc), those gains are passed through to the owners and taxed at a capital gains rate Capital gains are not the same as ordinary income (gains). Don't get the two confused, they are as different for S-Corp taxation as they are for personal taxation. In some cases an exception occurs, but only when the S-Corp was formally a C-Corp and the C-Corp had non-distributed earnings or losses. This is a separate issue whereas the undistributed C-Corp gains/losses are treated differently than the S-Corp gains/losses. It takes years of college coursework and work experience to grasp the vast arena of tax. It should not be so complex, but it is this complex. It is not within the scope of the non-tax professional to make sense of this stuff. The CPA exams, although very difficult and thorough, only scrape the surface of tax and accounting. I hope this provides some perspective on any questions regarding business tax for S-Corps and any other entity type. Hire a good CPA... if you can find one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d193462c2812d839a5c8e4ab18f9b52d", "text": "The benefit is not in taxes. When you sell a portion of your stock, you no longer have a portion of your stock. When you get a dividend, you still have a portion of your stock. Dividends are distributed from the net profits of a company and as such usually don't affect its growth/earning potential much (although there may be cases when they do). So while the price takes a temporary dip due to the distribution, you're likely to get the same dividends again next year, if the company continues being similarly profitable. If you sell a portion of your stock, at some point you'll end up with no more stocks to sell.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "468f1945e30dd4d58e90a92d1a6d3953", "text": "\"The way the post is worded, coca cola wouldn't count towards either, although it's not entirely clear. If the dividends are considered under capital gains (which isn't technically an appropriate term) he's earning only 500Million a year from his stake in coca cola. If he sold his shares, he'd receive capital gains of ~15Billion, which would probably outpace his operations business. The best graph would probably be something like \"\"net worth of operations vs net worth of equity in other companies\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b7fd84cef86ec642912dd0ad4a815e3", "text": "\"Most (if not all states) in the US are only interested in source income. If you worked in that state they want to tax it. Many states have reciprocity agreements with neighboring states to exempt income earned when a person works in lets say Virginia, but lives in a state that touches Virginia. Most states don't consider interest and dividends for individuals as source income. They don't care where the bank or mutual fund branch is located, or headquartered.If it is interest from a business they will allocate it to the state where the business is located. If you may ask you to allocate the funds between two states if you move during the year, but most people will just divide the interest and dividends based on the number of days in each state unless there is a way to directly allocate the funds to a particular state. Consider this: Where is the money when it is in a bank with multiple branches? The money is only electronic, and your actual \"\"$'s\"\" may be in a federal reserve branch. Pension funds are invested in projects all over the US.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f1816281f79c09983869981674d6ff07", "text": "Dividends and interest are counted under operations for the purpose of this tweet. This is pretty much entirely a non-story. I'm not sure exactly how they're dividing it up, but it looks like they're only counting stock appreciation as capital gains and counting things revenue from sales (from their subsidiaries as well) under operating income. This is just from a quick glance over their statement of earning, but that's what it looks like to me.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92388431b9fc8ad3f676a1f056912571", "text": "Let's say two companies make 5% profit every year. Company A pays 5% dividend every year, but company B pays no dividend but grows its business by 5%. (And both spend the money needed to keep the business up-to-date, that's before profits are calculated). You are right that with company B, the company will grow. So if you had $1000 shares in each company, after 20 years company A has given you $1000 in dividends and is worth $1000, while company B has given you no dividends, but is worth a lot more than $2000, $2653 if my calculation is right. Which looks a lot better than company A. However, company A has paid $50 every year, and if you put that money into a savings account giving 5% interest, you would make exactly the same money either way.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34bbcb90aefee6b1b90f85ab10a1b6d5", "text": "While there are many very good and detailed answers to this question, there is one key term from finance that none of them used and that is Net Present Value. While this is a term generally associate with debt and assets, it also can be applied to the valuation models of a company's share price. The price of the share of a stock in a company represents the Net Present Value of all future cash flows of that company divided by the total number of shares outstanding. This is also the reason behind why the payment of dividends will cause the share price valuation to be less than its valuation if the company did not pay a dividend. That/those future outflows are factored into the NPV calculation, actually performed or implied, and results in a current valuation that is less than it would have been had that capital been retained. Unlike with a fixed income security, or even a variable rate debenture, it is difficult to predict what the future cashflows of a company will be, and how investors chose to value things as intangible as brand recognition, market penetration, and executive competence are often far more subjective that using 10 year libor rates to plug into a present value calculation for a floating rate bond of similar tenor. Opinion enters into the calculus and this is why you end up having a greater degree of price variance than you see in the fixed income markets. You have had situations where companies such as Amazon.com, Google, and Facebook had highly valued shares before they they ever posted a profit. That is because the analysis of the value of their intellectual properties or business models would, overtime provide a future value that was equivalent to their stock price at that time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0635c74f875d15a57b2671500a2f318", "text": "Most corporations have a limit on the number of shares that they can issue, which is written into their corporate charter. They usually sell a number that is fewer than the maximum authorized number so that they have a reserve for secondary offerings, employee incentives, etc. In a scrip dividend, the company is distributing authorized shares that were not previously issued. This reduces the number of shares that it has to sell in the future to raise capital, so it reduces the assets of the company. In a split, every share (including the authorized shares that haven't been distributed) are divided. This results in more total shares (which then trade at a price that's roughly proportional to the split), but it does not reduce the assets of the company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec3d14f8d9e15d3aab6f98d3a9cf46fd", "text": "If you are tax-resident in the US, then you must report income from sources within and without the United States. Your foreign income generally must be reported to the IRS. You will generally be eligible for a credit for foreign income taxes paid, via Form 1116. The question of the stock transfer is more complicated, but revolves around the beneficial owner. If the stocks are yours but held by your brother, it is possible that you are the beneficial owner and you will have to report any income. There is no tax for bringing the money into the US. As a US tax resident, you are already subject to income tax on the gain from the sale in India. However, if the investment is held by a separate entity in India, which is not a US domestic entity or tax resident, then there is a separate analysis. Paying a dividend to you of the sale proceeds (or part of the proceeds) would be taxable. Your sale of the entity containing the investments would be taxable. There are look-through provisions if the entity is insufficiently foreign (de facto US, such as a Subpart-F CFC). There are ways to structure that transaction that are not taxable, such as making it a bona fide loan (which is enforceable and you must pay back on reasonable terms). But if you are holding property directly, not through a foreign separate entity, then the sale triggers US tax; the transfer into the US is not meaningful for your taxes, except for reporting foreign accounts. Please review Publication 519 for general information on taxation of resident aliens.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b48723be4cfd22c056c3bd1f60c6f2b5", "text": "Remember that long term appreciation has tax advantages over short-term dividends. If you buy shares of a company, never earn any dividends, and then sell the stock for a profit in 20 years, you've essentially deferred all of the capital gains taxes (and thus your money has compounded faster) for a 20 year period. For this reason, I tend to favor non-dividend stocks, because I want to maximize my long-term gain. Another example, in estate planning, is something called a step-up basis:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "187da176de28134ca36a1b9726d3e13a", "text": "The shareholders have a claim on the profits, but they may prefer that claim to be exercised in ways other than dividend payments. For example, they may want the company to invest all of its profits in growth, or they may want it to buy back shares to increase the value of the remaining shares, especially since dividends are generally taxed as income while an increase in the share price is generally taxed as a capital gain, and capital gains are often taxed at a lower rate than income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "10d8658ae1f278bd82771c88cacf32fa", "text": "The ultimate reason to own stock is to receive cash or cash equivalents from the underlying security. You can argue that you make money when stock is valued higher by the market, but the valuation should (though clearly not necessarily is) be based on the expected payout of the underlying security. There are only three ways money can be returned to the shareholder: As you can see, if you don't ask for dividends, you are basically asking for one of the top two too occur - which happens in the future at the end of the company's life as an independent entity. If you think about the time value of money, money in the hand now as dividends can be worth more than the ultimate appreciation of liquidation or acquisition value. Add in uncertainty as a factor for ultimate value, and my feeling is that dividends are underpaid in today's markets.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a8385b6723fcf3926a2ec6a619186796
What is a good rental yield?
[ { "docid": "f000814393145523bb955e8c305cd035", "text": "\"I've never heard of rent quoted per week. Are you in the US? In general, after the down payment, one would hope to take the rent, and be able to pay the mortgage, tax, insurance, and then have enough left each year to at least have a bit of emergency money for repairs. If one can start by actually pocketing more than this each year, that's ideal, but to start with a rental, and only make money \"\"after taxes\"\" is cutting it too close in my opinion. The 19 to 1 \"\"P/E\"\" appears too high, when I followed such things I recall 12 or under being the target. Of course rates were higher, and that number rises with very low rates. In your example, a $320K mortgage at 4% is $1527/mo. $400/wk does not cut it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "020ad80d3596a499aeea83cada4b529c", "text": "You will find Joe.E, that rents have increased considerably over the last 4 to 5 years in Australia. You can probably achieve rental yields of above 5% more than 20km from major Cities, however closer to cities you might get closer to 5% or under. In Western Sydney, we have been able to achieve rental yields close to 7%. We bought mainly in 2007 and 2008 when no one was buying and we were getting properties for 15% to 20% below market rates. As we bought cheap and rents were on the increase we were able to achieve higher rental yields. An example of one particular deal where we bought for $225K and rented for $300/wk giving us a yield of 6.9%. The rent is now $350/wk giving us a current yield of 8%, and with our interest rate at 6.3% and possibly heading down further, this property is positively geared and pays for itself plus provides us with some additional income. All our properties are yielding between 7.5% to 8.5% and are all positively geared. The capital gains might not be as high as with properties closer to the city, but even if we stopped working we wouldn't have to sell as they all provide us income after paying all expenses on associated with the properties. So in answer to your question I would be aiming for a property with a yield above 5% and preferably above 6%, as this will enable your property/ies to be positively geared at least after a couple of years if not straight away.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0b74ae43593376c509c0450f1ca4c0e7", "text": "A good quick filter to see if a property is worth looking at is if the total rent for the property for the year is equal to 10% of the price of the property. For example, if the property is valued at $400,000 then the rent collected should be $40,000 for the entire year. Which is $3,333.33 per month. If the property does not bring in at least 10% per year then it is not likely all the payments can be covered on the property. It's more likely to be sinking money into it to keep it afloat. You would be exactly right, as you have to figure in insurance, utilities, taxes, maintenance/repair, mortgage payments, (new roof, new furnace, etc), drywall, paint, etc. Also as a good rule of thumb, expect a vacancy rate of at least 10% (or 1 month) per year as a precaution. If you have money sitting around, look into Real Estate Investment Trusts. IIRC, the average dividend was north of 10% last year. That is all money that comes back to you. I'm not sure what the tax implications are in Australia, however in Canada dividends are taxed very favourably. No mortgage, property tax, tenants to find, or maintenance either.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9bf6f4f6b37e19854675b9535de8de01", "text": "\"Historically that 'divide by 1000' rule of thumb is what many people in Australia have thought of as normal, and yes, it's about a 5.2% gross yield. Net of expenses, perhaps 3-4%, without allowing for interest. If you're comparing this to shares, I think the right comparison is to the dividend yield, not to the overall PE. A dividend yield of about 3-5% is also about typical: if you look at the Vanguard Index Australian Shares Fund as a proxy for the ASX the yield last year was about 4%. Obviously a 4% return is not very competitive with a term deposit. But with both shares and housing you can hope for some capital growth in addition to the income yield. If you get 4% rental yield plus 5% growth it is more attractive. Is it \"\"good\"\" to buy at what people have historically thought was \"\"normal\"\"? Perhaps you are better off looking around, or sitting out, until you find a much better price than normal. \"\"Is 5% actually historically normal?\"\" deserves a longer answer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3fb2e6453f1e28c62ac5bd5e2fc02dae", "text": "The rule of thumb I have always heard and what we rent our rental house at is 1% per month at the minimum (in the US). The rent has to cover the mortgage, the property taxes, the homeowners insurance, your income taxes (on the rent), the maintenance of the property and the times when the property is vacant. Even at 1% per month that doesn't leave a whole lot of profit compared to what you put in. I have no idea why anybody would buy a rental property in Australia if all they could get is 5% per year before expenses. They couldn't possibly be making money in that investment, not to mention the aggravations of getting late night phone calls because something broke in the rental house. No way I would make that investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "faafc603fc4fdc218a969f17936f5d17", "text": "Our two rentals have yielded 8.5% over the past two years (averaged). That is net, after taxes, maintenance, management, vacancy, insurance, interest. I am only interested in cash flow - expenses / original investment. If you aren't achieving at least 4.5-5% net on your original investment you probably could invest elsewhere and earn a better return on a similar risk profile.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5c414e5cc9408b5328cdf86fdad68798", "text": "I would just like to point out that the actual return should be compared to your down payment, not the property price. After all, you didn't pay $400K for that property, right? You probably paid only 20%, so you're collecting $20K/year on a $80K investment, which works out to 25%. Even if you're only breaking even, your equity is still growing, thanks to your tenants. If you're also living in one of the units, then you're saving rent, which frees up cash flow. Your increased savings, combined with the contributions of your tenants will put you on a very fast track. In a few years you should have enough to buy a second property. :)", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "470fb0038dad4dcaeae56f7574442cb8", "text": "This is not an answer to all of your questions but merely an eleaboration on one of your comments: Are there any other areas in the UK that would return rental yields much above 10% net? Shares. I could withdraw the money and buy shares for the dividend income, but it is hard to choose shares that yield more than about 6% and they are volatile. I wrote a post about using shares to invest a pension pot. http://www.sspf.co.uk/blog/016/ You may find it of some interest. Of course, the investing would take place within the pension 'wrapper' so you'd only be paying tax on the income taken out each year. The other alternatives you mention suggest paying for the expertise and time of an IFA would be a very economical decision. £1,000 to best use £150,000 seems a bargain to me. Some of the avenues you mention seem very risky from my understanding so someone to determine your tolerances and propose a holistic solution is a good path forward. Best wishes!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b4f9539a0ce475ef2340aa59fc3d7e6", "text": "Whether it is better to buy or to rent depends on several factors. Most of them are fairly uncertain, but calculations can be made to see how they play out in the long-term for insight into their impact. The results below are made on the basis that both the buyer and the tenant spend the same amount, in this case $1,480.03 per month. The buyer pays his mortgage and when it's all paid for he switches to investing $1,480.03 per month at the fund deposit rate. Meanwhile the tenant pays rent and invests whatever remains from $1,480.03 per month at the fund deposit rate. The amount $1,480.03 is set by the mortgage case and used by buyer and tenant for equal comparison. Taking some hopefully not too unrealistic rate estimates, these are the calculation inputs:- (All percentages are expressed as effective annual rates) Plot of buyer's and tenant's accumulated assets over time The simulation extends for twice the term of the mortgage. If the investment fund can return 7% and a $900 rental is comparable to a $300,000 house then there isn't much of a compelling case either way. Lowering the expected fund return shows a different picture. Sticking with the 5.0% fund return, lowering the rent brings the tenant's asset accumulation closer to the buyer's. If there is a particular set of inputs you would like to see plotted I'm sure I could add another example to this post. There is also an interactive version of the calculation which you can find via this page. However, unlike the examples above which include a deposit and grant, it just explores the simple case of a 100% mortgage. The aim is just to see how rate variations affect asset value over time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c76302619f2810cce4b6c9bfd5d8412", "text": "Yield is almost always the mean rate of return. Then 1.65% yield means that you will see that rate of return inclusive of any coupons. The way I like think of is that yield is the discount rate used to value the instrument at market value. DONT CONFUSE THE COUPON RATE WITH YIELD. Those are two completely separate things.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a13a5183fa18ad97d0487ffeb6827fd9", "text": "\"is it worth it? You state the average yield on a stock as 2-3%, but seem to have come up with this by looking at the yield of an S&P500 index. Not every stock in that index is paying a dividend and many of them that are paying have such a low yield that a dividend investor would not even consider them. Unless you plan to buy the index itself, you are distorting the possible income by averaging in all these \"\"duds\"\". You are also assuming your income is directly proportional to the amount of yield you could buy right now. But that's a false measure because you are talking about building up your investment by contributing $2k-$3k/month. No matter what asset you choose to invest in, it's going to take some time to build up to asset(s) producing $20k/year income at that rate. Investments today will have time in market to grow in multiple ways. Given you have some time, immediate yield is not what you should be measuring dividends, or other investments, on in my opinion. Income investors usually focus on YOC (Yield On Cost), a measure of income to be received this year based on the purchase price of the asset producing that income. If you do go with dividend investing AND your investments grow the dividends themselves on a regular basis, it's not unheard of for YOC to be north of 6% in 10 years. The same can be true of rental property given that rents can rise. Achieving that with dividends has alot to do with picking the right companies, but you've said you are not opposed to working hard to invest correctly, so I assume researching and teaching yourself how to lower the risk of picking the wrong companies isn't something you'd be opposed to. I know more about dividend growth investing than I do property investing, so I can only provide an example of a dividend growth entry strategy: Many dividend growth investors have goals of not entering a new position unless the current yield is over 3%, and only then when the company has a long, consistent, track record of growing EPS and dividends at a good rate, a low debt/cashflow ratio to reduce risk of dividend cuts, and a good moat to preserve competitiveness of the company relative to its peers. (Amongst many other possible measures.) They then buy only on dips, or downtrends, where the price causes a higher yield and lower than normal P/E at the same time that they have faith that they've valued the company correctly for a 3+ year, or longer, hold time. There are those who self-report that they've managed to build up a $20k+ dividend payment portfolio in less than 10 years. Check out Dividend Growth Investor's blog for an example. There's a whole world of Dividend Growth Investing strategies and writings out there and the commenters on his blog will lead to links for many of them. I want to point out that income is not just for those who are old. Some people planned, and have achieved, the ability to retire young purely because they've built up an income portfolio that covers their expenses. Assuming you want that, the question is whether stock assets that pay dividends is the type of investment process that resonates with you, or if something else fits you better. I believe the OP says they'd prefer long hold times, with few activities once the investment decisions are made, and isn't dissuaded by significant work to identify his investments. Both real estate and stocks fit the latter, but the subtypes of dividend growth stocks and hands-off property investing (which I assume means paying for a property manager) are a better fit for the former. In my opinion, the biggest additional factor differentiating these two is liquidity concerns. Post-tax stock accounts are going to be much easier to turn into emergency cash than a real estate portfolio. Whether that's an important factor depends on personal situation though.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52d2669e7b9531556d89fd5c4944a25b", "text": "\"The value of getting into the landlord business -- or any other business -- depends on circumstances at the time. How much will it cost you to buy the property? How much can you reasonably expect to collect in rent? How easy or difficult is it to find a tenant? Etc. I owned a rental property for about ten years and I lost a bundle of money on it. Things people often don't consider when calculating likely rental income are: There will be times when you have no tenant. Someone moves out and you don't always find a new tenant right away. Maintenance. There's always something that the tenant expects you to fix. Tenants aren't likely to take as good a care of the property as someone who owned it would. And while a homeowner might fix little things himself, like a broken light switch or doorknob, the tenant expects the landlord to fix such things. If you live nearby and have the time and ability to do minor maintenance, this may be no big deal. If you have to call a professional, this can get very expensive very quickly. Like for example, I once had a tenant complain that the water heater wasn't working. I called a plumber. He found that the knob on the water heater was set to \"\"low\"\". So he turned it up. He charged me, I think it was $200. I can't really complain about the charge. He had to drive to the property, figure out that that was all the problem was, turn the knob, and then verify that that really solved the problem. Tenants don't always pay the rent on time, or at all. I had several tenants who apparently saw the rent as something optional, to be paid if they had money left over that they couldn't think of anything better to do with. You may get bad tenants who destroy the place. I had one tenant who did $10,000 worth of damage. That include six inches deep of trash all over the house that had to be cleared out, rotting food all over, excrement smeared on walls, holes in the walls, and many things broken. I thought it was disgusting just to have to go in to clean it up, I can't imagine living like that, but whatever. Depending on the laws in your area, it may be very difficult to kick out a bad tenant. In my case, I had to evict two tenants, and it took about three months each time to go through the legal process. On the slip side, the big advantage to owning real estate is that once you pay it off, you own it and can continue to collect rent. And as most currencies in the world are subject to inflation, the rent you can charge will normally go up while your mortgage payments are constant.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5f4ab2a01fac462e9288e0ff4883245", "text": "I am sorry to say, you are asking the wrong question. If I own a rental that I bought with cash, I have zero mortgage. The guy I sell it to uses a hard money lender (charging a high rate) and finances 100%. All of this means nothing to the prospective tenant. In general, one would look at the rent to buy ratio in the area, and decide whether homes are selling for a price that makes it profitable to buy and then rent out. In your situation, I understand you are looking to decide on a rent based on your costs. That ship has sailed. You own already. You need to look in the area and find out what your house will rent for. And that number will tell you whether you can afford to treat it as a rental or would be better off selling. Keep in mind - you don't list a country, but if you are in US, part of a rental property is that you 'must' depreciate it each year. This is a tax thing. You reduce your cost basis each year and that amount is a loss against income from the rental or might be used against your ordinary income. But, when you sell, your basis is lower by this amount and you will be taxed on the difference from your basis to the sale price. Edit: After reading OP's updated question, let me answer this way. There are experts who suggest that a rental property should have a high enough rent so that 50% of rent covers expenses. This doesn't include the mortgage. e.g. $1500 rent, $750 goes to taxes, insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc. the remaining $750 can be applied to the mortgage, and what remains is cash profit. No one can give you more than a vague idea of what to look for, because you haven't shared the numbers. What are your taxes? Insurance? Annual costs for landscaping/snow plowing? Then take every item that has a limited life, and divide the cost by its lifetime. e.g. $12,000 roof over 20 years is $600. Do this for painting, and every appliance. Then allow a 10% vacancy rate. If you cover all of this and the mortgage, it may be worth keeping. Since you have zero equity, time is on your side, the price may rise, and hopefully, the monthly payments chip away at the loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "63992ab475c060121e8878774c7589c3", "text": "A 20% dividend yield in most companies would make me very suspicious. Most dividend yields are in the 2-3% range right now and a 20% yield would make me worry that the company was in trouble, the stock price had crashed and the dividend was going to be cut, the company was going to go out of business or both.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88d77a3dd754aefdfb72b4a009b8c5e4", "text": "\"Started to post this as a comment, but I think it's actually a legitimate answer: Running a rental property is neither speculation nor investment, but a business, just as if you were renting cars or tools or anything else. That puts it in an entirely different category. The property may gain or lose value, but you don't know which or how much until you're ready to terminate the business... so, like your own house, it really isn't a liquid asset; it's closer to being inventory. Meanwhile, like inventory, you need to \"\"restock\"\" it on a fairly regular basis by maintaining it, finding tenants, and so on. And how much it returns depends strongly on how much effort you put into it in terms of selecting the right location and product in the first place, and in how you market yourself against all the other businesses offering near-equivalent product, and how you differentiate the product, and so on. I think approaching it from that angle -- deciding whether you really want to be a business owner or keep all your money in more abstract investments, then deciding what businesses are interesting to you and running the numbers to see what they're likely to return as income, THEN making up your mind whether real estate is the winner from that group -- is likely to produce better decisions. Among other things, it helps you remember to focus on ALL the costs of the business. When doing the math, don't forget that income from the business is taxed at income rates, not investment rates. And don't forget that you're making a bet on the future of that neighborhood as well as the future of that house; changes in demographics or housing stock or business climate could all affect what rents you can charge as well as the value of the property, and not necessarily in the same direction. It may absolutely be the right place to put some of your money. It may not. Explore all the possible outcomes before making the bet, and decide whether you're willing to do the work needed to influence which ones are more likely.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41dd51abeb0546afc075005553f9f663", "text": "&gt; The paper, which is yet to be published, found that a 10 percent increase in Airbnb listings can create an average 0.39 percent increase in rents and an average 0.64 percent increase in home prices, the Wall Street Journal reported. In the long term, rents and property value go up at the same rate. So if they're saying that one is almost double the other, the margin of error here could be very large.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70895340e89e2ed79c06404366e1c4f7", "text": "\"Probably the most important thing in evaluating a dividend yield is to compare it to ITSELF (in the past). If the dividend yield is higher than it has been in the past, the stock may be cheap. If it is lower, the stock may be expensive. Just about every stock has a \"\"normal\"\" yield for itself. (It's zero for non-dividend paying stocks.) This is based on the stock's perceived quality, growth potential, and other factors. So a utility that normally yields 5% and is now paying 3% is probably expensive (the price in the denominator is too high), while a growth stock that normally yields 2% and is now yielding 3% (e.g. Intel or McDonald'sl), may be cheap.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20740f5842204ad615cd3309fc8cd602", "text": "Will buying a flat which generates $250 rent per month be a good decision? Whether investing in real estate is a good decision or not depends on many things, including the current and future supply/demand for rental units in your particular area. There are many questions on this site about this topic, and another answer to this question which already addresses many risks associated with owning property (though there are also benefits to consider). I just want to focus on this point you raised: I personally think yes, because rent adjusts with inflation and the rise in the price of the property is another benefit. Could this help me become financially independent in the long run since inflation is getting adjusted in it? In my opinion, the fact that rental income general adjusts with 'inflation' is a hedge against some types of economic risk, not an absolute increase in value. First, consider buying a house to live in, instead of to rent: If you pay off your mortgage before your retire, then you have reduced your cost of accommodations to only utilities, property taxes, and repairs. This gives you a (relatively) known, fixed requirement of cash outflows. If the value of property goes up by the time you retire - it doesn't cost you anything extra, because you already own your house. If the value of property goes down by the time you retire, then you don't save anything, because you already own your house. If you instead rent your whole life, and save money each month (instead of paying off a mortgage), then when you retire, you will have a larger amount of savings which you can use to pay your monthly rental costs each month. By the time you retire, your cost of accommodations will be the market price for rent at that time. If the value of property goes up by the time you retire - you will have to pay more on rent. If the value of property goes down by the time you retire, you will save money on rent. You will have larger savings, but your cash outflow will be a little bit less certain, because you don't know what the market price for rent will be. You can see that, because you need to put a roof over your own head, just by existing you bear risk of the cost of property rising. So, buying your own home can be a hedge against that risk. This is called a 'natural hedge', where two competing risks can mitigate each-other just by existing. This doesn't mean buying a house is always the right thing to do, it is just one piece of the puzzle to comparing the two alternatives [see many other threads on buying vs renting on this site, or on google]. Now, consider buying a house to rent out to other people: In the extreme scenario, assume that you do everything you can to buy as much property as possible. Maybe by the time you retire, you own a small apartment building with 11 units, where you live in one of them (as an example), and you have no other savings. Before, owning your own home was, among other pros and cons, a natural hedge against the risk of your own personal cost of accommodations going up. But now, the risk of your many rental units is far greater than the risk of your own personal accommodations. That is, if rent goes up by $100 after you retire, your rental income goes up by $1,000, and your personal cost of accommodations only goes up by $100. If rent goes down by $50 after you retire, your rental income goes down by $500, and your personal cost of accommodations only goes down by $50. You can see that only investing in rental properties puts you at great risk of fluctuations in the rental market. This risk is larger than if you simply bought your own home, because at least in that case, you are guaranteeing your cost of accommodations, which you know you will need to pay one way or another. This is why most investment advice suggests that you diversify your investment portfolio. That means buying some stocks, some bonds, etc.. If you invest to heavily in a single thing, then you bear huge risks for that particular market. In the case of property, each investment is so large that you are often 'undiversified' if you invest heavily in it (you can't just buy a house $100 at a time, like you could a stock or bond). Of course, my above examples are very simplified. I am only trying to suggest the underlying principle, not the full complexities of the real estate market. Note also that there are many types of investments which typically adjust with inflation / cost of living; real estate is only one of them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36c896602ab0b1ab640cf2312e3bbe9c", "text": "I'd recommend you use an online tax calculator to see the effect it will have. To your comment with @littleadv, there's FMV, agreed, but there's also a rate below that. One that's a bit lower than FMV, but it's a discount for a tenant who will handle certain things on their own. I had an arm's length tenant, who was below FMV, I literally never met him. But, our agreement through a realtor, was that for any repairs, I was not required to arrange or meet repairmen. FMV is not a fixed number, but a bit of a range. If this is your first rental, you need to be aware of the requirement to take depreciation. Simply put, you separate your cost into land and house. The house value gets depreciated by 1/27.5 (i.e. you divide the value by 27.5 and that's taken as depreciation each year. You may break even on cash flow, the rent paying the mortgage, property tax, etc, but the depreciation might still produce a loss. This isn't optional. It flows to your tax return, and is limited to $25K/yr. Further, if your adjusted gross income is over $100K, the allowed loss is phased out over the next $50K of income. i.e. each $1000 of AGI reduces the allowed loss by $500. The losses you can't take are carried forward, until you use them to offset profit each year, or sell the property. If you offer numbers, you'll get a more detailed answer, but this is the general overview. In general, if you are paying tax, you are doing well, running a profit even after depreciation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d424b29f29d724e29c526bee6f6ce5bf", "text": "The yield on Div Data is showing 20% ((3.77/Current Price)*100)) because that only accounts for last years dividend. If you look at the left column, the 52 week dividend yield is the same as google(1.6%). This is calculated taking an average of n number of years. The data is slightly off as one of those sites would have used an extra year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ee88fd98cd2abe4b12e83221dbe5fa1", "text": "One lender's explanation of getting permission to rent out. The implication is that it is straightforward with a 1% extra interest to pay. However, there is no guarantee that permission would be given, so there might be a risk. http://www.nationwide.co.uk/support/support-articles/manage-your-account/letting-your-property/letting-your-property-overview Definitely renting out a property with a residential mortgage is not a good idea.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0019555ef274c2e193d32f3d80809eb6", "text": "I would not hold any company stock for the company that provides your income. This is a too many eggs in one basket kind of problem. With a discounted stock purchase plan, I would buy the shares at a 10% discount and immediately resell for a profit. If the company prevents you from immediately reselling, I don't know if I would invest. The risk is too great that you'll see your job lost and your 401k/investments emptied due to a single cause.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
9dd4c465ee8167b511c6dfc9de72ed22
Selling stocks as LIFO or FIFO
[ { "docid": "915ee91396f3b08a0d4af728c8f3d5da", "text": "\"According to the IRS, you must have written confirmation from your broker \"\"or other agent\"\" whenever you sell shares using a method other than FIFO: Specific share identification. If you adequately identify the shares you sold, you can use the adjusted basis of those particular shares to figure your gain or loss. You will adequately identify your mutual fund shares, even if you bought the shares in different lots at various prices and times, if you: Specify to your broker or other agent the particular shares to be sold or transferred at the time of the sale or transfer, and Receive confirmation in writing from your broker or other agent within a reasonable time of your specification of the particular shares sold or transferred. If you don't have a stockbroker, I'm not sure how you even got the shares. If you have an actual stock certificate, then you are selling very specific shares and the purchase date corresponds to the purchase date of those shares represented on the certificate.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "20c9e9ae8c397b3bcdda3a75e314265a", "text": "You can write industry loss warrants. This is the closest thing I’ve found since I’ve been interested in this side of the ILS trade. Hedge funds and asset managers can do this. From what I understand it’s you selling the risk. Want to start a fund? 🤔", "title": "" }, { "docid": "799de933662bb238876a97d7ee8a2555", "text": "You have no guarantees. The stock may last have traded at $100 (so, the market price is $100), but is currently in free-fall and nobody else will be willing to buy it for any more than $80. Or heck, maybe nobody will be willing to buy it at all, at any price. Or maybe trading on this stock will be halted. Remember, the market price is just what the stock last traded at. If you put in a 'market order', you are ordering your broker to sell at the best available current price. Assuming someone's willing to buy your stock, that means you'll sell it. But if it last traded at $100, this doesn't guarantee you'll sell at anything close to that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6910613137c444c85fb4e476e25872dc", "text": "I have heard of this, but then the broker is short the shares if they weren't selling them out of inventory, so they still want to accumulate the shares or a hedge before EOD most likely - In that case it may not be the client themselves, but that demand is hitting the market at some point if there isn't sufficient selling volume. Whether or not the broker ends up getting all of them below VWAP is a cost of marketing for them, how they expect to reliably get real size below vwap is my question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "924c06ef4114ce9a9f421443152b2e88", "text": "\"As previously answered, the solution is margin. It works like this: You deposit e.g. 1'000 USD at your trading company. They give you a margin of e.g. 1:100, so you are allowed to trade with 100'000 USD. Let's say you buy 5'000 pieces of a stock at $20 USD (fully using your 100'000 limit), and the price changes to $20.50 . Your profit is 5000* $0.50 = $2'500. Fast money? If you are lucky. Let's say before the price went up to 20.50, it had a slight dip down to $19.80. Your loss was 5000* $0.2 = 1'000$. Wait! You had just 1000 to begin with: You'll find an email saying \"\"margin call\"\" or \"\"termination notice\"\": Your shares have been sold at $19.80 and you are out of business. The broker willingly gives you this credit, since he can be sure he won't loose a cent. Of course you pay interest for the money you are trading with, but it's only for minutes. So to answer your question: You don't care when you have \"\"your money\"\" back, the trading company will always be there to give you more as long as you have deposit left. (I thought no one should get margin explained without the warning why it is a horrible idea to full use the ridiculous high margins some broker offer. 1:10 might or might not be fine, but 1:100 is harakiri.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d3c46645af4eaa9727fc0784df921fd", "text": "As you mentioned in the title, what you're asking about comes down to volatility. DCA when purchasing stock is one way of dealing with volatility, but it's only profitable if the financial instrument can be sold higher than your sunk costs. Issues to be concerned with: Let's suppose you're buying a stock listed on the NYSE called FOO (this is a completely fake example). Over the last six days, the average value of this stock was exactly $1.00Note 1. Over six trading days you put $100 per day into this stockNote 2: At market close on January 11th, you have 616 shares of FOO. You paid $596.29 for it, so your average cost (before fees) is: $596.29 / 616 = $0.97 per share Let's look at this including your trading fees: ($596.29 + $30) / 616 = $1.01 per share. When the market opens on January 12th, the quote on FOO could be anything. Patents, customer wins, wars, politics, lawsuits, press coverage, etc... could cause the value of FOO to fluctuate. So, let's just roll with the assumption that past performance is consistent: Selling FOO at $0.80 nets: (616 * $0.80 - $5) - ($596.29 + $30) = $123.49 Loss Selling FOO at $1.20 nets: (616 * $1.20 - $5) - ($596.29 + $30) = $107.90 Profit Every day that you keep trading FOO, those numbers get bigger (assuming FOO is a constant value). Also remember, even if FOO never changes its average value and volatility, your recoverable profits shrink with each transaction because you pay $5 in fees for every one. Speaking from experience, it is very easy to paper trade. It is a lot harder when you're looking at the ticker all day when FOO has been $0.80 - $0.90 for the past four days (and you're $300 under water on a $1000 portfolio). Now your mind starts playing nasty games with you. If you decide to try this, let me give you some free advice: Unless you have some research (such as support / resistance information) or data on why FOO is a good buy at this price, let's be honest: you're gambling with DCA, not trading. END NOTES:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c600e5d7c6579a79832cc6565ae570f", "text": "\"Edited: Pub 550 says 30 days before or after so the example is ok - but still a gain by average share basis. On sale your basis is likely defaulted to \"\"average price\"\" (in the example 9.67 so there was a gain selling at 10), but can be named shares at your election to your brokerage, and supported by record keeping. A Pub 550 wash might be buy 2000 @ 10 with basis 20000, sell 1000 @9 (nominally a loss of 1000 for now and remaining basis 10000), buy 1000 @ 8 within 30 days. Because of the wash sale rule the basis is 10000+8000 paid + 1000 disallowed loss from wash sale with a final position of 2000 shares at 19000 basis. I think I have the link at the example: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#en_US_2014_publink100010601\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "842bc98d07f74ea35c1ebcc9d9a68d90", "text": "\"Assuming you are referring to macro corrections and crashes (as opposed to technical crashes like the \"\"flash crash\"\") -- It is certainly possible to sell stocks during a market drop -- by definition, the market is dropping not only because there are a larger number of sellers, but more importantly because there are a large number of transactions that are driving prices down. In fact, volumes are strongly correlated with volatility, so volumes are actually higher when the market is going down dramatically -- you can verify this on Yahoo or Google Finance (pick a liquid stock like SPY and look at 2008 vs recent years). That doesn't say anything about the kind of selling that occurs though. With respect to your question \"\"Whats the best strategy for selling stocks during a drop?\"\", it really depends on your objective. You can generally always sell at some price. That price will be worse during market crashes. Beyond the obvious fact that prices are declining, spreads in the market will be wider due to heightened volatility. Many people are forced to sell during crashes due to external and / or psychological pressures -- and sometimes selling is the right thing to do -- but the best strategy for long-term investors is often to just hold on.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a2c27db18a6aa6c1335142a0fb1f2f3", "text": "If you can afford the cost and risk of 100 shares of stock, then just sell a put option. If you can only afford a few shares, you can still use the information the options market is trying to give you -- see below. A standing limit order to buy a stock is essentially a synthetic short put option position. [1] So deciding on a stock limit order price is the same as valuing an option on that stock. Options (and standing limit orders) are hard to value, and the generally accepted math for doing so -- the Black-Scholes-Merton framework -- is also generally accepted to be wrong, because of black swans. So rather than calculate a stock buy limit price yourself, it's simpler to just sell a put at the put's own midpoint price, accepting the market's best estimate. Options market makers' whole job (and the purpose of the open market) is price discovery, so it's easier to let them fight it out over what price options should really be trading at. The result of that fight is valuable information -- use it. Sell a 1-month ATM put option every month until you get exercised, after which time you'll own 100 shares of stock, purchased at: This will typically give you a much better cost basis (several dollars better) versus buying the stock at spot, and it offloads the valuation math onto the options market. Meanwhile you get to keep the cash from the options premiums as well. Disclaimer: Markets do make mistakes. You will lose money when the stock drops more than the option market's own estimate. If you can't afford 100 shares, or for some reason still want to be in the business of creating synthetic options from pure stock limit orders, then you could maybe play around with setting your stock purchase bid price to (approximately): See your statistics book for how to set ndev -- 1 standard deviation gives you a 30% chance of a fill, 2 gives you a 5% chance, etc. Disclaimer: The above math probably has mistakes; do your own work. It's somewhat invalid anyway, because stock prices don't follow a normal curve, so standard deviations don't really mean a whole lot. This is where market makers earn their keep (or not). If you still want to create synthetic options using stock limit orders, you might be able to get the options market to do more of the math for you. Try setting your stock limit order bid equal to something like this: Where put_strike is the strike price of a put option for the equity you're trading. Which option expiration and strike you use for put_strike depends on your desired time horizon and desired fill probability. To get probability, you can look at the delta for a given option. The relationship between option delta and equity limit order probability of fill is approximately: Disclaimer: There may be math errors here. Again, do your own work. Also, while this method assumes option markets provide good estimates, see above disclaimer about the markets making mistakes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf0540111a2051185227f72005547c32", "text": "\"Generally if you are using FIFO (first in, first out) accounting, you will need to match the transactions based on the number of shares. In your example, at the beginning of day 6, you had two lots of shares, 100 @ 50 and 10 @ 52. On that day you sold 50 shares, and using FIFO, you sold 50 shares of the first lot. This leaves you with 50 @ 50 and 10 @ 52, and a taxable capital gain on the 50 shares you sold. Note that commissions incurred buying the shares increase your basis, and commissions incurred selling the shares decrease your proceeds. So if you spent $10 per trade, your basis on the 100 @ 50 lot was $5010, and the proceeds on your 50 @ 60 sale were $2990. In this example you sold half of the lot, so your basis for the sale was half of $5010 or $2505, so your capital gain is $2990 - 2505 = $485. The sales you describe are also \"\"wash sales\"\", in that you sold stock and bought back an equivalent stock within 30 days. Generally this is only relevant if one of the sales was at a loss but you will need to account for this in your code. You can look up the definition of wash sale, it starts to get complex. If you are writing code to handle this in any generic situation you will also have to handle stock splits, spin-offs, mergers, etc. which change the number of shares you own and their cost basis. I have implemented this myself and I have written about 25-30 custom routines, one for each kind of transaction that I've encountered. The structure of these deals is limited only by the imagination of investment bankers so I think it is impossible to write a single generic algorithm that handles them all, instead I have a framework that I update each quarter as new transactions occur.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04fd815fdb970c4b4460756c2c98afb4", "text": "\"Most of the investors who have large holdings in a particular stock have pretty good exit strategies for those positions to ensure they are getting the best price they can by selling gradually into the volume over time. Putting a single large block of stock up for sale is problematic for one simple reason: Let's say you have 100,000 shares of a stock, and for some reason you decide today is the day to sell them, take your profits, and ride off into the sunset. So you call your broker (or log into your brokerage account) and put them up for sale. He puts in an order somewhere, the stock is sold, and your account is credited. Seems simple, right? Well...not so fast. Professionals - I'm keeping this simple, so please don't beat me up for it! The way stocks are bought and sold is through companies known as \"\"market makers\"\". These are entities which sit between the markets and you (and your broker), and when you want to buy or sell a stock, most of the time the order is ultimately handled somewhere along the line by a market maker. If you work with a large brokerage firm, sometimes they'll buy or sell your shares out of their own accounts, but that's another story. It is normal for there to be many, sometimes hundreds, of market makers who are all trading in the same equity. The bigger the stock, the more market makers it attracts. They all compete with each other for business, and they make their money on the spread between what they buy stock from people selling for and what they can get for it selling it to people who want it. Given that there could be hundreds of market makers on a particular stock (Google, Apple, and Microsoft are good examples of having hundreds of market makers trading in their stocks), it is very competitive. The way the makers compete is on price. It might surprise you to know that it is the market makers, not the markets, that decide what a stock will buy or sell for. Each market maker sets their own prices for what they'll pay to buy from sellers for, and what they'll sell it to buyers for. This is called, respectively, the \"\"bid\"\" and the \"\"ask\"\" prices. So, if there are hundreds of market makers then there could be hundreds of different bid and ask prices on the same stock. The prices you see for stocks are what are called the \"\"best bid and best ask\"\" prices. What that means is, you are being shown the highest \"\"bid\"\" price (what you can sell your shares for) and the best \"\"ask\"\" price (what you can buy those shares for) because that's what is required. That being said, there are many other market makers on the same stock whose bid prices are lower and ask prices are higher. Many times there will be a big clump of market makers all at the same bid/ask, or within fractions of a cent of each other, all competing for business. Trading computers are taught to seek out the best prices and the fastest trade fills they can. The point to this very simplistic lesson is that the market makers set the prices that shares trade at. They adjust those prices based (among other factors) on how much buying and selling volume they're seeing. If they see a wave of sell orders coming into the system then they'll start marking down their bid prices. This keeps them from paying too much for shares they're going to have to find a buyer for eventually, and it can sometimes slow down the pace of selling as investors and automated systems notice the price decline and decide to wait to sell. Conversely, if market makers see a wave of buy orders coming into the system, they'll start marking their ask prices up to maximize their gains, since they're selling you shares they bought from someone else, presumably at a lower price. But they typically adjust their prices up or down before they actually fill trades. (sneaky, eh?) Depending on how much volume there is on the shares of the company you're selling, and depending on whether there are more buyers than sellers at the moment, your share sell order may be filled at market by a market maker with no real consequence to the share's price. If the block is large enough then it's possible it will not all sell to one market maker, or it might not all happen in one transaction or even all at the same price. This is a pretty complex subject, as you can see, and I've cut a LOT of corners and oversimplified much to keep it comprehensible. But the short answer to your question is -- it depends. Hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f86a8a4bb3fa8d170e7d2cb5f67b104", "text": "Thanks for your thorough reply. Basically, I found a case study in one of my old finance workbooks from school and am trying to complete it. So it's not entirely complicated in the sense of a full LBO or merger model. That being said, the information that they provide is Year 1 EBITDA for TargetCo and BuyerCo and a Pro-Forma EBITDA for the consolidated company @ Year 1 and Year 4 (expected IPO). I was able to get the Pre-Money and Post-Money values and the Liquidation values (year 4 IPO), as well as the number of shares. I can use EBITDA to get EPS (ebitda/share in this case) for both consolidated and stand-alone @ Year 1, but can only get EPS for consolidated for all other years. Given the information provided. One of the questions I have is do I do anything with my liquidation values for an accretion/dilution analysis or is it all EPS?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80bc55cf82d2add4d1ecf35cd96ad431", "text": "\"If the price used to be 2.50 but by the time you get in an order it's 2.80, you're going to have to pay 2.80. You can't say, \"\"I want to buy it at the price from an hour ago\"\". If you could, everybody would wait for the price to go up, then buy at the old price and have an instant guaranteed profit. Well, except that when you tried to sell, I suppose the buyer could say, \"\"I want to pay the lower price from last July\"\". So no, you always buy or sell at the current price. If you submit an order after the markets close, your broker should buy the stock for you as soon as possible the next morning. There's no strict queue. There are thousands of brokers out there, they don't take turns. So if your broker has 1000 orders and you are number 1000 on his list, while some other broker has 2 orders and number 1 is someone else wanting to buy the same stock, then even if you got your order in first, the other guy will probably get the first buy. LIFO and FIFO refer to any sort of list or queue, but don't really make sense here. When the market opens a broker has a list of orders he received overnight, which he might think of as a queue. He presumably works his way down the list. But whether he follows a strict and simple first-in-first-out, or does biggest orders first, or does buys for stocks he expects to go up today and sells for stocks he expects to go down today first, or what, I don't know. Does anybody on this forum know, are there rules that say brokers have to go through the overnight orders FIFO, or what is the common practice?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93b6457e8a48c4363e86f317dbc0934e", "text": "From 26 CFR 1.1012(c)(1)i): ... if a taxpayer sells or transfers shares of stock in a corporation that the taxpayer purchased or acquired on different dates or at different prices and the taxpayer does not adequately identify the lot from which the stock is sold or transferred, the stock sold or transferred is charged against the earliest lot the taxpayer purchased or acquired to determine the basis and holding period of the stock. From 26 CFR 1.1012(c)(3): (i) Where the stock is left in the custody of a broker or other agent, an adequate identification is made if— (a) At the time of the sale or transfer, the taxpayer specifies to such broker or other agent having custody of the stock the particular stock to be sold or transferred, and ... So if you don't specify, the first share bought (for $100) is the one sold, and you have a capital gain of $800. But you can specify to the broker if you would rather sell the stock bought later (and thus have a lower gain). This can either be done for the individual sale (no later than the settlement date of the trade), or via standing order: 26 CFR 1.1012(c)(8) ... A standing order or instruction for the specific identification of stock is treated as an adequate identification made at the time of sale, transfer, delivery, or distribution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1581182a845bc22f273501fd9e8568c0", "text": "API wise there's just one at the retail level: Interactive Brokers (India). Brokerage is high though - 3.5 bps for F&O and 5 bps for cash. I've used Sharekhan (good, can get to 2 bps brokerage, trading client software, no API). Also used multiple other brokerages, and am advising a new one, Zerodha http://www.zerodha.com. API wise the brokers don't provide it easily to retail, though I've worked with direct access APIs at an institutional level.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4eeeb700522713da024781f45893656f", "text": "Interactive Brokers provides historical intraday data including Bid, Ask, Last Trade and Volume for the majority of stocks. You can chart the data, download it to Excel or use it in your own application through their API. EDIT: Compared to other solutions (like FreeStockCharts.com for instance), Interactive Brokers provides not only historic intraday LAST**** trades **but also historic BID and ASK data, which is very useful information if you want to design your own trading system. I have enclosed a screenshot to the chart parameter window and a link to the API description.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
533084d85ccca594c0019fd29b698b26
Turning 30 and making the right decision with my savings and purchasing home
[ { "docid": "886e10a51f92d7a079ec4b39db998528", "text": "\"I love the idea of #1, keep that going. I don't think #2 is very realistic. Given the short time frame putting money at risk for a higher yield may not work in your favor. If it was me, I'd stick to a \"\"high interest\"\" savings account (around 1%). I don't mind #3 either, however, I'd be socking whatever you could to mortgage principle so you can get out of PMI sooner rather than later. That would be my top priority. Given the status of interest rates, you may end up saving money in the long run. I doubt it, but you may. If you choose to go with #3, don't settle for a house that you really don't like. Get something that you want. Who knows it may take you a year or so to find something!\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "7856213a10310d10734defe41d41f977", "text": "Congratulations on your bonus may many more come your way. I am having a bit of trouble following your numbers but it seems you are considering PMI for the life of your loan. Once you get below 20% loan to value, you can petition the mortgage company to remove the PMI (with conventional loans; VA and FHA have lifetime PMI). If it was me, I'd do one of two things. Both involve paying off the student loan now. The savings from the student loan payment will assist you in helping you meet one of the two goals below. Also both involve getting a 15 year fixed. The first would be to buy the house now, and work like crazy to get rid of the PMI. My goal would be to get rid of this within 18 months. The second would be to save up enough cash for the 20% down and then buy the house. You'd miss out on the house you are looking at, which is kind of heartbreaking. Who is to say that a better home does not come along at the same price? My goal would be to have the downpayment in 9 months, and really try to have it in 6 months. Being an old guy that has experience how much of a virtue patience is, I'd recommend the second option.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3114d45827cfc2ab35bae84dc5fce87", "text": "\"I'm in the \"\"big mortgage\"\" camp. Or, to put this another way - what would you be happier to have in 15 years? A house that is worth $300,000, or $50,000 of equity in a house and $225,000 in the bank? I would much rather have the latter; it gives me so many more options. (the numbers are rough; you can figure it out yourself based on the current interest rate you can get on investments vs the cost of mortgage interest (which may be less if you can deduct the mortgage interest)).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c05a709056f6da4dbcf85676d000157", "text": "Good job. Assuming that you are also contributing to retirement, you are bound to be a wealthy person. I'm not really sure how Australia works as far as retirement, but I am pretty sure you are taking care of that too. Given your time frame (more than 5 years) I would consider investing at least a portion of the money. If I was you, I would tend to make that amount significant, say 75% in mutual funds, 25% in your high interest savings. The ratio you choose is up to you, but I would be heavier in the investment than savings side. As the time for home purchase approaches, you may want more in savings and less in investments. You may want to look at a mutual fund with a low beta. Beta is a measure of the price volatility. I did a google search on low beta funds, and came up with a number of good articles that explains this further. Having a fund with a low beta insulates you, a bit, from radical swings in the market allowing you to count more on the money being there when needed. One way to get to the proper ratio, is to contribute all new money to the mutual fund until it is in proper balance. This way you don't lower your interest rate for a month. Given your time frame, salary, and sense of responsibility you may be able to do the 100% down plan. Again, good work!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbd2e54664eee4c21ecf47902bbe8fe1", "text": "Assuming a good credit score with no issues like bankruptcy they look at 2 ratios: housing related debts and non-housing debts. For you the housing debts are: principal and interest ($1986/month), property taxes ($490/month), Home Insurance ($120/month) and HOA fee ($120/month). Add these up ($2716/month). You want this to be below 28% of your gross, though some lenders use 33%. For you 109K/year is 9083/month or 29.9%. The 20% down payment saves you the PMI payments. Note that the deductions for interest and taxes already hidden in the ratio limits, so don't try to reduce the monthly impact by a expected deduction. Many lenders will require you to give them the money from taxes and insurance each month, they will forward the funds to the government of insurance policy when the bills are due. The 2nd ratio is for the non-housing debts, which you claim to be zero. That should be less than 10%. If they insist on keeping you below 28% you might need a lower rate or bigger down payment. Your current income and budget have allowed you to accumulate significant savings, though you retirement balances seem low. The savings and CD balances show that you could increase your spending each month without severely impacting your financial health. Should you buy, can't be answered because that is an individual choice. Keep in mind that home ownership also includes additional responsibilities that a renter can ask a landlord to fix and pay for. That is the stuff that is impossible to predict.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e128ad42db59566422ffe6f6ac6e6c91", "text": "Other people have belabored the point that you will get a better rate on a 15 year mortgage, typically around 1.25 % lower. The lower rate makes the 15 year mortgage financially wiser than paying a 30 year mortgage off in 15 years. So go with the 15 year if your income is stable, you will never lose your job, your appliances never break, your vehicles never need major repairs, the pipes in your house never burst, you and your spouse never get sick, and you have no kids. Or if you do have kids, they happen to have good eyesight, straight teeth, they have no aspirations for college, don't play any expensive sports, and they will never ask for help paying the rent when they get older and move out. But if any of those things are likely possibilities, the 30 year mortgage would give you some flexibility to cover short term cash shortages by reverting to your normal 30 year payment for a month or two. Now, the financially wise may balk at this because you are supposed to have enough cash in reserves to cover stuff like this, and that is good advice. But how many people struggle to maintain those reserves when they buy a new house? Consider putting together spreadsheet and calculating the interest cost difference between the two strategies. How much more will the 30 year mortgage cost you in interest if you pay it off in 15 years? That amount equates to the cost of an insurance policy for dealing with an occasional cash shortage. Do you want to pay thousands in extra interest for that insurance? (it is pretty pricey insurance) One strategy would be to go with the 30 year now, make the extra principal payments to keep you on a 15 year schedule, see how life goes, and refinance to a 15 year mortgage after a couple years if everything goes well and your cash reserves are strong. Unfortunately, rates are likely to rise over the next couple years, which makes this strategy less attractive. If at all possible, go with the 15 year so you lock in these near historic low rates. Consider buying less house or dropping back to the 30 year if you are worried that your cash reserves won't be able to handle life's little surprises.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a70e0a7f1fa8d4e865d69af9323bfbf", "text": "\"How to spend the money is up to you. That includes spending money on your house. (This is a safer way to look at it than an \"\"investment\"\". Not that it can't ever be treated as such, but that doing so often makes it easy to justify bad decisions and overspending on the house.) So with regards to the mortgage: So if it's not a monstrously huge deal, you might prefer to avoid default. Now, how to invest the rest while waiting to spend it, now...\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d63608194326842e0479e29ce963b55", "text": "\"I'm a visual person so the idea of a 30 year mortgage didn't make much sense to me until I could see it This isn't exact but it's pretty close. The green Interest lines represent the money you're giving to the bank as a \"\"thank you\"\" for lending you a large amount of cash up front. As you've already figured out, that's at least the same amount as the price of the home! As much down-payment as is reasonable. Keep one eye on beating the interest Best of luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "033272001584b44ca78b60db0b437eab", "text": "\"I think your analysis is very clear, it's a sensible approach, and the numbers sound about right to me. A few other things you might want to think about: Tax In some jurisdictions you can deduct mortgage interest against your income tax. I see from your profile that you're in Texas, but I don't know the exact situation there and I think it's better to keep this answer general anyway. If that's the case for you, then you should re-run your numbers taking that into account. You may also be able to make your investments tax-advantaged, for example if you save them in a retirement account. You'll need to apply the appropriate limits for your specific situation and take an educated guess as to how that might change over the next 30 years. Liquidity The money you're not spending on your mortgage is money that's available to you for other spending or emergencies - i.e. even though your default assumption is to invest it and that's a sensible way to compare with the mortgage, you might still place some extra value on having more free access to it. Overpayments Would you have the option to pay extra on the mortgage? That's another way of \"\"investing\"\" your money that gets you a guaranteed return of the mortgage rate. You might want to consider if you'd want to send some of your excess money that way.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee25de70ae32a532f1c8f04baf184b60", "text": "Unless the taxes are above 3000 per year it looks like a good deal to buy (the 30 year mtg) You could also consider getting the 30 year loan and add additional principal to your payments. It looks like your PMI might be about $50 per month. You will get to deduct over $3000 in interest payments the first year as well as the real estate taxes. Depending on your tax rate that might be something like $100 per month or so of incentive to chose buying over renting. The big issue to consider is the risk of big ticket items to repair. You should keep a fund for this kind of thing... water heater, roof, fridge, cesspool, etc. good luck", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6efcb078a0a804b38e2c3ad82d3f44fd", "text": "One opinion related to savings is to save 30% of your take home salary every month, split the amount into two parts depending on your age (29) one part would be 30% of 30% and another 70% of 30%. Take the 70% and buy blue chip stock and take the 30% and buy govt. bonds. Each 10 years adjust the percentages at 40, 40% on bonds and 60% on stock. Only cash out on the day you retire, otherwise ignore all market/economic movements. With this and the statutory savings (employment retirement) you should be ok.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c89bda2bf674c8cdbb86ae67c568f3e8", "text": "I'd suggest you put only 20% down if you qualify for the 80% amount of the mortgage. Live in the house a year and see what expenses really are. Then if your non-Ret accounts are still being funded to your liking, start prepaying the mortgage if you wish. It's great to start with a house that's only 50% mortgaged, but if any life change happens to you, it may be tough to borrow it back. Far easier to just take your time and not make a decision you may regret. You don't give much detail about your retirement savings, but I'd suggest that I'd rather have a large mortgage and fund my retirement accounts to the maximum than to have a paid house and start the retirement account at age 35. Some choose that option.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7ceb82cec37d7d2d2ae175bc6f4b249", "text": "The best way to look at it is this: I would suspect most people would say no. Most people do not have the time, skill, or risk tolerance to be able to leverage capital as large as the value of their own home. Remember that a 15-year fixed has a slightly lower interest rate than a 30-year fixed (difference of 0.5–1%). If you won't have the discipline to invest every cent left in your pocket, then you are better off with the 15-year and the lower rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c4bc25e5ecf9f7dd4e2a49e2fe716ba", "text": "\"To add to what other have stated, I recently just decided to purchase a home over renting some more, and I'll throw in some of my thoughts about my decision to buy. I closed a couple of weeks ago. Note that I live in Texas, and that I'm not knowledgeable in real estate other than what I learned from my experiences in the area when I am located. It depends on the market and location. You have to compare what renting will get you for the money vs what buying will get you. For me, buying seemed like a better deal overall when just comparing monthly payments. This is including insurance and taxes. You will need to stay at a house that you buy for at least 5-7 years. You first couple years of payments will go almost entirely towards interest. It takes a while to build up equity. If you can pay more towards a mortgage, do it. You need to have money in the bank already to close. The minimum down payment (at least in my area) is 3.5% for an FHA loan. If you put 20% down, you don't need to pay mortgage insurance, which is essentially throwing money away. You will also have add in closing costs. I ended up purchasing a new construction. My monthly payment went up from $1200 to $1600 (after taxes, insurance, etc.), but the house is bigger, newer, more energy efficient, much closer to my work, in a more expensive area, and in a market that is expected to go up in value. I had all of my closing costs (except for the deposit) taken care of by the lender and builder, so all of my closing costs I paid out of pocket went to the deposit (equity, or the \"\"bank\"\"). If I decide to move and need to sell, then I will get a lot (losing some to selling costs and interest) of the money I have put in to the house back out of it when I do sell, and I have the option to put that money towards another house. To sum it all up, I'm not paying a difference in monthly costs because I bought a house. I had my closing costs taking care of and just had to pay the deposit, which goes to equity. I will have to do maintenance myself, but I don't mind fixing what I can fix, and I have a builder's warranties on most things in the house. To really get a good idea of whether you should rent or buy, you need to talk to a Realtor and compare actual costs. It will be more expensive in the short term, but should save you money in the long term.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e4ad5de991424ab48e01a72ac5cbd3ac", "text": "\"I'll assume you live in the US for the start of my answer - Do you maximize your retirement savings at work, at least getting your employer's match in full, if they do this. Do you have any other debt that's at a higher rate? Is your emergency account funded to your satisfaction? If you lost your job and tenant on the same day, how long before you were in trouble? The \"\"pay early\"\" question seems to hit an emotional nerve with most people. While I start with the above and then segue to \"\"would you be happy with a long term 5% return?\"\" there's one major point not to miss - money paid to either mortgage isn't liquid. The idea of owing out no money at all is great, but paying anything less than \"\"paid in full\"\" leaves you still owing that monthly payment. You can send $400K against your $500K mortgage, and still owe $3K per month until paid. And if you lose your job, you may not so easily refinance the remaining $100K to a lower payment so easily. If your goal is to continue with real estate, you don't prepay, you save cash for the next deal. Don't know if that was your intent at some point. Disclosure - my situation - Maxing out retirement accounts was my priority, then saving for college. Over the years, I had multiple refinances, each of which was a no-cost deal. The first refi saved with a lower rate. The second, was in early 2000s when back interest was so low I took a chunk of cash, paid principal down and went to a 20yr from the original 30. The kid starts college, and we target retirement in 6 years. I am paying the mortgage (now 2 years into a 10yr) to be done the month before the kid flies out. If I were younger, I'd be at the start of a new 30 yr at the recent 4.5% bottom. I think that a cost of near 3% after tax, and inflation soon to near/exceed 3% makes borrowing free, and I can invest conservatively in stocks that will have a dividend yield above this. Jane and I discussed the plan, and agree to retire mortgage free.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cace78f304e19ade7973ef225d2b3f22", "text": "Yes go TFSA first. Unless you make a lot of salary and want to lower your taxes. In this case RRSP might be the way to go. But seeing as you're 30 and probably will make greater salary in the future, go TFSA.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ef5e8a3d1719624c85817fff5f67a364
How can I report pump and dump scams?
[ { "docid": "d2346488c7ec39e940a95ce0dd21b526", "text": "Start with your local police department then move on to these sites. Fill out the United States Postal Service fraud complaint form http://ehome.uspis.gov/fcsexternal/ Contact your State Attorneys General. Your state Attorney General or local office of consumer protection is also listed in the government pages of your telephone book Write to the Federal Trade Commission: [email protected] If you are aware of a securities (e.g., stocks) scam, insider trading, etc., you will want to contact the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/SEC.php", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e9f1dbf5d857097e9aaf9017f61da980", "text": "\"A friend since July online and big business talks and trust/money forwards. Usually a question \"\"is this a scam or legitimate?\"\" is hard to answer since obviously scams are modelled after legitimate stories (or they'd easily fail). If there were bookmakers for \"\"scam or legitimate\"\", this one would easily gather odds of 10000:1. The only plausible reason for this to be legitimate would be to defraud the scam-or-legitimate bookmakers. At any rate, Exxon is a large company and has to obey labor laws. They cannot set up operations in a manner where their workers may not have access to their salary for prolonged times without easy remedy. Drop communications immediately, don't open them, don't read them. They hook you with emotional investment. They will redouble efforts if it appears you are slipping out of their reach. Explanations will become more plausible, more pressing, more emotionally charged. You are a big promising fish and they won't let you swim off without a serious struggle to rehook you. Hand your communication so far to law enforcement. That may help with not having to figure this out on your own.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df0f4088f7b0566b209ff366f0393d2f", "text": "Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock.com) ran a somewhat interesting website awhile back called 'Deep Capture' which focused heavily on naked short selling and bear raids. He was called all sorts of names and many 'serious' journalist types brushed his allegations off. His basic argument was that a cabal of hedge funds would simultaneously naked short a specific equity and then a coordinated group of journalists and message board jockeys would disparage the company as loudly and publicly as possible, driving the price down. Naked shorting is supposed to be illegal since you can hold the types of positions like in the linked article about Citigroup where the number of shares sold short actually exceeds the number of shares in existence. The group he named was essentially a who's who of hedge funds and fraudsters and included many names of prominent politically active 'reformed' criminals from the S&amp;L days on Wall St. I can't remember how the cards fell, but the scheme allegedly involved Michael Milliken, Sam Antar (from Crazy Eddie's Fraud), Gary Weiss, Jim Cramer, etc etc. It was a fascinating story. Byrne actually followed through with several lawsuits (one of which was settled after a Rocker Partners paid Byrne $5 million dollars to settle). The 'Deep Capture' site is down, but I [found a decent article](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/01/wikipedia_and_naked_shorting/print.html) that sums up some of the shenanigans, including a journalist sock-puppeting to edit Wikipedia, repeatedly denying it, being IP-traced to inside the DTCC building (the Wall St. entity responsible for clearing trades, including naked shorts).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c4940e819f4f7310f79918fd13c6cf8", "text": "Pump-and-dump scams are indeed very real, but the scale of a single scam isn't anywhere near the type of heist you see in movies like Trading Places. Usually, the scammer will buy a few hundred dollars of a penny stock for some obscure small business, then they'll spam every address they have with advice that this business is about to announce a huge breakthrough that will make it the next Microsoft. A few dozen people bite, buy up a few thousand shares each (remember the shares are trading for pennies), then when the rise in demand pushes up the price enough for the scammer to make a decent buck, he cashes out, the price falls based on the resulting glut of stock, and the victims lose their money. Thus a few red flags shake out that would-be investors should be wary of:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a3f134165b64c4caefb5433a0e73c34", "text": "Meh... how about telling us how they actually run scams? What to watch out for? Some real info. What's here is, mostly, obvious top level stuff. What I want is the dirt. Real details. Real content. Come on, give it to us.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57b3624471dc64a3d30fedfa0b56435f", "text": "\"Coming from someone who has worked a in the account servicing department of an actual bank in the US, other answers are right, this is probably a scam, the phone number on the letter is probably ringing to a fraudulent call center (these are very well managed and sound professional), and you must independently locate and dial the true contact number to US Bank. NOW. Tell them what happened. Reporting is critical. Securing your money is critical. Every piece of information you provided \"\"the bank\"\" when you called needs to be changed or worked around. Account numbers, passwords, usernames, card numbers get changed. Tax ID numbers get de-prioritized as an authentication mechanism even if the government won't change them. The true bank probably won't transfer you to the branch. If the front-line call center says they will, ask the person on the phone what the branch can do that they cannot. Information is your friend. They will probably transfer you to a special department that handles these reports. Apparently Union Bank's call center transfers you to the branch then has the branch make this transfer. Maybe their front-line call center team is empowered to handle it like I was. Either way, plug your phone in; if the call takes less than 5 minutes they didn't actually do everything. 5 to 8 minutes per department is more likely, plus hold time. There's a lot of forms they're filling out. What if that office is closed because of time differences? Go online and ask for an ATM limit increase. Start doing cash advances at local banks if your card allows it. Just get that money out of that account before it's in a fraudsters account. Keep receipts, even if the machine declines the transaction. Either way, get cash on hand while you wait for a new debit card and checks for the new account you're going to open. What if this was fraud, you draw your US Bank account down to zero $800 at a time, and you don't close it or change passwords? Is it over? No. Then your account WILL get closed, and you will owe EVERYTHING that the fraudsters rack up (these charges can put your account terrifyingly far in the negative) from this point forward. This is called \"\"participation in a scam\"\" in your depository agreement, because you fell victim to it, didn't report, and the info used was voluntarily given. You will also lose any of your money that they spend. What if US Bank really is closing your account? Then they owe you every penny you had in it. (Minus any fees allowed in the depository agreement). This closure can happen several days after the date on the warning, so being able to withdraw doesn't mean you're safe. Banks usually ship an official check shipped to the last known address they had for you. Why would a bank within the United States close my account when it's not below the minimum balance? Probably because your non-resident alien registration from when you were in school has expired and federal law prohibits them from doing business with you now. These need renewed at least every three years. Renewing federally is not enough; the bank must be aware of the updated expiration date. How do I find out why my account is being closed? You ask the real US Bank. They might find that it's not being closed. Good news! Follow the scam reporting procedure, open a new account (with US Bank if you want, or elsewhere) and close the old one. If it IS being closed by the bank, they'll tell you why, and they'll tell you what your next options are. Ask what can be done. Other commenters are right that bitcoin activity may have flagged it. That activity might actually be against your depository agreement. Or it set off a detection system. Or many other reasons. The bank who services your account is the only place that knows for sure. If I offer them $500 per year will they likely keep the account opened? Otherwise I got to go to singapore open another account Legitimate financial institutions in the United States don't work this way. If there is a legal problem with your tax status in the US, money to the bank won't solve it. Let's call the folks you've talked to \"\"FraudBank\"\" and the real USBank \"\"RealBank,\"\" because until RealBank confirms, we have no reason to believe that the letter is real. FraudBank will ask for money. Don't give it. Don't give them any further information. Gather up as much information from them as possible instead. Where to send it, for example. Then report that to RealBank. RealBank won't have a way to charge $500/year to you only. If they offer a type of account to everyone that costs $500, ask for the \"\"Truth in Savings Act disclosures.\"\" Banks are legally required to provide these upon request. Then read them. Don't put or keep your money anywhere you don't understand.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "585dcbe697a32ef9df12931509c5c79f", "text": "A couple ways, but its not a guarantee. You have to have special charts. Instead of each tick being 1 min, 5 min, or whatever, it is a set number of trades. Say 2000. Since retail investors only buy and sell in small amounts, there will be small volume per tick. An institutional investor, however, would have a much much higher trade lot size, even if using an algo. Thus, large volume spikes in such a chart would signal institutional activity over retail. Similarly, daily charts showing average trade size can help you pick out when institutional activity is highest, as they have much larger trade sizes. You could also learn how the algos work and look for evidence one is being used. ie every time price hits VWAP a large sell order goes through would indicate an institutional investor is selling, especially if it happens multiple times in a row.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9385dc51d9996dcea24e091cc49cf5e", "text": "Sap just developed a fraud detection module for their ERP suite in conjuction with EY. It offers live fraud scanning so you can stop a flagged transaction before a transfer is carried out. I saw a presentation an it looks pretty powerfull although it is only in the early stages.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9ab02f9024d26564ec50c7fba40d8d7", "text": "\"If you must play with these scammers, be sure to open a new account, at a new bank, in order to supply \"\"personal banking information\"\". If it does pan out and they give you some money, you can always move it to your real bank account. Be sure to deposit into the new account no more than you're willing to lose to them.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f03383a88a8140d54337e9b3816d3390", "text": "\"The Indian regulator (SEBI) has banned trading in 300 shell companies that it views as being \"\"Shady\"\", including VB Industries. According to Money Control (.com): all these shady companies have started to rally and there was a complaint to SEBI that investors are getting SMSs from various brokerage firms to invest in them This suggests evidence of \"\"pump and dump\"\" style stock promotion. On the plus side, the SEBI will permit trading in these securities once a month : Trading in these securities shall be permitted once a month (First Monday of the month). Further, any upward price movement in these securities shall not be permitted beyond the last traded price and additional surveillance deposit of 200 percent of trade value shall be collected form the Buyers which shall be retained with Exchanges for a period of five months. This will give you an opportunity to exit your position, however, finding a buyer may be a problem and because of the severe restrictions placed on trading, any bid prices in the market are going to be a fraction of the last trade price.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c743f34b227a7fc64ada2c7bc3bcdec2", "text": "\"For this to work, those who control the dilution must also control their salaries because the only way for them to be paid off when it's the corporation itself selling is to gain access to the proceeds. When a corporation sells newly issued equity, the corporation itself owns the money. To at least have the appearance of propriety, the scammers must be paid those proceeds. Both actions imply that the board is captured by the scammers. There are many corporations that seem to do this even with persistently large market capitalizations. The key difference between this and pump-and-dump is that its a fraudulent group of investors selling in this case instead of the corporation itself. A detailed simple example Corporations are mandated by law to be little oligarchies; although, \"\"republic\"\" is now becoming more appropriate with all of the new shareholder rights. A corporation is controlled at root by the board of directors who are elected by the shareholders. The board has no direct operational control, as that is left to the \"\"king\"\", the CEO; however, the board does control what everyone wants access to: the money. Board members have all sorts of legal qualitative mandates on how to behave, and they've functioned fairly decently efficiently over the long run, but there are definitely some bad apples. Boards are somewhat intransigent since it's difficult to hold board elections, and usually only specific board members are put up for election by a shareholder vote, so a bad one has the potential to really get stuck in there. Once a bad one is in there, they don't care because they know it will be tough to get them out, so they run roughshod over the company's purse. Only the board can take action on major funding such as the CEO's operating budget, board compensation, financing, investment, etc, some with shareholder approval, some without. The corporation itself owns all of those assets, but the board controls them. In this example, they scheme with most likely the top executive, but a rubber stamp top executive could allow a lower rung to scheme with the board, but the board is always constant until the law is changed. Because there's no honor amongst thieves, the board votes which can require some combination of executive and shareholder approval are taken very close together: sell shares, increase salaries to key executive schemers, increase board compensation. The trusting shareholders believe this is in the best interests of the company at large so go along. So the money flows from existing & new shareholders to the corporation now controlled by a malicious board and then finally to the necessary malicious executive and the vital malicious board.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f578fc1e1d123e18742806193a7f3b8c", "text": "\"As others have commented, this is almost certainly a Ponzi scheme. What will happen is that they will report to you that you are earning fantastic returns. This will encourage you to pour more money into the scheme in the belief that you are making huge profits. The problems will start to occur when you ask for your money. You won't receive any money and by the time you realise you have been scammed, the site operators will have vanish with all of the \"\"suckers\"\" money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aad964023bfe20997bec03f865987ce6", "text": "\"Given that such activities are criminal and the people committing them have to hide them from the law, it's very unlikely that an investor could detect them, let alone one from a different country. The only things that can realistically help is to keep in mind the adage \"\"If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is\"\", and to stick to relatively large companies, since they have more auditing requirements and fraud is much harder to hide at scale (but not impossible, see Enron). Edit: and, of course, diversify. This kind of thing is rare, and not systematic, so diversification is a very good protection.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0572d8145317a4ad82e1ea9467de9d01", "text": "I have prepared a report on scam's like this. I'd be happy to deliver a copy of the report to your home. Just give me your address and mail me the keys to your house and I'll drop by and leave it in your home. Oh, and tell me a time when you won't be home, so I won't bother you when I come by. It might also be helpful if you tell me if you have any cash, jewelry, or other valuables in the house and where you keep them, so I can give you advice on security measures. :-)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b55176dac61778d9cd64bdc1444526d", "text": "\"Accept that the money's gone. It could, as others have mentioned, been a lot more. Learn. Make sure your son (and you!) have learned the lesson (at least try to get something out of the $650). The world isn't always a nice place unfortunately. Don't wire money to strangers - use an escrow service or paypal or similar. As the saying goes: \"\"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me\"\". Report it to the authorities. Does have the advantage of the domestic rather than foreign bank account used. The scammer might have closed it by now, but there should be some paper tail. I imagine the id required for opening a bank account in the US is as strict as it is most places these days. They may have used fake Id, but that's not your problem. Assuming contact was made over the internet, bearing in mind IANAL (or American), this could be a crime of Wire Fraud, in which case I believe it's a case for the FBI rather than your local police. The phone calls your son is still receiving could also be construed as attempted extortion and if across state lines could also come under federal jurisdiction. The FBI have a better chance of catching such a scammer, generally having more chance of knowing one end of a computer from the other compared to a local beat cop. If other victims have also contacted the authorities, it will probably be taken more seriously. Give as much information as you can. Not just the bank account details, but all communication, exact time of phone calls, etc. The cops may say there's nothing they can do as it's a civil matter (breach of contract) rather than a criminal one. In which case you have the (probably expensive) option of going the civil route as described by Harper above. Inform Others. Assuming initial contact with the scammer was made through a website or forum or similar. I imagine this must be a niche area for hand made toys. Post your experience to warn other potential victims. Inform the site owner - they may ban the scammers account where applicable. Stop the calls. Block the number. If the number's being withheld, contact the provider - they should have a policy regarding harassment and be able to block it their end. If the calls keep coming, your son will need to change his number. Don’t let it get to you. You may have warm cosy fantasies of removing the guys kneecaps with a 2x4. Don't however dwell on the b*stard for too long and let it get under your skin. You will have to let it go.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d946609ef38fb86422a19d3d63a6971", "text": "Yes this is a huge security loophole and many banks will do nothing to refund if you are scammed. For example for business accounts some Wells Fargo branches say you must notify within 24 hours of any check withdrawal or the loss is yours. Basically banks don't care - they are a monopoly system and you are stuck with them. When the losses and complaints get too great they will eventually implement the European system of electronic transfers - but the banks don't want to be bothered with that expense yet. Sure you can use paypal - another overpriced monopoly - or much better try Dwolla or bitcoin.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
74b3e199d25881173fc712a91ad9297a
Using GnuCash for accurate cost basis calculation for foreign investments (CAD primary currency)
[ { "docid": "b032d3617b0cb738bf35e3604308a83b", "text": "You would need to use Trading Accounts. You can enable this, File->Properties->Account settings tab, and check Use Trading Accounts. For more details see the following site: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Trading_Accounts", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8568a818f3a0c4a7473017be99a53d48", "text": "\"I found an answer by Peter Selinger, in two articles, Tutorial on multiple currency accounting (June 2005, Jan 2011) and the accompanying Multiple currency accounting in GnuCash (June 2005, Feb 2007). Selinger embraces the currency neutrality I'm after. His method uses \"\"[a]n account that is denominated as a difference of multiple currencies... known as a currency trading account.\"\" Currency trading accounts show the gain or loss based on exchange rates at any moment. Apparently GnuCash 2.3.9 added support for multi-currency accounting. I haven't tried this myself. This feature is not enabled by default, and must be turned on explicity. To do so, check \"\"Use Trading Accounts\"\" under File -> Properties -> Accounts. This must be done on a per-file basis. Thanks to Mike Alexander, who implemented this feature in 2007, and worked for over 3 years to convince the GnuCash developers to include it. Older versions of GnuCash, such as 1.8.11, apparently had a feature called \"\"Currency Trading Accounts\"\", but they behaved differently than Selinger's method.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7272c31978e10ac0038691e7e9e1f605", "text": "\"The only \"\"authoritative document\"\" issued by the IRS to date relating to Cryptocurrencies is Notice 2014-21. It has this to say as the first Q&A: Q-1: How is virtual currency treated for federal tax purposes? A-1: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. That is to say, it should be treated as property like any other asset. Basis reporting the same as any other property would apply, as described in IRS documentation like Publication 550, Investment Income and Expenses and Publication 551, Basis of Assets. You should be able to use the same basis tracking method as you would use for any other capital asset like stocks or bonds. Per Publication 550 \"\"How To Figure Gain or Loss\"\", You figure gain or loss on a sale or trade of property by comparing the amount you realize with the adjusted basis of the property. Gain. If the amount you realize from a sale or trade is more than the adjusted basis of the property you transfer, the difference is a gain. Loss. If the adjusted basis of the property you transfer is more than the amount you realize, the difference is a loss. That is, the assumption with property is that you would be using specific identification. There are specific rules for mutual funds to allow for using average cost or defaulting to FIFO, but for general \"\"property\"\", including individual stocks and bonds, there is just Specific Identification or FIFO (and FIFO is just making an assumption about what you're choosing to sell first in the absence of any further information). You don't need to track exactly \"\"which Bitcoin\"\" was sold in terms of exactly how the transactions are on the Bitcoin ledger, it's just that you bought x bitcoins on date d, and when you sell a lot of up to x bitcoins you specify in your own records that the sale was of those specific bitcoins that you bought on date d and report it on your tax forms accordingly and keep track of how much of that lot is remaining. It works just like with stocks, where once you buy a share of XYZ Corp on one date and two shares on another date, you don't need to track the movement of stock certificates and ensure that you sell that exact certificate, you just identify which purchase lot is being sold at the time of sale.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adbd26a148ea4692bd89917533e0a3ab", "text": "\"First of all, it's quite common-place in GnuCash (and in accounting in general, I believe) to have \"\"accounts\"\" that represent concepts or ideas rather than actual accounts at some institution. For example, my personal GnuCash book has a plethora of expense accounts, just made up by me to categorize my spending, but all of the transactions are really just entries in my checking account. As to your actual question, I'd probably do this by tracking such savings as \"\"negative expenses,\"\" using an expense account and entering negative numbers. You could track grocery savings in your grocery expense account, or if you want to easily analyze the savings data, for example seeing savings over a certain time period, you would probably want a separate Grocery Savings expense account. EDIT: Regarding putting that money aside, here's an idea: Let's say you bought a $20 item that was on sale for $15. You could have a single transaction in GnuCash that includes four splits, one for each of the following actions: decrease your checking account by $20, increase your expense account by $20, decrease your \"\"discount savings\"\" expense account by $5, and increase your savings account (where you're putting that money aside) by $5.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7167ec18e71daaffb58292000094dc2c", "text": "Would I have to pay some kind of capital gains tax? And if so, when? Converting Tax paid USD into CAD is not a taxable event. A taxable even will occur if you convert back the CAD into USD. If you receive interest on the CAD then the interest is also a taxable event. Also, is there any reason this is a terrible idea? That will only be known in future. Its like predicting that in future this will turn out to be advantageous, however it may turn out the other way.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "10d9f9670fe70075b14cc479478ba1a2", "text": "No, GnuCash doesn't specifically provide a partner cash basis report/function. However, GnuCash reports are fairly easy to write. If the data was readily available in your accounts it shouldn't be too hard to create a cash basis report. The account setup is so flexible, you might actually be able to create accounts for each partner, and, using standard dual-entry accounting, always debit and credit these accounts so the actual cash basis of each partner is shown and updated with every transaction. I used GnuCash for many years to manage my personal finances and those of my business (sole proprietorship). It really shines for data integrity (I never lost data), customer management (decent UI for managing multiple clients and business partners) and customer invoice generation (they look pretty). I found the user interface ugly and cumbersome. GnuCash doesn't integrate cleanly with banks in the US. It's possible to import data, but the process is very clunky and error-prone. Apparently you can make bank transactions right from GnuCash if you live in Europe. Another very important limitation of GnuCash to be aware of: only one user at a time. Period. If this is important to you, don't use GnuCash. To really use GnuCash effectively, you probably have to be an actual accountant. I studied dual-entry accounting a bit while using GnuCash. Dual-entry accounting in GnuCash is a pain in the butt. Accurately recording certain types of transactions (like stock buys/sells) requires fiddling with complicated split transactions. I agree with Mariette: hire a pro.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e714ca3f65ef959e2f5a651731a8f4bf", "text": "The GnuCash tutorial has some basics on double entry accounting: http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v1.8/C/gnucash-guide/basics_accounting1.html#basics_accountingdouble2", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c393b2a11daf7865f68881dbb8913a11", "text": "Wiring is the best way to move large amounts of money from one country to another. I am sure Japanese banks will allow you to exchange your Japanese Yen into USD and wire it to Canada. I am not sure if they will be able to convert directly from JPY to CND and wire funds in CND. If you can open a USD bank account in Canada, that might make things easier.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ff8c228fa00407ba410e26d425901054", "text": "\"For the purposes of report generation, I would recommend that you present the data in the currency of the user's home country. You could present another indicator, if needed, to indicate that a specific transaction was denominated in a foreign currency, where the amount represents the value of the foreign-denominated transaction in the user's home country Currency. For example: Airfare from USA to London: $1,000.00 Taxi from airport to hotel: $100.00 (in £) In terms of your database design, I would recommend not storing the data in any one denomination or reference currency. This would require you to do many more conversions between currencies that is likely to be necessary, and will create additional complexity where in some cases, you will need to do multiple conversions per transaction in and out of your reference currency. I think it will be easier for you to store multiple currencies as themselves, and not in a separate reference currency. I would recommend storing several pieces of information separately for each transaction: This way, you can create a calculated Amount for each transaction that is not in the user's \"\"home\"\" currency, whereas you would need to calculate this for all transactions if you used a universal reference currency. You could also get data from an external source if the user has forgotten the conversion rate. Remember that there are always fees and variations in the exchange rate that a user will get for their home country's currency, even if they change money at the same place at two different times on the same day. As a result, I would recommend building in a simple form that allows a user to enter how much they exchanged and how much they got back to calculate the exchange rate. So for example, let's say I have $ 200.00 USD and I exchanged $ 100.00 USD for £ 60.00, and there was a £ 3.00 fee for the exchange. The exchange rate would be 0.6, and when the user enters a currency conversion, your site could create three separate transactions such as: USD Converted to £: $100.00 £ Received from Exchange: £ 60.00 Exchange Fee: £ 3.00 So if the user exchanged currency and then ran a balance report by Currency, you could either show them that they now have $ 100.00 USD and £ 57.00, or you could alternatively choose to show the £ 57.00 that they have as $95.00 USD instead. If you were showing them a transaction report, you could also show the fee denominated in dollars as well. I would recommend storing your balances and transactions in their own currencies, as you will run into some very interesting problems otherwise. For example, let's say you used a reference currency tied to the dollar. So one day I exchange $ 100.00 USD for £ 60.00. In this system I would still have 100 of my reference currency. However, if the next day, the exchange rate falls and $ 1.00 USD is only worth £ 0.55, and I change my £ 60.00 back into USD, I will get approxiamately $ 109.09 USD back for my £ 60.00. If I then go and buy something for $ 100.00 USD, the balance of the reference currency would be at 0, but I will still have $ 9.09 USD in my pocket as a result of the fluctuating currency values! That is why I'd recommend storing currencies as themselves, and only showing them in another currency for convenience using calculations done \"\"on the fly\"\" at report runtime. Best of luck with your site!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b528f2b68ccc47dd8e86323231c148b1", "text": "\"No. This is too much for most individuals, even some small to medium businesses. When you sell that investment, and take the cheque into the foreign bank and wire it back to the USA in US dollars, you will definitely obtain the final value of the investment, converted to US$. Thats what you wanted, right? You'll get that. If you also hedge, unless you have a situation where it is a perfect hedge, then you are gambling on what the currencies will do. A perfect hedge is unusual for what most individuals are involved in. It looks something like this: you know ForeignCorp is going to pay you 10 million quatloos on Dec 31. So you go to a bank (probably a foreign bank, I've found they have lower limits for this kind of transaction and more customizable than what you might create trading futures contracts), and tell them, \"\"I have this contract for a 10 million quatloo receivable on Dec 31, I'd like to arrange a FX forward contract and lock in a rate for this in US$/quatloo.\"\" They may have a credit check or a deposit for such an arrangement, because as the rates change either the bank will owe you money or you will owe the bank money. If they quote you 0.05 US$/quatloo, then you know that when you hand the cheque over to the bank your contract payment will be worth US$500,000. The forward rate may differ from the current rate, thats how the bank accounts for risk and includes a profit. Even with a perfect hedge, you should be able to see the potential for trouble. If the bank doesnt quite trust you, and hey, banks arent known for trust, then as the quatloo strengthens relative to the US$, they may suspect that you will walk away from the deal. This risk can be reduced by including terms in the contract requiring you to pay the bank some quatloos as that happens. If the quatloo falls you would get this money credited back to your account. This is also how futures contracts work; there it is called \"\"mark to market accounting\"\". Trouble lurks here. Some people, seeing how they are down money on the hedge, cancel it. It is a classic mistake because it undoes the protection that one was trying to achieve. Often the rate will move back, and the hedger is left with less money than they would have had doing nothing, even though they bought a perfect hedge.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5deea8142a0d002a0eb0baa2cd6e99e", "text": "\"Can someone please clarify if Norbert's gambit is the optimal procedure to exchange CAD to USD? I'm not sure I'd call an arbitrage trade the \"\"optimal procedure,\"\" because as you point out you're introducing yet another point of risk in to the transaction. I think buying the foreign currency for an agreed upon price is the \"\"optimal procedure.\"\" If you must use this arbitrage trade, try with a government bond fund; they're typically very stable.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3d454d4eac15d202c95e8a03bd20526", "text": "I use GNUCash. It's a bit more like Quickbooks than plain Quicken, but it's not all that complicated. Probably the most difficult part is understanding the idea of income accounts. Benefits: For short term planning, I use scheduled transactions. If I'm spending more than I have, it'll show up here. Every paycheck and dollar spent or invested is recorded with the exact date I anticipate it will happen, 30 days in advance. If that would overdraw my checking account, the Future Minimum Balance field will go negative and red. This lets me move float to higher interest savings and retirement funds, and avoids overdraft fees or other mishaps. By looking 30 days ahead in detail, I have enough time to transfer from illiquid assets. For longer term planning, I keep a spreadsheet around that plans out annual expenses. If I'm spending more than I earn, it shows up here. I estimate everything: expenses, savings, taxes, and income. I need this because I have a lot of expenses that are far less frequent than monthly or paycheck-ly. The beauty of it is that once I've got it in place, I can duplicate the sheet and consider tweaks for say taking a new job or moving, or even just changing an insurance plan (probably less relevant for those with access to NHS). Especially when moving to take a new job, it's not as straightforward as comparing salaries, and thus having a document for the status quo to start from lets you focus on the parts that changed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a3ace553b8d5770299f9fc3f60b1b86", "text": "I've done this for many years, and my method has always been to get a bank draft from my Canadian bank and mail it to my UK bank. The bank draft costs $7.50 flat fee and the mail a couple of dollars more. That's obviously quite a lot to pay on $100, so I do this only every six months or so and make the regular payments out of my UK account. It ends up being only a couple of percent in transaction costs, and the exchange rate is the bank rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f60f3491884525065cfe44ca428df27", "text": "Gnucash uses aqbanking, so I'd suggest looking at aqbanking to see if it will do what you want. It seems to be actively developed (as of 26.2.2011), but the main page is in German and my German is a bit rusty... You might also try asking on the gnucash-users list.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26e287a091fd702c5e5f6a22d8b26381", "text": "If you want to convert more than a few thousand dollars, one somewhat complex method is to have two investment accounts at a discount broker that operations both in Canada and the USA, then buy securities for USD on a US exchange, have your broker move them to the Canadian account, then sell them on a Canadian exchange for CAD. This will, of course, incur trading fees, but they should be lower than most currency conversion fees if you convert more than a few thousand dollars, because trading fees typically have a very small percentage component. Using a currency ETF as the security to buy/sell can eliminate the market risk. In any case, it may take up to a week for the trades and transfer to settle.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c7310340478610eea3f1d4b154baaf6", "text": "\"As far as I can tell there are no \"\"out-of-the-box\"\" solutions for this. Nor will Moneydance or GnuCash give you the full solution you are looking for. I imaging people don't write a well-known, open-source, tool that will do this for fear of the negative uses it could have, and the resulting liability. You can roll-you-own using the following obscure tools that approximate a solution: First download the bank's CSV information: http://baruch.ev-en.org/proj/gnucash.html That guy did it with a perl script that you can modify. Then convert the result to OFX for use elsewhere: http://allmybrain.com/2009/02/04/converting-financial-csv-data-to-ofx-or-qif-import-files/\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d8c1723f1b155e7439734062c08ee699
Does a withdrawal of $10000 for 1st home purchase count against Roth IRA basis?
[ { "docid": "b2bfd47e5e81767311c713b999d2abf6", "text": "TL;DR: No, it doesn't count against the Roth IRA basis. You can find out by looking at Form 8606 Part III, which is the part for distributions from Roth IRA. Line 19 is the sum of nonqualified distributions, plus qualified first-time homebuyer distributions. You would put $10000 here. Then you would subtract $10000 on line 20 (qualified first-time homebuyer expenses) to get $0 on line 21. You enter your basis on line 22, but since line 21 was 0, you stop. You do not subtract anything from your basis. If you take out more than $10000, then it's only the part over $10000 that is subtracted from your basis.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5cb548007cdf1ced9930b18fbcd83594", "text": "From Schwab With a Roth, withdrawals of contributions are always tax-free because you've already paid income taxes on that money. So are withdrawals of earnings of up to $10,000 under the homebuyer exemption, assuming you've had the Roth for five-plus years. But if you withdraw more than $10,000 in earnings, that money will be subject to both ordinary income taxes and the 10 percent penalty.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "7d0e8d53edf2e9f986a2ccfd2d7a06d9", "text": "\"Do you think that you had previously been over-saving for retirement? If so, then the first time home buyers exemption might be a good opportunity for you to reverse that error. On the other hand, if you think you have been saving the right amount, or too little, for retirement, then why would you undo that savings? \"\"Because I can, under existing tax law\"\" seems like an inadequate answer. Remember that if you are anticipate to be maxing out your tax advantaged accounts in the near future, then such a distribution is a permanent loss of opportunity. You can't get the money back in. Are you thinking more clearly now, or were you thinking more clearly back when you decided to contribute to an IRA rather than build up a down-payment fund in the first place?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0810b4d6bcf568804606b0a2e51e9c07", "text": "\"Because it is a Roth IRA (not traditional), you never pay penalties for withdrawing any amount up to your total contributions amount. This is because you are funding it with after tax money. But it sounds like your Roth had $11K in it and you zeroed it out? If you were less than 59.5 years old at the time you made the withdrawal, then if you did not return anything to the account, then you would pay tax on the 6K as income this year at your normal tax rate, plus an additional 10% penalty on that 6K ($600). The 5K in contributions is not taxable. Now, since it's been more than 60 days since you withdrew the money, you cannot put the 6K in earnings back in without paying the penalty, however, you can still contribute $5500 per year (or $6500 if you're over 50). So, you can put back $5500 and then you would only have to pay tax + 10% on the $500 difference. Update: I would recommend talking to an accountant. The fact that you intended to buy a house might provide a mechanism for getting the money back in if you wish. If this was your first house or you have not owned a home in the last 2 years, then you would be considered a \"\"first-time homebuyer\"\" and there is a special exception allowing you to remove 10K without penalty. If you end up not purchasing the home, you have 120 days to contribute those funds back in (treated as a rollover- thank you littleadv for the link to this). As for the final 1K overage, I believe you can count that towards your $5500/yr contribution when you put the entire amount back. Lastly, after digging into this, you have hit so many edge cases with your scenario (6K in earnings being between 5500 for under 50 and 6500 for over 50, it's been 70 days which is between the 60 day normal cutoff and the 120 day extended cutoff for home purchase falling through, and 11K total being just over the 10K cutoff for the same), that I'm starting to wonder if this is some sort of contrived case for an accounting exam!?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45a13e53bb0e27f1882735c04abdfa80", "text": "There are a couple reasons for having a Traditional or Roth IRA in addition to a 401(k) program in general, starting with the Traditional IRA: With regards to the Roth IRA: Also, both the Traditional and Roth IRA allow you to make a $10,000 withdraw as a first time home buyer for the purposes of buying a home. This is much more difficult with the 401(k) and generally you end up having to take a loan against the 401(k) instead. So even if you can't take advantage of the tax deductions from contributions to a Traditional IRA, there are still good reasons to have one around. Unless you plan on staying with the same company for your entire career (and even if you do, they may have other plans) the Traditional IRA tends to be a much better place to park the funds from the 401(k) than just rolling them over to a new employer. Also, don't forget that just because you can't take deductions for the income doesn't mean that you might not need the income that savings now will bring you in retirement. If you use a retirement savings calculator is it saying that you need to be saving more than your current monthly 401(k) contributions? Then odds are pretty good that you also need to be adding additional savings and an IRA is a good location to put those assets because of the other benefits that they confer. Also, some people don't have the fiscal discipline to not use the money when it isn't hard to get to (i.e. regular savings or investment account) and as such it also helps to ensure you aren't going to go and spend the money unless you really need it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4c0d2d16b3592e2800408a3cb76c312", "text": "\"Yes, you can withdraw the excess contribution (or actually any amount you contributed for 2015, not necessarily an excess), plus earnings from that withdrawn contribution, by April 15, and not incur a penalty for the excess contribution. It would count as if you did not contribute that amount at all. The earnings would be taxed as regular income, and the earnings may incur a penalty. Yes, you can \"\"recharacterize\"\" (all or part of) your Roth IRA contribution as a Traditional IRA contribution (or vice versa) by April 15. Recharacterization means you pretend the contribution was originally made as a Traditional IRA contribution, and did not involve Roth IRA at all. (\"\"Conversion\"\" is something very different and can only go from Traditional to Roth, not the other way around.) You are likely not eligible to deduct that Traditional IRA contribution, so you will have to report it as a non-deductible Traditional IRA contribution on a 2015 Form 8606 Part 1. Note that after you've recharacterized it as a Traditional IRA contribution, you can also then \"\"convert\"\" that Traditional IRA money to a Roth IRA if you want, achieving the same state as what you have now. Contributing to a Traditional IRA and then converting to a Roth IRA is called a \"\"backdoor Roth IRA contribution\"\"; if you don't have any existing pre-tax money in Traditional IRA or other IRAs, then this achieves the same as a regular Roth IRA contribution except with no income limits. When you convert, the earnings you have made since contributing will be taxed as income. If you had done the backdoor originally to begin with (convert right after contributing), you would have had no earnings in between and no tax to pay, but since if you do the conversion now you have waited so long, you are disadvantaged by having to pay tax on the earnings in between. If you convert, you will have to fill out Form 8606 Part 2 for the year you convert (2016).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eaa45b2deee8a6a82046b0c53b99e1fa", "text": "If the IRA is costing you $100 a year, you should almost certainly transfer it to a cheaper provider, regardless of whether you're going to withdraw anything. You can transfer the IRA to another provider that doesn't charge you the fees. Or you can convert it to Roth and combine it with your existing Roth. Either way, you will keep all the money, and save $100 per year in the future. If you want to take money out of your retirement accounts, you should take it out of your Roth IRA, because you can withdraw contributions (i.e., up to the amount you contributed) from the Roth without tax or penalty. Whether you should withdraw anything from your retirement accounts is a different question. If you're already maxing out your Roth IRA, and you have sufficient retirement savings, you could just instead plow that $5500 into your student loans. (If you can afford it, of course, it'd be better to just pay the $7500 from your income and still contribute to the retirement accounts.) There's no reason to withdraw from retirement accounts to pay loans when you could just divert current income for that purpose instead.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "401c061194dac9da8592747cd33c6a11", "text": "With a Roth IRA, you can withdraw the contributions at any time without penalty as long as you don't withdraw the earnings/interest. There are some circumstances where you can withdraw the earnings such as disability (and maybe first home). Also, the Roth IRA doesn't need to go through your employer and I wouldn't do it through your employer. I have mine setup through Fidelity though I'm not sure if they have any guaranteed 3% return unless it was a CD. All of mine is in stocks. Your wife could also setup a Roth IRA so over 2 years, you could contribute $20,000. If I was you, I would just max out any 403-b matches (which you surely are at 25% of gross income) and then save my down payment money in a normal money market/savings account. You are doing good contributing almost 25% to the 403-b. There are also some income limitations on Roth IRAs. I believe for a married couple, it is $160k.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8521b813447d2a21cb90b3f05d77a8fc", "text": "Lets do the math (assuming a lot of stuff, like your interest rates and that you make the contribution at the beginning of the year, also your tax bracket at the withdrawal time frame.) 1.) Beginning of year 1 Roth Option $5k contribution Non Roth Option $5k contribution 2.) Beginning of year 2 Roth Option $5000 + $150 interest + 5K contribution = $10150 Non Roth Option $5000 + $75 interest + 5K contribution = $10075 3.) End of year 2 Buy a house! yay! Roth Option---before withdrawal account value = 10150+10150*.03=10454.5 after withdrawl (assuming 38% tax on earnings withdrawal (10%penalty + 28% income tax estimate.) = 10327.17 Non Roth Option = 10 226.125 So you are talking about a significant amount of paperwork to either 1.) Net yourself $100 toward the purchase 2.) Cost yourself $226 on the purchase but have $454.50 in your roth ira. I am not sure I would do that, but it might be worth it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a087862ebd93bef3b6d75993e9ced7e4", "text": "As far as I know, there is no direct equivalent. An IRA is subject to many rules. Not only are there early withdrawal penalties, but the ability to deduct contributions to an IRA phases out with one's income level. Qualified withdrawals from an IRA won't have penalties, but they will be taxed as income. Contributions to a Roth IRA can be made post-tax and the resulting gains will be tax free, but they cannot be withdrawn early. Another tax-deductable investment is a 529 plan. These can be withdrawn from at any time, but there is a penalty if the money is not used for educational purposes. A 401K or similar employer-sponsored fund is made with pre-tax dollars unless it is designated as a Roth 401K. These plans also require money to be withdrawn specifically for retirement, with a 10% penalty for early withdrawal. Qualifying withdrawals from a regular retirement plan are taxed as income, those from a Roth plan are not (as with an IRA). Money can be made harder to get at by investing in all of the types of funds you can invest in using an IRA through the same brokers under a different type of account, but the contribution will be made with post-tax, non-deductable dollars and the gains will be taxed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83fdc1fa29163c6c4849e93eddfc17a2", "text": "Does the 5 year rule apply on the After-tax 401k -> Roth 401k -> Roth IRA conversion of the 20000 (including 10000 earnings that was originally pre-tax)? No. The after-tax amounts are not subject to the 5 years rule. The earnings are. How does this affect Roth IRA withdrawal ordering rules with respect to the taxable portion of a single conversion being withdrawn before the non-taxable portion? Taxable portion first until exhausted. To better understand how it works, you need to understand the rationale behind the 5-year rule. Consider you have $100K in your IRA (traditional) and you want to take it out. Just withdrawing it would trigger a 10K statutory penalty, on top of the taxes due. But, you can use the backdoor Roth IRA, right? So convert the 100K, and then it becomes after-tax contribution to Roth IRA, and can be withdrawn with no penalty. One form filled ad 10K saved. To block this loophole, here comes the 5 years rule: you cannot withdraw after-tax amounts for at least 5 years without penalty, if the source was taxable conversion. Thus, in order to avoid the 10K penalty in the above situation, you have a 5-year cooling period, which makes the loophole useless for most cases. However amounts that are after tax can be withdrawn without penalty already, even from the traditional IRA, so there's no need in the 5 years cooling period. The withdrawal attribution is in this order: Roth IRA rollovers are sourced to the origin. E.g.: if you converted $100 to the Roth IRA at firm X and then a year later rolled it over to firm Y - it doesn't affect anything and the clock is ticking from the original date of the conversion at firm X. 5-year period applies to each conversion/rollover from a qualified retirement plan (see here). Distributions are applied to the conversions in FIFO order, so in one distribution, depending on the amounts, you may hit several different incoming conversions. The 5 years should be check on each of them, and the penalty applied on the amounts attributable to those that don't have enough time. 5-year period for contributions applies starting from the beginning of the first year of the first contribution that established your Roth IRA plan. The penalty applies to the amounts that were included in your gross income when conversion occurred, i.e.: doesn't apply on the amounts converted from after-tax sources. Note the difference from the traditional IRA - distributions from pre-tax sources are prorated between the non-deductible (basis) amounts and the deductible/earnings amounts (taxable). That is why the taxable amounts are first in the ordering of the distributions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4b45818eefda5e3896fd0844e788727", "text": "Take some of the commentary on home buying forums with a grain of salt. I too have read some of the commentary on these forums such as myFICO, Trulia, or Zillow and rarely is the right advice given or proper followup done. Typical 401k withdrawals for home purchase would not be considered a hardship. However, most employer 401k plans will allow you to take a loan for 401k as long as you provide suitable documentation: HUD-1 statement, Real Estate Contract, Good Faith Estimate, or some other form of suitable documentation as described by the plan administrator. For instance, I just took a 401k loan to pay for closing costs and I had to provide only the real estate contract. Could I not follow through with the contract? Sure, but what if I am found out for fraud? Then the plan administrator would probably end up turning the distribution into a taxable distribution. I wouldn't go to jail in this hypothetical situation - I am only stealing from myself. But the law states that certain loan situations are not liable for tax as long as that situation still exists. In the home loan situation, my employer allows for a low interest, 10 year loan. My employer also allows for a pre-approved loan for any purpose. This would be a low interest, 5 year loan. There is also the option to not do a loan at all. But normally that is only allowed after you have exhausted all your loan options and the government makes it intentionally harsh (30% penalty at least) to discourage people from dumping their tax free haven 401k accounts. That all being said, many plans offer no prepayment penalty. So like my employer has for us, I can pay it all back in full whenever I want or make micropayments every month. Otherwise, it comes out of my pay stub biweekly. So if it were to fall through, I could just put it all back like it never happened. Though with my plan, there is a cooling off period of 7 days before I can take another loan. Keep in mind that if you leave your employer then the full amount becomes a taxable distribution unless you pay it back within a certain period of time after leaving the employer. Whether this fits your financial situation is up to you, but a loan is definitely preferred over a partial or full withdrawal since you are paying yourself back for your rightly earned retirement which is just as important.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe7d85584eb8be5e581108158378f96d", "text": "If it is your primary residence and you lived there continuously and for more than 2 years out of the last 5 - then you can exclude the gain under the IRC Sec. 121. In this case, you'll pay no taxes on your gain. If the property has been a rental or you haven't lived there long enough, the rules become more complicated but you may still be able to exclude some portion of the gain, even all of it, depends on the situation. So it doesn't look like 1031 exchange is good for you here, you don't want to carry excluded gain - you want to recognize it and get the tax benefit. However, refinancing after purchase with cash-out money affects the deductability of the loan interest. You can only deduct interest on money used to buy, not cash-out portion. I believe there's a period (60 days IIRC) during which you can do the cash-out refinance and still count it as purchase money, but check with a licensed tax advier (EA/CPA licensed in your State).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57d42b1bd6ae8d4e07c2ce05b6e3b1f1", "text": "One thing to keep in mind is that with Roth accounts, there are different withdrawal considerations based on your contributions. For example, you can withdraw Roth IRA contributions whenever you want in the future. However this really has nothing to do with your cost basis and purely to do with the contribution amount vs balance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7441df191bf69f3085c0437b6b3a0e1", "text": "In a year with no income, the best advice is to convert existing IRA money to Roth. This lets you take advantage of the 'zero' bracket, the combination of your exemption and standard deduction. This adds to $10,300 for a single person. Other than that, if you are determined to take the money out, just do it. There would be a 10% penalty of the growth, but the original deposit comes out tax free anyway. Edit - There's a rule that if you sell your entire Roth account (i.e. all Roth accounts, you can't pick one of a few) and have a loss, you can take that loss. (Per Dilip's comment, this strategy is pretty moot, it's not a loss taken against other income as a stock loss would potentially be))", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a03334002934853b3c52dd87d276af9f", "text": "\"In a Roth IRA scenario, this $5,000 would be reduced to $3,750 if we assume a (nice and round) 25% tax rate. For the Traditional IRA, the full $5,000 would be invested. No, that's not how it works. Taxes aren't removed from your Roth account. You'll have $5,000 invested either way. The difference is that you'll have a tax deduction if you invest in a traditional IRA, but not a Roth. So you'll \"\"save\"\" $1,250 in taxes up front if you invest in a traditional IRA versus a Roth. The flip side is when you withdraw the money. Since you've already paid tax on the Roth investment, and it grows tax free, you'll pay no tax when you withdraw it. But you'll pay tax on the investment and the gains when you withdraw from a traditional IRA. Using your numbers, you'd pay tax on $2.2MM from the traditional IRA, but NO TAX on $2.2MM from the Roth. At that point, you've saved over $500,000 in taxes. Now if you invested the tax savings from the traditional IRA and it earned the same amount, then yes, you'd end up in the same place in the end, provided you have the same marginal tax rate. But I suspect that most don't invest that savings, and if you withdraw significant amount, you'll likely move into higher tax brackets. In your example, suppose you only had $3,750 of \"\"discretionary\"\" income that you could put toward retirement. You could put $5,000 in a traditional IRA (since you'll get a $1,250 tax deduction), or $3,750 in a Roth. Then your math works out the same. If you invest the same amount in either, though, the math on the Roth is a no-brainer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d16f98c97eefb83c854f00d4257ee0b", "text": "\"I'd be curious to understand where you live, with a condo costing nearly 3X the average home price in the US. That said, if you are hell bent on this, money is loosening up. I am a real estate agent, and part of my distaste for the industry is the fact that it is the near opposite of financial fiduciary. I am responsible to be truthful and act in the best interest of my client. I am specifically not allowed to offer tax or financial advice. A client that told me she had a prequalification, only later shared that she's using a 3% down, FHA mortgage, and from what I see, getting in over her head. In your case, look at the requirements for an FHA loan. I recommend 20% down, and the payment be less than 28% (Principal, interest, property tax) of monthly gross. The FHA allows as little as 3% down, with payment as high as 31%. In your case, $15K is 3%, and, depending on the other expenses for the house, the payment should be manageable. If your 401(k) accounts offer matching, I'd deposit the amount to capture the match, no more, no less. Let me illustrate the power of matching - say the match is on your first $10,000 total, between the 2 of you. $10,000 deposited, is $20,000 in your retirement account, and you are just out of pocket $7500, as that's your net after tax. Now, the $20K in the account allows you to borrow half, $10,000 at a favorable rate for a 10 year payback. So, to your question of raiding your retirement accounts, I'd advise the opposite. A $10K withdrawal will cost $2500 in tax and $1000 penalty. Net $6500. Better to take the IRA, transfer it to the 401(k), and borrow 50%. Your $40K across the accounts will let you borrow $20K and keep the retirement savings going. Last - I respect the answers that say \"\"don't,\"\" they are actually the right answers. Mine only applies if you won't listen to them. In effect, you've asked where to buy rope, and I'm just letting you know where the store is. It's the banks who are happy to sell you the rope to hang yourself.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
62bd4abe58d6236e780d0c81b5eebbf3
Buy the open and set a 1% limit sell order
[ { "docid": "02de8f9825832eacaa6ba82514b7b636", "text": "Nothing is wrong and it should be profitable - but it sounds too good to be true. The devil is in the details and you have not described how you found those stocks. For example, you may have scanned the 500 stocks in the S&P 500, and you may have found a few that exhibit that pattern over a given time window. But it doesn't mean that they will continue to do so. In other words they may just be random outliers. This is generically called overfitting. A more robust test would be to use a period, say 2000-2005 to find those stocks and check over a future period, say 2006-2014 if the strategy you describe is profitable. My guess is that it won't.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18011a7812d021e72c1240252aaacfa4", "text": "One should also point out that you make a major assumption in that the high of the day doesn't occur on a gap up in morning trading. It's unlikely that you'd fill at a reasonable price, thereby throwing your strategy into disarray.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "91905e7dd0db565ab6290e0982aafa35", "text": "I assume you're talking about a sell order, not a buy order. When you place a limit sell order, your order is guaranteed to be placed at that price or higher. If the market is currently trading much higher than the price of your sell order, then your mistakenly low limit order will be essentially a market order, and will be filled at the current bid price. So the only way this is a problem is if you want to place a limit sell that is much higher than the current market, but mistakenly place a limit lower than the current market.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d75ded6258a5b4aa5a7f8490256dc8a", "text": "You need to use one of each, so a single order wouldn't cover this: The stop-loss order could be placed to handle triggering a sell market order if the stock trades at $95 or lower. If you want, you could use a stop-limit order if you have an exit price in mind should the stock price drop to $95 though that requires setting a price for the stop to execute and then another price for the sell order to execute. The limit sell order could be placed to handle triggering a sell if the stock rises above $105. On the bright side, once either is done the other could be canceled as it isn't applicable anymore.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1d1d1731885d263af747739da2f2a3b", "text": "The strategy could conceivably work if you had sufficient quantity of shares to fill all of the outstanding buy orders and fill your lower buy orders. But in this case you are forcing the market down by selling and reinforcing the notion that there is a sell off by filling ever lower buy orders. There is the potential to trigger some stop loss orders if you can pressure it low enough. There is a lot of risk here that someone sees what you are doing and decides to jump in and buy forcing the price back up. Could this work sure. But it is very risky and if you fail to create the panic selling then you risk losing big. I also suspect that this would violate SEC Rules and several laws. And if the price drops too far then trading on the stock would be halted and is likely to return at the appropriate price. Bottom line I can not see a scenario where you do not trigger the stop, net a profit and end up with as many or more stock that you had in the first place.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9af0557f84f79e21e7f87405211ea996", "text": "\"There are two distinct questions that may be of interest to you. Both questions are relevant for funds that need to buy or sell large orders that you are talking about. The answer depends on your order type and the current market state such as the level 2 order book. Suppose there are no iceberg or hidden orders and the order book (image courtesy of this question) currently is: An unlimited (\"\"at market\"\") buy order for 12,000 shares gets filled immediately: it gets 1,100 shares at 180.03 (1,[email protected]), 9,700 at 180.04 and 1,200 at 180.05. After this order, the lowest ask price becomes 180.05 and the highest bid is obviously still 180.02 (because the previous order was a 'market order'). A limited buy order for 12,000 shares with a price limit of 180.04 gets the first two fills just like the market order: 1,100 shares at 180.03 and 9,700 at 180.04. However, the remainder of the order will establish a new bid price level for 1,200 shares at 180.04. It is possible to enter an unlimited buy order that exhausts the book. However, such a trade would often be considered a mis-trade and either (i) be cancelled by the broker, (ii) be cancelled or undone by the exchange, or (iii) hit the maximum price move a stock is allowed per day (\"\"limit up\"\"). Funds and banks often have to buy or sell large quantities, just like you have described. However they usually do not punch through order book levels as I described before. Instead they would spread out the order over time and buy a smaller quantity several times throughout the day. Simple algorithms attempt to get a price close to the time-weighted average price (TWAP) or volume-weighted average price (VWAP) and would buy a smaller amount every N minutes. Despite splitting the order into smaller pieces the price usually moves against the trader for many reasons. There are many models to estimate the market impact of an order before executing it and many brokers have their own model, for example Deutsche Bank. There is considerable research on \"\"market impact\"\" if you are interested. I understand the general principal that when significant buy orders comes in relative to the sell orders price goes up and when a significant sell order comes in relative to buy orders it goes down. I consider this statement wrong or at least misleading. First, stocks can jump in price without or with very little volume. Consider a company that releases a negative earnings surprise over night. On the next day the stock may open 20% lower without any orders having matched for any price in between. The price moved because the perception of the stocks value changed, not because of buy or sell pressure. Second, buy and sell pressure have an effect on the price because of the underlying reason, and not necessarily/only because of the mechanics of the market. Assume you were prepared to sell HyperNanoTech stock, but suddenly there's a lot of buzz and your colleagues are talking about buying it. Would you still sell it for the same price? I wouldn't. I would try to find out how much they are prepared to buy it for. In other words, buy pressure can be the consequence of successful marketing of the stock and the marketing buzz is what changes the price.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16d2dbc7eed8d201c0d4dcbccae79fcd", "text": "\"Limited Price is probably equivalent to the current par value of a \"\"limit order\"\". Markets move fast, and if the commodity is seeing some volatility in the buy and sell prices, if you place an ordinary buy order you may not get the price you were quoted. A \"\"limit order\"\" tells your broker or whomever or whatever is making the order on your behalf that you will pay no more than X yuan. While the market is below that price, the trader will attempt to get you the quantity you want, but if they can't get you your full order for an average price less than the limit, the whole thing is rolled back. You can set a limit at any price, but a limit order of 1 yuan for a pound of sterling silver will likely never be executed as long as the market itself is functioning. So, you are being provided with a \"\"par value\"\" that they can guarantee will be executed in the current market. Entrustment prices are probably prices offered to the managers of trust funds. A trust is simply a set of securities and/or cash which is placed under the nominal control of a third party, who then must in good faith attempt to fulfill the goals of the actual owner of the securities with regards to growth or retention of value. Trustees almost never speculate with the money they control, but when they do move money it's often a sizeble chunk (hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars instead of a few thousand dollars here and there). So, in return for the long-term holdings, large buys and sells, and thus the reduced cost of maintaining a business relationship with the broker, the broker may offer better prices to trust fund managers.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9ff81339f4419ca37158c942331a99e", "text": "\"A market sell order will be filled at the highest current \"\"bid\"\" price. For a reasonably liquid stock, there will be several buy orders in line, and the highest bid must be filled first, so there should a very short time between when you place the order and when it is filled. What could happen is what's called front running. That's when the broker places their own order in front of yours to fulfill the current bid, selling their own stock at the slightly higher price, causing your sale to be filled at a lower price. This is not only unethical but illegal as well. It is not something you should be concerned about with a large broker. You should only place a market order when you don't care about minute differences between the current ask and your execution price, but want to guarantee order execution. If you absolutely have to sell at a minimum price, then a limit order is more appropriate, but you run the risk that your limit will not be reached and your order will not be filled. So the risk is a tradeoff between a guaranteed price and a guaranteed execution.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "87a5f0d18bc2cb7e78e815104cdd5230", "text": "TD will only sell the stock for you if there's a buyer. There was a buyer, for at least one transaction of at least one stock at 96.66. But who said there were more? Obviously, the stocks later fell, i.e.: there were not that many buyers as there were sellers. What I'm saying is that once the stock passed/reached the limit, the order becomes an active order. But it doesn't become the only active order. It is added to the list, and to the bottom of that list. Obviously, in this case, there were not enough buyers to go through the whole list and get to your order, and since it was a limit order - it would only execute with the limit price you put. Once the price went down you got out of luck. That said, there could of course be a possibility of a system failure. But given the story of the market behavior - it just looks like you miscalculated and lost on a bet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d9e3010cb8d68c726cd0e7bdf9deeaa", "text": "If you want to buy once the price goes up to $101 or above you can place a conditional order to be triggered at $101 or above and for a limit order to entered to buy at $102. This will mean that as soon as the price reaches $101 or above, your limit order will enter the market and you will buy at any price from $102 or below. So if the price just trickles over $101 you will end up buying at around $101 or just over $101. However, if the price gaps above $101, say it gaps up to $101.50, then you will end up buying at around $101.50. If the price gaps up above $102, say $102.50, then your limit order at $102 will hit the market but it will not trade until the price drops back to $102 or below.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5db2500544c713428b4b849702c8e351", "text": "In order to see whether you can buy or sell some given quantity of a stock at the current bid price, you need a counterparty (a buyer) who is willing to buy the number of stocks you are wishing to offload. To see whether such a counterparty exists, you can look at the stock's order book, or level two feed. The order book shows all the people who have placed buy or sell orders, the price they are willing to pay, and the quantity they demand at that price. Here is the order book from earlier this morning for the British pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Let's start by looking at the left-hand blue part of the book, beneath the yellow strip. This is called the Buy side. The book is sorted with the highest price at the top, because this is the best price that a seller can presently obtain. If several buyers bid at the same price, then the oldest entry on the book takes precedence. You can see we have five buyers each willing to pay 1543.0 p (that's 1543 British pence, or £15.43) per share. Therefore the current bid price for this instrument is 1543.0. The first buyer wants 175 shares, the next, 300, and so on. The total volume that is demanded at 1543.0p is 2435 shares. This information is summarized on the yellow strip: 5 buyers, total volume of 2435, at 1543.0. These are all buyers who want to buy right now and the exchange will make the trade happen immediately if you put in a sell order for 1543.0 p or less. If you want to sell 2435 shares or fewer, you are good to go. The important thing to note is that once you sell these bidders a total of 2435 shares, then their orders are fulfilled and they will be removed from the order book. At this point, the next bidder is promoted up the book; but his price is 1542.5, 0.5 p lower than before. Absent any further changes to the order book, the bid price will decrease to 1542.5 p. This makes sense because you are selling a lot of shares so you'd expect the market price to be depressed. This information will be disseminated to the level one feed and the level one graph of the stock price will be updated. Thus if you have more than 2435 shares to sell, you cannot expect to execute your order at the bid price in one go. Of course, the more shares you are trying to get rid of, the further down the buy side you will have to go. In reality for a highly liquid stock as this, the order book receives many amendments per second and it is unlikely that your trade would make much difference. On the right hand side of the display you can see the recent trades: these are the times the trades were done (or notified to the exchange), the price of the trade, the volume and the trade type (AT means automatic trade). GlaxoSmithKline is a highly liquid stock with many willing buyers and sellers. But some stocks are less liquid. In order to enable traders to find a counterparty at short notice, exchanges often require less liquid stocks to have market makers. A market maker places buy and sell orders simultaneously, with a spread between the two prices so that they can profit from each transaction. For instance Diurnal Group PLC has had no trades today and no quotes. It has a more complicated order book, enabling both ordinary buyers and sellers to list if they wish, but market makers are separated out at the top. Here you can see that three market makers are providing liquidity on this stock, Peel Hunt (PEEL), Numis (NUMS) and Winterflood (WINS). They have a very unpalatable spread of over 5% between their bid and offer prices. Further in each case the sum total that they are willing to trade is 3000 shares. If you have more than three thousand Dirunal Group shares to sell, you would have to wait for the market makers to come back with a new quote after you'd sold the first 3000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "54de8f950e5eb26faf4845ac8f2c2bc7", "text": "From your question, I am guessing that you are intending to have stoploss buy order. is the stoploss order is also a buy order ? As you also said, you seems to limit your losses, I am again guessing that you have short position of the stock, to which you are intending to place a buy limit order and buy stoploss order (stoploss helps when when the price tanks). And also I sense that you intend to place buy limit order at the price below the market price. is that the situation? If you place two independent orders (one limit buy and one stoploss buy). Please remember that there will be situation where two orders also get executed due to market movements. Add more details to the questions. it helps to understand the situation and others can provide a strategic solution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a2880cc32f51a709d7cc91acef8eb9e", "text": "\"Let's handle this as a \"\"proof of concept\"\" (POC); OP wants to buy 1 share of anything just to prove that they can do it before doing the months of painstaking analysis that is required before buying shares as an investment. I will also assume that the risks and costs of ownership and taxes would be included in OP's future analyses. To trade a stock you need a financed broker account and a way to place orders. Open a dealing account, NOT an options or CFD etc. account, with a broker. I chose a broker who I was confident that I could trust, others will tell you to look for brokers based on cost or other metrics. In the end you need to be happy that you can get what you want out of your broker, that is likely to include some modicum of trust since you will be keeping money with them. When you create this account they will ask for your bank account details (plus a few other details to prevent fraud, insider trading, money laundering etc.) and may also ask for a minimum deposit. Either deposit enough to cover the price of your share plus taxes and the broker's commission, plus a little extra to be on the safe side as prices move for every trade, including yours, or the minimum if it is higher. Once you have an account the broker will provide an interface through which to buy the share. This will usually either be a web interface, a phone number, or a fax number. They will also provide you with details of how their orders are structured. The simplest type of order is a \"\"market order\"\". This tells the broker that you want to buy your shares at the market price rather than specifying only to buy at a given price. After you have sent that order the broker will buy the share from the market, deduct the price plus tax and her commission from your account and credit your account with your share.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56941f61022dfec7fea49b5f306ff12e", "text": "\"You can certainly try to do this, but it's risky and very expensive. Consider a simplified example. You buy 1000 shares of ABC at $1.00 each, with the intention of selling them all when the price reaches $1.01. Rinse and repeat, right? You might think the example above will net you a tidy $10 profit. But you have to factor in trade commissions. Most brokerages are going to charge you per trade. Fidelity for example, want $4.95 per trade; that's for both the buying and the selling. So your 1000 shares actually cost you $1004.95, and then when you sell them for $1.01 each, they take their $4.95 fee again, leaving you with a measly $1.10 in profit. Meanwhile, your entire $1000 stake was at risk of never making ANY profit - you may have been unlucky enough to buy at the stock's peak price before a slow (or even fast) decline towards eventual bankruptcy. The other problem with this is that you need a stock that is both stable and volatile at the same time. You need the volatility to ensure the price keeps swinging between your buy and sell thresholds, over and over again. You need stability to ensure it doesn't move well away from those thresholds altogether. If it doesn't have this weird stable-volatility thing, then you are shooting yourself in the foot by not holding the stock for longer: why sell for $1.01 if it goes up to $1.10 ten minutes later? Why buy for $1.00 when it keeps dropping to $0.95 ten minutes later? Your strategy means you are always taking the smallest possible profit, for the same amount of risk. Another method might be to only trade each stock once, and hope that you never pick a loser. Perhaps look for something that has been steadily climbing in price, buy, make your tiny profit, then move on to the next company. However you still have the risk of buying something at it's peak price and being in for an awfully long wait before you can cash out (if ever). And if all that wasn't enough to put you off, brokerages have special rules for \"\"frequent traders\"\" that just make it all the more complicated. Not worth the hassle IMO.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62af35c4ecb114423187a3a55c8bba0d", "text": "I normally just do a buy limit at the price I want to buy it at. Then it executes when it's that price or lower, but there's still a chance you might purchase some shares at a larger price. But since we're small fry and using brokerages, there's not much we can do about it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "885c2fe86964f417fb835bfe6bb68713", "text": "How would this trade behave IRL? I don't know how the simulation handles limit orders and bid/ask spreads to know it's feasible, but buying at 4.04 when the current ask is 8.00 seems unlikely. That would mean that all other sell orders between 8.00 and 4.04 were fulfilled, which means that there were very few sellers or that sell pressure spiked, both of which seem unlikely. In reality, it seems more likely that your order would have sat there until the ask dropped to $4.04 (if it ever did), and then you'd have to wait until the bid rose to $7.89 in order to sell them at that price. However, that kind of swing in option prices in not unrealistic. Options near at-the-money tend to move in price at about 50% of the change in the underlying, so if amazon suddenly dropped by $5, the option price could drop by $2.60 (from 6.66 to $4.04), and then rise back to $7.89 if the price rose $8 (which would be 1% swing and not unheard of intra-day). But it sounds like you got very lucky (or the simulation doesn't handle option trading realistically) - I've traded options in the past and have had some breaks similar to yours. I've also had bad breaks where I lost my entire investment (the options expire out-of-the money). So it should be a very limited part of your portfolio, and probably only used for risk management (e.g. buying put options to lock in some gains but keeping some upside potential).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b04f790ab2bc20075ad02ef249001c1e", "text": "\"The two dimensions are to open the trade (creating a position) and to buy or sell (becoming long or short the option). If you already own an option, you bought it to open and then you would sell it to close. If you don't own an option, you can either buy it to open, or sell it (short it) to open. If you are already short an option, you can buy it back to close. If you sell to open covered, the point is you're creating a \"\"covered call\"\" which means you own the stock, and then sell a call. Since you own the stock, the covered call has a lot of the risk of loss removed, though it also subtracts much of the reward possible from your stock.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
b8452535ad6f3021830d02b614f21e74
US ISA equivalent for tax exempt investment & savings
[ { "docid": "a087862ebd93bef3b6d75993e9ced7e4", "text": "As far as I know, there is no direct equivalent. An IRA is subject to many rules. Not only are there early withdrawal penalties, but the ability to deduct contributions to an IRA phases out with one's income level. Qualified withdrawals from an IRA won't have penalties, but they will be taxed as income. Contributions to a Roth IRA can be made post-tax and the resulting gains will be tax free, but they cannot be withdrawn early. Another tax-deductable investment is a 529 plan. These can be withdrawn from at any time, but there is a penalty if the money is not used for educational purposes. A 401K or similar employer-sponsored fund is made with pre-tax dollars unless it is designated as a Roth 401K. These plans also require money to be withdrawn specifically for retirement, with a 10% penalty for early withdrawal. Qualifying withdrawals from a regular retirement plan are taxed as income, those from a Roth plan are not (as with an IRA). Money can be made harder to get at by investing in all of the types of funds you can invest in using an IRA through the same brokers under a different type of account, but the contribution will be made with post-tax, non-deductable dollars and the gains will be taxed.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "9c913aa51881967e18ada87b98694a77", "text": "\"It sounds like this is an entirely unsettled question, unfortunately. In the examples you provide, I think it is safe to say that none of those are 'substantially identical'; a small overlap or no overlap certainly should not be considered such by a reasonable interpretation of the rule. This article on Kitces goes into some detail on the topic. A few specifics. First, Former publication 564 explains: Ordinarily, shares issued by one mutual fund are not considered to be substantially identical to shares issued by another mutual fund. Of course, what \"\"ordinarily\"\" means is unspecified (and this is no longer a current publication, so, who knows). The Kitces article goes on to explain that the IRS hasn't really gone after wash sales for mutual funds: Over the years, the IRS has not pursued wash sale abuses against mutual funds, perhaps because it just wasn’t very feasible to crack down on them, or perhaps because it just wasn’t perceived as that big of an abuse. After all, while the rules might allow you to loss-harvest a particular stock you couldn’t have otherwise, it also limits you from harvesting ANY losses if the overall fund is up in the aggregate, since losses on individual stocks can’t pass through to the mutual fund shareholders. But then goes to explain about ETFs being very different: sell SPY, buy IVV or VTI, and you're basically buying/selling the identical thing (99% or so correlation in stocks owned). The recommendation by the article is to look at the correlation in owned stocks, and stay away from things over 95%; that seems reasonable in my book as well. Ultimately, there will no doubt be a large number of “grey” and murky situations, but I suspect that until the IRS provides better guidance (or Congress rewrites/updates the wash sale rules altogether!), in the near term the easiest “red flag” warning is simply to look at the correlation between the original investment being loss-harvested, and the replacement security; at correlations above 0.95, and especially at 0.99+, it’s difficult to argue that the securities are not ”substantially identical” to each other in performance. Basically - use common sense, and don't do anything you think would be hard to defend in an audit, but otherwise you should be okay.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ed2cb593ee57de5f9f887f837964aa8", "text": "A CDIC-insured high-interest savings bank account is both safe and liquid (i.e. you can withdraw your money at any time.) At present time, you could earn interest of ~1.35% per year, if you shop around. If you are willing to truly lock in for 2 years minimum, rates go up slightly, but perhaps not enough to warrant loss of liquidity. Look at GIC rates to get an idea. Any other investments – such as mutual funds, stocks, index funds, ETFs, etc. – are generally not consistent with your stated risk objective and time frame. Better returns are generally only possible if you accept the risk of loss of capital, or lock in for longer time periods.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8400613fe1604536e0f9484699465382", "text": "You should check this with a tax accountant or tax preparation expert, but I encountered a similar situation in Canada. Your ISA income does count as income in a foreign country, and it is not tax exempt (the tax exemption is only because the British government specifically says so). You would need to declare the income to the foreign government who would almost certainly charge you tax on it. There are a couple of reasons why you should probably keep the funds in the ISA, especially if you are looking to return. First contribution limits are per year, so if you took the money out now you would have to use future contribution room to put it back. Second almost all UK savings accounts deduct tax at source, and its frankly a pain to get it back. Leaving the money in an ISA saves you that hassle, or the equal hassle of transferring it to an offshore account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52a51f7367d454bf22824007f02cd520", "text": "The main difference is that the ISA account like a Cash ISA shelters you from TAX - you don't have to worry about Capital Gains TAX. The other account is normal taxable account. With only £500 to invest you will be paying a high % in charges so... To start out I would look at some of the Investment Trust savings schemes where you can save a small amount monthly very cost-effectively - save £50 a month for a year to see how you get on. Some Trusts to look at include Wittan, City Of London and Lowland", "title": "" }, { "docid": "21d0c3dcd64ed588f9aa8af50c2612a9", "text": "An ISA is a much simpler thing than I suspect you think it is. It is a wrapper or envelope, and the point of it is that HMRC does not care what happens inside the envelope, or even about extractions of funds from the envelope; they only care about insertions of funds into the envelope. It is these insertions that are limited to £15k in a tax year; what happens to the funds once they're inside the envelope is your own business. Some diagrams: Initial investment of £10k. This is an insertion into the envelope and so counts against your £15k/tax year limit. +---------ISA-------+ ----- £10k ---------> | +-------------------+ So now you have this: +---------ISA-------+ | £10k of cash | +-------------------+ Buy fund: +---------ISA-------+ | £10k of ABC | +-------------------+ Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-------+ | £12k of ABC | +-------------------+ Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-------+ | £12k of cash | +-------------------+ Buy another fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-----------------+ | £10k of JKL & £2k of cash | +-----------------------------+ Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-----------------+ | £11k of JKL & £2k of cash | +-----------------------------+ Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-------+ | £13k of cash | +-------------------+ Withdraw funds. This is an extraction from the envelope; HMRC don't care. +---------ISA-------+ <---- £13k --------- | +-------------------+ No capital gains liability, you don't even have to put this on your tax return (if applicable) - your £10k became £13k inside an ISA envelope, so HMRC don't care. Note however that for the rest of that tax year, the most you can insert into an ISA would now be £5k: +---------ISA-------+ ----- £5k ---------> | +-------------------+ even though the ISA is empty. This is because the limit is to the total inserted during the year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a03334002934853b3c52dd87d276af9f", "text": "\"In a Roth IRA scenario, this $5,000 would be reduced to $3,750 if we assume a (nice and round) 25% tax rate. For the Traditional IRA, the full $5,000 would be invested. No, that's not how it works. Taxes aren't removed from your Roth account. You'll have $5,000 invested either way. The difference is that you'll have a tax deduction if you invest in a traditional IRA, but not a Roth. So you'll \"\"save\"\" $1,250 in taxes up front if you invest in a traditional IRA versus a Roth. The flip side is when you withdraw the money. Since you've already paid tax on the Roth investment, and it grows tax free, you'll pay no tax when you withdraw it. But you'll pay tax on the investment and the gains when you withdraw from a traditional IRA. Using your numbers, you'd pay tax on $2.2MM from the traditional IRA, but NO TAX on $2.2MM from the Roth. At that point, you've saved over $500,000 in taxes. Now if you invested the tax savings from the traditional IRA and it earned the same amount, then yes, you'd end up in the same place in the end, provided you have the same marginal tax rate. But I suspect that most don't invest that savings, and if you withdraw significant amount, you'll likely move into higher tax brackets. In your example, suppose you only had $3,750 of \"\"discretionary\"\" income that you could put toward retirement. You could put $5,000 in a traditional IRA (since you'll get a $1,250 tax deduction), or $3,750 in a Roth. Then your math works out the same. If you invest the same amount in either, though, the math on the Roth is a no-brainer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "66786513c4ca328a928805d2de4d7409", "text": "when investing in index funds Index fund as the name suggests invests in the same proportion of the stocks that make up the index. You can choose a Index Fund that tracks NYSE or S&P etc. You cannot select individual companies. Generally these are passively managed, i.e. just follow the index composition via automated algorithms resulting in lower Fund Manager costs. is it possible to establish an offshore company Yes it is possible and most large organization or High Net-worth individuals do this. Its expensive and complicated for ordinary individuals. One needs and army of International Tax Consultants / International Lawyers / etc but do I have to pay taxes from the capital gains at the end of the year? Yes Canada taxes on world wide income and you would have to pay taxes on gains in Canada. Note depending on your tax residency status in US, you may have to pay tax in US as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92672dcaf9b5d74a175578d2a4403c40", "text": "Note that after 15 years, the tax exemption is €36800 per person, which includes both the principal you desposited and the accumulated interest. It's possible that you will have a higher balance than this in your savings account at this point and would still owe tax on the interest accumulated above the exempted amount. After 20 years, you get the full tax exemption, the lesser of your portion of the mortgage debt and €162000 per person. In direct answer to your questions: I'm not aware of any exceptions to the 15 year rule for allowing the accumulated interest to be tax free when selling your house. If your accumulated interest is low enough, you might consider just paying the tax on it as it would give you the most flexibility in choosing a new mortgage. This is why I asked about more details about your interest rate and how long the mortgage has been running. It may, however, possible to couple the savings account to a new ABN AMRO Bankspaar mortgage when you buy a new house. You should check your mortgage terms and conditions. For example, Section 23.12 in ABN AMRO's terms and conditions from 2010 describes this. See here. It is probably best, however, to speak directly with either your mortgage broker or with a mortgage adviser with ABN AMRO. If your mortgage broker still worked on commission (aflsuitprovisie) when you closed your mortgage, then they are obligated to assist you with this type of question. In order to qualify for the tax exemption, you must use the saved value to pay off debt on your primary residence (eigenwoningschuld). Decoupling the savings account entirely from a mortgage will disqualify you from the tax advantages. You will owe tax on all accumulated interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c0b89345b97cedbae31d67280424bad", "text": "Your question is actually quite broad, so will try to split it into it's key parts: Yes, standard bank ISAs pay very poor rates of interest at the moment. They are however basically risk free and should track inflation. Any investment in the 6-7% return range at the moment will be linked to stock. Stock always carries large risks (~50% swings in capital are pretty standard in the short run. In the long run it generally beats every other asset class by miles). If you can’t handle those types of short terms swings, you shouldn’t get involved. If you do want to invest in stock, there is a hefty ignorance tax waiting at every corner in terms of how brokers construct their fees. In a nutshell, there is a different best value broker in the UK for virtually every band of capital, and they make their money through people signing up when they are in range x, and not moving their money when they reach band y; or just having a large marketing budget and screwing you from the start (Nutmeg at ~1% a year is def in this category). There isn't much of an obvious way around this if you are adamant you don't want to learn about it - the way the market is constructed is just a total predatory minefield for the complete novice. There are middle ground style investments between the two extremes you are looking at: bonds, bond funds and mixes of bonds and small amounts of stock (such as the Vanguard income or Conservative Growth funds outlined here), can return more than savings accounts with less risk than stocks, but again its a very diverse field that's hard to give specific advice about without knowing more about what your risk tolerance, timelines and aims are. If you do go down this (or the pure stock fund) route, it will need to be purchased via a broker in an ISA wrapper. The broker charges a platform fee, the fund charges a fund fee. In both cases you want these as low as possible. The Telegraph has a good heat map for the best value ISA platform providers by capital range here. Fund fees are always in the key investor document (KIID), under 'ongoing charges'.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "03cd2798097762b25fb89bff28c5dde5", "text": "\"The IRS rules are actually the same. 26 U.S. Code § 1091 - Loss from wash sales of stock or securities In the case of any loss claimed to have been sustained from any sale or other disposition of shares of stock or securities where it appears that, within a period beginning 30 days before the date of such sale or disposition and ending 30 days after such date, the taxpayer has acquired (by purchase or by an exchange on which the entire amount of gain or loss was recognized by law), or has entered into a contract or option so to acquire, substantially identical stock or securities, then no deduction shall be allowed... What you should take away from the quote above is \"\"substantially identical stock or securities.\"\" With stocks, one company may happen to have a high correlation, Exxon and Mobil come to mind, before their merger of course. With funds or ETFs, the story is different. The IRS has yet to issue rules regarding what level of overlap or correlation makes two funds or ETFs \"\"substantially identical.\"\" Last month, I wrote an article, Tax Loss Harvesting, which analyses the impact of taking losses each year. I study the 2000's which showed an average loss of 1% per year, a 9% loss for the decade. Tax loss harvesting made the decade slightly positive, i.e. an annual boost of approx 1%.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "31594816af776ae31246dff47b57b5a2", "text": "Your 1&2 are the end of that chapter. You can't convert for that year again, and must wait 30 days to convert in the new tax year. For example, each year for over a decade, I've helped my mother in law with this. In May, we convert a chunk of money/stock to Roth. In April, I'll recharacterize just enough so she tops off her 15% bracket but doesn't hit 25%. 30 days later, the new conversion happens. All the Roth money is money now taxed at 15%, which, in an emergency, a need for a lot of cash, will avoid the potential of 25% or higher, tax. You see, your 3 never really happens.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "445f3efc2c8bd10a811cef2d6b9aa778", "text": "\"Nobody knows for sure what \"\"substantially identical\"\" means because the IRS hasn't officially defined it. Until they do so, it would come down to the decision of an auditor or a tax court. The rule of thumb that I have always heard is if the funds track the same index, they are probably substantially identical. I think most people wouldn't consider any pair of AGG, CMF, and NYF to be substantially identical, so you should be safe with your tax-loss harvesting strategy.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22b06c17c85ae6bd7f53ec84a3db119a", "text": "\"Not sure what your needs are or what NIS is: However here in the US a good choice for a single fund are \"\"Life Cycle Funds\"\". Here is a description from MS Money: http://www.msmoney.com/mm/investing/articles/life_cyclefunds.htm\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "19ada7d27de09ad5f1e7666426b99453", "text": "Good question - I know you can keep the ISA in the UK and it won't lose its tax free status but you're not able to contribute it while you're not a UK resident. Not that its tax free status buys you that much if you're a non-resident as you could apply to receive tax gross on pretty much any savings account anyway. Given that the idea of tax-free saving outside a retirement account doesn't really exist here in the US I would assume that you will have to declare the interest as income and, if you don't pay any other taxes in the UK that would cover the amount you'd have to pay on your ISA under the foreign tax credit, you'd end up giving the IRS their pound of flesh. As I mentioned in an answer to a previous question, you really need to talk to an US accountant/CPA, preferably one that is familiar with UK taxation law as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d02e60ef882ba479adeb86ca67e26799", "text": "\"There are two different types of ISA; the \"\"Cash ISA\"\" for cash savings, and the \"\"Stocks and Shares ISA\"\" for stock market investing. You can transfer funds between these two different types of ISA. If your current cash ISA provider does not provide stocks and shares ISAs, then there may be a fee involved when transferring funds between two different providers. If I am reading your notation correctly, you have contributed the full allowance of GBP15,240 in both the current tax year and the previous tax year. Each year you can contribute GBP15,240 (currently) to your ISAs and this can be done in any combination of cash ISA and stocks and shares ISA. For example, you could put GBP5,240 into your cash ISA and GBP10,000 into your stocks and shares ISA. Regarding your questions : It is also important to understand that once you withdraw money from an ISA, it does not affect your previous contributions or allowances. For example, if you have used your full contribution allowance for the current year and chose to withdraw some funds, then you have still used your full contribution allowance and so you cannot redeposit these funds.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
c3613240fab21090cdfd20643f0f082e
How much is an asset producing $X/month is worth?
[ { "docid": "f6dec2b363e24bdd007f21f55cd16a61", "text": "The simplest way is just to compute how much money you'd have to have invested elsewhere to provide a comparable return. For example, if you assume a safe interest rate of 2.3% per year, you would need to have about $520,000 to get $1,000/month.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "5c2dde5217bba8832a2d722576b1c794", "text": "\"Once you buy stocks on X day of the month, the chances of stocks never actually going above and beyond your point of value on the chart are close to none. How about Enron? GM? WorldCom? Lehman Brothers? Those are just a few of the many stocks that went to 0. Even stock in solvent companies have an \"\"all-time high\"\" that it will never reach again. Please explain to my why my thought is [in]correct. It is based on flawed assumptions, specifically that stock always regain any losses from any point in time. This is not true. Stocks go up and down - sometimes that have losses that are never made up, even if they don't go bankrupt. If your argument is that you should cash out any gains regardless of size, and you will \"\"never lose\"\", I would argue that you might have very small gains in most cases, but there are still times where you are going to lose value and never regain it, and those losses can easily wipe out any gains you've made. Never bought stocks and if I try something stupid I'll lose my money, so why not ask the professionals first..? If you really believe that you \"\"can't lose\"\" in the stock market then do NOT buy individual stocks. You may as well buy a lottery ticket (not really, those are actually worthless). Stick to index funds or other stable investments that don't rely on the performance of a single company and its management. Yes, diversification reduces (not eliminates) risk of losses. Yes, chasing unreasonable gains can cause you to lose. But what is a \"\"reasonable gain\"\"? Why is your \"\"guaranteed\"\" X% gain better than the \"\"unreasonable\"\" Y% gain? How do you know what a \"\"reasonable\"\" gain for an individual stock is?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ed36d63a9b925c315ab217b16467959", "text": "Have you looked at what is in that book value? Are the assets easily liquidated to get that value or could there be trouble getting the fair market value as some assets may not be as easy to sell as you may think. The Motley Fool a few weeks ago noted a book value of $10 per share. I could wonder what is behind that which could be mispriced as some things may have fallen in value that aren't in updated financials yet. Another point from that link: After suffering through the last few months of constant cries from naysayers about the company’s impending bankruptcy, shareholders of Penn West Petroleum Ltd. (TSX:PWT)(NYSE:PWE) can finally look toward the future with a little optimism. Thus, I'd be inclined to double check what is on the company books.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90f3ac4042a941d61e7a35f1938326dc", "text": "\"The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) publishes these and other relevant data on their Statistics page, in the \"\"Treasury & Agency\"\" section. The volume spreadsheet contains annual and monthly data with bins for varying maturities. These data only go back as far as January 2001 (in most cases). SIFMA also publishes treasury issuances with monthly data for bills, notes, bonds, etc. going back as far as January 1980. Most of this information comes from the Daily Treasury Statements, so that's another source of specific information that you could aggregate yourself. Somewhere I have a parser for the historical data (since the Treasury doesn't provide it directly; it's only available as daily text files). I'll post it if I can find it. It's buried somewhere at home, I think.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "133154f62f8331a8df866bfc4aab2f0b", "text": "\"The trade-off seems to be quite simple: \"\"How much are you going to get if you sell it\"\" against \"\"How much are you going to get if you rent it out\"\". Several people already hinted that the rental revenue may be optimistic, I don't have anything to add to this, but keep in mind that if someone pays 45k for your apartment, the net gains for you will likely be lower as well. Another consideration would be that the value of your apartment can change, if you expect it to rise steadily you may want to think twice before selling. Now, assuming you have calculated your numbers properly, and a near 0% opportunity cost: 45,000 right now 3,200 per year The given numbers imply a return on investment of 14 years, or 7.1%. Personal conclusion: I would be surprised if you can actually get a 3.2k expected net profit for an apartment that rents out at 6k per year, but if you are confident the reward seems to be quite nice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "007fb63be456236692b786f481554eca", "text": "If you are able to buy a 150K home for 50K now that would be a good deal! However, you can't you have to borrow 100K in order to make this deal happen. This dramatically increases the risk of any investment, and I would no longer classify it as passive income. The mortgage on a 150K place would be about 710/month (30 year fixed). Reasonably I would expect no more than 1200/month in rent, or 14,400. A good rule of thumb is to assume that half of rental revenue can be counted as profit before debt service. So in your case 7200, but you would have a mortgage payment of 473/month. Leaving you a profit of 1524 after debt service. This is suspiciously like 2K per year. Things, in the financial world, tend to move toward an equilibrium. The benefit of rental property you can make a lot more than the numbers suggest. For example the home could increase in value, and you can have fewer than expected repairs. So you have two ways to profit: rental revenue and asset appreciation. However, you said that you needed passive income. What happens if you have a vacancy or the tenant does not pay? What happens if you have greater than expected repairs? What happens if you get a fine from the HOA or a special assessment? Not only will you have dip into your pocket to cover the payment, you might also have to dip into your pocket to cover the actual event! In a way this would be no different than if you borrowed 100K to buy dividend paying stocks. If the fund/company does not pay out that month you would still have to make the loan payment. Where does the money come from? Your pocket. At least dividend paying companies don't collect money from their shareholders. Yes you can make more money, but you can also lose more. Leverage is a two edged sword and rental properties can be great if you are financial able to absorb the shocks that are normal with ownership.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a13a5183fa18ad97d0487ffeb6827fd9", "text": "\"is it worth it? You state the average yield on a stock as 2-3%, but seem to have come up with this by looking at the yield of an S&P500 index. Not every stock in that index is paying a dividend and many of them that are paying have such a low yield that a dividend investor would not even consider them. Unless you plan to buy the index itself, you are distorting the possible income by averaging in all these \"\"duds\"\". You are also assuming your income is directly proportional to the amount of yield you could buy right now. But that's a false measure because you are talking about building up your investment by contributing $2k-$3k/month. No matter what asset you choose to invest in, it's going to take some time to build up to asset(s) producing $20k/year income at that rate. Investments today will have time in market to grow in multiple ways. Given you have some time, immediate yield is not what you should be measuring dividends, or other investments, on in my opinion. Income investors usually focus on YOC (Yield On Cost), a measure of income to be received this year based on the purchase price of the asset producing that income. If you do go with dividend investing AND your investments grow the dividends themselves on a regular basis, it's not unheard of for YOC to be north of 6% in 10 years. The same can be true of rental property given that rents can rise. Achieving that with dividends has alot to do with picking the right companies, but you've said you are not opposed to working hard to invest correctly, so I assume researching and teaching yourself how to lower the risk of picking the wrong companies isn't something you'd be opposed to. I know more about dividend growth investing than I do property investing, so I can only provide an example of a dividend growth entry strategy: Many dividend growth investors have goals of not entering a new position unless the current yield is over 3%, and only then when the company has a long, consistent, track record of growing EPS and dividends at a good rate, a low debt/cashflow ratio to reduce risk of dividend cuts, and a good moat to preserve competitiveness of the company relative to its peers. (Amongst many other possible measures.) They then buy only on dips, or downtrends, where the price causes a higher yield and lower than normal P/E at the same time that they have faith that they've valued the company correctly for a 3+ year, or longer, hold time. There are those who self-report that they've managed to build up a $20k+ dividend payment portfolio in less than 10 years. Check out Dividend Growth Investor's blog for an example. There's a whole world of Dividend Growth Investing strategies and writings out there and the commenters on his blog will lead to links for many of them. I want to point out that income is not just for those who are old. Some people planned, and have achieved, the ability to retire young purely because they've built up an income portfolio that covers their expenses. Assuming you want that, the question is whether stock assets that pay dividends is the type of investment process that resonates with you, or if something else fits you better. I believe the OP says they'd prefer long hold times, with few activities once the investment decisions are made, and isn't dissuaded by significant work to identify his investments. Both real estate and stocks fit the latter, but the subtypes of dividend growth stocks and hands-off property investing (which I assume means paying for a property manager) are a better fit for the former. In my opinion, the biggest additional factor differentiating these two is liquidity concerns. Post-tax stock accounts are going to be much easier to turn into emergency cash than a real estate portfolio. Whether that's an important factor depends on personal situation though.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d753c2cdcbb21b0bfcd4588aebc4b66", "text": "If it's anything IG that's likely an annualized figure. I previously sold CP over short term windows at 1% annualized. Else, it would generate a high long term gain, but you need to weigh a variety of factors versus gains, particularly if you're investing any meaningful sum of money. I'm not a bond trader. Unless it's some kind of payday loan...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6db8ff167a2027d4fa6c4eb9c132fc41", "text": "\"I think the key concept here is future value. The NAV is essentially a book-keeping exercise- you add up all the assets and remove all the liabilities. For a public company this is spelled out in the balance sheet, and is generally listed at the bottom. I pulled a recent one from Cisco Systems (because I used to work there and know the numbers ;-) and you can see it here: roughly $56 billion... https://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=CSCO+Balance+Sheet&annual Another way to think about it: In theory (and we know about this, right?) the NAV is what you would get if you liquidated the company instantaneously. A definition I like to use for market cap is \"\"the current assets, plus the perceived present value of all future earnings for the company\"\"... so let's dissect that a little. The term \"\"present value\"\" is really important, because a million dollars today is worth more than a million dollars next year. A company expected to make a lot of money soon will be worth more (i.e. a higher market cap) than a company expected to make the same amount of money, but later. The \"\"all future earnings\"\" part is exactly what it sounds like. So again, following our cisco example, the current market cap is ~142 billion, which means that \"\"the market\"\" thinks they will earn about $85 billion over the life of the company (in present day dollars).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "59ee99fc3853372dbb802b2e295679f8", "text": "Dummy example to explain this. Suppose your portfolio contained just two securities; a thirty year US government bond and a Tesla stock. Both of those position are currently valued at $1mm. The Tesla position however is very volatile with its daily volatility being about 5% (based on the standard deviation of its daily return) whole there bond's daily volatility is 1%. Then the Tesla position is 5/6 of your risk while being only 1/2 of the portfolio. Now if in month the Tesla stock tanks to half is values then. Then it's risk is half as much as before and so it's total contribution to risk has gone down.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "977f45171572bdcd9111d69d3c1ca028", "text": "How would they make money from it? They sell you the software for $100 (US example; could as easily be 100 Euros or 10,000 Japanese Yen). You use it to make recommendations on your blog. Your blog becomes rich from advertising. They sold $100 worth of software. If they spent $1 million in labor developing it, they're way behind. Another problem is that the software would stop working and need adjusted periodically. This is easy to do on a server but annoying on a PC. And who pays for the adjustments? Put both those things together, and it's a lot easier to do on a server. Another advantage is that a server can get a better data feed as well. Pay a premium for the detailed information rather than relying on public sources. And people are used to renting server access where they expect to buy software once. Another issue is that they are unlikely to beat the market this way. Yes, AIs have done so. But that's the latest AI, constantly adjusted. This is going to be a previous generation AI. It's more likely to match the market. And we already have a way to match the market: an index fund. If someone had a brilliant AI, the best use would probably be to sell it to a fund manager. The fund manager could then use the AI to find opportunities for its existing investors. Note that a $10 billion fund with a 10% return that gives a .1% commission would be paying $1 million. And that has no marketing or packaging overhead. Think $10 billion is a lot? Fidelity has $2 trillion.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76e622fc225406dbd70fb144752364dc", "text": "\"You could use any of various financial APIs (e.g., Yahoo finance) to get prices of some reference stock and bond index funds. That would be a reasonable approximation to market performance over a given time span. As for inflation data, just googling \"\"monthly inflation data\"\" gave me two pages with numbers that seem to agree and go back to 1914. If you want to double-check their numbers you could go to the source at the BLS. As for whether any existing analysis exists, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I don't think you need to do much analysis to show that stock returns are different over different time periods.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53797b151ae0daf43edf5e83c4fc64bd", "text": "The problem I have with gold is that it's only worth what someone will pay you for it. To a degree that's true with any equity, but with a company there are other capital resources etc that provide a base value for the company, and generally a business model that generates income. Gold just sits there. it doesn't make products, it doesn't perform services, you can't eat it, and the main people making money off of it are the folks charging a not insubstantial commission to sell it to you, or buy it back. Sure it's used in small quantities for things like plating electrical contacts, dental work, shielding etc. But Industrial uses account for only 10% of consumption. Mostly it's just hoarded, either in the form of Jewelry (50%) or 'investment' (bullion/coins) 40%. Its value derives largely from rarity and other than the last few years, there's no track record of steady growth over time like the stock market or real-estate. Just look at what gold prices did between 10 to 30 years ago, I'm not sure it came anywhere near close to keeping pace with inflation during that time. If you look at the chart, you see a steady price until the US went off the gold standard in 1971, and rules regarding ownership and trading of gold were relaxed. There was a brief run up for a few years after that as the market 'found its level' as it were, and you really need to look from about 74 forward (which it experienced its first 'test' and demonstration of a 'supporting' price around 400/oz inflation adjusted. Then the price fluctuated largely between 800 to 400 per ounce (adjusted for inflation) for the next 30 years. (Other than a brief sympathetic 'Silver Tuesday' spike due to the Hunt Brothers manipulation of silver prices in 1980.) Not sure if there is any causality, but it is interesting to note that the recent 'runup' in price starts in 2000 at almost the same time the last country (the Swiss) went off the 'gold standard' and gold was no longer tied to any currency (or vise versa) If you bought in '75 as a hedge against inflation, you were DOWN, as much as 50% during much of the next 33 years. If you managed to buy at a 'low' the couple of times that gold was going down and found support around 400/oz (adjusted) then you were on average up slightly as much as a little over 50% (throwing out silver Tuesday) but then from about '98 through '05 had barely broken even. I personally view 'investments' in gold at this time as a speculation. Look at the history below, and ask yourself if buying today would more likely end up as buying in 1972 or 1975? (or gods forbid, 1980) Would you be taking advantage of a buying opportunity, or piling onto a bubble and end up buying at the high? Note from Joe - The article Demand and Supply adds to the discussion, and supports Chuck's answer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68eb08f84bf9bb435c3a622500d4f932", "text": "The net return reported to you (as a percentage) by a mutual fund is the gross return minus the expense ratio. So, if the gross return is X% and the expense ratio is Y%, your account will show a return of (X-Y)%. Be aware that X could be negative too. So, with Y = 1, If X = 10 (as you might get from a stock fund if you believe historical averages will continue), then the net return is 9% and you have lost (Y/X) times 100% = 10% of the gross return. If X = 8 (as you might get from a bond fund if you believe historical averages will continue), then the net return is 7% and you have lost (Y/X) times 100% = 12.5% of the gross return. and so on and so forth. The numbers used are merely examples of the returns that have been obtained historically, though it is worth emphasizing that 10% is an average return, averaged over many decades, from investments in stocks, and to believe that one will get a 10% return year after year is to mislead oneself very badly. I think the point of the illustrations is that expense ratios are important, and should matter a lot to you, but that their impact is proportionately somewhat less if the gross return is high, but very significant if the gross return is low, as in money-market funds. In fact, some money market funds which found that X < Y have even foregone charging the expense ratio fee so as to maintain a fixed $1 per share price. Personally, I would need a lot of persuading to invest in even a stock fund with 1% expense ratio.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "beb7a3a32f47ea4177fca8697fac9a34", "text": "Damn, helpful Harry above me. So, in general, when compounding the value of an investment, if you're seeing an annualized interest rate of 4%, and the interest compounds monthly (or n number of times per year), you're going to multiply the Principal P by the growth rate (the interest rate), adjusted for the number of periods that your investment grows in a year. P_end = P * (1 + 0.04/n)^(n * t), where n = number of periods, and t = number of years. If the interest compounds annually, you earn P *(1.04), if it compounds monthly, you earn (1 + 0.04/12)^(12 * 1). Apply this logic to discounting future cash flows to their net present value. When discounting future cash flows, you're essentially determing the opportunity cost of now being unable to put your investment elsewhere and earning that corresponding interest (discount) rate. Thus, you would discount $1000 by (1 + 0.08/12)^1, and $2000, $3000 in a similar fashion. Then, as icing on the cake, sum up to get your cumulative net present value. Please let me know if any portion of my explanation is unclear; I would be happy to elaborate!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d572b9345892ac7846a98e286c53a59", "text": "In addition to @mhoran_psprep answer, and inspired by @wayne's comment. If the bank won't let you block automatic transfers between accounts, drop the bank like a hot potato They've utterly failed basic account security principles, and shouldn't be trusted with anyone's money. It's not the bank's money, and you're the only one that can authorize any kind of transfer out. I limit possible losses through debit and credit cards very simply. I keep only a small amount on each (~$500), and manually transfer more on an as needed basis. Because there is no automatic transfers to these cards, I can't lose everything in the checking account, even temporarily.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
327cb956d62408c528e7cca548222edb
How does a typical vesting timeline work with respect to employer contributions?
[ { "docid": "90848ee492ed12e798b2a01864b58888", "text": "There are two dates that matter for vesting in this situation: If you left the company on 12/31/16, you would be entitled to none of the company contributions. If you left on 1/1/17, you would be entitled to all $20k. This is sometimes known as a cliff vesting schedule. Some companies do a stair step - 20% after year 1, 40% after year 2, etc. This is known as graded vesting. But, that is not the case based on the language here.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8dd55b46d9c07218fb9f8baf97aa6c57", "text": "There is Free employer money on both sides of the tax fence for some employees. On the pretax side, your employer may provide you a match. If so, invest the maximum to get 100% of the match. On the after tax side, many companies offers a 15% discount on ESPP plans and a one year hold. My wife has such an employer. The one year hold is fine because it allows us to be taxed at Long Term Capital gains if the stock goes up which is lower than our current income bracket. After creating a seasoned pool of stocks that we could sell after the one year hold, we are then able to sell the same number of stocks purchased each month. This provides a 17.6% guaranteed gain on a monthly basis. How much would you purchase if you had a guaranteed 17.6% return. Our answer is 15% (our maximum allowed). The other trick is that while the employer is collecting the money, you will purchase the stock at the lowest day of the period. You will usually sell for even more than the purchase price unless the day purchased was the lowest day of month. The trick is to reinvest the money in tax free investments to balance out the pretax investing. Never leave the money in the plan. That is too much risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ea4f500a9647f4a7a6c4586c0066f03", "text": "Vesting As you may know a stock option is the right to acquire a given amount of stock at a given price. Actually acquiring the stock is referred to as exercising the option. Your company is offering you options over 200,000 shares but not all of those options can be exercised immediately. Initially you will only be able to acquire 25,000 shares; the other 175,000 have conditions attached, the condition in this case presumably being that you are still employed by the company at the specified time in the future. When the conditions attached to a stock option are satisfied that option is said to have vested - this simply means that the holder of the option can now exercise that option at any time they choose and thereby acquire the relevant shares. Dividends Arguably the primary purpose of most private companies is to make money for their owners (i.e. the shareholders) by selling goods and/or services at a profit. How does that money actually get to the shareholders? There are a few possible ways of which paying a dividend is one. Periodically (potentially annually but possibly more or less frequently or irregularly) the management of a company may look at how it is doing and decide that it can afford to pay so many cents per share as a dividend. Every shareholder would then receive that number of cents multiplied by the number of shares held. So for example in 4 years or so, after all your stock options have vested and assuming you have exercised them you will own 200,000 shares in your company. If the board declares a dividend of 10 cents per share you would receive $20,000. Depending on where you are and your exact circumstances you may or may not have to pay tax on this. Those are the basic concepts - as you might expect there are all kinds of variations and complications that can occur, but that's hopefully enough to get you started.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ece78c28fdb7a538c04e1f1c16ad73a3", "text": "No, you're not missing anything. RSUs are pretty simple when it comes to taxes. They are taxed as compensation at fair market value when they vest, basically equivalent to the company giving you a cash bonus and then using it to buy company stock. The fair market value at vesting then becomes your cost basis. Assuming the value has increased since vesting, selling the shares that vested at least a year ago (to qualify for lower long-term capital gains tax rates) with the highest cost basis with result in the minimum taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "119d3174cd9bd0cf75e16baa4c33db53", "text": "\"Pretty simple actually. This is a state-run defined benefit plan, where the benefit is calculated based on the length of the employment and the contributed amounts. This is what in the US is known as the Social Security. This is a defined contribution plan, where the employee can chose the level of risk based on certain pre-defined investment guidelines (more conservative or more aggressive). In Poland, it appears that there's a certain amount of the state-mandated SS tax is transferred to these plans. Nothing in the US is like that, but you can see it as a mandatory IRA with a preset limited choice of mutual funds to invest into, as an analogy. The recent change was to reduce the portion of the madatory contribution that is diverted to this plan from 7+% to 2.3% (on account of expanding the contribution to (1)). Probably the recent crashes of the stock markets that affected these accounts lead to this decision. This is voluntary defined contribution plan, similar to the US 401Ks. This division is actually pretty common, not unique to Poland. I'd say its the \"\"standard\"\" pension scheme, as opposed to what we're used to in the US.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e89046abe2d4a4719ed99595769f25a", "text": "There's no such requirement in general. If your particular employer requires that - you should address the question to the HR/payroll department. From my experience, matches are generally not conditioned on when you contribute, only how much.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db8344437995d7d7ef05aa29fe18db47", "text": "Sorry, it appears not, according to http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2008/508/perspectives/p12.htm: ...and the election to make Roth 401(k) contributions (these are after-tax contributions) is irrevocable. Fairmark says the same thing. PS, don't complain too loudly, given the reason for the problem. :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17567bfba349e7d795986a3fd177a416", "text": "Let me first start off by saying that you need to be careful with an S-Corp and defined contribution plans. You might want to consider an LLC or some other entity form, depending on your state and other factors. You should read this entire page on the irs site: S-Corp Retirement Plan FAQ, but here is a small clip: Contributions to a Self-Employed Plan You can’t make contributions to a self-employed retirement plan from your S corporation distributions. Although, as an S corporation shareholder, you receive distributions similar to distributions that a partner receives from a partnership, your shareholder distributions aren’t earned income for retirement plan purposes (see IRC section 1402(a)(2)). Therefore, you also can’t establish a self-employed retirement plan for yourself solely based on being an S corporation shareholder. There are also some issues and cases about reasonable compensation in S-Corp. I recommend you read the IRS site's S Corporation Compensation and Medical Insurance Issues page answers as I see them, but I recommend hiring CPA You should be able to do option B. The limitations are in place for the two different types of contributions: Elective deferrals and Employer nonelective contributions. I am going to make a leap and say your talking about a SEP here, therefore you can't setup one were the employee could contribute (post 1997). If your doing self employee 401k, be careful to not make the contributions yourself. If your wife is employed the by company, here calculation is separate and the company could make a separate contribution for her. The limitation for SEP in 2015 are 25% of employee's compensation or $53,000. Since you will be self employed, you need to calculate your net earnings from self-employment which takes into account the eductible part of your self employment tax and contributions business makes to SEP. Good read on SEPs at IRS site. and take a look at chapter 2 of Publication 560. I hope that helps and I recommend hiring a CPA in your area to help.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98fabb05aac456fd9a384d037ba6ad32", "text": "Just for op's reference. A deferred wage entry would be something along the lines of the following scenario: you contract with a worker to perform some work at some point in the future, you would then book deferred wages for the amount to liabilities and deferred labor for that amount to assets, which would increase both and leave equity unchanged.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "75ffd20447fc3efc958c6f9cf52db524", "text": "Is the Grant Date or the Vest Date used when determining the 12-month cutoff for long-term and short-term capital gains? You don't actually acquire the stock until it's vested, so that is the date and price used to determine your cost basis and short-term/long-term gain/loss. The grant date really has no tax bearing. If you held the stock (time between vesting and sale) for more than one year you will owe long-term CG tax, if less than one year you will owe short-term CG tax.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67e3bbb83593b562d82c749f1c7f5aa6", "text": "401k contributions are exempt from employee and employer FICA withholding. The employer withholding is approximately 7% of the gross. The closer the employer match ratio is to 7%, the closer it is to paying for itself. Example: Assuming an employee is match-maximizing and in very round numbers grosses 100,000 per year. A 50% match schedule is about $350 cheaper per employee than a 100% match schedule: Default non participant: The employee will see about 7000 deducted for FICA, and the employer will pay 7000 to FICA if they don't participate. First case: the match is 100%, 1-for-1 to a 5% cap, the employee will deduct 5000, and have 6650 withheld for FICA. The employer will pay 6650 to FICA. The total employer cost of withholding and match is 11,650. Second case: If the match is 50%, 1-for-2 to a 5% cap, the employee will deduct 10000, and have 6300 withheld for FICA. The employer will pay 6300 to FICA. The total employer cost of withholding and match is 11,300.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "49916d22242adab31fa88ac997e69625", "text": "\"It's not possible for them to be comingled. From the IRS FAQ: Does my employer need to establish a new account under its 401(k), 403(b) or governmental 457(b) plan to receive my designated Roth contributions? Yes, your employer must establish a new separate account for each participant making designated Roth contributions and must keep the designated Roth contributions completely separate from your previous and current traditional, pre-tax elective contributions. It doesn't have to be a separate \"\"account\"\" necessarily, but the amounts must be tracked separately as if they were in separate accounts: Does separate account refer to the actual funding vehicle or does it refer to separate accounting within the plan's trust? Under IRC Section 402A, the separate account requirement can be satisfied by any means by which an employer can separately and accurately track a participant’s designated Roth contributions, along with corresponding gains and losses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f42a49658c1aab73dede18216e5f2532", "text": "The deadline for contributing to a 401K is the last paycheck paid in December. That may not be the last pay period that ends in December. For example if the last pay period ends on Friday the 30th and you get paid on Thursday January 5th, that check is the first in the new year. The US government has rules regarding how quickly the money needs to be sent to the 401K trustee. It is possible that the money may get there after the first of the year, but the important date for you is the date of the last paycheck in December. The company form to set the contribution rate (it could also be on a website) will have a deadline to determine if the rate makes the next check or the one after that. The form will also have a maximum amount as a percentage of the check. Some could allow up to 100% but yours might not. So how much you can put in with the last paycheck or two is up to company policy and your pay rate. The company forms or website will describe how the company match works. If you were try and put as much as possible into a few checks, it is possible to hit the $18,000 yearly limit in just a small part of the year. In some companies that would mean that you could miss out on company match money, because that would never be more than x% of each check. For example if you were to put $3,000 per check with a base pay of $5,000 every two weeks and if the maximum company match was 5%. After 6 checks you would be done: you would have put in $18,000 and the company would have put in $250 x 6 or $1,500. If you were to spread the money over all 26 checks you would still put in $18,000 but the company would have put in $6,500.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6332c443215c5f6a7e53bd0f681b871a", "text": "\"If your business is structured as a partnership or sole proprietorship you call this investment \"\"partner equity\"\". If instead it is structured as a corporation, then the initial investment is called \"\"paid-in capital\"\". Either way, this represents the capital the initial investors or partners provided to the company in exchange for their ownership stake. The most important thing in your case is that since that initial investment is in the form of inventory, you are going to have to document the value of that investment somehow. You will definitely need a comprehensive manifest of what you contributed, including titles and condition, and if possible you should document the prices at which similar items are being offered for sale at the time you start operating. Having this information will support your claims as to the fair market value of the start-up contribution, should the tax authorities decide to question it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "068bed5880ce9e76d2f629508242671d", "text": "You might want to bring this fancy new IRS rule to your employer's attention. If your employer sets it up, an After-Tax 401(k) Plan allows employees to contribute after-tax money above the $18k/year limit into a special 401(k) that allows deferral of tax on all earnings until withdrawal in retirement. Now, if you think about it, that's not all that special on its own. Since you've already paid tax on the contribution, you could imitate the above plan all by yourself by simply investing in things that generate no income until the day you sell them and then just waiting to sell them until retirement. So basically you're locking up money until retirement and getting zero benefit. But here's the cool part: the new IRS rule says you can roll over these contributions into a Roth 401(k) or Roth IRA with no extra taxes or penalties! And a Roth plan is much better, because you don't have to pay tax ever on the earnings. So you can contribute to this After-Tax plan and then immediately roll over into a Roth plan and start earning tax-free forever. Now, the article I linked above gets some important things slightly wrong. It seems to suggest that your company is not allowed to create a brand new 401(k) bucket for these special After-Tax contributions. And that means that you would have to mingle pre-tax and post-tax dollars in your existing Traditional 401(k), which would just completely destroy the usefulness of the rollover to Roth. That would make this whole thing worthless. However, I know from personal experience that this is not true. Your company can most definitely set up a separate After-Tax plan to receive all of these new contributions. Then there's no mingling of pre-tax and post-tax dollars, and you can do the rollover to Roth with the click of a button, no taxes or penalties owed. Now, this new plan still sits under the overall umbrella of your company's total retirement plan offerings. So the total amount of money that you can put into a Traditional 401(k), a Roth 401(k), and this new After-Tax 401(k) -- both your personal contributions and your company's match (if any) -- is still limited to $53k per year and still must satisfy all the non-discrimination rules for HCEs, etc. So it's not trivial to set up, and your company will almost certainly not be able to go all the way to $53k, but they could get a lot closer than they currently do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e879f38fa58808c3ac90ce38ebcf6904", "text": "The simple answer is that with the defined contribution plan: 401k, 403b, 457 and the US government TSP; the employer doesn't hold on to the funds. When they take your money from your paycheck there is a period of a few days or at the most a few weeks before they must turn the money over to the trustee running the program. If they are matching your contributions they must do the same with those funds. The risk is in that window of time between payday and deposit day. If the business folds, or enters bankruptcy protection, or decides to slash what they will contribute to the match in the future anything already sent to the trustee is out of their clutches. In the other hand a defined a benefit plan or pension plan: where you get X percent of your highest salary times the number of years you worked; is not protected from the company. These plans work by the company putting aide money each year based on a formula. The formula is complex because they know from history some employees never stick around long enough to get the pension. The money in a pension is invested outside the company but it is not out of the control of the company. Generally with a well run company they invest wisely but safely because if the value goes up due to interest or a rising stock market, the next year their required contribution is smaller. The formula also expects that they will not go out of business. The problems occur when they don't have the money to afford to make the contribution. Even governments have looked for relief in this area by skipping a deposit or delaying a deposit. There is some good news in this area because a pension program has to pay an annual insurance premium to The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation a quai-government agency of the federal government. If the business folds the PBGC steps in to protect the rights of the employees. They don't get all they were promised, but they do get a lot of it. None of those pension issues relate to the 401K like program. Once the money is transferred to the trustee the company has no control over the funds.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
1ec17526340438fd93028a6b0552dde3
I have a horrible 401k plan, with high expenses. Should I stay with it or move my money elsewhere?
[ { "docid": "6f7f146420a8d950612905256935cb4b", "text": "2%? I would put in just what it takes to share in the profit sharing, not a dime more. My S&P fund cost is .02% (edited, as it dropped to .02 since original post), 1/100 of the cost of most funds you list. Doesn't take too many years of this fee to negate the potential tax savings, and not many more to make this a real loser.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "568cdc8bc1ffceb1b886706a7fa2092e", "text": "The first question is essentially asking for specific investment advice which is off-topic per the FAQ, but I'll take a stab at #2 and #3 (2) If my 401k doesn't change before I leave my job (not planned in the near future), I should roll it over into my Roth IRA after I leave due to these high expense ratios, correct? My advice is that you should roll over a 401K into an IRA the first chance you get (usually when you leave the job). 401K plans are NOTORIOUS for high expense ratios and why leave your money in a plan where you have a limited choice of investments anyway versus a self-directed IRA where you can invest in anything you want? (3) Should I still max contribute with these horrible expense ratios? If they are providing a match, yes. Even with the expense ratios it is hard to beat the immediate return of an employer match. If they aren't matching, the answer is still probably yes for a few reasons: You already are maxing out your ability to contribute to sheltered accounts, so assuming you still want to sock away that money for retirement, the tax benefits are still valuable and probably offset the expense ratios. Although you seem to be an exception, it is hard for most people to be disciplined enough to put money in a retirement account after they have it in their hands (versus auto-deduction from paychecks).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e1d597ab1d99ac6d618b795375ca10f", "text": "As to the rollover question. Only rollover to a ROTH if you have other funds you can use to pay the taxes you will be hit with if you do that. DO NOT pay the taxes out of the funds in the 401k. If you don't have a way to pay the taxes, then roll it to a traditional IRA. You never want to pay the government any taxes 'early' and you don't want to reduce the balance. beyond that, A lot depends on how long you figure you will be with that company. If it's only a few years, or if you and other employees can make enough of a fuss that they move the fund to someplace decent (any of the big no-load companies such as Vanguard would be a better custodian), then I'd go ahead and max it out. If you figure to be there for a long while, and it looks like someone is in bed with the custodian and there's no way it will be changed, then maybe look to max out a Roth IRA instead.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "413df26f033408bb007111463e8079c8", "text": "\"It's simple. At 100% match, it would take a \"\"long\"\" time for bad fees to negate the benefit. Longer than the average person stays with one company. Even though $50/10 shares is crazy, if you wait till you have $500, it's 10%. Still crazy, but you are still getting 90% of the match. I'd avoid this, however, and just go with the closest thing they have to an S&P fund. Invest outside this account to save the right amount to fund your retirement. 2% total isn't enough, obviously.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e97b9935d422e0a08f35ada912eecf77", "text": "With an appropriate selection within a 401K and if operating expenses are low, you get tax deferred savings and possibly a lower tax bracket for now. The returns vary of course with market fluctuations but for almost 3 years it has been double digit growth on average. Some health care sector funds were up over 40% last year. YMMV. With stocks and mutual funds that hold them, you also are in a sense betting that people want their corporations to grow and succeed. Others do most of the work. Real estate should be part of your savings strategy but understand that they are not kidding when they talk about location. It can lose value. Tenants tend to have some problem part of the year such that some owners find it necessary to have a paid property manager to buffer from their complaints. Other owners get hauled into court and sued as slum lords for allegedly not doing basics. Tenants can ruin your property as well. There is maintenance, repair, replacement, insurance against injury not just property damage, and property taxes. While some of it might be deductible, not all is. You may want to consider that there are considerable ongoing costs and significant risks in time and money with real estate as an investment at a level that you do not incur with a 401K. If you buy mainly to flip, then be aware that if there are unforeseen issues with the house or the market sours as it can, you could be stuck with an immovable drain on your income. If you lose your job could you make payments? Many, many people sadly lost their homes or investment properties that way in 2008-2010.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a583f8aa944dd9185528d222d199839", "text": "\"As Mhoran answered, typical match, but some have no match at all, so not bad. The loan provision means you can borrow up to $50k or 50% of your balance, whichever is less. 5 year payback for any loan, but a 10 year payback for a home purchase. I am on the side of \"\"don't do it\"\" but finance is personal, and in some situations it does make sense. The elephant in this room is the expenses within the 401(k). Simply put, a high enough expense will wipe out any benefit from tax deferral. If you are in this situation, I recommend depositing to the match, but not a cent more. Last, do they offer a Roth 401(k) option? There's a high probability you will never be in as low a tax bracket as the next few years, now's the time to focus on the Roth deposits, if not in the 401(k), then in an IRA.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1bc58bfb4b2ab498e53e1521f99132aa", "text": "I like the way you framed this question. There is no single right answer for what to do with your savings, but there are some choices that are wrong in the sense that they are dominated by other choices you could make. Of the choices you listed, there are two that fall into that category. The ones that seem like a bad idea to me are: Putting it into your Roth 401(k). You can't do this directly anyhow, but you could do it indirectly by increasing your contributions and using the growth fund to cover the hole in your budget, but that's a lot of work for a relatively small gain. You would essentially be exchanging one long-term investment for another long-term investment. You would pay capital gains taxes on the investment when you sell it today, in order to not pay taxes on its earnings when you eventually withdraw it. There is some benefit there, but it's a long way off, not that large, and probably not worth the effort. Things that might change your mind: If your 401(k) was a traditional 401(k) (paying tax at capital gains rate today to get a deduction at your normal income rate is likely to be a win). You're not contributing enough to get the full company match (always try to get that match if you can). Putting it into your emergency fund. Once again, you are likely to pay capital gains tax if you do this, and you will be putting it into an investment that is likely to get a lower return than your current one. It isn't really necessary to incur these costs, since if you encounter an emergency that you can't cover with your existing emergency fund, you could always liquidate the growth fund then, when you know you need it. Now, a growth fund is going to be more volatile than what you would normally want for an emergency fund, but the risk isn't that bad, if you think about it. Say your emergency comes up and you find that the growth fund is down 20% (which would be a pretty horrible run). That's $600 less that you have to deal with the situation. Keep in mind that you already have $2000 (and building) in your current emergency fund. Is that $600 going to make the difference between meeting the need and not? It's not likely. Better to leave the investment where it is and keep building your emergency fund week by week. Things that might change your mind: Your level of risk aversion (if having that money in a more risky investment is keeping you up at night, move it). You face significant job uncertainty (if you have reason to think your job is at risk, it might be a good idea to top off that emergency fund sooner rather than later.) Your other two choices both seem like solid options under the right circumstances. If it were me, I'd leave the investment in place rather than use it to pay off the student loan. The investment is likely (though of course not guaranteed) to earn more than the interest rate even on the highest-rate loan, especially when you consider that the interest on the student loan is probably tax deductible. Moreover, the size of the investment isn't enough to fully repay the loan, so putting it toward the loan won't even improve your cash flow for some time to come. However, there is always a chance that the investment will perform poorly and some people prefer the guaranteed return from paying off the loan. It depends on your personal risk tolerance. The one thing I would recommend is to think of putting the money toward the loan not as a debt repayment, but as a fixed-income investment with a yield equal to your loan's interest rate. If you would still consider buying it then, then go ahead. If not, then stick with what you've got. In my experience people get way too emotional about debt; try to take that emotion out of your decision making if you can.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91c4eb3564770ad72c70d0bae8ab26c1", "text": "If you can afford to put money in your 401(k) account, I would say at least you should invest enough to get your employer's matching fund. It's free money, why not get it?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a05b4763ad0d4ff9cd08035c8bbfd6ed", "text": "\"There are certain allowable reasons to withdraw money from a 401K. The desire to free your money from a \"\"bad\"\" plan is not one of them. A rollover is a special type of withdrawal that is only available after one leaves their current employer. So as long as you stay with your current company, you cannot rollover. [Exception: if you are over age 59.5] One option is to talk to HR, see if they can get a expansion of offerings. You might have some suggestions for mutual funds that you would like to see. The smaller the company the more likely you will have success here. That being said, there is some research to support having few choices. Too many choices intimidates people. It's quite popular to have \"\"target funds\"\" That is funds that target a certain retirement year. Being that I will be 50 in 2016, I should invest in either a 2030 or 2035 fund. These are a collection of funds that rebalances the investment as they age. The closer one gets to retirement the more goes into bonds and less into stocks. However, I think such rebalancing is not as smart as the experts say. IMHO is almost always better off heavily invested in equity funds. So this becomes a second option. Invest in a Target fund that is meant for younger people. In my case I would put into a 2060 or even 2065 target. As JoeTaxpayer pointed out, even in a plan that has high fees and poor choices one is often better off contributing up to the match. Then one would go outside and contribute to an individual ROTH or IRA (income restrictions may apply), then back into the 401K until the desired amount is invested. You could always move on to a different employer and ask some really good questions about their 401K. Which leads me back to talking with HR. With the current technology shortage, making a few tweaks to the 401K, is a very cheap way to make their employees happy. If you can score a 1099 contracting gig, you can do a SEP which allows up to a whopping 53K per year. No match but with typically higher pay, sometimes overtime, and a high contribution limit you can easily make up for it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28ffc0062a3460bb1ff52241820a905e", "text": "For such a small amount, I really don't think it's worth the time and effort to withdraw it. Why not roll it over into a traditional IRA or a new 401k / 403b?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d97b61377d579ffc5a6e1e2422f53aa", "text": "The math works out so that the 401k is still a better deal in the long term over a taxable account because of the tax-deferred growth. Let's assume you invest in an S&P 500 index fund in either a taxable investment account or a 401k and the difference in fees is .5%. I used an online calculator and a hypothetical 1k/year investment over 30 years with 4.5% tax-deferred growth vs 5% taxable and a 25% tax bracket. After 30 years the tax-deferred 401k account will have $67k and the taxable account will have $58k. The math isn't perfect -- I'm sure I'm missing some intricacies with dividends/capital gains distributions and that you'll then pay income tax on the 401k upon retirement as you drawn down, but it still seems pretty clear that the 401k will win in the long run, especially if you invest more than the 1k/year used in my example. But yeah, .84% expenses on an index fund is robbery. Can you bring that to the attention of the HR department? Maybe they'll want to look for a lower-fee provider and it's in their best interest too, if they also participate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a93de0c47ea465ff6df525d0abc886ad", "text": "The presence of the 401K option means that your ability to contribute to an IRA will be limited, it doesn't matter if you contribute to the 401K or not. Unless your company allows you to roll over 401K money into an IRA while you are still an employee, your money in the 401K will remain there. Many 401K programs offer not just stock mutual funds, but bond mutual funds, and international funds. Many also have target date funds. You will have to look at the paperwork for the funds to determine if any of them meet your definition of low expense. Because any money you have in those 401K funds is going to remain in the 401K, you still need to look at your options and make the best choice. Very few companies allow employees to invest in individual stocks, but some do. You can ask your employer to research other options for the 401K. The are contracting with a investment company to make the plan. They may be able to switch to a different package from the same company or may need to switch companies. How much it will cost them is unknown. You will have to understand when their current contract is up for renewal. If you feel their current plan is poor, it may be making hiring new employees difficult, or ti may lead to some employees to leave in search of better options. It may also be a factor in the number of employees contributing and how much they contribute.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "866e58263eedf18e6f30d34a65b9779f", "text": "First, to answer the question. The benefit of a 401k is that you don't have to pay income tax on the money contributed nor do you pay capital gains tax on the money that accumulates. You get that with the restriction that you can't willy nilly remove and contribute money to the account (and you are taxed on withdrawals, more severely if you do it before you are 65). Similar sorts of restrictions apply to all retirement accounts which give tax benefits. Now, for the 7000 not providing benefit. Assuming a very modest 4% growth, over 40 years 7000 becomes 34,671. Not something to sneeze at (inflation, risk reward, blah, blah, blah, it is less than it looks, but 4% is really pretty low, the stock market averages anywhere from 7-&gt;10% and IIRC the bond market is somewhere around 5%). Now, certainly, to avoid bankruptcy you should withdraw. However, if it is possible, you will be best served by keeping the money in your 401k account. The penalties and lost earning opportunities are pretty significant. /u/BeatArmy99 [has the numbers](http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/2ct0qy/why_cant_i_access_my_401k_if_its_my_money/cjiorl7) for how much you lose by doing an early withdraw. Don't do this lightly and I would suggest avoiding cashing out the whole thing if you can.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a11ccdbf30c6fbfee86941d06167d15", "text": "The expense fees are high, and unfortunate. I would stop short of calling it criminal, however. What you are paying for with your expenses is the management of the holdings in the fund. The managers of the fund are actively, continuously watching the performance of the holdings, buying and selling inside the fund in an attempt to beat the stock market indexes. Whether or not this is worth the expenses is debatable, but it is indeed possible for a managed fund to beat an index. Despite the relatively high expenses of these funds, the 401K is still likely your best investment vehicle for retirement. The money you put in is tax deductible immediately, your account grows tax deferred, and anything that your employer kicks in is free money. Since, in the short term, you have little choice, don't lose a lot of sleep over it. Just pick the best option you have, and occasionally suggest to your employer that you would appreciate different options in the future. If things don't change, and you have the option in the future to rollover into a cheaper IRA, feel free to take it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6fc9945af9c41291f054e379070cc7d6", "text": "That expense ratio on the bank fund is criminally high. Use the Vanguard one, they have really low expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa1ab4352c4b2ea40d45ae23b1f82460", "text": "If there is no match and you are disciplined enough to contribute without it coming directly out of your paycheck, dump the 401K. The reason: Most 401K plans have huge hidden fees built into the investment prices. You won't see them directly, but 3% is not uncommon. 3% is a horrible drag on your investment performance. Get an IRA or Roth IRA and pick something with low fees. Bonus: You will have a lot more investment choices!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bfc7e4b55c9d114db072e3df57b51da", "text": "With painful 20/20 hindsight, I earnestly say - max it out hard. The reason is the sheer opportunity of it. As a young person you have time on your side - you have so many years for the earnings to compound! It is many times more advantageous to max it out now, than fail to do so and be in your 40s trying to catch up. Use the Roth 401K if your company supports that. After that, max out a Roth IRA if your income is low enough to use them. Otherwise, max out a traditional IRA (this will not be tax deductible because your income is too high), and the next day, convert it to Roth. That conversion will be tax-free since you already paid taxes on that money. 401K money is untouchable. No one can ever take it from you - not with a lawsuit, not with bankruptcy. As such, never give it up willingly by borrowing from it or cashing it out early, no matter how serious the problem seems in the short term. How do you invest a 401K when the market is so scary? I found out when I became a Board member overseeing management of an endowment. Turns out there's a professional gold standard for ultra-long-term, high growth, volatility-be-damned investing. Who knew?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b550cd328fc152dabda777f75e4d49b", "text": "The S&P top 5 - 401(k) usually comply with the DOL's suggestion to offer at least three distinct investment options with substantially different risk/return objectives. Typically a short term bond fund. Short term is a year or less and it will rarely have a negative year. A large cap fund, often the S&P index. A balanced fund, offering a mix. Last, the company's stock. This is a great way to put all your eggs in one basket, and when the company goes under, you have no job and no savings. My concern about your Microsoft remark is that you might not have the choice to manage you funds with such granularity. Will you get out of the S&P fund because you think this one stock or even one sector of the S&P is overvalued? And buy into what? The bond fund? If you have the skill to choose individual stocks, and the 401(k) doesn't offer a brokerage window (to trade on your own) then just invest your money outside the 401(k). But. If they offer a matching deposit, don't ignore that.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
0a4d399298cfc27f47717c0b014d73f9
How does the US Estate Tax affect an Australian with investments domiciled in the US?
[ { "docid": "d0f975974b6c35ce344502286b431bec", "text": "I don't think the location of the funds is any of your concern. You're buying a CDI, which is: Australian financial instruments The US has no jurisdiction over you, being you an Australian, so unless you own a US-based asset (i.e.: a real-estate in the US, or a US brokerage account), US tax laws shouldn't matter to you.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "61da8e813aced4c43816d146b9f072e6", "text": "does your sister agree to sell her share of the house? Will you live in the house or rent it out? In Australia if you rent out the house you can claim on expenses such as interest deductions, advertising cost, advertising to get tenants in, maintenance cost, water & sewerage supply charge, Land tax, stamp duty, council rates. A percentage of these expenses can be used to reduce your gross income and therefore reduces your tax liability (called negative gearing). Not sure how other countries handle investment properties. If you plan to live in the house and not rent it out and you have spare cash to buy outright then do so. You don't want to be in debt to the bank", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32f0b35ffba25db5202507ec36bb4f1d", "text": "You can call what you're asking about a 'wealth tax', or 'capital tax'. These are taxes not based on income you earned in a year, but some measure of how much you own. Some countries (Italy I believe is a prime example) tax ownership of foreign land. Some countries tax amounts owned by corporations [Canada did this until ~5-10 years ago depending on province]. Some countries strictly tax your wealth above a certain level (Switzerland, as has been mentioned, does this). One form of what you are referring to that does exist in the US is the 'Estate Tax'. This is a tax on the amount of wealth that a person owns, at the time they die. The threshold for when this tax applies has been very volatile over the last 20 years, but it is generally in the multi-millions, and I believe sits somewhere around $5M. If these taxes start to crop up more and more (and I believe they will), don't be shocked at the initial 'sticker price'. Theoretically a wealth tax could replace some of the current income tax regime in many countries without creating a strict increased tax burden on their people. ie: if you owe $10k in income tax this year, but a $2k capital tax is instituted next year, then you are still in the same position as long as your income tax is reduced to $8k. Whether these taxes are effective/preferable or not is really a question of economics, not personal finance, so I will not belabour that point. Note: if the money you have saved earns money (interest, or dividends, or maybe rent from a condo you own), then those earnings are typically taxed alongside your wage income. Any 'wealth/capital tax' as I've described it above would be in addition to income tax on investment earnings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74b29da71765c7cbe5d01f3f964e4834", "text": "That's a broad question, but I can throw some thoughts at you from personal experience. I'm actually an Australian who has worked in a couple of companies but across multiple countries and I've found out first hand that you have a wealth of opportunities that other people don't have, but you also have a lot of problems that other people won't have. First up, asset classes. Real estate is a popular asset class, but unless you plan on being in each of these countries for a minimum of one to two years, it would be seriously risky to invest in rental residential or commercial real estate. This is because it takes a long time to figure out each country's particular set of laws around real estate, plus it will take a long time to get credit from the local bank institutions and to understand the local markets well enough to select a good location. This leaves you with the classics of stocks and bonds. You can buy stocks and bonds in any country typically. So you could have some stocks in a German company, a bond fund in France and maybe a mutual fund in Japan. This makes for interesting diversification, so if one country tanks, you can potentially be hedged in another. You also get to both benefit and be punished by foreign exchange movements. You might have made a killing on that stock you bought in Tokyo, but it turns out the Yen just fell by 15%. Doh. And to top this off, you are almost certainly going to end up filling out tax returns in each country you have made money in. This can get horribly complicated, very quickly. As a person who has been dealing with the US tax system, I can tell you that this is painful and the US in particular tries to get a cut of your worldwide income. That said, keep in mind each country has different tax rates, so you could potentially benefit from that as well. My advice? Choose one country you suspect you'll spend most of your life in and keep most of your assets there. Make a few purchases in other places, but minimize it. Ultimately most ex-pats move back to their country of origin as friends, family and shared culture bring them home.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9311c6a9ce286a0027d2458eb3be48a9", "text": "PayPal transactions are not taxed in Australia. Income is taxed, and Ad network income is income. Your relative will receive the money, and will have to declare the income so it can be taxed. Your relative will then have to pay the tax. If you are to do this, you should transfer enough money from each payment for your relative to pay the tax; the rest you can move around however you wish.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79b3ac3fc497ba856f77e7399316c904", "text": "But the US has a higher rate than any other OECD country. So you are still taxing profits from money that wasn't made in the US. Obviously way more complicated, but it's pretty insane. It can be even worse for an individual. Oh, and imagine you'd like to start a sole propietorship overseas as a US citizen. You either renounce or have insane compliance costs.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c12bc3175fa0e13e7583371e1891a8ba", "text": "In theory, when you obtained ownership of your USD cash as a Canadian resident [*resident for tax purposes, which is generally a quicker timeline than being resident for immigration purposes], it is considered to have been obtained by you for the CAD equivalent on that date. For example if you immigrated on Dec 31, 2016 and carried $10k USD with you, when the rate was ~1.35, then Canada deems you to have arrived with $13.5k CAD. If you converted that CAD to USD when the rate was 1.39, you would have received 13.9k CAD, [a gain of $400 to show as income on your tax return]. Receiving the foreign inheritances is a little more complex; those items when received may or may not have been taxable on that day. However whether or not they were taxable, you would calculate a further gain as above, if the fx rate gave you more CAD when you ultimately converted it. If the rate went the other way and you lost CAD-value, you may or may not be able to claim a loss. If it was a small loss, I wouldn't bother trying to claim it due to hassle. If it's a large loss, I would be very sure to research thoroughly before claiming, because something like that probably has a high chance of being audited.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29e47aa44fa20759d5a1a475a0c4e392", "text": "As regards Inheritance Tax if your parents are abroad the question must be asked about their Domicile status as non doms are generally only subject to IHT on assets situated in the UK.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9943694b1c9ad1c5126d6cd5217ea646", "text": "To answer the last question first: there are no tax consequences to you. If your family member is married (or has a joint owner of the funds), and so are you, each of them can give each of you the $14K annual gift, which would be $56K. The remainder of the $70K would be subject to either (1) Gift Tax for the tax year in which it was given, or (2) applied to the lifetime exclusion. Either way would require filing a form with the IRS.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69215acbca7cb211aa3819f52979f193", "text": "Yes. You may be subjected to the US gift tax (if you transfer to anyone other than your legally married spouse or yourself). The receivers will have to deal with the Indian tax laws, which I'm not familiar with.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cbc909847ba684c0856d3df9be9f5403", "text": "If you're a US citizen/resident - you pay taxes on your worldwide income regardless of where you live. The logic is that Americans generally don't agree to the view that there's more than one country in the world. If you're non-US person, not physically present in the US, and provide contract work for a US employer - you generally don't pay taxes in the US. The logic is that the US doesn't actually have any jurisdiction over that money, you didn't earn it in the US. That said, your employer might withheld tax and remit it to the IRS, and you'll have to chase them for refund. If you receive income from the US rental property or dividends from a US company - you pay income tax to the US on that income, and then bargain with your home tax authority on refunds of the difference between what you paid in the US and what you should have paid at home. You can also file non-resident tax return in the US to claim what you have paid in excess. The logic is that the money sourced in the US should be taxed in the US. You earned that money in the US. There are additional rules to more specific situation, and there are also bilateral treaties between countries (including a US-Canadian treaty) that supersede national laws. Bottom line, not only that each country has its own laws, there are also different laws for different situations, and if some of the international treaties apply to you - it further complicates the situation. If something is not clear - get a professional advice form a tax accountant licensed in the relevant jurisdictions (in your case - any of the US states, and the Canadian province where you live).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "735b89d65511a408a5232cc35faa6d59", "text": "There can be Federal estate tax as well as State estate tax due on an estate, but it is not of direct concern to you. Estate taxes are paid by the estate of the decedent, not by the beneficiaries, and so you do not owe any estate tax. As a matter of fact, most estates in the US do not pay Federal estate tax at all because only the amount that exceeds the Federal exemption ($5.5M) is taxable, and most estates are smaller. State estate taxes might be a different matter because while many states exempt exactly what the Federal Government does, others exempt different (usually smaller) amounts. But in any case, estate taxes are not of concern to you except insofar as what you inherit is reduced because the estate had to pay estate tax before distributing the inheritances. As JoeTaxpayer's answer says more succinctly, what you inherit is net of estate tax, if any. What you receive as an inheritance is not taxable income to you either. If you receive stock shares or other property, your basis is the value of the property when you inherit it. Thus, if you sell at a later time, you will have to pay taxes only on the increase in the value of the property from the time you inherit it. The increase in value from the time the decedent acquired the property till the date of death is not taxable income to you. Exceptions to all these favorable rules to you is the treatment of Traditional IRAs, 401ks, pension plans etc that you inherit that contain money on which the decedent never paid income tax. Distributions from such inherited accounts are (mostly) taxable income to you; any part of post-tax money such as nondeductible contributions to Traditional IRAs that is included in the distribution is tax-free. Annuities present another source of complications. For annuities within IRAs, even the IRS throws up its hands at explaining things to mere mortals who are foolhardy enough to delve into Pub 950, saying in effect, talk to your tax advisor. For other annuities, questions arise such as is this a tax-deferred annuity and whether it was purchased with pre-tax money or with post-tax money, etc. One thing that you should check out is whether it is beneficial to take a lump sum distribution or just collect the money as it is distributed in monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual payments. Annuities in particular have heavy surrender charges if they are terminated early and the money taken as a lump sum instead of over time as the insurance company issuing the annuity had planned on happening. So, taking a lump sum would mean more income tax immediately due not just on the lump sum but because the increase in AGI might reduce deductions for medical expenses as well as reduce the overall amount of itemized deductions that can be claimed, increase taxability of social security benefits, etc. You say that you have these angles sussed out, and so I will merely re-iterate Beware the surrender charges.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cef1518acace3d826a8dd3a1f3c03e3a", "text": "There is no federal inheritance tax. The federal estate tax, currently, exempts the first 5.49 million (US citizen spouses even avoid this). Current law also does a stepped up basis on inherited assets which were bought with after tax money. Example: Dad bought a house years ago for 100k. He dies and leaves it to JJ along with other assets worth $100k (well below the federal estate tax level). JJ sells the house for $400k which was its market value on the day dad died. He gets to keep the entire $400k. Note: Current government wants to eliminate the estate tax AND the stepped up basis. In above case, JJ will now have $300k gains on the house sale and will pay income tax on that! He will end up with much less that $400k.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec3d14f8d9e15d3aab6f98d3a9cf46fd", "text": "If you are tax-resident in the US, then you must report income from sources within and without the United States. Your foreign income generally must be reported to the IRS. You will generally be eligible for a credit for foreign income taxes paid, via Form 1116. The question of the stock transfer is more complicated, but revolves around the beneficial owner. If the stocks are yours but held by your brother, it is possible that you are the beneficial owner and you will have to report any income. There is no tax for bringing the money into the US. As a US tax resident, you are already subject to income tax on the gain from the sale in India. However, if the investment is held by a separate entity in India, which is not a US domestic entity or tax resident, then there is a separate analysis. Paying a dividend to you of the sale proceeds (or part of the proceeds) would be taxable. Your sale of the entity containing the investments would be taxable. There are look-through provisions if the entity is insufficiently foreign (de facto US, such as a Subpart-F CFC). There are ways to structure that transaction that are not taxable, such as making it a bona fide loan (which is enforceable and you must pay back on reasonable terms). But if you are holding property directly, not through a foreign separate entity, then the sale triggers US tax; the transfer into the US is not meaningful for your taxes, except for reporting foreign accounts. Please review Publication 519 for general information on taxation of resident aliens.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14cecef7ceb7ed8c28d9710a31dd2d53", "text": "The answer to your question doesn't depend on who you trade with but what country you live in. If you live outside of the US, you will have to pay tax on dividends... sometimes. This depends on the tax treaty that your country has with the US. Canada, Australia, UK and a few other countries have favorable tax treaties with the US that allow you to not be double taxed. You must look into the tax treaty that your home country has with the US to answer the question. Each country is different.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17441a42424a6b6152323f38da43d5e5", "text": "\"From the UK side, the estate may be liable to \"\"inheritance tax\"\" depending on its size - but this will be paid by the estate itself before any payment is made to you, so if the estate makes a payment to you, the whole of it is yours to keep. The tax thresholds are a bit complicated and due to become more so, but at a minimum any estate under £325,000 will be exempt. If your spouse died first without using their entire allowance, or for deaths after 6th April 2017 where a family home is being left to direct descendants, the allowance is higher. Anything above the threshold is subject to 40% tax, which will be paid be the person dealing with the estate before they can distribute anything else.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
85b2fec90b9b143cca39e1551ccf6584
Is compounding interest on investments a myth?
[ { "docid": "1d16e19bebdb3205c784f300b9c4a725", "text": "\"The S&P 500 index from 1974 to present certainly looks exponential to me (1974 is the earliest data Google has). If you read Jeremy Siegel's book there are 200 year stock graphs and the exponential nature of returns on stocks is even more evident. This graph only shows the index value and does not include the dividends that the index has been paying all these years. There is no doubt stocks have grown exponentially (aka have grown with compound interest) for the past several decades and compounded returns is definitely not a \"\"myth\"\". The CAGR on the S&P 500 index from 1974 to present has been 7.54%: (1,783 / 97.27) ^ (1 / 40) - 1 Here is another way to think about compounded investment growth: when you use cash flow from investments (dividends, capital gains) to purchase more investments with a positive growth rate, the investment portfolio will grow exponentially. If you own a $100 stock that pays 10% dividends per year and spend the dividends every year without reinvesting them, then the investment portfolio will still be worth $100 after 40 years. If the dividends are reinvested, the investment portfolio will be worth $4,525 after 40 years from the many years of exponential growth: 100*(1 + 10%)^40\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ab0b024ef52c5ac19a6f78b16f7b899", "text": "Compound growth isn't a myth, it just takes patience to experience. A 10% annual return will double the investment not in 10 years, but just over 7. Even though a mortgage claims to use simple interest, if your loan is 5% and there's 14 years to go, $100 extra principal will knock off $200 from the final payment. The same laws of compounding and Rule of 72 are at play.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f7891abbef9c75a7d5c213f3d855c84", "text": "So my Question is this, in reality is investment in equities like the stock market even remotely resemble the type of growth one would expect if investing the same money in an account with compounding interest? Generally no as there is a great deal of volatility when it comes to investing in stocks that isn't well represented by simply taking the compounded annual growth rate and assuming things always went up and never went down. This is adding in the swings that the market will take that at times may be a bit of a rude surprise to some people. Are all these prognosticators vastly underestimating how much savers need to be socking away by overstating what is realistic in terms of growth in investment markets? Possibly but not probably. Until we know definitively what the returns are from various asset classes, I'm not sure I'd want to claim that people need to save a ton more. I'll agree that the model misses how wide the swings are, not necessarily that the averages are too low or overstated.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f4b4c9c8645edfa232b9beab747db47", "text": "\"This post may be old anyhow here's my 2 cents. Real world...no. Compounding is overstated. I have 3 mutual funds, basically index funds, you can go look them up. vwinx, spmix, spfix in 11 years i've made a little over 12,000 on 50,000 invested. That averages 5%. That's $1,200 a year about. Not exactly getting rich on the compounding \"\"myth?\"\". You do the math. I would guess because overly optimistic compounding gains are based on a straight line gains. Real world...that aint gonna happen.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "1d63cd0299ab297fd07d4a648063b2e1", "text": "\"If it could, it seems yet to be proven. Long Term Capital Management was founded by a bunch of math whizzes and they seem to have missed something. I'd never suggest that something has no value, but similar to the concept that \"\"if time travel were possible, why hasn't anyone come back from the future to tell us\"\" I'd suggest that if there were a real advantage to what you suggest, someone would be making money from it already. In my opinion, the math is simple, little more than a four function calculator is needed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9d0671f97e043bc4c5aab149a7f419b", "text": "It is not unheard of. Celebrity investors such as Warren Buffet and Carl Icahn gained notoriety by more than doubling investments some years, with a few very stellar trades and bets. Doubling, as in a 100% gain, is actually conservative if you want to play that game, as 500%, 1200% and greater gains are possible and were achieved by the two otherwise unrelated people I mentioned. This reality is opposite of the comparably pitiful returns that Warren Buffet teaches baby boomers about, but compounding on 2-5% gains annually is a more likely way to build wealth. It is unreasonable to say and expect that you will get the outcome of doubling an investment year over year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68eb08f84bf9bb435c3a622500d4f932", "text": "The net return reported to you (as a percentage) by a mutual fund is the gross return minus the expense ratio. So, if the gross return is X% and the expense ratio is Y%, your account will show a return of (X-Y)%. Be aware that X could be negative too. So, with Y = 1, If X = 10 (as you might get from a stock fund if you believe historical averages will continue), then the net return is 9% and you have lost (Y/X) times 100% = 10% of the gross return. If X = 8 (as you might get from a bond fund if you believe historical averages will continue), then the net return is 7% and you have lost (Y/X) times 100% = 12.5% of the gross return. and so on and so forth. The numbers used are merely examples of the returns that have been obtained historically, though it is worth emphasizing that 10% is an average return, averaged over many decades, from investments in stocks, and to believe that one will get a 10% return year after year is to mislead oneself very badly. I think the point of the illustrations is that expense ratios are important, and should matter a lot to you, but that their impact is proportionately somewhat less if the gross return is high, but very significant if the gross return is low, as in money-market funds. In fact, some money market funds which found that X < Y have even foregone charging the expense ratio fee so as to maintain a fixed $1 per share price. Personally, I would need a lot of persuading to invest in even a stock fund with 1% expense ratio.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "07a921214f64cac481e46f2455f46acd", "text": "It is a good enough approximation. With a single event you can do it your way and get a better result, but imagine that the $300 are spread over a certain period with $10 contribution each time? Then recalculating and compounding will be a lot of work to do. The original ROI formula is averaging the ROI by definition, so why bother with precise calculations of averages that are imprecise by definition, when you can just adjust the average without losing the level of precision? 11.4 and 11.3 aren't significantly different, its immaterial.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5979f03055035b04d9f8d224237fb01d", "text": "The effects of compounding inflation. Counter act by earning compounding interest on investments, aka the 8th wonder of the world. Maybe you have a family and have no money to save up? then u can't participate in compounding interest income, sorry I guess. My best advice to being rich is not being poor. (I'm a broke finance major at the moment, so I'm learning in depth of how I'm getting fucked)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2bddfd0859906b279b370d1ff6235cb9", "text": "\"The power of compounding interest and returns is an amazing thing. Start educating yourself about investing, and do it -- there are great Q&As on this site, numerous books (I recommend \"\"The Intelligent Investor\"\", tools for small investors (like Sharebuilder.com) and other resources out there to get you started. Your portfolio doesn't need to include every dime you have either. But you do need to develop the discipline to save money -- even if that savings is $20 while you're in school. How you split between cash/deposit account savings and other investment vehicles is a decision that needs to make sense to you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c256cc471cf2a1929507906a781f412f", "text": "\"Two typical responses to articles/surveys making such claims: **1. People use other forms of asset for emergency savings because interest rates are low - clearly false.** **2. People use other forms of saving than a saving account therefore such surveys as the X% can't handle a $500 emergency are wrong on their face - this is false the vast majority use a savings account.** I've chosen a topic that absolutely annoys the shit out of me every time it comes up, how people save their money. Every time this topic comes up about X% of americans can't come up with $Y dollars in an emergency or have less than $Z in savings someone inevitably chimes in with the linked response. I have *never* seen anyone attempt to source their hand waving response beyond their own anecdote, which is usually a thinly veiled brag about how financially savvy they are with their wealth. Perhaps people who have no assets, or crippling debt don't go out of their way to brag about it... I could link multiple reddit posts making a similar response, which I address with my own stock response about once every 1-2 months. Instead I've decided to expand with data from several other sources. This is the prototypical good/bad research problem. If you're asserting something, but qualify your statement with, \"\"I\"\"m sure we'd find...if we looked into...\"\" then you're doing it wrong. A good researcher or journalist doesn't put bullshit like that in their work because it's their job to actually look for sources of data; data which should exist with multiple government and independent groups. So let's get started (all data as recent as I could find, oldest source is for 2010): * [Most americans don't invest in the stock market](https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2014/pdf/scf14.pdf) About 48.8% of americans owned publicly traded stock directly or indirectly, with a much smaller percent (13.8%) owning stock directly - pages 18 and 16 respectively. It's important to note the predominance of indirect ownership which suggests this is mostly retirement accounts. It's entirely possible people are irresponsible with their emergency savings, but I think it safe to say we should not expect people to *dip into their retirement accounts* for relatively minor emergency expenses. The reason is obvious, even if it covers the expense they now have to make up the shortfall for their retirement savings. This is further supported by the same source: &gt;\"\"The value of assets held within IRAs and DC plans are among the most significant compo-nents of many families’ balance sheets and are a significant determinant of their future retirement security.\"\" Ibid (page 20, PDF page 20 of 41) There is also a break down of holdings by asset type on page 16, PDF page 16 of 41. * [This data is skewed by the top 10% who keep more of their wealth in different asset types.](http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html) For a breakdown between the 1st, 10th, and 90th percentiles see **table 3.** So far it seems pretty hard to maintain a large percent of americans have their wealth stored outside of savings accounts, mattresses aside. * [Here's my original reply as to the breakdown of americans assets by type and percent holding.](https://imgur.com/a/DsLxB) Note this assumes people *have* assets. [Source for images/data.](https://www.census.gov/people/wealth/data/dtables.html) Most people use savings accounts, with runner up falling to checking accounts. This will segue into our next topic which is the problem of unbanked/underbanked households. * [A large number of individuals have no assets; breaking down by asset types assumes people *have* assets in the first place.](https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/) To quote the FDIC: &gt;*\"\"Estimates from the 2015 survey indicate that 7.0 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2015. This proportion represents approximately 9.0 million households. An additional 19.9 percent of U.S. households (24.5 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system.\"\"* That's right there are millions of households *so finance savvy* they don't even have bank accounts! Obviously it's because of low interest rates. Also, most people have a checking account as well as savings account, the percent with \"\"checking and savings\"\" was 75.8% while those with \"\"checking only\"\" were 22.2% (page 25, PDF page 31 of 88). It's possible in some surveys people keep all their money in checking, but given other data sources, and the original claim this fails to hold up. If the concern was interest rates it makes no sense to keep money in checking which seldom pays interest. This survey also directly addresses the issue of \"\"emergency savings\"\": &gt; *\"\"Overall, 56.3 percent of households saved for unexpected expenses or emergencies in the past 12 months.\"\"* (page 37, PDF page 43 of 88) Furthermore: &gt;*\"\"Figure 7.2 shows that among all households that saved for unexpected expenses or emergencies, savings accounts were the most used savings method followed by checking accounts:* **more than four in five (84.9 percent) kept savings in one of these accounts.** *About one in ten (10.5 percent) households that saved maintained savings in the home, or with family or friends.\"\"* Emphasis added. * [Why don't people have wealth in different asset classes? Well they don't save money.](http://cdn.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/savings-rates-by-wealth-class.png) This is further supported by the OECD data: * [Americans \"\"currency and deposits\"\" are 13% vs 5.8% for \"\"securities and other shares\"\" as % of total financial assets.](https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-financial-assets.htm) Additionally: * [Interest earning checking accounts: 44.6% of american households (second image)](https://imgur.com/a/DsLxB) * [\"\"Among all households that saved for unexpected expenses or emergencies, savings accounts were the most used savings method followed by checking accounts...\"\" (page 7, PDF page 13 of 88)](https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2015/2015report.pdf) * ~70% saved for an emergency with a savings account vs ~24% who used checking. *Ibid.* In fairness the FDIC link does state *banked* americans were more likely to hold checking accounts than savings accounts (98% vs ~77% respectively) but that doesn't mean they're earning interest in their checking account. It's also worth noting median transaction account value was for 2013 (this is the federal reserve data) $4100.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b78bdc8bb32ac7995eaa0d89932e56dc", "text": "I read Q#4 as Will $250 in one account earn more interest than $250 in five accounts? in which case Excel says no, assuming a constant interest rate for all accounts. I dunno if the same holds true for banks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fdbe399b50e8f270715d8522907f7202", "text": "What you're missing is the continuous compounding computation doesn't work that way. If you compound over n periods of time and a rate of return of r, the formula is e^(r*n), as you have to multiply the returns together with a mulitplicative base of 1. Otherwise consider what 0 does to your formula. If I get a zero return, I have a zero result which doesn't make sense. However, in my formula I'd still get the 1 which is what I'm starting and thus the no effect is the intended result. Continuous compounding would give e^(-.20*12) = e^(-2.4) = .0907 which is a -91% return so for each $100 invested, the person ends up with $9.07 left at the end. It may help to picture that the function e^(-x) does asymptotically approach zero as x tends to infinity, but that is as bad as it can get, so one doesn't cross into the negative unless one wants to do returns in a Complex number system with imaginary numbers in here somehow. For those wanting the usual compounding, here would be that computation which is more brutal actually: For your case it would be (1-.20)^12=(0.8)^12=0.068719476736 which is to say that someone ends up with 6.87% in the end. For each $100 had in the beginning they would end with $6.87 in the end. Consider someone starting with $100 and take 20% off time and time again you'd see this as it would go down to $80 after the first month and then down to $64 the second month as the amount gets lower the amount taken off gets lower too. This can be continued for all 12 terms. Note that the second case isn't another $20 loss but only $16 though it is the same percentage overall. Some retail stores may do discounts on discounts so this can happen in reality. Take 50% off of something already marked down 50% and it isn't free, it is down 75% in total. Just to give a real world example where while you think a half and a half is a whole, taking half and then half of a half is only three fourths, sorry to say. You could do this with an apple or a pizza if you want a food example to consider. Alternatively, consider the classic up and down case where an investment goes up 10% and down 10%. On the surface, these should cancel and negate each other, right? No, in fact the total return is down 1% as the computation would be (1.1)(.9)=.99 which is slightly less than 1. Continuous compounding may be a bit exotic from a Mathematical concept but the idea of handling geometric means and how compounding returns comes together is something that is rather practical for people to consider.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b55cb9e78c31050015cd70d9138888c", "text": "This is certainly possible. There are lots of strategies that involve taking out loans to invest. However, they are all high risk strategies. There's a school district for a major US city that was able to get incredibly favorable loan terms because their repayment was assured by law. They borrowed a bunch of money and put it into a variety of sure things insured by reliable companies like Lehman Brothers. You can figure out the rest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84f8dd45254f628a4ba97aa69cdcad15", "text": "\"In addition to the choice that saving for retirement affords - itself a great comfort - the miracle of compounding is so great that even if you chose to work in old age, having set aside sums of money that grow will itself help your future. The are so many versions of the \"\"saving money in your 20s\"\" that equals millions of dollars that the numbers aren't worth showing here. Still, any time value of money example will illustrate the truth. That said, time value of money does start with the assumption that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Inflation, after all, eats away at the value of a dollar. It's just that compounding so outshines inflation that any mature person who is willing to wait, should be convinced. Until you work the examples, however, it's not at all obvious. It took my daughter years to figure out that saving her allowance let her get way better stuff. The same is true of everyone.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16a624a10ee783824d9bef140250bf4d", "text": "Consider inflation. If you invest $10,000 today, you need to make a few hundred dollars interest just to make up for inflation - if there is 3% inflation then a change from $10,000 to $10,300 means you didn't actually make any money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "38f347119ddb7ea280ce6191e1008d26", "text": "\"1) When it says \"\"an investment or mutual fund\"\", is a mutual fund not an investment? If no, what is the definition of an investment? A mutual fund is indeed an investment. The article probably mentions mutual funds separately from other investments because it is not uncommon for mutual funds to give you the option to automatically reinvest dividends and capital gains. 2) When it says \"\"In terms of stocks\"\", why does it only mention distribution of dividends but not distribution of capital gains? Since distributions are received as cash deposits they can be used to buy more of the stock. Capital gains, on the other hand, occur when an asset increases in value. These gains are realized when the asset is sold. In the case of stocks, reinvestment of capital gains doesn't make much sense since buying more stock after selling it to realize capital gains results in you owning as much stock as you had before you realized the gains. 3) When it says \"\"In terms of mutual funds\"\", it says about \"\"the reinvestment of distributions and dividends\"\". Does \"\"distributions\"\" not include distributions of \"\"dividends\"\"? why does it mention \"\"distributions\"\" parallel to \"\"dividends\"\"? Used in this setting, dividend and distribution are synonymous, which is highlighted by the way they are used in parallel. 4) Does reinvestment only apply to interest or dividends, but not to capital gain? Reinvestment only applies to dividends in the case of stocks. Mutual funds must distribute capital gains to shareholders, making these distributions essentially cash dividends, usually as a special end of year distribution. If you've requested automatic reinvestment, the fund will buy more shares with these capital gain distributions as well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f58997ea3544dbb5a29b25a20146ee45", "text": "Depends on the fund. If it's a Target Date fund, which is inherently diversified, this comes down to how much you trust the investment house to not go belly-up. If it's another kind of fund, you need to manage your own duversification and occasional rebalancing. Most of my money is in index funds (details elsewhere), but that's five or six very different indexes to cover the investment space with the mix of investment types I've selected. And most of it is in a single family of funds, which might be argued to be higher risk than desirable but which has been convenient.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "678321dc324d785df27ed89d68c40fdc", "text": "The price of a bond goes up when yields go down. For example, you purchase a 5% bond today for $100 and the very next day the same bond is being offered with a rate of 10%. Will you be able to sell you bond for the $100 you paid? No, you must compete with the 10% bonds being sold so you will have to sell your bond for less than the $100 you paid to compete with the new bonds being sold. Thus, bond prices are inversely related to bond yields. The 20-year index you cited tracks bond prices and bond prices have gone up over the last 10 years which means bond yields have gone down. Why have bond prices gone up? Demand. More investors are moving their savings into bonds. Why? I believe there a couple of reasons. One, US Treasuries are thought to be one of the safest investments. With the financial crisis and increased stock market volatility (see chart below) more investors are allocating more of their portfolios to safer investments. Two, a large portion of the US population is approaching retirement (see chart below). These folks are not interested in watching their retirement portfolios potentially shrink in the stock market so they move into bonds.", "title": "" } ]
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e0c44929518f26d36657d0212eb2c7ae
What's best investment option? Mutual fund or Property [duplicate]
[ { "docid": "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e", "text": "", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3fcd316ac05b8ae0bdeabc00453d5ab6", "text": "Wow, hard to believe not a single answer mentioned investing in one of the best asset classes for tax purposes...real estate. Now, I'm not advising you to rush out and buy an investment property. But rather than just dumping your money into mutual funds...over which you have almost 0 control...buy some books on real estate investing. There are plenty of areas to get into, rehabs, single family housing rentals, multifamily, apartments, mobile home parks...and even some of those can have their own specialties. Learn now! And yes, you do have some control over real estate...you control where you buy, so you pick your local market...you can always force appreciation by rehabbing...if you rent, you approve your renters. Compared to a mutual fund run by someone you'll never meet, buying stocks in companies you've likely never even heard of...you have far more control. No matter what area of investing you decide to go into, there is a learning curve...or you will pay a penalty. Go slow, but move forward. Also, all the advice on using your employer's matching (if available) for 401k should be the easiest first step. How do you turn down free money? Besides, the bottom line on your paycheck may not change as much as you think it might...and when weighed against what you get in return...well worth the time to get it setup and active.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8f2662558e3f11e38774e226cba0f1b", "text": "If you are looking to invest for 1-2 years I would suggest you not invest in mutual funds at all. Your time horizon is too short for it to be smart to invest in the stock market. I'd suggest a high-yield savings account or CD. I know they both have crappy returns, but the stock market can swing wildly with no notice. If you are ready to buy your house and the market is down 50% (it has happened multiple times in history) are you going to have to put off buying your home for an indefinite amount of time waiting to them to recover? If you are absolutely committed to investing in a mutual fund anyway against my advise I'd suggest an indexed fund that contains mostly blue chip stocks (indexed against the DOW).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc7aaf97583f7dde2cd3cbf4ba990d91", "text": "I'd suggest taking all the money you have saved up and putting in a mutual fund and hold off on buying a rental property until you can buy it outright. I know it seems like this will take forever, but it has a HUGE advantage: I know it seems like it will take forever to save up the money to buy a property for cash, but in the long run, its the best option by far.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0e05e8086085091d8d3e5c8e254edcf", "text": "As stated in the comments, Index Funds are the way to go. Stocks have the best return on investment, if you can stomach the volatility, and the diversification index funds bring you is unbeatable, while keeping costs low. You don't need an Individual Savings Account (UK), 401(k) (US) or similar, though they would be helpful to boost investment performance. These are tax advantaged accounts; without them you will have to pay taxes on your investment gains. However, there's still a lot to gain from investing, specially if the alternative is to place them in the vault or similar. Bear in mind that inflation makes your money shrink in real terms. Even a small interest is better than no interest. By best I mean that is safe (regulated by the financial authorities, so your money is safe and insured up to a certain amount) and has reasonable fees (keeping costs low is a must in any scenario). The two main concerns when designing your portfolio are diversification and low TER (Total Expense Ratio). As when we chose broker, our concern is to be as safe as we possibly can (diversification helps with this) and to keep costs at the bare minimum. Some issues might restrict your election or make others seem better. Depending on the country you live and the one of the fund, you might have to pay more taxes on gains/dividends. e.g. The US keeps some of them if your country doesn't have a special treaty with them. Look for W-8Ben and tax withholding for more information. Vanguard and Blackrock offer nice index funds. Morningstar might be a good place for gathering information. Don't trust blindly the 'rating'. Some values are 'not rated' and kick ass the 4 star ones. Again: seek low TER. Not a big fan of this point, but I'm bound to mention it. It can be actually helpful for sorting out tax related issues, which might decide the kind of index fund you pick, and if you find this topic somewhat daunting. You start with a good chunk of money, so it might make even more sense in your scenario to hire someone knowledgeable and trustworthy. I hope this helps to get you started. Best of luck.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a13a5183fa18ad97d0487ffeb6827fd9", "text": "\"is it worth it? You state the average yield on a stock as 2-3%, but seem to have come up with this by looking at the yield of an S&P500 index. Not every stock in that index is paying a dividend and many of them that are paying have such a low yield that a dividend investor would not even consider them. Unless you plan to buy the index itself, you are distorting the possible income by averaging in all these \"\"duds\"\". You are also assuming your income is directly proportional to the amount of yield you could buy right now. But that's a false measure because you are talking about building up your investment by contributing $2k-$3k/month. No matter what asset you choose to invest in, it's going to take some time to build up to asset(s) producing $20k/year income at that rate. Investments today will have time in market to grow in multiple ways. Given you have some time, immediate yield is not what you should be measuring dividends, or other investments, on in my opinion. Income investors usually focus on YOC (Yield On Cost), a measure of income to be received this year based on the purchase price of the asset producing that income. If you do go with dividend investing AND your investments grow the dividends themselves on a regular basis, it's not unheard of for YOC to be north of 6% in 10 years. The same can be true of rental property given that rents can rise. Achieving that with dividends has alot to do with picking the right companies, but you've said you are not opposed to working hard to invest correctly, so I assume researching and teaching yourself how to lower the risk of picking the wrong companies isn't something you'd be opposed to. I know more about dividend growth investing than I do property investing, so I can only provide an example of a dividend growth entry strategy: Many dividend growth investors have goals of not entering a new position unless the current yield is over 3%, and only then when the company has a long, consistent, track record of growing EPS and dividends at a good rate, a low debt/cashflow ratio to reduce risk of dividend cuts, and a good moat to preserve competitiveness of the company relative to its peers. (Amongst many other possible measures.) They then buy only on dips, or downtrends, where the price causes a higher yield and lower than normal P/E at the same time that they have faith that they've valued the company correctly for a 3+ year, or longer, hold time. There are those who self-report that they've managed to build up a $20k+ dividend payment portfolio in less than 10 years. Check out Dividend Growth Investor's blog for an example. There's a whole world of Dividend Growth Investing strategies and writings out there and the commenters on his blog will lead to links for many of them. I want to point out that income is not just for those who are old. Some people planned, and have achieved, the ability to retire young purely because they've built up an income portfolio that covers their expenses. Assuming you want that, the question is whether stock assets that pay dividends is the type of investment process that resonates with you, or if something else fits you better. I believe the OP says they'd prefer long hold times, with few activities once the investment decisions are made, and isn't dissuaded by significant work to identify his investments. Both real estate and stocks fit the latter, but the subtypes of dividend growth stocks and hands-off property investing (which I assume means paying for a property manager) are a better fit for the former. In my opinion, the biggest additional factor differentiating these two is liquidity concerns. Post-tax stock accounts are going to be much easier to turn into emergency cash than a real estate portfolio. Whether that's an important factor depends on personal situation though.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2092de231921b7cbdaa3f22aa65f657c", "text": "My equities portfolio breaks down like this: (I'm 26 years old, so it is quite aggressive) Additionally, I have a portfolio of direct real estate investments I have made over the past 4 years. I invested very aggressively into real estate due to the financial crisis. As a result of my aggressive investing & strong growth in real estate, my overall asset breakdown is quite out of balance. (~80% Real Estate, ~20% Equities) I will be bringing this into a more sensible balance over the next few years as I unwind some of my real estate investments & reinvest the proceeds into other asset classes. As for the alternative asset groups you mentioned, I looked quite seriously at Peer to Peer lending a few years back. (Lending Club) However, interest rates were quite low & I felt that Real Estate was a better asset class to be in at the time. Furthermore, I was borrowing heavily to fund real estate purchases at the time, and I felt it didn't make much sense to be lending cash & borrowing at the same time. I needed every dime I could get a hold of. :) I will give it another look once rates come back up. I've shied away from investing in things like actively managed mutual funds, hedge funds, etc ... not because I don't think good managers can get superior returns ... rather, in my humble opinion, if they DO get above average returns then they simply charge higher management fees to reflect their good performance. Hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0cd7730d095a4ebac6e95aabb354f31", "text": "Buying a property and renting it out can be a good investment if it matches your long term goals. Buying an investment property is a long term investment. A large chunk of your money will be tied up with the property and difficult to access. If you put your money into dividend producing stocks you can always sell the stock and have your money back in a matter of days this is not so with a property. (But you can always do a Home equity line of credit (HELOC)) I would also like to point out landlording is not a passive endeavor as JohnFx stated dealing with a tenant can be a lot of work. This is not work you necessarily have to deal with, it is possible to contract with a property management company that would place tenants and take care of those late night calls. Property management companies often charge 10% of your monthly rent and will eat a large portion of your profits. It could be worth the time and headache of tenant relations. You should build property management into you expenses anyway in case you decide to go that route in the future. There are good things about owning an investment property. It can produce returns in a couple of ways. If you choose this route it can be lucrative but be sure to do your homework. You must know the area you are investing very well. Know the rent, and vacancy rates for Single family homes, look at multifamily homes as a way of mitigating risk(if one unit is vacant the others are still paying).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "667f5ee83a6fccf6901ac2c01fee122a", "text": "I see a couple of reasons why you could consider choosing a mutual fund over an ETF In some cases index mutual funds can be a cheaper alternative to ETFs. In the UK where I am based, Fidelity is offering a management fee of 0.07% on its FTSE All shares tracker. Last time I checked, no ETF was beating that There are quite a few cost you have to foot when dealing ETFs In some cases, when dealing for relatively small amounts (e.g. a monthly investment plan) you can get a better deal, if your broker has negotiated discounts for you with a fund provider. My broker asks £12.5 when dealing in shares (£1.5 for the regular investment plan) whereas he asks £0 when dealing in funds and I get a 100% discount on the initial charge of the fund. As a conclusion, I would suggest you look at the all-in costs over total investment period you are considering for the exact amount you are planning to invest. Despite all the hype, ETFs are not always the cheapest alternative.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a58fc7dbe14f82ac3d2856a08f1a856f", "text": "\"Forget, for the moment, which will pay off most over the long term. Consider risk exposure. You've said that you (hypothetically) have \"\"little or no money\"\": that's the deal-breaker. From a risk-management perspective, your investment portfolio would be better off diversified than with 90% of your assets in a house. Consider also the nature of the risk which owning a house exposes you to: Housing prices are generally tied to the state of the economy. If the local economy crashes, not only could you lose your job, but you could lose a good part of the value of your house... and still owe a lot on your loan. (You also might not be able to move as easily if you found a new job somewhere else.) You should almost certainly rent until you're more financially stable and could afford to pay the new mortgage for a year (or more) if you suddenly lost your job. Then you can worry more about maximizing your investments' rate of return.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bcc297d2ceaa81a2066b4adbf028eab", "text": "\"Other individuals answered how owning an REIT compares to an individual real estate investment, but did not answer your second question as readily, \"\"are REITs a good option to generate passive income for awhile?\"\". The \"\"awhile\"\" part is quite important in answering this question. If your intentions are to invest for a relatively short time period (say, 7 years or less), it may be especially advantageous to invest in a REIT. The foremost advantage comes from significantly lower transaction fees (stock/ETF trades are practically/potentially free today) compared to purchasing real estate, which involves inspection+titling fees/taxes/broker fees, which in a round-trip transaction (purchase and sale) would come to ~10%. The secondary advantage to owning a REIT is they are much more liquid than a property. If you wanted to sell your investment at a given point in time, you can easily log into your brokerage and execute your transaction, while liquidating an investment property will take time on market/potentially tossing tenants/fixing up place, etc. On the other hand, illiquid investments have generally yielded higher historical returns according to past research.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9e8f42cad8fe877bf8d85961940ffd8", "text": "The big question is whether you will be flexible about when you'll get that house. The overall best investment (in terms of yielding a good risk/return ratio and requiring little effort) is a broad index fund (mutual or ETF), especially if you're contributing continuously and thereby take advantage of cost averaging. But the downside is that you have some volatility: during an economic downturn, your investment may be worth only half of what it's worth when the economy is booming. And of course it's very bad to have that happening just when you want to get your house. Then again, chances are that house prices will also go down in such times. If you want to avoid ever having to see the value of your investment go down, then you're pretty much stuck with things like your high-interest savings account (which sounds like a very good fit for your requirements.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b906cdacb29255d729eb9ce051426cc4", "text": "\"Consider property taxes (school, municipal, county, etc.) summing to 10% of the property value. So each year, another .02N is removed. Assume the property value rises with inflation. Allow for a 5% after inflation return on a 70/30 stock bond mix for N. After inflation return. Let's assume a 20% rate. And let's bump the .05N after inflation to .07N before inflation. Inflation is still taxable. Result Drop in value of investment funds due to purchase. Return after inflation. After-inflation return minus property taxes. Taxes are on the return including inflation, so we'll assume .06N and a 20% rate (may be lower than that, but better safe than sorry). Amount left. If no property, you would have .036N to live on after taxes. But with the property, that drops to .008N. Given the constraints of the problem, .008N could be anywhere from $8k to $80k. So if we ignore housing, can you live on $8k a year? If so, then no problem. If not, then you need to constrain N more or make do with less house. On the bright side, you don't have to pay rent out of the .008N. You still need housing out of the .036N without the house. These formulas should be considered examples. I don't know how much your property taxes might be. Nor do I know how much you'll pay in taxes. Heck, I don't know that you'll average a 5% return after inflation. You may have to put some of the money into cash equivalents with negligible return. But this should allow you to research more what your situation really is. If we set returns to 3.5% after inflation and 2.4% after inflation and taxes, that changes the numbers slightly but importantly. The \"\"no house\"\" number becomes .024N. The \"\"with house\"\" number becomes So that's $24,000 (which needs to include rent) versus -$800 (no rent needed). There is not enough money in that plan to have any remainder to live on in the \"\"with house\"\" option. Given the constraints for N and these assumptions about returns, you would be $800 to $8000 short every year. This continues to assume that property taxes are 10% of the property value annually. Lower property taxes would of course make this better. Higher property taxes would be even less feasible. When comparing to people with homes, remember the option of selling the home. If you sell your .2N home for .2N and buy a .08N condo instead, that's not just .12N more that is invested. You'll also have less tied up with property taxes. It's a lot easier to live on $20k than $8k. Or do a reverse mortgage where the lender pays the property taxes. You'll get some more savings up front, have a place to live while you're alive, and save money annually. There are options with a house that you don't have without one.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7bd8572aed467d1f9e285837d5171f92", "text": "You could use a stock-only ISA and invest in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). ETFs are managed mutual funds that trade on open exchanges in the same manner as stocks. This changes the specific fund options you have open to you, but there are so many ETFs at this point that any sector you want to invest in is almost certainly represented.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de2f8020f2afe5a02fa537ebb9f85250", "text": "\"To be completely honest, I think that a target of 10-15% is very high and if there were an easy way to attain it, everyone would do it. If you want to have such a high return, you'll always have the risk of losing the same amount of money. Option 1 I personally think that you can make the highest return if you invest in real estate, and actively manage your property(s). If you do this well with short term rental and/or Airbnb I think you can make healthy returns BUT it will cost a lot of time and effort which may diminish its appeal. Think about talking to your estate agent to find renters, or always ensuring your AirBnB place is in good nick so you get a high rating and keep getting good customers. If you're looking for \"\"passive\"\" income, I don't think this is a good choice. Also make sure you take note of karancan's point of costs. No matter what you plan for, your costs will always be higher than you think. Think about water damage, a tenant that breaks things/doesn't take care of stuff etc. Option 2 I think taking a loan is unnecessarily risky if you're in good financial shape (as it seems), unless you're gonna buy a house with a mortgage and live in it. Option 3 I think your best option is to buy bonds and shares. You can follow karancan's 100 minus your age rule, which seems very reasonable (personally I invest all my money in shares because that's how my father brought me up, but it's really a matter of taste. Both can be risky though bonds are usually safer). I think I should note that you cannot expect a return of 10% or more because, as everyone always says, if there were a way to guarantee it, everyone would do it. You say you don't have any idea how this works so I'd go to my bank and ask them. You probably have access to private banking so that should mean someone will be able to sit you down and talk you through. Also look at other banks that have better rates and/or pretend you're leaving your bank to negotiate a better deal. If I were you I'd invest in blue chips (big international companies listed on the main indeces (DAX, FTSE 100, Dow Jones)), or (passively managed) mutual funds/ETFs that track these indeces. Just remember to diversify by country and industry a bit. Note: i would not buy the vehicles/plans that my bank (no matter what they promise, and they promise a lot) suggest because if you do that then the bank always takes a cut off your money. TlDr, dont expect to make 10-15% on a passive investment and do what a lot of others do: shares and bonds. Also make sure you get a lot of peoples opinions :)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2c9d55800920d12987fec8518dbba0a", "text": "\"That depends, really. Generally speaking, though - Roth IRAs are THE PLACE for Stock-Market/Mutual-Fund investing. All the off the wall (or, not so off the wall) things like Real Estate investments, or buying up gold, or whatever other ideas you hear from people - they may be good or bad or whatnot. But your Roth IRA is maybe not the best place for that sort of thing. The whole philosophy behind IRAs is to deliberately set aside money for the future. Anything reasonable will work for this. Explore interesting investment ideas with today's money, not tomorrow's money. That being said - at your age I would go for the riskier options within what's available. If I were in your situation (and I have been, recently), I would lean toward low-fee mutual funds classified as \"\"Growth\"\" funds. My own personal opinion (THIS IS NOT ADVICE) is that Small Cap International funds are the place to be for young folks. That's a generalized opinion based on my feel for the world, but I don't think I'm personally competent to start making specific stock picks. So, mutual funds makes sense to me in that I can select the fund that generally aligns with my sense of things, and assume that their managers will make reasonably sound decisions within that framework. Of course that assumption has to be backed up with reputation of the specific MF company and the comparative performance of the fund relative to other funds in the same sector. As to the generalized question (how else can you work toward financial stability and independence), outside of your Roth IRA: find ways to boost your earning potential over time, and buy a house before the next bubble (within the next 18 months, I'm GUESSING).\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
29faa462418fd062f3b8fdff1a511430
Do new automobiles typically release in low numbers?
[ { "docid": "eceae449ae037f13ac0386ed9b2448e4", "text": "Do new automobiles typically release in low numbers? and later you say The car released 2 days ago. I called around and discovered local dealers only have ~10 2018's total for all trims. So you are calling local dealers and they have ten after two days. Let's say you are in New York City, population eight million (about 2.5% of the United States population). That would suggest that there are around four hundred produced in two days (10 is 2.5% of 400), or two hundred a day. That would be four thousand a month (assuming four weeks, each with five workdays). Considering that the most sold in a month were 14,207 in June of 2013 and March's 7727 was the best this year, that seems to be a decent pace if a little slow to start. Now, let's assume that you are using a local area with a population of only two million. This could still be New York City if you only call dealers in a quarter of the area. Their two day pace would put them on a rate to produce sixteen thousand the first month, which is more than they can reasonably expect to sell. If your local area is an even smaller portion of the US overall, this might not actually be low inventory. Don't forget that some dealers may also still have 2017 vehicles left. They might want to sell those before they order too many new vehicles. Particularly as they may not know what feature packages sell best yet. If they're willing to tell you that they have three 2018s (and sold a fourth), they should be eager to tell you how many 2017s they have. A high 2018 price gives them a better chance to sell the 2017s at a profit. If you really want to check if they are having production problems, ask how long it will be to order a vehicle. For a US manufactured car, special order should fall in the five to eight weeks range. If that's what they're quoting, then there probably are not production problems. When trading with a dealer, do your research, tell them what you believe a fair price is, and then be ready to walk if they won't give it to you. Be up front. Tell them that you're willing to pay $X to the first dealer that takes the offer. You'd prefer that dealer because (whatever--maybe they're closest), but you aren't paying more than $X. If they let you get in your car and drive away, then they really think they can get a better price.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "30c601ddb33e632de281ec5730aef5ea", "text": "\"So, what's going to happen to those [400,000](https://electrek.co/2017/05/05/tesla-model-3-reservations-3/) 'deposits'? Tesla's \"\"record-breaking\"\" 25K quarterly production figure means it'll take *four years* to build the 400,000 cars people have put down deposits on. How many tail-end Charlies are going to wait that out? The [current](http://insideevs.com/when-will-the-7500-us-credit-expire-for-the-tesla-model-3-and-everyone-else/) expiration schedule for the $7500 tax credit puts it to Mr. tail-end, *hard*. At the Model 3 price point, this is going to have a much larger effect on its buyers than on the $100K+ demographic.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6797579e382f872edec271063c5a4793", "text": "I understand, and I'm not necessarily disagreeing; I'm just asking how we know this. It's one thing if it's a logical deduction you've made, but it's another if there's direct objective evidence. Do these statistics pertain to all car sales or just factory car sales? The car I own today is the car I've owned the longest, but it's not because I can't afford to buy another one, it's because I have absolutely no reason to. My car was made in 2000; it has 115k miles on it. I could write a long list of things that are still performing just as adequately as they did when it was new, and how aside from being somewhat less powerful it doesn't actually do anything worse than comparable new cars; I'll spare you. :) Cars in 1970 were never expected to be driven past 100k miles without major service work, including an engine and transmission overhaul. Many cars well into the late 70s didn't even come with that many digits on the odometer. The economic conditions you mention, including the astonishing transfer of wealth between classes, are not good signs and it obviously needs to be reversed or this country is going to be a really shitty place to live soon. And hell yes I believe it's affecting car sales. But I'm really not convinced it's the main reason car sales peaked 40 years ago. Housing sales only peaked a few years ago, and both markets have screwed themselves over-issuing credit, albeit in different ways. Point is, you don't need to be able to afford a car when you can get a loan practically at the push of a button; Americans don't think in terms of what something costs, they think in terms of what it costs *per month*. Income shrinkage has been allowed to happen because people have been allowed to spend money they don't have. I know people living paycheck-to-paycheck who spend $150 - $250 per month on just data. They also have $10k's of revolving credit card debt and, even worse, $10k's in student loans. $250 per month won't save up for a new Cadillac anytime soon, but it *will* put you into a Cadillac if you don't mind having spent $63k on a $38k car by the time your loan matures. (Edit: those numbers are pretty exaggerated, $250/mo. wouldn't get you a Cadillac until it was several years old. You'd still end up paying several thousand more than if you'd paid cash, though... the point is that our economy is floating on credit, and this has allowed rampant overspending and living above means in the average household). You see what I'm saying? All other factors being equal car sales should have peaked a few years ago, or at least in the late 90s during the (first?) dot com bubble. There was *far* more spending power out there - not income, but spending power.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1077c8178b0a795482ba85e84b458549", "text": "Currently they put out 800 cars a week, and that was before the two week shutdown to add another dual line and allow for major production rampups. Plus the new body line, plus the new paint shop being built. As soon as these come online, going from 800 to 2000 in 18 months is not unrealistic.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7aa01e5a0d70f16d77e9376e47cc5ac", "text": "Why then did Ford (and the auto industry in general) suddenly decide to court such buyers? Clearly when they felt they had a viable solution to the financing and could open up the market of buyers they were previously ignoring. If more sales are desired, surely the same can be accomplished with simply lowering prices? Millions of people have bad credit. Apparently Ford thinks adding millions of people to the pool of potential buyers is more effective to boosting sales than discounting product for the pool of existing potential buyers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73e7a4dc29818a2a59bc2eb19bcac989", "text": "\"Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule. Expecting to complete SN1 [Serial Number 1] on Friday, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday. \"\"Handover party for first 30 customer Model 3's on the 28th! Production grows exponentially, so Aug should be 100 cars and Sept above 1500... Looks like we can reach 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in Dec.\"\" The car, which already has over 400,000 pre-orders, is Tesla's cheapest vehicle to date - starting at $35,000. TSLA +3% premarket\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "609b77b70f8919817d96aff601c015d2", "text": "Maybe they want to surprise people? They have the finishing line upgrade, body line upgrade and new paint shop all either being installed at this moment or in parallel to current production work. It will take them all year to figure out how to get all the bottlenecks out of the system, but it 'seems' like they are doing a hell of a job with building out the capacity of the S/X lines. Living 10 miles from the factory I hope to see some alphaX's on the road in the next couple weeks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9231d846d3a5dcecb93fa07e0716994", "text": "If they wanted to surprise people, confirming it on the phone to a single LA Times reporter right after earnings, and right after saying a different number during earnings, isn't the way to do it. It's just not going to be 100k cars delivered next year. I'd love it to be 100k cars next year, because if that announcement came out, and the market responded appropriately, I'd make six figures in a day easily, probably several times over, since I'm heavily invested in stock and LEAPs. But it's just not going to happen. As for seeing Alpha Xs soon...yeah, that seems likely. Keep your eyes open and let everyone know when you see one :-)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b12d022626f6db29928c4eaeb5b613cb", "text": "\"Here I thought I would not ever answer a question on this site and boom first ten minutes. First and foremost I am in the automotive industry, specifically one of our core competencies is finance department management consulting and the sales process both for the sale of the care as well as the financial transaction. First and foremost new vehicle gross profits are nowhere near 20% for the dealership. In an entry level vehicle like say a Toyota Corolla there is only a few hundreds of dollars in markup from invoice to M.S.R.P. There is also something called holdback that dealers get for achieving certain goals such as sales volume. These are usually pretty easy to hit. As a matter of fact I have never heard of a dealer not getting the hold back on a deal. This hold back is there to cover overhead for the car, the cost of getting it ready to sell, having a lot to park it on, making it ready for delivery, offset some of the cost of sales labor etc. Most dealerships consider the holdback portion of the invoice to not be part of the deal when it comes to negotiations. Certain brands such as KIA and Chrysler have something called \"\"Dealer Cash\"\" these payouts are usually stair stepped according to volume and vary by dealer, location, past history, how the guys at the factory feel that day and any number of combinations. Then there is CSI or Customer Service Index payments, these payments are usually made every 1/4 are on the Parts Statement not the Sales Doc and while they effect the dealers bottom line they almost never affect the sales managers or sales persons payroll so they are not considered a part of the cost of the car. They are however extremely important to the dealer and this is why after you have your new car they want you to bring in your survey for a free oil change or something. IF you are going to give a bad survey they want to throw it away and not send it in, if you are going to give a good survey they want to make sure you fill it out correctly. This is because lets say they ask you on a scale of 1-10 how was your sales person and you put a 9 that is a failing score. Dumb I know but that is how every factory CSI score system I have seen worked. According to NADA the average New Vehicle gross profit including hold back and dealer cash is around $1000.00. No where near 20%. Dealerships would love it if they made 20% on your new F250 Supercrew Diesel at around $50,000.00. One last thing there is something on the invoice called Wholesale Finance Reserve. This is the amount of money the factory forwards to the Dealership to offset the cost of financing vehicle on the floor plan so they can have it for you to look at before you buy. This is usually equal to around 3 months of interest and while you might buy a vehicle that has been on the lot for 2 days they have plenty that have been there much longer so this equals out in a fair to middling run store. General Mangers that know what they are doing can make this really pad their net profit to statement. On to incentives, there are basically 3 kinds. Cash to customer in the form of rebates, Dealer Cash in the form of incentives to dealerships based on volume or the undesirability of a vehicle, and incentive rates or Subvented leases. The rates are pretty self explanatory as they advertised as such (example 0% for 60 Months). Subvented Leased are harder to figure out and usually not disclosed as they are hard to explain and also a source of increased profit. Subvented leases are usually powered by lower cost of money called a money factor (think of it as an interest rate) that is discounted from the lease company or a subsidized residual. Subsidized residuals are virtually verboten on domestic vehicles due to their poor resell values. A subsidized residual works like this, you buy a Toyota Camry and the ALG (automotive lease guide) says it has a residual at 36 months of 48%. Well Toyota Motor Credit says we will give you a subvented residual of 60% basically subsidizing a 2% increase in residual. Since they do not expect to be able to sell the car at auction for that amount they have to set aside the 2% as a future expense. What does this mean to you, it means a lower payment. Also a good rule of thumb if you are told a money factor by your salesperson to figure out what the interest rate is just multiply it by 2400. So if a money factor is give of .00345 you know your actual interest rate is a little bit lower than 8.28% (illustration purposes only money factors are much lower than that right now). So how does this save you money well a lease is basically calculated by multiplying the MSRP by the residual and then subtracting that amount from the \"\"Capitalized Cost\"\" which is the Price paid for the car - trade in + payoff + TT&L-Rebate-Down Payment. That is the depreciation. Then you divide that number by the term of the loan and you have the depreciation amount. So if you have 20K CC and 10K R your D = 10K / 36 = 277 monthly payment. For the rest of the monthly payment you add (I think been a long time since I did this with out a computer) the Residual plus the CC for $30,000 * MF of .00345 = 107 for a total payment of 404 ish. This is not completely accurate but you can use it to make sure a salesperson/finance person is not trying to do one thing and say another as so often happens on leases. 0% how the heck do they make money at that, well its simple. First in 2008 the Fed made all the \"\"Captive\"\" lenders into actual banks instead of whatever they were before. So now they have access to the Fed's discounting window which with todays monetary policies make it almost free money. In the past these lenders had to go through all kinds of hoops to raise funds and securitize loans even for super prime credit. Those days are essentially over. Now they get their short term money just like Bank of America does. Eventually they still bundle these loans and sell them. So in the short term YOU pay for the 0% by giving up part or all of your rebate. This is really important DO NOT GIVE up your rebate for 0% unless it makes sense to do so. When you can get the money at 2.5% and get a $7000.00 rebate (customer cash) on that F250 or 0% take the cash. First of all make the finance guy/gal show you the the difference in total cost they can do do this using the federal truth in lending disclosures on a finance contract. Secondly how long will you keep the vehicle? If you come out ahead by say $1500 by taking the lower rate but you usually trade out every three years this is not going to work. Also and this is important if you are involved in a situation with a total loss like a stolen car or even worse a bad wreck before the breakeven point you lose that price break. Finally on judging what is right for you, just know that future value of the vehicle on for resell or trade-in will take into effect all of these past rebates and value the car accordingly. So if a vehicle depreciates 20% a year for the first 3 years the starting point will essentially be $7000.00 less than you actually paid, using rough numbers. How does this help the dealers and car companies? Well while a dealer struggles to make money on new cars the factory makes all of their money on the new cars and the new car financing. While your individual loan might lose money that money is offset by the loss of rebate and I think Ford does actually pay Ford Motor Credit Company the difference in the rate. The most important thing is what happens later FMCC now has 2500 loans with people with perfect credit. They can now use those loans to budle with people with not so perfect credit that they financed at 12%-18% and buy that money with interest rates in the 2%-3% range. Well that is a hell of a lot of profit. 'How does it help the dealership, well the more super prime credit they have in their portfolio the more subprime credit the banks will buy for them. This means they have more loans originated that are more profitable for them. Say you come in for the 0% but have 590 credit score, they get FMCC to buy the deal because they have a good portfolio and you win because the dealer gets to buy the money at say 9% and sell it to you at say 12% making the spread. You win there because you actually qualified for a rate of around 18% with a subprime company like Santander or Capital One (yes that capital one) so you save a ton on your overall cost of the car. Any dealership that is half way well run makes as much or money in the finance and insurance office than the rest of the dealership. When you factor in what a good F&I Director can do to get deals done with favorable terms that really goes up. Think about that the guys sitting a desk drinking coffee making more than the service department guys all put together. Well that was long winded but there I broke down the car business for whoever read this far.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6413ee99fb81aa3983660f259b299950", "text": "Tesla is not planning to sell 100k cars in 2015, they plan to have an annualized run rate of 100k by the end of 2015. Also, the luxury market is pretty close to 50/50 between large sedans and SUVs, so Tesla figures they can sell as many SUVs as they can sell sedans, and they can almost certainly sell 50k sedans considering they're easily selling 35k without advertising whatsoever and with long wait times and barely having penetrated China or RHD markets. Also, that 100k is worldwide, not just in the US.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16e13cc61b6ea756b40ff36f186984df", "text": "This caught my eye because the auto industry and the parts manufacturers are notorious for pushing output and human productivity to the point where working conditions are very unsafe. If Musk is doing exactly the same thing that is newsworthy imo.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5186aeb8c58968f42907872c0c89c47a", "text": "\"Correct, but then you have to think of all the people that have to buy new transmissions, new engines, new suspension, etc. Production of those also require manufacturing. I'm not saying holding on too a car is bad, but it's not a black and white \"\"running a car until it disintegrates is better\"\" situation. And why not get a Tesla and then run THAT into the ground? You don't have to buy it right away, but your next car could be a Tesla or other electric vehicle.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b36304da9bc1992f706818a6d3efaecf", "text": "\"Thing is, it's already explained in the letter, in the end of the first paragraph: \"\"Tesla’s annualized delivery rate should exceed 100,000 units **by the end of next year**\"\" (emphasis mine). When I first saw the number I got excited, but then I read the actual sentence, realized what they meant, and it's still impressive but it's not 3x increase in production YoY (which would be absurd to expect, esp. when Tesla's trajectory has been just-under-100% increases per year so far and into the mid-term foreseeable future). *Then* they explained it *again* on the CC (Elon said *something like* \"\"we'll exit next year at a 100k rate, but it's hard to tell how steep the curve will be, but we'll probably have over 60k deliveries...I think...yeah probably\"\"). I emailed the author of this article and he still believes that Tesla has \"\"unequivocally\"\" stated that they will produce and deliver 100k cars in 2015...but that's simply not correct. I have some people who know press contacts within Tesla working on hammering it out, though their efficacy at press communications has not been ideal at times in the past. If Tesla did unequivocally state that they would deliver 100k cars next year, after delivering just over 35k this year and 22k last year, that would be enormous news and should have sent the stock to $300 today, up 30-50%+ instead of the 4% it did go up. But it didn't send it that high, because that's just not what's happening. I'm extraordinarily bullish on Tesla, but 100k in 2015 is just not what's going to happen. 100k+ in 2016, though, sounds about right. And is in line with every other estimate everyone has done for the past several years, including Tesla themselves. So yeah, this number isn't really news, but it's nice to see them reiterate it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97aa7ee39f4e3b1bf24b0b5528de05a5", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.france24.com/en/20170601-us-car-sales-struggle-may-despite-record-discounts) reduced by 77%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Auto makers offered big discounts over the Memorial Day holiday, but the response from US car buyers in May was not enough to definitively reverse months of sales declines. &gt; After seven years of gains, there were further signs that US car sales have plateaued, analysts said, as monthly sales data suggested a mixed picture amid heavy incentives to lure buyers into showrooms, even as truck and SUV sales surged. &gt; The biggest US car maker, GM, saw its sales fall 1.3 percent last month compared to the same period a year earlier. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6eqkaa/auto_makers_offered_big_discounts_over_the/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~134307 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*: **sales**^#1 **percent**^#2 **car**^#3 **truck**^#4 **consumer**^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "617411bed63906c45d0558a7928d475a", "text": "On what do you base that? They are literally selling all the $90,000 cars they can build, at a per-unit profit, and the only reason they're posting losses is massive R&amp;amp;amp;amp;D outlays, which is perfectly normal for a company in its growth phase. You could argue the novelty will wear off soon, but what makes your take on that market any more reliable than any old guess? Mercedes and BMW prove there's steady streams of people with $80k to drop on a car. They are just ramping up in China and they have a HUGE appetite for American luxury products. I totally think they're current share price is, oh let's call it incredibly optimistic... But going bankrupt?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d155ae5534d0d32f1e77521fe072f09c", "text": "\"That sounds like a particularly egregious version of exclusivity. However, the way that you could handle that is to include a \"\"contingency\"\" in your purchase agreement stating that your offer is contingent upon the seller paying the brokerage fee. The argument against this, and something your broker might use to encourage you not to do so, is that it makes your offer less attractive to the buyer. If they have two offers in hand for the same price, one with contingencies and one without, they will likely take the no-contingency offer. In my area, right now, house offers are being made without very common contingencies like a financing contingency (meaning you can back out if you can't finance the property) or an inspection contingency. So, if your market is really competitive, this may not work. One last thought is that you could also use this to negotiate with your broker. Simply say you're only sign this expecting that any offer would have such a contingency. If it's untenable in your current market, it will likely cause your broker to move on. Either way, I'd say you should push back and potentially talk to some other brokers. A good broker is worth their weight in gold, and a bad one will cost you a boat load. And if you're in Seattle, I'll introduce you to literally the best one in the world. :-)\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
9fd789279619abc629129178076a779c
Right account for local purchases, loan EMI, and investments
[ { "docid": "01a2b716f7f0535081fdb143919b550a", "text": "What is the best and most economical way for me to pay the loan EMIs directly? (whether from a Singapore account or a NRE/NRO account) It is advisable to have it via the NRE account as this would be easier. If you already have funds in NRO account, you can use that before you use the funds from NRE account. For all expenses I make in India (e.g shopping, general expenses in India visits) what account should I be using, ideally? Is the route to transfer into NRE then NRO and then withdraw from NRO? Whatever is convenient. Both are fine. If I plan to make any investments in SIPs/Stock markets, should I link my NRE account with a demat account and directly use that? If I sell the shares will the earnings come back into NRO or NRE? You need to open a DEMAT PINS Account and link it to NRE account. You are sell and repatriate the funds without any issue from PINS account. Related question Indian Demat account", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3a867c6f052ff0ca6c6709e1a4dfacbe", "text": "The LLC portion is completely irrelevant. Don't know why you want it. You can create a joint/partnership trading account without the additional complexity of having LLC. What liability are you trying to limit here? Her sisters will file tax returns in the us using the form 1040NR, and only reporting the dividends they received, everything else will be taxed by Vietnam. You'll have to investigate how to file tax returns there as well. That said, you'll need about $500,000 each to invest in the regional centers. So you're talking about 1.5 million of US dollars at least. From a couple of $14K gifts to $1.5M just by trading? I don't see how this is feasible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3167b26b3d85953e30d252c7ae9aa5d5", "text": "You can look into specific market targeted mutual funds or ETF's. For Norway, for example, look at NORW. If you want to purchase specific stocks, then you'd better be ready to trade on local stock exchanges in local currency. ETrade allows trading on some of the international stock exchanges (in Asia they have Hong Kong and Japan, in Europe they have the UK, Germany and France, and in the Americas they have the US and Canada). Some of the companies you're interested in might be trading there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0239db99a14304f9c2d2c4e5f0e8cc2e", "text": "\"We use Cater Allen for our business banking (recommended/introduced by our accountants so we've saved the standard \"\"minimum funds per month\"\" limit) which was set up all remotely - our accountants sent us the forms (which you can get from Cater Allen's site), we photocopied the identity documents (driving licence etc) and sent them off. Within a couple of weeks we had the account open. Cater Allen hasn't got any physical branches, so that's \"\"one way\"\" of working around the \"\"come into a branch\"\" solution - pick a bank without branches! Girobank (which became Alliance and Leicester Business Banking and then became part of Santander) used to allow all account creations remotely - but that was back in the 90s and I've got no idea if Santander still do. Since you've setup an Ltd company, you are probably looking for an accountant too (even if it just to do your year end or payroll) - ask them for their recommendations.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "24bb18e4837526c4fedf26ad190601c7", "text": "Yup, if he/she is talking about a broker/dealer, but if he's talking to an RIA and is trying to find out who the custodian is then he won't have a statement yet. I don't think he has opened the account yet, but I'm not sure and could be totally misunderstanding the question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32cef36b284aa6cef14527c27cb8bca0", "text": "\"The standard double-entry approach would just be to create a Liability account for the loan, and then make a transfer from that account to your Asset (Savings) account when the loan proceeds are distributed to you. After that point, the loan doesn't \"\"belong\"\" to your Savings account in any way. Each account and transaction is tracked separately. So, you might for instance pay that loan back with a transfer from your Checking account, even though the initial disbursement arrived into your Savings account. In order to see how much of a loan you have remaining, you need to look at the loan's Liability account to see what transactions occurred in it and what its remaining balance is. It sounds like what you're really trying to accomplish is the idea of \"\"earmarking\"\" or \"\"putting into an envelope\"\" certain assets for certain purposes. This kind of budgeting isn't really something that Gnucash excels at. It does have some budget features, but there's more about being able to see how actual expenses are to expected expenses for a reporting period, not about being able to ask \"\"How much 'discretionary' assets do I have left before I start hitting my 'emergency fund'\"\". The closest you get is splitting up your asset accounts into subaccounts as you suggest, in which case you can \"\"allocate\"\" funds for your specific purposes and make transfers between them as needed. That can work well enough depending on your exact goals, though it can sometimes make it a little trickier to reconcile with your actual bank statements. But there's not really an accounting reason to associate the \"\"emergency fund\"\" portion of your assets with the remaining balance of your loan; though there's nothing stopping you from doing so if that's what you're trying to do. Accounting answers questions like \"\"How much have I spent on X in the past?\"\" and \"\"How much do I own right now?\"\". If you want to ask \"\"How much am I allowed to spend on X right now?\"\" or \"\"Am I likely to run out of money soon?\"\", you may want a budgeting tool rather than an accounting tool.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b81f264b75ed4b2f443dd090e38ece66", "text": "Every listed company needs to maintain book of accounts, when you are investing in companies you would have to look at what is stated in the books and along with other info decide to invest in it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98a527b30097928edd73bebb529339ae", "text": "This discussion indicates that the accounts are not reported to credit agencies, but the post is also over a year old, and who knows how reliable the information is (it's fairly well-traveled, though). It's based on one person calling up Trans Union and E-Trade and asking people directly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca5d202b93c164af5f61d58a5cd0aa01", "text": "Here's what the GnuCash documentation, 10.5 Tracking Currency Investments (How-To) has to say about bookkeeping for currency exchanges. Essentially, treat all currency conversions in a similar way to investment transactions. In addition to asset accounts to represent holdings in Currency A and Currency B, have an foreign exchange expenses account and a capital gains/losses account (for each currency, I would imagine). Represent each foreign exchange purchase as a three-way split: source currency debit, foreign exchange fee debit, and destination currency credit. Represent each foreign exchange sale as a five-way split: in addition to the receiving currency asset and the exchange fee expense, list the transaction profit in a capital gains account and have two splits against the asset account of the transaction being sold. My problems with this are: I don't know how the profit on a currency sale is calculated (since the amount need not be related to any counterpart currency purchase), and it seems asymmetrical. I'd welcome an answer that clarifies what the GnuCash documentation is trying to say in section 10.5.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ecd8bd38a8923493a989fd91c8d71b8e", "text": "In the U.S. it is typical that a stock brokerage account can be set up to buy stock with up to half the cost being borrowed from the broker. This is called a margin account. The stock purchased must remain in the account until sold (or the loan is paid off), as it serves as built-in collateral for the loan. If the market price for the stock goes down too much, you will be required to add money, or the stock will be sold to cover the loan. See this question for some more information.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f29a91f8306aa4d1ac166445ac5fc43", "text": "\"I think that your best option is to use the internet to look for sites comparing the various features of accounts, and especially forums that are more focused on discussion as you can ask about specific banks and people who have those accounts can answer. \"\"Requests for specific service provider recommendations\"\" are off-topic here, so I won't go into making any of my own bank recommendations, but there are many blogs and forums out there focusing on personal finance.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c4ff7b7c5d61828a76f1e9edafbbe34", "text": "\"I live near historic Concord, Massachusetts, and frequently drive past Walden Pond. I'm reminded of Henry David Thoreau's words, \"\"Simplify, simplify, simplify.\"\" In my opinion, fewer is better. 2 checkbooks? I don't see how that makes budgeting any easier. The normal set of expenses are easily kept as one bucket, one account. The savings 2&3 accounts can also be combined and tracked if you really want to think of them as separate accounts. Now, when you talk about 'Retirement' that can be in tax-wise retirement accounts, e.g. 401(k), IRA, etc. or post tax regular brokerage accounts. In our situation, the Schwab non-retirement account was able to handle emergency (as money market funds) along with vacation/rainy day, etc, in CDs of different maturities. As an old person, I remember CDs at 10% or higher, so leaving money in lower interest accounts wasn't good. Cash would go to CDs at 1-5 year maturities to maximize interest, but keep money maturing every 6-9 months. Even with the goal of simplifying, my wife and I each have a 401(k), an IRA, and a Roth IRA, I also have an inherited Roth, and I manage my teen's Roth and brokerage accounts. That's 9 accounts right there. No way to reduce it. To wrap it up, I'd go back to the first 4 you listed, and use the #4 checking attached to the broker account to be the emergency fund. Now you're at 3. Any higher granularity can be done with a spreadsheet. Think of it this way - the day you see the house you love, will you not be so willing to give up that year's vacation?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "63d8fa789d9630d7dd5568579e40c6f1", "text": "No it is not. If you are able to afford the EMI on the gold loan, just increase the EMI on your home loan and you will save more. Example: If your home loan EMI is say 65000, and the EMI for 10 lacs Gold loan is 15000, increase the Home loan EMI to 80000....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9021ee044ffe953dad127d98ff65fa9e", "text": "\"I don't think it would be counted as income, and if it's a short-term loan it doesn't really matter as the notional interest on the loan would be negligible. But you can avoid any possible complications by just having two accounts in the name of the person trying to get the account benefits, particularly if you're willing to just provide the \"\"seed\"\" money to get the loop started.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4204f26bc88bab658ce2be226976e79", "text": "\"Since I, personally, agree with the investment thesis of Peter Schiff, I would take that sum and put it with him in a managed account, and leave it there. I'm not sure how to find a firm that you like the investment strategy of. I think that it's too complicated to do as a side thing. Someone needs to be spending a lot of time researching various instruments and figuring out what is undervalued or what is exposed to changing market trends or whatever. I basically just want to give my money to someone and say \"\"I agree with your investment philosophy, let me pay you to manage my money, too.\"\" No one knows who is right, of course. I think Schiff is right, so that's where I would put the amount of money you're talking about. If you disagree with his investment philosophy, this doesn't really make any sense to do. For that amount of money, though, I think firms would be willing to sit down with you and sell you their services. You could ask them how they would diversify this money given the goals that you have for it, and pick one that you agree with the most.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e52155c7cd64c68a652f09464c274bcc", "text": "If you have money and may need to access it at any time, you should put it in a savings account. It won't return much interest, but it will return some and it is easily accessible. If you have all your emergency savings that you need (at least six months of income), buy index-based mutual funds. These should invest in a broad range of securities including both stocks and bonds (three dollars in stocks for every dollar in bonds) so as to be robust in the face of market shifts. You should not buy individual stocks unless you have enough money to buy a lot of them in different industries. Thirty different stocks is a minimum for a diversified portfolio, and you really should be looking at more like a hundred. There's also considerable research effort required to verify that the stocks are good buys. For most people, this is too much work. For most people, broad-based index funds are better purchases. You don't have as much upside, but you also are much less likely to find yourself holding worthless paper. If you do buy stocks, look for ones where you know something about them. For example, if you've been to a restaurant chain with a recent IPO that really wowed you with their food and service, consider investing. But do your research, so that you don't get caught buying after everyone else has already overbid the price. The time to buy is right before everyone else notices how great they are, not after. Some people benefit from joining investment clubs with others with similar incomes and goals. That way you can share some of the research duties. Also, you can get other opinions before buying, which can restrain risky impulse buys. Just to reiterate, I would recommend sticking to mutual funds and saving accounts for most investors. Only make the move into individual stocks if you're willing to be serious about it. There's considerable work involved. And don't forget diversification. You want to have stocks that benefit regardless of what the overall economy does. Some stocks should benefit from lower oil prices while others benefit from higher prices. You want to have both types so as not to be caught flat-footed when prices move. There are much more experienced people trying to guess market directions. If your strategy relies on outperforming them, it has a high chance of failure. Index-based mutual funds allow you to share the diversification burden with others. Since the market almost always goes up in the long term, a fund that mimics the market is much safer than any individual security can be. Maintaining a three to one balance in stocks to bonds also helps as they tend to move in opposite directions. I.e. stocks tend to be good when bonds are weak and vice versa.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
fc4abd933701ba10a67d4d0f82d5d7da
Retirement planning 401(k), IRA, pension, student loans
[ { "docid": "b95d2a0e25adeaab9a9ef9fdd540dc58", "text": "You asked specifically about the ROTH IRA option and stated you want to get the most bang for your buck in retirement. While others have pointed out the benefits of a tax deduction due to using a Traditional IRA instead, I haven't seen anyone point out some of the other differences between ROTH and Traditional, such as: I agree with your thoughts on using an IRA once you maximize the company match into a 401k plan. My reasoning is: I personally prefer ETFs over mutual funds for the ability to get in and out with limit, stop, or OCO orders, at open or anytime mid-day if needed. However, the price for that flexibility is that you risk discounts to NAV for ETFs that you wouldn't have with the equivalent mutual fund. Said another way, you may find yourself selling your ETF for less than the holdings are actually worth. Personally, I value the ability to exit positions at the time of my choosing more highly than the impact of tracking error on NAV. Also, as a final comment to your plan, if it were me I'd personally pay off the student loans with any money I had after contributing enough to my employer 401k to maximize matching. The net effect of paying down the loans is a guaranteed avg 5.3% annually (given what you've said) whereas any investments in 401k or IRA are at risk and have no such guarantee. In fact, with there being reasonable arguments that this has been an excessively long bull market, you might figure your chances of a 5.3% or better return are pretty low for new money put into an IRA or 401k today. That said, I'm long on stocks still, but then I don't have debt besides my mortgage at the moment. If I weren't so conservative, I'd be looking to maximize my leverage in the continued low rate environment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ac5ffe36c101ca43bf5aead9409f206", "text": "None of your options seem mutually exclusive. Ordinarily nothing stops you from participating in your 401(k), opening an IRA, qualifying for your company's pension, and paying off your debts except your ability to pay for all this stuff. Moreover, you can open an IRA anywhere (scottrade, vanguard, etrade, etc.) and freely invest in vanguard mutual funds as well as those of other companies...you aren't normally locked in to the funds of your IRA provider. Consider a traditional IRA. To me your marginal tax rate of 25% doesn't seem that great. If I were in your shoes I would be more likely to contribute to a traditional IRA instead of a Roth. This will save you taxes today and you can put the extra 25% of $5,500 toward your loans. Yes, you will be taxed on that money when you retire, but I think it's likely your rate will be lower than 25%. Moreover, when you are retired you will already own a house and have paid off all your debt, hopefully. You kind of need money now. Between your current tax rate and your need for money now, I'd say a traditional makes good sense. Buy whatever funds you want. If you want a single, cheap, whole-market fund just buy VTSAX. You will need a minimum of $10K to get in, so until then you can buy the ETF version, VTI. Personally I would contribute enough to your 401(k) to get the match and anything else to an IRA (usually they have more and better investment options). If you max that out, go back to the 401(k). Your investment mix isn't that important. Recent research into target date funds puts them in a poor light. Since there isn't a good benchmark for a target date fund, the managers tend to buy whatever they feel like and it may not be what you would prefer if you were choosing. However, the fund you mention has a pretty low expense ratio and the difference between that and your own allocation to an equity index fund or a blend of equity and bond funds is small in expectation. Plus, you can change your allocation whenever you want. You are not locked in. The investment options you mention are reasonable enough that the difference between portfolios is not critical. More important is optimizing your taxes and paying off your debt in the right order. Your interest rates matter more than term does. Paying off debt with more debt will help you if the new debt has a lower interest rate and it won't if it has a higher interest rate. Normally speaking, longer term debt has a higher interest rate. For that reason shorter term debt, if you can afford it, is generally better. Be cold and calculating with your debt. Always pay off highest interest rate debt first and never pay off cheap debt with expensive debt. If the 25 year debt option is lower than all your other interest rates and will allow you to pay off higher interest rate debt faster, it's a good idea. Otherwise it most likely is not. Do not make debt decisions for psychological reasons (e.g., simplicity). Instead, always chose the option that maximizes your ultimate wealth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a4b58782ce98a91cf8fa116d088a391", "text": "\"I'd suggest you avoid the Roth for now and use pretax accounts to get the greatest return. I'd deposit to the 401(k), enough to get as much match as permitted, then use a traditional IRA. You should understand how tax brackets work, and aim to use pre-tax to the extent it helps you avoid the 25% rate. If any incremental deposit would be 15% money, use Roth for that. Most discussions of the pre-tax / post tax decision talk about 2 rates. That at the time of deposit and time of withdrawal. There are decades in between that shouldn't be ignored. If you have any life change, a marriage, child, home purchase, etc, there's a chance your marginal bracket drops back down to 15%. That's the time to convert to Roth, just enough to \"\"top off\"\" the 15% bracket. Last, I wouldn't count on that pension, there's too much time until you retire to count on that income. Few people stay at one job long enough to collect on the promise of a pension that takes 30+ years to earn, and even if you did, there's the real chance the company cancels the plan long before you retire.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "9fbb645485c8391a06549cd670d37c09", "text": "Make sure you are hitting the actual max of the 401k. Most think it is 18K, but that is the amount you can contribute into either pre-tax or roth. On top of this, you can also contribute using an after-tax contribution (treated differently from Roth). Total amounts up to 54k (since you are under 50). One thing I would look into for ways to beat interest rates in bank accounts and CDs is Municipal Bond funds, given your high income. I have seen some earning almost 6% tax-free YTD. These also give you liquidity. Definitely keep your 3 mo salary in the bank, but once you get over that while maxing out your 401k, this is a pretty good way to make your money work for you, without crushing you come tax time. Building that muni bond fund account gradually, you can eventually use that account to pay for things like car payments, mortgage, rent, vacation, etc. Just be sure if you go with a mutual fund, that you are aware of any surrender charge schedules. I have seen this done with C Shares, where you can withdraw your investment without penalty after 1 year. Let me know if this is unclear or you would like any additional information. Best of luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0181b5b73cc89e56d3146f077981403", "text": "You need a find a financial planner that will create a plan for you for a fixed fee. They will help you determine the best course of action taking into account the pension, the 403B, and any other sources of income you have, or will have. They will know how to address the risk that you have that that particular pension. They will help you determine how to invest your money to produce the type of retirement you want, while making sure you are likely to not outlive your portfolio.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67c1d21cd147964789c000d38ef3992b", "text": "\"Since you already have an emergency fund in place, focus your extra funds on paying off debts like student loans. While some have advised you to play the stock market, not one person has mentioned the word \"\"risk\"\". You are gambling (\"\"investing\"\") your money in the hopes your money will grow. Your student loan is real liability. The longer you keep the loan, the more interest you will pay. You can pay off your student loan in 21 months if you pay $1,100 each month. After the 21 months, you can almost fully fund a 401(k) each year. That will be amazing at your age. Our company gives us the Vanguard Retirement Fund with a low expense ratio of 0.19%. It is passive automated investing where you don't have to think about it. Just add money and just let it ride.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16b5461a6c70f2455cb4246df9bb4894", "text": "Welcome to Money.SE. As Dheer notes, we can come up with pretty good advice with more details. Absent any more information, I'd offer this - money withdrawn today, from a traditional IRA, is subject to tax and 10% penalty. The day you turn 59-1/2, that 10% penalty evaporates. Withdrawals at that time are still subject to ordinary tax at your marginal rate. If you happen to be in the 15% bracket, it may make sense (at 59.5) to withdraw enough to top off that bracket and use the extra money to supplement those payments. If you are already a 25%er, you have to decide whether this money is better spent paying the loans early. Much of that decision is based on the rates involved. More important, in my opinion. what is the child doing? You borrowed money (I assume) to send a kid to college, and now he's out. Is he not able to chip in? $715K in retirement is pretty great, in the higher end of what pre-retirees have. It translates to just under $30K/yr in withdrawals at retirement. A decent number, really, but not a number that has you comfortably paying for this debt.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a911181137582e6d96fe11409fd5e1b", "text": "First of all, I am sorry for your loss. At this time, worrying about money is probably the least of your concerns. It might be tempting to try to pay off all your debts at once, and while that would be satisfying, it would be a poor investment of your inheritance. When you have debt, you have to think about how much that debt is costing you to keep open. Since you have 0%APR on your student loan, it does not make sense to pay any more than the minimum payments. You may want to look into getting a personal loan to pay off your other personal debts. The interest rates for a loan will probably be much less than what you are paying currently. This will allow you to put a payment plan together that is affordable. You can also use your inheritance as collateral for the loan. Getting a loan will most likely give you a better credit rating as well. You may also be tempted to get a brand new sports car, but that would also not be a good idea at all. You should shop for a vehicle based on your current income, and not your savings. I believe you can get the same rates for an auto loan for a car up to 3 years old as a brand new car. It would be worth your while to shop for a quality used car from a reputable dealer. If it is a certified used car, you can usually carry the rest of the new car warranty. The biggest return on investment you have now is your employer sponsored 401(k) account. Find out how long it takes for you to become fully vested. Being vested means that you can leave your job and keep all of your employer contributions. If possible, max out, or at least contribute as much as you can afford to that fund to get employee matching. You should also stick with your job until you become fully vested. The money you have in retirement accounts does you no good when you are young. There is a significant penalty for early withdrawal, and that age is currently 59 1/2. Doing the math, it would be around 2052 when you would be able to have access to that money. You should hold onto a certain amount of your money and keep it in a higher interest rate savings account, or a money market account. You say that your living situation will change in the next year as well. Take full advantage of living as cheaply as you can. Don't make any unnecessary purchases, try to brown bag it to lunch instead of eating out, etc. Save as much as you can and put it into a savings account. You can use that money to put a down payment on a house, or for the security and first month's rent. Try not to spend any money from your savings, and try to support yourself as best as you can from your income. Make a budget for yourself and figure out how much you can spend every month. Don't factor in your savings into it. Your savings should be treated as an emergency fund. Since you have just completed school, and this is your first big job out of college, your income will most likely improve with time. It might make sense to job hop a few times to find the right position. You are much more likely to get a higher salary by changing jobs and employers than you are staying in the same one for your entire career. This generally is true, even if you are promoted at the by the same employer. If you do leave your current job, you would lose what your employer contributed if you are not vested. Even if that happened, you would still keep the portion that you contributed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80a32d2885545261ad2faffcd6d0c8e6", "text": "\"This is not a direct answer to your question, but you might want to consider whether you want to have a financial planner at all. Would a large mutual fund company or brokerage serve your needs better than a bank? You are still quite young and so have been contributing to IRAs for only a few years. Also, the wording in your question suggests that your IRA investments have not done spectacularly well, and so it is reasonable to infer that your IRA is not a large amount, or at least not as large as what it would be 30 years from now. At this level of investment, it would be difficult for you to find a financial planner who spends all that much time looking after your interests. That you should get away from your current planner, presumably a mid-level employee in what is typically called the trust division of the bank, is a given. But, to go to another bank (or even to a different employee in the same bank), where you will also likely be nudged towards investing your IRA in CDs, annuities, and a few mutual funds with substantial sales charges and substantial annual expense fees, might just take you from the frying pan into the fire. You might want to consider transferring your IRA to a large mutual fund company and investing it in something simple like one of their low-cost (meaning small annual expense ratio) index funds. The Couch Potato portfolio suggests equal amounts invested in a no-load S&P 500 Index fund and a no-load Bond Index fund, or a 75%-25% split favoring the stock index fund (in view of your age and the fact that the IRA should be a long-term investment). But the point is, you can open an IRA account, have the money transferred from your IRA account with the bank, and make the investments on-line all by yourself instead of having a financial advisor do it on your behalf and charge you a fee for doing so (not to mention possibly screwing it up.) You can set up Automated Investment too; the mutual fund company will gladly withdraw money from your checking account and invest it in whatever fund(s) you choose. All this is not complicated at all. If you would like to follow the Couch Potato strategy and rebalance your portfolio once a year, you can do it by yourself too. If you want to invest in funds other than the S&P 500 Index fund, etc. most mutual fund companies offer a \"\"portfolio analysis\"\" and advice for a fee (and the fee is usually waived when the assets increase above certain levels - varies from company to company). You could thus have a portfolio analysis done each year, and hopefully it will be free after a few more years. Indeed, at that level, you also typically get one person assigned as your advisor, just as you have with a bank. Once you get the recommendations, you can choose to follow them or not, but you have control over how and where your IRA assets are invested. Over the years, as your IRA assets grow, you can branch out into investments other than \"\"staid\"\" index funds, but right now, having a financial planner for your IRA might not be worth it. Later, when you have more assets, by all means if you want to explore investing in specific stocks with a brokerage instead of sticking to mutual funds only but this might also mean phone calls urging you to sell Stock A right now, or buy hot Stock B today etc. So, one way of improving your interactions and have a better experience with your new financial planner is to not have a planner at all for a few years and do some of the work yourself.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "109e10e02e4805f60b4c8bff30f5dee2", "text": "Finish off the student loans. If your absolute goal is saving as much as you possibly can for retirement, then you of course will be best off by maxing your IRA contribution every year. However, student loans are just another thing hanging over you, and nothing feels better than getting rid of a large debt. Pay them off, take yourself out to a nice dinner to celebrate, and tuck away what you have left over in your IRA. Paying off student loans is a great accomplishment - celebrate it! The difference long-term will be negligible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b24c9a7d92256bd10cb736a31dce103", "text": "I'm concerned about your extreme focus on Roth. In today's dollars it would take nearly $2 million to produce enough of an annual withdrawal to fill the 15% bracket. If you are able to fund both 401(k)s and 2 IRAs (total $43K) you're clearly in the 25% bracket or higher. If you retire 100% with Roth savings, and little to no pretax money, you miss the opportunity to receive withdrawals at zero(1), 10, and 15% brackets. Missing this isn't much better than having too much pretax and being in a higher bracket at retirement. One factor often overlooked is that few people manage a working life with no gaps. During times when income is lower for whatever reason, it's a great time to convert a bit to Roth. (1)by zero bracket, I mean the combined standard deduction and exemptions. For two people this is currently (for 2017) $20,800 total. And it goes up a bit most years.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b740b898731a15a46298c807c24c05d", "text": "\"I'll add 2 observations regarding current answers. Jack nailed it - a 401(k) match beats all. But choose the right flavor account. You are currently in the 15% bracket (i.e. your marginal tax rate, the rate paid on the last taxed $100, and next taxed $100.) You should focus on Roth. Roth 401(k) (and if any company match, that goes into a traditional pretax 401(k). But if they permit conversions to the Roth side, do it) You have a long time before retirement to earn your way into the next tax bracket, 25%. As your income rises, use the deductible IRA/ 401(k) to take out money pretax that would otherwise be taxed at 25%. One day, you'll be so far into the 25% bracket, you'll benefit by 100% traditional. But why waste the opportunity to deposit to Roth money that's taxed at just 15%? To clarify the above, this is the single rate table for 2015: For this discussion, I am talking taxable income, the line on the tax return designating this number. If that line is $37,450 or less, you are in the 15% bracket and I recommend Roth. Say it's $40,000. In hindsight on should put $2,550 in a pretax account (Traditional 401(k) or IRA) to bring it down to the $37,450. In other words, try to keep the 15% bracket full, but not push into 25%. Last, after enough raises, say you at $60,000 taxable. That, to me is \"\"far into the 25% bracket.\"\" $20,000 or 1/3 of income into the 401(k) and IRA and you're still in the 25% bracket. One can plan to a point, and then use the IRA flavors to get it dead on in April of the following year. To Ben's point regarding paying off the Student Loan faster - A $33K income for a single person, about to have the new expense of rent, is not a huge income. I'll concede that there's a sleep factor, the long tern benefit of being debt free, and won't argue the long term market return vs the rate on the loan. But here we have the probability that OP is not investing at all. It may take $2000/yr to his 401(k) capture the match (my 401 had a dollar for dollar match up to first 6% of income). This $45K, after killing the card, may be his only source for the extra money to replace what he deposits to his 401(k). And also serve as his emergency fund along the way.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "784068b2247fdc0104dae050e8a2cf51", "text": "\"The instructions do specifically mention them, but not as exclusive plans. Pension and annuity payments include distributions from 401(k), 403(b), and governmental 457(b) plans. The instructions also mention this: An eligible retirement plan is a governmental plan that is a qualified trust or a section 403(a), 403(b), or 457(b) plan. 414(h) plans are \"\"qualified\"\" plans. Employee contribution to a 414(h) plan is qualified under 403(b). Report it there and mark it as \"\"Rollover\"\". Talk to a licensed (EA/CPA licensed in your state) professional when in doubt.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90846e0811d0c4d2f377573d4dbf2330", "text": "To answer your question: As far as what's available in addition to your 401(k) at work (most financial types will say to contribute up to the match first), you may qualify for a Roth IRA (qualification is based on income), if not, then you may have to go with a Traditional IRA. You and your husband can each have one and contribute up to the limit each year. After that, you could get just a straight up mutual fund, and/or contribute up to limit on your 401(k). My two cents: This may sound counter-intuitive (and I'm sure some folks will disagree), but instead of contributing to your 401(k) now, take whatever that amount is, and use it to pay extra on the car loan. Also take the extra being paid on the mortgage and pay it on the car loan too. Once the car loan is paid off, then set aside 15% of your gross income and use that amount to start your retirement investing. Any additional money beyond this can then go into the mortgage. Once it's paid off, then you can take the extra you were paying, plus the mortgage and invest that amount into mutual funds. You may want to check out Chris Hogan's Retire Inspired book or podcast as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "66d1c6d62fb4b1cb88089c3cfedc583b", "text": "You're doing great. I'd suggest trying get putting 5-10% towards your retirement and the balance to the student loans. You are a little weak in retirement savings, but you have $550k house with 20% equity that you bought at the bottom of the market. That's a smart investment IMO, and in my mind compensates somewhat for your low 401k balance. If I were you, I would retire the student loans ASAP to reduce the money that you have to shell out each month. That way, you have the option of scaling back you or your wife's work somewhat to avoid paying thousands for child care. In my mind, less debt == more options, and I like options.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b57b3a32bfd52fec3ec9ac55da0dc76a", "text": "Kudos to you on having money in a retirement account as early as after college. Many people don't start investing towards retirement until far to late and compound interest makes a major difference in those early years. Ideally, neither withdraw nor borrow from these accounts. Withdrawing from your 403b will incur a 10% penalty unless you are over the minimum age on top of the normal tax on that income. With a 401K loan you're putting yourself at risk if you run into a situation where you can't pay the loan back of incurring the same penalties as an early withdrawal. This article covers the concerns well. In general, you want to view your retirement money as untouchable until the distributions need to start coming in retirement. It's your future in there. Of course, this doesn't help the short term cash need. Do you have money in an emergency fund somewhere? Could a relative loan you money? Can you move to a less expensive place in advance and squirrel away some of what would have been your rent cash? Can you cut back to bare necessities and do the same? Do you have some nice stuff sitting around that you could sell to make up that needed cash? Will your current employer pay out unused vacation or are you getting any severance from this situation? Will you qualify for unemployment? I other words, think about what you would do to get the money if your retirement accounts weren't there. Then do that - as long as it's legal and doesn't involve running up debt on high interest lines of credit - instead of borrowing against your future.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a49a54204023c175881cedcd8f91556f", "text": "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.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a8ff89be169d4386afa9703d41dbe4a", "text": "You say: Every time it seems the share price dips. Does it? Have you collected the data? It may just be that you are remembering the events that seem most painful at the time. To move the market with your trade you need to be dealing in a large amount of shares. Unless the stock is illiquid (e.g most VCT in the UK), I don’t think you are dealing in that large a number; if you were then you would likely have access to a real time feed of the order book and could see what was going on.", "title": "" } ]
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What is the best resource for determining a specific age-based asset allocation?
[ { "docid": "c882375cbdf7f5360b61499c3e54544b", "text": "Look into the asset allocations of lifecycle funds offered by a company like Vanguard. This page allows you to select your current age and find a fund based on that. You could pick a fund, like the Target Retirement 2055 Fund (ages 21-25), and examine its allocation in the Portfolio & Management tab. For this fund, the breakdown is: Then, look at the allocation of the underlying funds that comprise the lifecycle fund, in the same tab. Look at each of those funds and see what asset allocation they use, and that should give you a rough idea for an age-based allocation. For example, the Total Stock Market Index Fund page has a sector breakdown, so if you wanted to get very fine-grained with your allocation, you could. (You're probably much better off investing in the index fund, low-cost ETFs, or the lifecycle fund itself, however; it'll be much cheaper). Doing this for several lifecycle funds should be a good start. Keep in mind, however, that these funds are rebalanced as the target date approaches, so if you're following the allocation of some particular funds, you'll have to rebalance as well. If you really want an age-based allocation that you don't have to think about, invest in a lifecycle fund directly. You'll probably pay a lower expense ratio than if you invested in a whole slew of funds directory, and it's less work for someone who isn't comfortable managing their portfolio themselves. Furthermore, with Vanguard, the expense ratios are already fairly low. This is only one example of an allocation, however; your tolerance of risk, age, etc. may affect what allocation you're willing to accept. Full disclosure: Part of my Roth IRA is invested in the Target 2055 fund I used as an example above, and another part uses a similar rebalancing strategy to the one I used above, but with Admiral Share funds, which have higher minimum investments but lower expense ratios.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "acd6ecb60230cccbe47d3f7ed7d5ef80", "text": "Take the easy approach - as suggested by John Bogle (founder of Vanguard - and a man worthy of tremendous respect). Two portfolios consisting of 1 index fund each. Invest your age% in the Fixed Income index fund. Invest (1-age)% in the stock index fund. Examples of these funds are the Total Market Index Fund (VTSMX) and the Total Bond Market Index (VBMFX). If you wish to be slightly more adventurous, blend (1-age-10)% as the Total Market Index Fund and a fixed 10% as Total International Stock Index (VGTSX). You will sleep well at night for most of your life.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9156e491f4e2121b8b45b776294c2bea", "text": "@bstpierre gave you an example of a portfolio similar to IFA's 70 portfolio. Please, look other variants of example portfolios there and investigate which would suit to you. Although the example portfolios are not ETF-based, required by the op, you can rather easily check corresponding components with this tool here. Before deciding your portfolio, fire up a spreadsheet (samples here) and do calculations and do not underestimate things below: Bogleheads have already answered this type of questions so why not look there? Less reinventing the wheel: google retirement portfolios site:bogleheads.org. I am not making any recommendations like other replies because financial recommendations devalue. I hope I steered you to the right track, use less time to pick individual funds or stocks and use more time to do your research.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1cc1cbf238b28b58a628df8b2952238f", "text": "he general advice I get is that the younger you are the more higher risk investments you should include in your portfolio. I will be frank. This is a rule of thumb given out by many lay people and low-level financial advisors, but not by true experts in finance. It is little more than an old wive's tale and does not come from solid theory nor empirical work. Finance theory says the following: the riskiness of your portfolio should (inversely) correspond to your risk aversion. Period. It says nothing about your age. Some people become more risk-averse as they get older, but not everyone. In fact, for many people it probably makes sense to increase the riskiness of their portfolio as they age because the uncertainty about both wealth (social security, the value of your house, the value of your human capital) and costs (how many kids you will have, the rate of inflation, where you will live) go down as you age so your overall level of risk falls over time without a corresponding mechanical increase in risk aversion. In fact, if you start from the assumption that people's aversion is to not having enough money at retirement, you get the result that people should invest in relatively safe securities until the probability of not having enough to cover their minimum needs gets small, then they invest in highly risky securities with any money above this threshold. This latter result sounds reasonable in your case. At this point it appears unlikely that you will be unable to meet your minimum needs--I'm assuming here that you are able to appreciate the warnings about underfunded pensions in other answers and still feel comfortable. With any money above and beyond what you consider to be prudent preparation for retirement, you should hold a risky (but still fully diversified) portfolio. Don't reduce the risk of that portion of your portfolio as you age unless you find your personal risk aversion increasing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ce676212f9a76f4a1caaaed0e929408", "text": "\"ycharts.com has \"\"Weighted Average PE Ratio\"\" and a bunch of other metrics that are meant to correspond to well known stock metrics. Other websites will have similar ratios.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e6f5a82008f9330d2061b78d7cbadd5", "text": "I spent a while looking for something similar a few weeks back and ended up getting frustrated and asking to borrow a friend's Bloombterg. I wish you the best of luck finding something, but I wasn't able to. S&amp;P and Morningstar have some stuff on their site, but I wasn't able to make use of it. Edit: Also, Bloomberg allows shared terminals. Depending on how much you think as a firm, these questions might come up, it might be worth the 20k / year", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96802f64aee75a2dff0c7b4c113c4323", "text": "John Bogle never said only buy the S&P 500 or any single index Q:Do you think the average person could safely invest for retirement and other goals without expert advice -- just by indexing? A: Yes, there is a rule of thumb I add to that. You should start out heavily invested in equities. Hold some bond index funds as well as stock index funds. By the time you get closer to retirement or into your retirement, you should have a significant position in bond index funds as well as stock index funds. As we get older, we have less time to recoup. We have more money to protect and our nervousness increases with age. We get a little bit worried about that nest egg when it's large and we have little time to recoup it, so we pay too much attention to the fluctuations in the market, which in the long run mean nothing. How much to pay Q: What's the highest expense ratio that one should pay for a domestic equity fund? A: I'd say three-quarters of 1 percent maybe. Q: For an international fund? A: I'd say three-quarters of 1 percent. Q: For a bond fund? A: One-half of 1 percent. But I'd shave that a little bit. For example, if you can buy a no-load bond fund or a no-load stock fund, you can afford a little more expense ratio, because you're not paying any commission. You've eliminated cost No. 2....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "073cb8a7fb44788cd73b350958d3e45c", "text": "\"This is basically what financial advisers have been saying for years...that you should invest in higher risk securities when you are young and lower risk securities when you get older. However, despite the fact that this is taken as truth by so many financial professionals, financial economists have been unable to formulate a coherent theory that supports it. By changing the preferences of their theoretical investors, they can get solutions like putting all your investments in a super safe asset until you get to a minimum survival level for retirement and then investing aggressively and many other solutions. But for none of the typically assumed preferences does investing aggressively when young and becoming more conservative as you near retirement seem to be the solution. I'm not saying there can be no such preferences, but the difficulty in finding them makes me think maybe this idea is not actually correct. Couple of problems with your intuition that you should think about: It's not clear that things \"\"average out\"\" over time. If you lose a bunch of money in some asset, there's no reason to think that by holding that asset for a while you will make back what you lost--prices are not cyclical. Moreover, doesn't your intuition implicitly suggest that you should transition out of risky securities as you get older...perhaps after having lost money? You can invest in safe assets (or even better, the tangency portfolio from your graph) and then lever up if you do want higher risk/return. You don't need to change your allocation to risky assets (and it is suboptimal to do so--you want to move along the CAL, not the curve). The riskiness of your portfolio should generally coincide (negatively) with your risk-aversion. When you are older and more certain about your life expectancy and your assets, are you exposed to more or less risks? In many cases, less risks. This means you would choose a more risky portfolio (because you are more sure you will have enough to live on until death even if your portfolio takes a dive). Your actual portfolio consists both of your investments and your human capital (the present value of your time and skills). When you are young, the value of this capital changes significantly with market performance so you already have background risk. Buying risky securities adds to that risk. When you are old, your human capital is worth little, so your overall portfolio becomes less risky. You might want to compensate by increasing the risk of your investments. EDIT: Note that this point may depend on how risky your human capital is (how likely it is that your wage or job prospects will change with the economy). Overall the answer to your question is not definitively known, but there is theoretical evidence that investing in risky securities when young isn't optimal. Having said that, most people do seem to invest in riskier securities when young and safer when they are older. I suspect this is because with life experience people become less optimistic as they get older, not because it is optimal to do so. But I can't be sure.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fdc8b26879a2340e97a9b043f7e3f155", "text": "My personal gold/metals target is 5.0% of my retirement portfolio. Right now I'm underweight because of the run up in gold/metals prices. (I haven't been selling, but as I add to retirement accounts, I haven't been buying gold so it is going below the 5% mark.) I arrived at this number after reading a lot of different sample portfolio allocations, and some books. Some people recommend what I consider crazy allocations: 25-50% in gold. From what I could figure out in terms of modern portfolio theory, holding some metal reduces your overall risk because it generally has a low correlation to equity markets. The problem with gold is that it is a lousy investment. It doesn't produce any income, and only has costs (storage, insurance, commissions to buy/sell, management of ETF if that's what you're using, etc). The only thing going for it is that it can be a hedge during tough times. In this case, when you rebalance, your gold will be high, you'll sell it, and buy the stocks that are down. (In theory -- assuming you stick to disciplined rebalancing.) So for me, 5% seemed to be enough to shave off a little overall risk without wasting too much expense on a hedge. (I don't go over this, and like I said, now I'm underweighted.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "516da182f7042c936cfb4e522a1d5230", "text": "As sdg said, the consensus is that the CPP is pretty solid. An actuarial report is submitted to Parliament every three years, and it's worth getting the numbers from that report so you know where your CPP contributions are invested. You may think there's more risk in CPP's portfolio than they let on. Either way, your own savings and investments are the best defense against inadequacy of the CPP. But you should be careful, as the CPP mostly invests in the same stuff the retail investor does - equity and fixed income. So the typical investor will be exposed to the risks as the CPP fund. However, CPP is not the only source of retirement income for Canadians. There is also the Guaranteed Income Supplement and Old Age Security, and they are funded differently from CPP. CPP benefits are funded by returns from the investment fund, as well as contributions. GIS and OAS are paid out of the Government of Canada's revenue each year. In my opinion, those programs are more vulnerable than CPP as they could just be legislated out of existence in tough economic times. (However, I also see that as unlikely because the elderly are a pretty powerful block of voters.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3834023eee46345c1a76dc2fc03ec2f", "text": "Here is one the links for Goldmansachs. Not to state the obvious, but most of their research is only available to their clients. http://www.goldmansachs.com/research/equity_ratings.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5bca170f15ded47fda9327e000cb5cbe", "text": "\"The \"\"Money 70\"\" is a fine list: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestfunds/index.html Money magazine is usually more reasonable than the other ones (SmartMoney, Kiplinger's, etc. are in my opinion sillier). If you want a lot of depth, the Morningstar Analyst Picks are useful but you have to pay for a membership which is probably not worth it for now: http://www.morningstar.com/Cover/Funds.aspx (side note: Morningstar star ratings are not useful, I'd ignore those. analyst picks are pretty useful.) Vanguard is a can't-go-too-wrong suggestion. They don't have any house funds that are \"\"bad,\"\" while for example Fidelity has some good ones mixed with a bunch that aren't so much. Of course, some funds at Vanguard may be inappropriate for your situation. (Vanguard also sells third-party funds, I'm talking about their own branded funds.) If getting started with 5K I think you'd want to go with an all-in-one fund like a target date retirement fund or a balanced fund. Such a fund also handles rebalancing for you. There's a Vanguard target date fund and balanced fund (Wellington) in the Money 70 list. fwiw, I think it's more important to ask how much risk you need to take, rather than how much you are willing to take. I wrote this down at more length here: http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund/ First pick your desired asset allocation, then pick your fund after that to match. Good luck.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7d9c4bf2b61eb3db9597a0ec295392c", "text": "\"Here is the \"\"investing for retirement\"\" theoretical background you should have. You should base your investment decisions not simply on the historical return of the fund, but on its potential for future returns and its risk. Past performance does not indicate future results: the past performance is frequently at its best the moment before the bubble pops. While no one knows the specifics of future returns, there are a few types of assets that it's (relatively) safe to make blanket statements about: The future returns of your portfolio will primarily be determined by your asset allocation . The general rules look like: There are a variety of guides out there to help decide your asset allocation and tell you specifically what to do. The other thing that you should consider is the cost of your funds. While it's easy to get lucky enough to make a mutual fund outperform the market in the short term, it's very hard to keep that up for decades on end. Moreover, chasing performance is risky, and expensive. So look at your fund information and locate the expense ratio. If the fund's expense ratio is 1%, that's super-expensive (the stock market's annualized real rate of return is about 4%, so that could be a quarter of your returns). All else being equal, choose the cheap index fund (with an expense ratio closer to 0.1%). Many 401(k) providers only have expensive mutual funds. This is because you're trapped and can't switch to a cheaper fund, so they're free to take lots of your money. If this is the case, deal with it in the short term for the tax benefits, then open a specific type of account called a \"\"rollover IRA\"\" when you change jobs, and move your assets there. Or, if your savings are small enough, just open an IRA (a \"\"traditional IRA\"\" or \"\"Roth IRA\"\") and use those instead. (Or, yell at your HR department, in the event that you think that'll actually accomplish anything.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2092de231921b7cbdaa3f22aa65f657c", "text": "My equities portfolio breaks down like this: (I'm 26 years old, so it is quite aggressive) Additionally, I have a portfolio of direct real estate investments I have made over the past 4 years. I invested very aggressively into real estate due to the financial crisis. As a result of my aggressive investing & strong growth in real estate, my overall asset breakdown is quite out of balance. (~80% Real Estate, ~20% Equities) I will be bringing this into a more sensible balance over the next few years as I unwind some of my real estate investments & reinvest the proceeds into other asset classes. As for the alternative asset groups you mentioned, I looked quite seriously at Peer to Peer lending a few years back. (Lending Club) However, interest rates were quite low & I felt that Real Estate was a better asset class to be in at the time. Furthermore, I was borrowing heavily to fund real estate purchases at the time, and I felt it didn't make much sense to be lending cash & borrowing at the same time. I needed every dime I could get a hold of. :) I will give it another look once rates come back up. I've shied away from investing in things like actively managed mutual funds, hedge funds, etc ... not because I don't think good managers can get superior returns ... rather, in my humble opinion, if they DO get above average returns then they simply charge higher management fees to reflect their good performance. Hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69dd9dbb23a5fbb80ce41d7c0fa951cb", "text": "\"Making these difficult portfolio decisions for you is the point of Target-Date Retirement Funds. You pick a date at which you're going to start needing to withdraw the money, and the company managing the fund slowly turns down the aggressiveness of the fund as the target date approaches. Typically you would pick the target date to be around, say, your 65th birthday. Many mutual fund companies offer a variety of funds to suit your needs. Your desire to never \"\"have to recover\"\" indicates that you have not yet done quite enough reading on the subject of investing. (Or possibly that your sources have been misleading you.) A basic understanding of investing includes the knowledge that markets go up and down, and that no portfolio will always go up. Some \"\"recovery\"\" will always be necessary; having a less aggressive portfolio will never shield you completely from losing money, it just makes loss less likely. The important thing is to only invest money that you can afford to lose in the short-term (with the understanding that you'll make it back in the long term). Money that you'll need in the short-term should be kept in the absolute safest investment vehicles, such as a savings account, a money market account, short-term certificates of deposit, or short-term US government bonds.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "551e04ec2baa8f1a64f61ef6cd41daff", "text": "The vanilla advice is investing your age in bonds and the rest in stocks (index funds, of course). So if you're 25, have 75% in stock index fund and 25% in bond index. Of course, your 401k is tax sheltered, so you want keep bonds there, assuming you have taxable investments. When comparing specific funds, you need to pay attention to expense ratios. For example, Vanguard's SP 500 index has an expense ratio of .17%. Many mutual funds charge around 1.5%. That means every year, 1.5% of the fund total goes to the fund manager(s). And that is regardless of up or down market. Since you're young, I would start studying up on personal finance as much as possible. Everyone has their favorite books and websites. For sane, no-nonsense investment advise I would start at bogleheads.org. I also recommend two books - This is assuming you want to set up a strategy and not fuss with it daily/weekly/monthly. The problem with so many financial strategies is they 1) don't work, i.e. try to time the market or 2) are so overly complex the gains are not worth the effort. I've gotten a LOT of help at the boglehead forums in terms of asset allocation and investment strategy. Good luck!", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
cb4f4e465688bc7007b2084973aec96d
Analyze a security using Benjamin Graham's Defensive Investor Criteria
[ { "docid": "4a03c953af7e493438d0b7e0261d42eb", "text": "\"Everything you are doing is fine. Here are a few practical notes in performing this analysis: Find all the primary filing information on EDGAR. For NYSE:MEI, you can use https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000065270&type=10-K&dateb=&owner=exclude&count=40 This is the original 10-K. To evaluate earnings growth you need per share earnings for the past three years and 10,11,12 years ago. You do NOT need diluted earnings (because in the long term share dilution comes out anyway, just like \"\"normalized\"\" earnings). The formula is avg(Y_-1+Y_-2+Y_-3) / is avg(Y_-10+Y_-11+Y_-12) Be careful with the pricing rules you are using, the asset one gets complicated. I recommend NOT using the pricing rules #6 and #7 to select the stock. Instead you can use them to set a maximum price for the stock and then you can compare the current price to your maximum price. I am also working to understand these rules and have cited Graham's rules into a checklist and worksheet to find all companies that meet his criteria. Basically my goal is to bottom feed the deals that Warren Buffett is not interested in. If you are interested to invest time into this project, please see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vuFmoJDktMYtS64od2HUTV9I351AxvhyjAaC0N3TXrA\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8f4704351a133fc68df4838e78f5ece3", "text": "\"Taking examples from this loosely Googled page: http://www.fundlibrary.com/features/columns/page.asp?id=14406 If you find, or calculate, the standard deviation (volatility) of the returns from your various investment classes you will find they range from low-risk (low volatility), such as Cash, to high-risk (high volatility), such as Strategic Growth. The risk rating (volatility) is a good indicator of how reactive to market conditions your investment is likely to be. As you can see below, from mid-2010 to mid-2011 the High Risk index performed really well, but it was also most reactive when the market subsequently turned down. The medium risk indices performed the best over the chart period, 2010 to 2013, but it could have turned out different. Generally, you choose your investment according to your \"\"risk appetite\"\" - how much you're willing to risk. You might play safe with, say, 30% cash, 60% medium risk, 10% high risk. (Then again, are you paying someone to manage cash, which you might be able to do for free in a bank?) Assuming, for a moment, European (3.) and Intnl Equity Tracker (9.) had the same medium risk profile, then holding 50% & 50% would also add some currency diversification, which is usually advisable. However, the main choice is down to risk appetite. To address your specific question: \"\"my main interest for now is between Stockmarket Growth and Strategic Growth\"\", first thing to do is check their volatilities. For a further level of sophistication you can check how they are correlated against each other. If they are inversely correlated, i.e. one goes up when the other goes down, then holding some of each could be a good diversification. FYI: An Introduction to Investment Theory The historical returns are important too, but the investment classes your pension fund is offering will probably be reasonably aligned on a risk-return basis. You should check though. I.e. do they line up on a plot of 3 year Return vs Volatility? e.g. the line through SA Cash - SA Bonds - Vol Target 20 - SA Equity. Source\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45fa1c42cb802137959a1d984b7e7935", "text": "\"First of all, setting some basics: What is a sound way to measure the risk of each investment in order to compare them with each other ? There is no single way that can be used across all asset classes / risks. Generally speaking, you want to perform both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of risks that you identify. Quantitative risk assessment may involve historical data and/or parametric or non-parametric models. Using historical data is often simple but may be hard in cases where the amount of data you have on a given event is low (e.g. risk of bust by investing in a cryptocurrency). Parametric and non-parametric risk quantification models exist (e.g. Value at Risk (VaR), Expected Shortfall (ES), etc) and abound but a lot of them are more complicated than necessary for an individual's requirements. Qualitative risk assessment is \"\"simply\"\" assessing the likelihood and severity of risks by using intuition, expert judgment (where that applies), etc. One may consult with outside parties (e.g. lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc) where their advisory may help highlighting some risks or understanding them better. To ease comparing investment opportunities, you may want to perform a risk assessment on categories of risks (e.g. investing in the stock market vs bond market). To compare between those categories, one should look at the whole picture (quantitative and qualitative) with their risk appetite in mind. Of course, after taking those macro decisions, you would need to further assess risks on more micro decisions (e.g. Microsoft or Google ?). You would then most likely end up with better comparatives as you would be comparing items similar in nature. Should I always consider the worst case scenario ? Because when I do that, I always can lose everything. Generally speaking, you want to consider everything so that you can perform a risk assessment and decide on your risk mitigating strategy (see Q4). By assessing the likelihood and severity of risks you may find that even in cases where you are comparatively as worse-off (e.g. in case of complete bust), the likelihood may differ. For example, keeping gold in a personal stash at home vs your employer going bankrupt if you are working for a large firm. Do note that you want to compare risks (both likelihood and severity) after any risk mitigation strategy you may want to put in place (e.g. maybe putting your gold in a safety box in a secure bank would make the likelihood of losing your gold essentially null). Is there a way to estimate the probability of such events, better than intuition ? Estimating probability or likelihood is largely dependent on data on hand and your capacity to model events. For most practical purposes of an individual, modelling would be way off in terms of reward-benefits. You may therefore want to simply research on past events and assign them a 1-5 (1 being very low, 5 being very high) risk rating based on your assessment of the likelihood. For example, you may assign a 1 on your employer going bankrupt and a 2 or 3 on being burglarized. This is only slightly better than intuition but has the merit of being based on data (e.g. frequency of burglary in your neighborhood). Should I only consider more probable outcomes and have a plan for them if they occur? This depends largely on your risk appetite. The more risk averse you are, the more thorough you will want to be in identifying, tracking and mitigating risks. For the risks that you have identified as relevant, or of concern, you may opt to establish a risk mitigating strategy, which is conventionally one of accepting, sharing (by taking insurance, for example), avoiding and reducing. It may not be possible to share or reduce some risks, especially for individuals, and so often the response will be either to accept or avoid the given risks by opting in or out on an opportunity.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db1ccbc57a778e7a93f06a6a95ab0dde", "text": "\"Consultant, I commend you for thinking about your financial future at such an early age. Warren Buffet, arguably the most successful investor ever lived, and the best known student of Ben Graham has a very simple advice for non-professional investors: \"\"Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.)\"\" This quote is from his 2013 letter to shareholders. Source: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2013ltr.pdf Buffet's annual letters to shareholders are the wealth of useful and practical wisdom for building one's financial future. The logic behind his advice is that most investors cannot consistently pick stock \"\"winners\"\", additionally, they are not able to predict timing of the market; hence, one has to simply stay in the market, and win over in the long run.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c9f2e17555cddbca29bea86b1a14fa3", "text": "The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn Stanley providers for many case studies about what kind of opportunities to look for from a fundamental analysis perspective. Typically things you can look for are financing terms that are not very favorable (expensive interest payments) as well as other constrictions on cash flow, arbitrary decisions by management (poor management), and dilution that doesn't make sense (usually another product of poor management). From a quantitative analysis perspective, you can gain insight by looking at the credit default swap rate history, if the company is listed in that market. The things that affect a CDS spread are different than what immediately affects share prices. Some market participants trade DOOMs over Credit Default Swaps, when they are betting on a company's insolvency. But looking at large trades in the options market isn't indicative of anything on its own, but you can use that information to help confirm your opinion. You can certainly jump on a trend using bad headlines, but typically by the time it is headline news, the majority of the downward move in the share price has already happened, or the stock opened lower because the news came outside of market hours. You have to factor in the short interest of the company, if the short interest is high then it will be very easy to squeeze the shorts resulting in a rally of share prices, the opposite of what you want. A short squeeze doesn't change the fundamental or quantitative reasons you wanted to short. The technical analysis should only be used to help you decide your entry and exit price ranges amongst an otherwise random walk. The technical rules you created sound like something a very basic program or stock screener might be able to follow, but it doesn't tell you anything, you will have to do research in the company's public filings yourself.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0805a7b927cefad4bf4b37891f454293", "text": "\"A kid can lose everything he owns in a crap shoot and live. But a senior citizen might not afford medical treatment if interest rates turn and their bonds underperform. In modern portfolio theory, risk/\"\"aggression\"\" is measured by beta and you get more return by increasing risk. Risk-adjusted return is measured by the Sharpe ratio and the efficient frontier shows how much return you get for each level of risk. For simplicity, we will assume that choosing beta is the only investment choice you make. You are buying a house tomorrow all cash, you should set aside that much in liquid assets today. (Return = who cares, Beta = 0) Your kids go to college in 5 years, so you invest funds now with a 5 year investment horizon to produce, with a reasonable level of certainty, the needed cash then. (Beta = low) You wish to leave money in your estate. Invest for the highest return with a horizon of your lifetime. (Return = maximum, Beta = who cares) In other words, you set risk based on how important your expenses are now or later. And your portfolio is a weighted average. On paper, let's say you have sold yourself into indentured servitude. In return you have received a paid-up-front annuity which pays dividends and increases annually. For someone in their twenties: This adds up to a present value of $1 million. When young, the value of lifetime remaining wages is high. It is also low risk, you will probably find a job eventually in any market condition. If your portfolio is significantly smaller than $1 million this means that the low risk of future wages pulls down your beta, and therefore: Youth invest aggressively with available funds because they compensate large, low-risk future earnings to meet their desired risk appetite.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45647bd5c16b69730e046f75a6a74533", "text": "Link only answers aren't good, but the list is pretty long. It's a moving target, the requirement change based on a number of criteria. It usually jumps to force you to sell when you hold a losing position, or when your commodity is about to skyrocket.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0a7f714f0a3b50be1430a11363a34698", "text": "Aswath Damodaran's [Investment Valuation 3rd edition](http://www.amazon.com/Investment-Valuation-Techniques-Determining-University/dp/1118130731/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1339995852&amp;sr=8-12&amp;keywords=aswath+damodaran) (or save money and go with a used copy of the [2nd edition](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0471414905/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=used)) He's a professor at Stern School of Business. His [website](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/) and [blog](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/) are good resources as well. [Here is his support page](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/Inv3ed.htm) for his Investment Valuation text. It includes chapter summaries, slides, ect. If you're interested in buying the text you can get an idea of what's in it by checking that site out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "793747651d0125a3ed9bc1db898787a9", "text": "Well, it also discusses other traditional valuation techniques such as the economic profit model and it has a chapter on real option valuation. But I would not label those exotic valuation methods. However, I would say that the CFA challenge is much about standard valuation methods due to the limited page limit and considering that there should properly also be an analysis of the external and internal environment to determine the future prospects of the given company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82e1f714bcf875df2343789d9907506a", "text": "\"I think you're confusing risk analysis (that is what you quoted as \"\"Taleb Distribution\"\") with arguments against taking risks altogether. You need to understand that not taking a risk - is by itself a risk. You can lose money by not investing it, because of the very same Taleb Distribution: an unpredictable catastrophic event. Take an example of keeping cash in your house and not investing it anywhere. In the 1998 default of the Russian Federation, people lost money by not investing it. Why? Because had they invested the money - they would have the investments/properties, but since they only had cash - it became worthless overnight. There's no argument for or against investing on its own. The arguments are always related to the investment goals and the risk analysis. You're looking for something that doesn't exist.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93ac5c7e87fbf813b47b44d966bcd307", "text": "\"Yes, and the math that tells you when is called the Kelly Criterion. The Kelly Criterion is on its face about how much you should bet on a positive-sum game. Imagine you have a game where you flip a coin, and if heads you are given 3 times your bet, and if tails you lose your bet. Naively you'd think \"\"great, I should play, and bet every dollar I have!\"\" -- after all, it has a 50% average return on investment. You get back on average 1.5$ for every dollar you bet, so every dollar you don't bet is a 0.5$ loss. But if you do this and you play every day for 10 years, you'll almost always end up bankrupt. Funny that. On the other hand, if you bet nothing, you are losing out on a great investment. So under certain assumptions, you neither want to bet everything, nor do you want to bet nothing (assuming you can repeat the bet almost indefinitely). The question then becomes, what percentage of your bankroll should you bet? Kelly Criterion answers this question. The typical Kelly Criterion case is where we are making a bet with positive returns, not an insurance against loss; but with a bit of mathematical trickery, we can use it to determine how much you should spend on insuring against loss. An \"\"easy\"\" way to undertand the Kelly Criterion is that you want to maximize the logarithm of your worth in a given period. Such a maximization results in the largest long-term value in some sense. Let us give it a try in an insurance case. Suppose you have a 1 million dollar asset. It has a 1% chance per year of being destroyed by some random event (flood, fire, taxes, pitchforks). You can buy insurance against this for 2% of its value per year. It even covers pitchforks. On its face this looks like a bad deal. Your expected loss is only 1%, but the cost to hide the loss is 2%? If this is your only asset, then the loss makes your net worth 0. The log of zero is negative infinity. Under Kelly, any insurance (no matter how inefficient) is worth it. This is a bit of an extreme case, and we'll cover why it doesn't apply even when it seems like it does elsewhere. Now suppose you have 1 million dollars in other assets. In the insured case, we always end the year with 1.98 million dollars, regardless of if the disaster happens. In the non-insured case, 99% of the time we have 2 million dollars, and 1% of the time we have 1 million dollars. We want to maximize the expected log value of our worth. We have log(2 million - 20,000) (the insured case) vs 1% * log(1 million) + 99% * log(2 million). Or 13.7953 vs 14.49. The Kelly Criterion says insurance is worth it; note that you could \"\"afford\"\" to replace your home, but because it makes up so much of your net worth, Kelly says the \"\"hit it too painful\"\" and you should just pay for insurance. Now suppose you are worth 1 billion. We have log(1 billion - 20k) on the insured side, and 1%*log(999 million) + 99% * log(1 billion) on the uninsured side. The logs of each side are 21.42 vs 20.72. (Note that the base of the logarithm doesn't matter; so long as you use the same base on each side). According to Kelly, we have found a case where insurance isn't worth it. The Kelly Criterion roughly tells you \"\"if I took this bet every (period of time), would I be on average richer after (many repeats of this bet) than if I didn't take this bet?\"\" When the answer is \"\"no\"\", it implies self-insurance is more efficient than using external insurance. The answer is going to be sensitive to the profit margin of the insurance product you are buying, and the size of the asset relative to your total wealth. Now, the Kelly Criterion can easily be misapplied. Being worth financially zero in current assets can easily ignore non-financial assets (like your ability to work, or friends, or whatever). And it presumes repeat to infinity, and people tend not to live that long. But it is a good starting spot. Note that the option of bankruptcy can easily make insurance not \"\"worth it\"\" for people far poorer; this is one of the reasons why banks insist you have insurance on your proprety. You can use Kelly to calculate how much insurance you should purchase at a given profit margin for the insurance company given your net worth and the risk involved. This can be used in Finance to work out how much you should hedge your bets in an investment as well; in effect, it quantifies how having money makes it easier to make money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe51e686735147f0c35b913477796fe9", "text": "\"Its important to note that aggression, or better yet volatility, does not necessarily offer higher returns. One can find funds that have a high beta (measure of volatility) and lower performance then stock funds with a lower beta. Additionally, to Micheal's point, better performance could be undone by higher fees. Age is unimportant when deciding the acceptable volatility. Its more important as to when the money is to be available. If there might be an immediate need, or even less than a year, then stick to a savings account. Five years, some volatility can be accepted, if 10 years or more seek to maximize rate of return. For example assume a person is near retirement age. They are expected to have 50K per year expenses. If they have 250K wrapped up in CDs and savings, and another 250K in some conservative investments, they can, and should, be \"\"aggressive\"\" with any remaining money. On the contrary a person your age that is savings for a house intends to buy one in three years. Savings for the down payment should be pretty darn conservative. Something like 75% in savings accounts, and maybe 25% in some conservative investments. As the time to buy approaches they can pull the money out of the conservative investments at a optimal time. Also you should not be investing without an emergency fund in place. Get that done first, then look to invest. If your friend does not understand these basic concepts there is no point in paying for his advice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "13ccbde86d6468a893f0d86032fe1b7e", "text": "The goal of the kelly criterion strategy is to find a balance between preservation of starting capital and returns. One of extreme you could bet the entirety of your account on one trade, which would maximize your returns if you win, but leave you unable to further invest if you lose. On the other extreme, you could bet the smallest amount of capital possible over the course of several trades to increase the probability that you'll even out to 70% accuracy over time. But this method would be extremely slow. So for your case, investing 40% each time is one way to find an optimal balance between these two extremes. Use this as a rule of thumb though, because your own situation and investing goals may differ from the goal of optimal growth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e151f96ccd054770a6a4f945657f69ae", "text": "Well, what I would do would be to read every journalist's article on the subject, every academic paper, and the appropriate chapters from the CFA curriculum. I'd write down everyone's name (authors and those mentioned) and then email call them for advice. I'd try to find out who those players are, what their specific philosophies are, and then find someone i thought was really smart, had an investment philosophy that I agreed with, wasn't a dick, and then I would call them. By the way, Warren Buffett went to Columbia to learn specifically under Ben Graham. Prior to graduation, Buffett said he'd like to work at Graham Newman for free, such was the value of the education. Benjamin Graham told him (Warren), he wasn't worth that much. You or I literally have nothing to offer these guys that they can't get somewhere else (smarts, hard work, etc) for better. I'd be humble, attentive, and humble (did I say that already). There's an intellectual honesty that comes with admitting you don't know anything (but are willing to learn) that is very much important. That's what I would do. Did any of that help?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c0418d8ab15cfc19f66cea6800e42c5", "text": "I don't completely have GIPS down, risk management still gets me on some questions, and alternative investments is fucking me a bit. Any of the IPS questions will be iffy because I'm not good at paying attention to detail in the prompts. On the other hand, I memorized the micro and global attribution formulas so I'm hoping for a lot of questions on that shit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe42f4891bb8abe1c35dea12d56d0e78", "text": "Save up a bigger downpayment. The lender's requirement is going to be based on how much you finance, not the price of the house.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
960df300941fe963468dc26e543ceac5
Short term cutting losses in a long term investment
[ { "docid": "a9aa4ec6f87b8f797f24108808a2ab3b", "text": "What you are suggesting would be the correct strategy, if you knew exactly when the market was going to go back up. This is called market timing. Since it has been shown that no one can do this consistently, the best strategy is to just keep your money where it is. The market tends to make large jumps, especially lately. Missing just a few of these in a year can greatly impact your returns. It doesn't really matter what the market does while you hold investments. The important part is how much you bought for and how much you sold for. This assumes that the reasons that you selected those particular investments are still valid. If this is not the case, by all means sell them and pick something that does meet your needs.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f721f620e679c516aabc50115b8c3d77", "text": "If you are investing for 10 years, then you just keep buying at whatever price the fund is at. This is called dollar-cost averaging. If the fund is declining in value from when you first bought it, then when you buy more, the AVERAGE price you bought in at is now lower. So therefore your losses are lower AND when it goes back up you will make more. Even if it continues to decline in value then you keep adding more money in periodically, eventually your position will be so large that on the first uptick you will have a huge percent gain. Anyway this is only suggested because you are in it for 10 years. Other people's investment goals vary.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2849d184039e125ed07adb201bbeba4d", "text": "What might make more sense is to 'capture' your losses. Sell out the funds you have, move into something else that is different enough that the IRS won't consider it a wash sale, and you can then use those losses to offset gains (you can even carry them forward) You would still be in the market, just having made a sort of 'sideways move'. A month or two later (once you are clear of wash sale rules) you could shift back to your original choices. (this answer presumes you are in the US, or somewhere that lets you use losses to offset gains)", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "6241d19ae4f4a34d2000f940bf82e549", "text": "The issue is the time frame. With a one year investment horizon the only way for a fund manager to be confident that they are not going to lose their shirt is to invest your money in ultra conservative low volatility investments. Otherwise a year like 2008 in the US stock market would break them. Note if you are willing to expand your payback time period to multiple years then you are essentially looking at an annuity and it's market loss rider. Of course those contacts are always structured such that the insurance company is extremely confident that they will be able to make more in the market than they are promising to pay back (multiple decade time horizons).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe72286db97efd593f55374538a2eb10", "text": "\"Most markets around the world have been downtrending for the last 6 to 10 months. The definition of a downtrend is lower lows and lower highs, and until you get a higher low and confirmation with a higher high the downtrend will continue. If you look at the weekly charts of most indexes you can determine the longer term trend. If you are more concerned with the medium term trend then you could look at the daily charts. So if your objective is to try and buy individual stocks and try to make some medium to short term profits from them I would start by first looking at the daily charts of the index your stock belongs to. Only buy when the intermediate trend of the market is moving up (higher highs and higher lows). You can do some brief analysis on the stocks your interested in buying, and two things I would add to the short list in your question would be to check if earnings are increasing year after year. The second thing to look at would be to check if the earnings yield is greater than the dividend yield, that way you know that dividends are being paid out from current earnings and not from previous earning or from borrowings. You could then check the daily charts of these individual stocks and make sure they are uptrending also. Buy uptrending stocks in an uptrending market. Before you buy anything write up a trading plan and develop your trading rules. For example if price breaks through the resistance line of a previous high you will buy at the open of the next day. Have your money management and risk management rules in place and stick to your plan. You can also do some backtesting or paper trading to check the validity of your strategy. A good book to read on money and risk management is - \"\"Trade your way to Financial Freedom\"\" by Van Tharp. Your aim should not be to get a winner on every trade but to let your winners run and keep your losses small.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afd55a620b8f7f4be8eb0f72d72178f2", "text": "\"Being \"\"long\"\" - expecting the price to go up to make a profit - is a two step process: 1) buy 2) sell Being \"\"short\"\" - expecting the price to go down to make a profit - is a 5 step process: 1) borrow someone else's asset 2) sell their asset on the open market to somebody else a third party 3) pocket the proceeds of the sell for your own account 4) buy an identical asset for a cheaper price 5) return this identical asset to the person that let you borrow their asset if this is successful you keep the difference between 3) and 4)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e513341e209384d5bbea0f450c9ce437", "text": "An alternative options strategy to minimize loss of investment capital is to buy a put, near the money around your original buy price, with a premium less than the total dividend. The value of the put will increase if the stock price falls quickly. Likely, a large portion of your dividend will go towards paying the option premium, this will however ensure that your capital doesn't drop much lower than your buy price. Continued dividend distributions will continue to pay to buy future put options. Risks here are if the stock does not have a very large up or down movement from your original buy price causing most of the dividend to be spent on insuring your position. It may take a few cycles, but once the stock has appreciated in value say 10% above buying price, you can consider either skipping the put insurance so you can pocket the dividend, or you can bu ythe put with a higher strike price for additional insurance against a loss of gains. Again, this sacrifices much of the dividend in favor of price loss, and still is open to a risk of neutral price movement over time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afb2b27ef5043f88ddb4453d7898f1c5", "text": "\"If you're talking about a single stock, you greatly underestimate the chances of it dropping, even long-term. Check out the 12 companies that made up the first Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896. There is probably only one you've heard of: GE. Many of the others are long gone or have since been bought up by larger companies. And remember these were 12 companies that were deemed to be the most representative of the stock market around the turn of the 20th century. Now, if you're talking about funds that hold many stocks (up to thousands), then your question is a little different. Over the long-term (25+ years), we have never experienced a period where the overall market lost value. Of course, as you recognize, the psychology of investors is a very important factor. If the stock market loses half of its value in a year (as it has done a few times), people will be inundated with bad news and proclamations of \"\"this time it's different!\"\" and explanations of why the stock market will never recover. Perhaps this may be true some day, but it never has been thus far. So based on all the evidence we have, if you hold a well-diversified fund, the chances of it going down long-term (again, meaning 25+ years) are basically zero.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b58965eac1ac22be6c97704ca003a1f0", "text": "My understanding is that losses are first deductible against any capital gains you may have, then against your regular income (up to $3,000 per year). If you still have a loss after that, the loss may be carried over to offset capital gains or income in subsequent years As you suspect, a short term capital loss is deductible against short term capital gains and long term losses are deductible against long term gains. So taking the loss now MIGHT be beneficial from a tax perspective. I say MIGHT because there are a couple scenarios in which it either may not matter, or actually be detrimental: If you don't have any short term capital gains this year, but you have long term capital gains, you would have to use the short term loss to offset the long term gain before you could apply it to ordinary income. So in that situation you lose out on the difference between the long term tax rate (15%) and your ordinary income rate (potentially higher). If you keep the stock, and sell it for a long term loss next year, but you only have short-term capital gains or no capital gains next year, then you may use the long term loss to offset your short-term gains (first) or your ordinary income. Clear as mud? The whole mess is outlined in IRS Publication 550 Finally, if you still think the stock is good, but just want to take the tax loss, you can sell the stock now (to realize the loss) then re-buy it in 30 days. This is called Tax Loss Harvesting. The 30 day delay is an IRS requirement for being allowed to realize the loss.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d1babfc30d5ff74831c9c3ab4156b3c", "text": "\"If you want to make a profit from long term trading (whatever \"\"long term\"\" means for you), the best strategy is to let the good performers in your portfolio run, and cull the bad ones. Of course that strategy is hard to follow, unless you have the perfect foresight to know exactly how long your best performing investments will continue to outperform the market, but markets don't always follow the assumption that perfect information is available to all participants, and hence \"\"momentum\"\" has a real-world effect on prices, whether or not some theorists have chosen to ignore it. But a fixed strategy of \"\"daily rebalancing\"\" does exactly the opposite of the above - it continuously reduces the holdings of good performers and increases the holdings of bad. If this type of rebalancing is done more frequently than the constituents of benchmark index are adjusted, it is very likely to underperform the index in the long term. Other issues in a \"\"real world\"\" market are the impact of increased dealing costs on smaller parcels of securities, and the buy/sell spreads incurred in the daily rebalancing trades. If the market is up and down 1% on alternate days with no long tern trend, quite likely the fund will be repeatedly buying and selling small parcels of the same stocks to do its daily balancing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "05df34a65fa32fa9dd56f84f73990c16", "text": "\"If you're asking this question, you probably aren't ready to be buying individual stock shares, and may not be ready to be investing in the market at all. Short-term in the stock market is GAMBLING, pure and simple, and gambling against professionals at that. You can reduce your risk if you spend the amount of time and effort the pros do on it, but if you aren't ready to accept losses you shouldn't be playing and if you aren't willing to bet it all on a single throw of the dice you should diversify and accept lower potential gain in exchange for lower risk. (Standard advice: Index funds.) The way an investor, as opposed to a gambler, deals with a stock price dropping -- or surging upward, or not doing anything! -- is to say \"\"That's interesting. Given where it is NOW, do I expect it to go up or down from here, and do I think I have someplace to put the money that will do better?\"\" If you believe the stock will gain value from here, holding it may make more sense than taking your losses. Specific example: the mortgage-crisis market crash of a few years ago. People who sold because stock prices were dropping and they were scared -- or whose finances forced them to sell during the down period -- were hurt badly. Those of us who were invested for the long term and could afford to leave the money in the market -- or who were brave/contrarian enough to see it as an opportunity to buy at a better price -- came out relatively unscathed; all I have \"\"lost\"\" was two years of growth. So: You made your bet. Now you have to decide: Do you really want to \"\"buy high, sell low\"\" and take the loss as a learning experience, or do you want to wait and see whether you can sell not-so-low. If you don't know enough about the company to make a fairly rational decision on that front, you probably shouldn't have bought its stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c84b819d643d7752d14fc9c0ed08e1e", "text": "No, if you are taking a loss solely and purely to reduce the tax you have to pay, then it is not a good strategy, in fact it is a very bad strategy, no matter what country you are in. No investment choice should be made solely due to your tax consequeses. If you are paying tax that means you made a profit, if you made a loss just to save some tax then you are loosing money. The whole point of investing is to make money not lose it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2dde5ad88962880589d29a60a1fa5ae", "text": "Buying a put is hedging. You won't lose as much if the market goes down, but you'll still lose capital: lower value of your long positions. Buying an ultrashort like QID is safer than shorting a stock because you don't have the unlimited losses you could have when you short a stock. It is volatile. It's not a whole lot different than buying a put; it uses futures and swaps to give the opposing behavior to the underlying index. Some places indicate that the tax consequences could be severe. It is also a hedge if you don't sell your long positions. QID opposes the NASDAQ 100 which is tech-heavy so bear (!) that in mind. Selling your long positions gets you out of equities completely. You'll be responsible for taxes on capital gains. It gets your money off of the table, as opposed to playing side bets or buying insurance. (Sorry for the gambling analogy but that's a bit how I feel with stock indices now :) ).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c6dd2d49fe387974d70a9f22ca9e5f4", "text": "\"This doesn't make sense to me. Writing a covered call gives him a long delta position - the exact opposite of what he wants. And the tax losses won't turn a losing position into a winning one. Is there something I'm missing? Edit: Also, doesn't \"\"shorting against the box\"\" mean he has to have a long position, and short against that? That means you've got zero net delta, which isn't very useful at all...\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "209e0a3561e14be2b77fe04a34c4f754", "text": "Long term gains are taxed at 15% maximum. Losses, up to the $3K/yr you cited, can offset ordinary income, so 25% or higher, depending on your income. Better to take the loss that way. With my usual disclaimer: Do not let the tax tail wag the investing dog.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8fd24a7a18ae6dee7c86ef01815fefa1", "text": "\"The emphasis of \"\"stop loss\"\" is \"\"stop\"\", not \"\"loss\"\". Stop and long term are contradictory. After you stop, what are you going to do with your cash? Since it's long term, you still have 5+ years to before you use the money, do you simply park everything in 0.5% savings account? On the other hand, if your investment holds N stocks and one has dropped a lot, you are free to switch to another one. This is just an investment strategy and you are still in the market.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e0cc51cddecc1fe58524e39c9897ba2", "text": "It would involve manual effort, but there is just a handful of exclusions, buy the fund you want, plug into a tool like Morningstar Instant X Ray, find out your $10k position includes $567.89 of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and sell short $567.89 of Lockheed Martin. Check you're in sync periodically (the fund or index balance may change); when you sell the fund close your shorts too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80ccc6f1c6b0f9d238426febd4303db4", "text": "\"Generally investing in index-tracking funds in the long term poses relatively low risk (compared to \"\"short term investment\"\", aka speculation). No-one says differently. However, it is a higher risk than money-market/savings/bonds. The reason for that is that the return is not guaranteed and loss is not limited. Here volatility plays part, as well as general market conditions (although the volatility risk also affects bonds at some level as well). While long term trend may be upwards, short term trend may be significantly different. Take as an example year 2008 for S&P500. If, by any chance, you needed to liquidate your investment in November 2008 after investing in November 1998 - you might have ended up with 0 gain (or even loss). Had you waited just another year (or liquidated a year earlier) - the result would be significantly different. That's the volatility risk. You don't invest indefinitely, even when you invest long term. At some point you'll have to liquidate your investment. Higher volatility means that there's a higher chance of downward spike just at that point of time killing your gains, even if the general trend over the period around that point of time was upward (as it was for S&P500, for example, for the period 1998-2014, with the significant downward spikes in 2003 and 2008). If you invest in major indexes, these kinds of risks are hard to avoid (as they're all tied together). So you need to diversify between different kinds of investments (bonds vs stocks, as the books \"\"parrot\"\"), and/or different markets (not only US, but also foreign).\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
262287aa98aa8acb6a03e4b2530a42c5
What is good growth?
[ { "docid": "e161b90085865041d487f930bd6e12ce", "text": "If your question is truly just What is good growth? Is there a target return that's accepted as good? I assumed 8% (plus transaction fees). Then I'd have to point out that the S&P has offered a CAGR of 9.77% since 1900. You can buy an S&P ETF for .05%/yr expense. If your goal is to lag the S&P by 1.7%/yr over the long term, you can use a 85/15 mix of S&P and cash, sleep well at night, and avoid wasting any time picking stocks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04b55d5af7ba90e6e12ace658b6b81f3", "text": "In One Up on Wall Street, Peter Lynch suggested that there are six major aspects to choosing growth stocks:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2277300a0184c5ae88d09cac947a8835", "text": "The first issue is if the stock has returned 8% since you purchased it that could be either very good (8% in two days) or very bad (8% over 20 years). Even just measured over the past year it could be relatively very good (up 8% and the market is down 5%) or very bad (up 8% and the market is up 16%). Either way, the good rule of thumb is that you shouldn't choose your positions using the returns of the stock in the past, but only on your view of the future returns of the stock. For instance, if the stock has gone up 8% in two months, but you think it has another 8% to go in the next two months you probably shouldn't take your earnings. As for the $5k, at first glance that is not an unreasonable amount. If you use a discount broker the fees shouldn't be so large that you will eat up any return on a $5k amount. Also, from what you describe it is not such a large amount that mistakes will put your retirement in danger.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36f2b43894ed30fd935722af2ad6a7f2", "text": "There isn't a single hard and fast return to expect. Securities, like all things in a free market, compete for your money. As the Fed sets the tone for the market with their overnight Fed funds rate, you might want to use a multiple of the 'benchmark' 10-year T-note yeald. So let's suppose that a good multiple is four. The current yeald on the 10-year T-note is hovering around two. That would give a target yeald of eight. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24UST10Y&p=W&b=5&g=0&id=p47115669808", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "c3ee2200952b082f62092d65b776999e", "text": "It's a kook movie made by folks who combine conspiracy quackery with repackaged socialism. If you're into socialist theory, read Marx or some other intellectual socialist. That said, growth and efficiency are not the same thing. If I'm running a lemonade stand, I can grow by hiring more people at $X/hr or increase efficiency by purchasing an electric juicer and hiring fewer people.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7653999c9f52021f431653da7753cb77", "text": "\"Jesus christ. \"\"We need to consume more or the GROWTH will come to a dramatic halt.\"\" What about fine? What about things being big enough? What about focusing on something other then unhinged growth? Economists may often be better then most people at understanding the big picture, but man sometimes just staring at the numbers makes you so blind.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9cf796c92ec075db88a0620253a15499", "text": "\"The answer to your question depends on what you mean when you say \"\"growth\"\". If you mean a literal increase in the aggregate market capitalization of companies, across the entire market, then, no, this sort of growth is not possible without concomitant economic growth. The reason why is that the market capitalization of each company is proportional to its gross revenue, and the sum of all revenue from selling \"\"final goods\"\" (i.e., things purchased and used by consumers) is, apart from a few technicalities, the definition of GDP. The exact multiplier might fluctuate up or down depending on investors' expectations about how sales will grow or decline going forward, but in a zero-growth economy this multiplier should be stable over the long run. It might, however, still fluctuate over the short term, but more about that in a minute. Note that all of this applies to aggregate growth across all firms. Individual firms can still grow, of course, but as they must do this by gaining market share from other companies such growth would be balanced by a decline for some other firm. Also, I've assumed zero net exports (that's one of the \"\"technicalities\"\" I mentioned above) because obviously you could have export-driven growth even if the domestic economy were stationary. However, often when people talk about \"\"growth\"\" in the market, what they really mean is \"\"return\"\". That is, how much does your investment earn for you. This isn't really the same thing as growth, but people often think of it that way, particularly in the saving phase of their investing career, when they are reinvesting their returns, and therefore their account balances are growing. It is possible to have a positive return, averaged across the market, even in a stationary economy. The reason why is that there are really only two things a firm can do with its net profits. One possibility is that it could invest it in growing the business. However, there is not much point in doing that in a stationary economy because by assumption no increase in aggregate consumption (and therefore, in the long run, aggregate production) are possible. Therefore, firms are left with only the second option, which is to pay them out to investors as dividends. Those dividends provide a return that is independent of economic growth. Would the stock market still be a good investment in such an economy? Yes. Well, sort of. The rate of return from firms' dividend payouts will depend on investors' demand (in aggregate) for returns on their investments. Stock prices will rise or fall, causing returns to respectively fall or rise, to find that level. If your personal desire for returns is lower than the average across the investing public, then the stock market would look like a good investment. If your desired return is higher than the average, then it will look like a poor investment. The marginal investor will, of course be indifferent. The practical upshot of this is that the people who invest in the stock market in this scenario will be precisely the ones for whom the stock market is a good investment, given their personal propensity to save and desire for returns, and so forth. Finally, you mentioned that in your scenario the GDP stagnation is due to declining population. I am less certain what this means for investment, but my first thought is that you would have a large retired population selling its investments to fund late-life consumption, and you would have a comparatively small (relative to history) working population buying those assets. This would lead to low asset prices, and therefore high rates of return. However, that's assuming that retirees need to sell assets to fund their retirement consumption. If the absolute returns on retirees' assets are large enough to fund their retirement consumption then you would wind up with relatively few sellers, resulting in high prices and therefore relatively low rates of return. It's not obvious to me which effect would dominate, and so it's hard to say whether or not the resulting returns would look attractive to the working-age population.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e339735f623110bdf034ab57031d132", "text": "This is supply side nonsense. The primary driver of growth is demand. If demand is growing, then lower taxes will allow the company to meet growing demand faster. However, if demand is stable and currently being met by the company, reducing taxes will only enrich shareholders at the expense of society at large. Unless there is growing demand, a corporation will always choose to allocate profit via tax cuts to shareholders rather than to employees in the form of jobs or raises.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "01a307c4236d58d3e0da1df77541e4a9", "text": "I didn't take too many finance or economics courses so i can't comment. In my post I recommended the YouTube video or audiobook 'why an economy grows and why it doesn't' I guess it's more economy related than finance related, but is still relevant as it touches on loans and net worth and stuff.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5fd5934bdc397c5a38d18e5334ea2156", "text": "Monetary base and growth are no longer correlated, at least that's what we know from QE in the US. Source, some research I did as an undergrad and papers I can't cite from my phone. But in all seriousness, I doubt there are many mainstream economists that would cite the monetary base as a key driver of growth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68ad2d6cc4afb29c1b2f1b4a8f0d38f1", "text": "All you have to do is ask Warren Buffet that question and you'll have your answer! (grin) He is the very definition of someone who relies on the fundamentals as a major part of his investment decisions. Investors who rely on analysis of fundamentals tend to be more long-term strategic planners than most other investors, who seem more focused on momentum-based thinking. There are some industries which have historically low P/E ratios, such as utilities, but I don't think that implies poor growth prospects. How often does a utility go out of business? I think oftentimes if you really look into the numbers, there are companies reporting higher earnings and earnings growth, but is that top-line growth, or is it the result of cost-cutting and other measures which artificially imply a healthy and growing company? A healthy company is one which shows year-over-year organic growth in revenues and earnings from sales, not one which has to continually make new acquisitions or use accounting tricks to dress up the bottom line. Is it possible to do well by investing in companies with solid fundamentals? Absolutely. You may not realize the same rate of short-term returns as others who use momentum-based trading strategies, but over the long haul I'm willing to bet you'll see a better overall average return than they do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fcada1ca8ec573c01699048d4d50fd8e", "text": "No, it is not. If that were the case, you would have no such thing as a growth stock. Dividends and dividend policies can change at any time. The primary reason for investment in a company is access to a firm's earnings, hence the idea of P/E. Dividends are factored in with capital appreciation, but studies have shown that dividends are actually detrimental to future growth. They tend to allow easier access to shareholders because of the payouts, reducing the cost of equity. But, if you reduce the growth rate as well, sensitivity tables can demonstrate deterioration or stagnation over time. Some good examples are GE and Microsoft.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83ff91d25d43c5069739a553a5a028ad", "text": "It is not so useful because you are applying it to large capital. Think about Theory of Investment Value. It says that you must find undervalued stocks with whatever ratios and metrics. Now think about the reality of a company. For example, if you are waiting KO (The Coca-Cola Company) to be undervalued for buying it, it might be a bad idea because KO is already an international well known company and KO sells its product almost everywhere...so there are not too many opportunities for growth. Even if KO ratios and metrics says it's a good time to buy because it's undervalued, people might not invest on it because KO doesn't have the same potential to grow as 10 years ago. The best chance to grow is demographics. You are better off either buying ETFs monthly for many years (10 minimum) OR find small-cap and mid-cap companies that have the potential to grow plus their ratios indicate they might be undervalued. If you want your investment to work remember this: stock price growth is nothing more than You might ask yourself. What is your investment profile? Agressive? Speculative? Income? Dividends? Capital preservation? If you want something not too risky: ETFs. And not waste too much time. If you want to get more returns, you have to take more risks: find small-cap and mid-companies that are worth. I hope I helped you!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52f5dbdf11819f5558574b5eddcfd402", "text": "I like your example. My only issue with it is that it's very anthropocentric. Even at a very basic level, we should be teaching that economy is a subset of ecology, not just about human interactions. I think the great economic problem of our age is not how to spur growth, but how to appropriately factor in costs of natural resources and affects to the world ecology.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ed925a4a25be5682c7eb972607f6e37b", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/09/the-how-and-why-of-inclusive-growth/541422/) reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; In our increasingly unequal cities, inclusion is good for growth, and growth is good for inclusion. &gt; The report draws from the experience of Brookings Metro Policy Program&amp;#039;s Inclusive Economic Development Lab, a six-month pilot project that worked with regional EDOs in three metros-Indianapolis, Nashville, and San Diego-to develop more effective strategies to frame inclusive growth as an economic imperative. &gt; As one economic development official said to me recently: &amp;quot;For too long we emphasized economic growth, and that has helped accentuate many of the problems our cities and regions now face. Our profession is called economic development and that&amp;#039;s what we should emphasize; not just growth but the full development of our people, neighborhoods and communities.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s what the budding movement for inclusive growth and prosperity is about. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/73aqjn/to_fight_inequality_cities_need_inclusive_growth/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~219138 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*: **growth**^#1 **economic**^#2 **EDO**^#3 **inclusive**^#4 **more**^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9459148637c87987c229537a4493a9c", "text": "Inequality is good for everyone. It's extreme inequality and extreme equality that snuff mobility and growth. The sides are strong because they're the height of financial/democratic power. So to support either side means taking from the weaker center. And it's the center that holds the house together.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c605fb562aaa9d64793b16976ff99d90", "text": "I believe you're looking for some sort of formula that will determine how changes in savings, investing, and spending will affect economic growth. If such a formula existed (and worked) then central planning would work since a couple of people could pull some levers to encourage more savings, or more investing, or more spending - depending on what was needed at that particular time. Unfortunately, no magic formula exists and so no person has enough knowledge to determine what the proper amount of savings, investing, or spending should be at a given time. I found this resource particular helpful in describing the interactions between savings, consumption, and investing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e1ce8250eb72a7472e0fcb696d1dc384", "text": "\"In general, when dealing with quantities like net income that are not restricted to being positive, \"\"percentage change\"\" is a problematic measure. Even with small positive values it can be difficult to interpret. For example, compare these two companies: Company A: Company B: At a glance, I think most people would come away with the impression that both companies did badly in Y2, but A made a much stronger recovery. The difference between 99.7 and 99.9 looks unimportant compared to the difference between 100,000 and 40,000. But if we translate those to dollars: Company A: Y1 $100m, Y2 $0.1m, Y3 $100.1m Company B: Y1 $100m, Y2 $0.3m, Y3 $120.3m Company B has grown by a net of 20% over two years; Company A by only 1%. If you're lucky enough to know that income will always be positive after Y1 and won't drop too close to zero, then this doesn't matter very much and you can just look at year-on-year growth, leaving Y1 as undefined. If you don't have that guarantee, then you may do better to look for a different and more stable metric, the other answers are correct: Y1 growth should be left blank. If you don't have that guarantee, then it might be time to look for a more robust measure, e.g. change in net income as a percentage of turnover or of company value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee000eda9fda8d9a922a0c33865f3118", "text": "There can be the question of what objective do you have for buying the stock. If you want an income stream, then high yield stocks may be a way to get dividends without having additional transactions to sell shares while others may want capital appreciation and are willing to go without dividends to get this. You do realize that both Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline are companies that the total stock value is over $100 billion yes? Thus, neither is what I'd see as a growth stock as these are giant companies that would require rather large sales to drive earnings growth though it may be interesting to see what kind of growth is expected for these companies. In looking at current dividends, one is paying 3% and the other 5% so I'm not sure either would be what I'd see as high yield. REITs would be more likely to have high dividends given their structure if you want something to research a bit more.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
7492bd90301a8c80d308fe5f5576e500
Early Exercise and 83(b) Election
[ { "docid": "d090e456a27088b6844ae132bb20c829", "text": "\"You mention \"\"early exercise\"\" in your title, but you seem to misunderstand what early exercise really means. Some companies offer stock options that vest over a number of years, but which can be exercised before they are vested. That is early exercise. You have vested stock options, so early exercise is not relevant. (It may or may not be the case that your stock options could have been early exercised before they vested, but regardless, you didn't exercise them, so the point is moot.) As littleadv said, 83(b) election is for restricted stocks, often from exercising unvested stock options. Your options are already vested, so they won't be restricted stock. So 83(b) election is not relevant for you. A taxable event happen when you exercise. The point of the 83(b) election is that exercising unvested stock options is not a taxable event, so 83(b) election allows you to force it to be a taxable event. But for you, with vested stock options, there is no need to do this. You mention that you want it not to be taxable upon exercise. But that's what Incentive Stock Options (ISOs) are for. ISOs were designed for the purpose of not being taxable for regular income tax purposes when you exercise (although it is still taxable upon exercise for AMT purposes), and it is only taxed when you sell. However, you have Non-qualified Stock Options. Were you given the option to get ISOs at the beginning? Why did your company give you NQSOs? I don't know the specifics of your situation, but since you mentioned \"\"early exercise\"\" and 83(b) elections, I have a hypothesis as to what might have happened. For people who early-exercise (for plans that allow early-exercise), there is a slight advantage to having NQSOs compared to ISOs. This is because if you early exercise immediately upon grant and do 83(b) election, you pay no taxes upon exercise (because the difference between strike price and FMV is 0), and there are no taxes upon vesting (for regular or AMT), and if you hold it for at least 1 year, upon sale it will be long-term capital gains. On the other hand, for ISOs, it's the same except that for long-term capital gains, you have to hold it 2 years after grant and 1 year after exercise, so the period for long-term capital gains is longer. So companies that allow early exercise will often offer employees either NQSOs or ISOs, where you would choose NQSO if you intend to early-exercise, or ISO otherwise. If (hypothetically) that's what happened, then you chose wrong because you got NQSOs and didn't early exercise.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfdd30822408ce6a64caca92a58fd09d", "text": "I assume I can/will need to file an 83(b) election, in order to avoid tax repercussions? What exactly will this save me from? 83(b) election is for restricted stock grants, not for stock purchases. For restricted stocks, you generally pay income tax when they vest. For startups the price difference between the time of the grant and the time of the vesting can be astronomical and by choosing 83(b) you effectively pay income tax on the value of the grant instead of the value of the vest. Then, you only pay capital gains tax on the difference between the sale price and the grant value when you sell. In your case you're exercising an option, i.e.: you're buying a stock, so 83(b) is irrelevant. What you will pay though is the tax on the difference between the strike price and the stock FMV (unless the stocks you end up buying are restricted - which would have been the case if you exercised your options early, but I don't think is going to be the case now). What steps should I take to (in the eyes of the law) guarantee that the board has received my execution notice? The secretary of the board is a notorious procrastinator and can be very unorganized. You should read what the grant contract/company policy says on that. Ask the HR/manager. Usually, a certified letter with return receipt should be enough, but you should verify the format, the address, and the timeframe.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "b99ee29b16f17e98e6c9044e441c3431", "text": "Looks like a hard call if they waived their immunity. However it seems a bad precedent to allow something like that to have effect. Won't a subsequent change of leadership occur with them renouncing the recklessness of the previous leadership? Then you have a US judge in the middle of this with pictures of kids starving and old people going without medical care. We work hard for the average Joe in other countries to have a good opinion of the US. American servicemen have been in harm's way for this. Why let Wall Street have its way here?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ced0eec88f0ff8ca5c9fb5e786ee9731", "text": "\"What you did is called a \"\"strangle.\"\" It's rather unlikely that both will be exercised on the same day. But yes, it can happen. That is if the market is very volatile on a given day, so that the stock hits 13 in the morning, the put gets exercised, and then hits 15 later in the day, so the call gets exercised. Or vice versa. More to the point, the prices are close enough that one might be hit on one day, and the other on a DIFFERENT day. In either case, if one side gets hit, you need to reevaluate your position in the other. But basically, any open position you have can be hit at any time. The only way to avoid this risk is not to have positions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5eb519a294ef6b48089d860918f02d49", "text": "Politics matter when these types of things are being initially negotiated. Otherwise an early proposal that is intended to be just a bargaining position will be reported as OBAMA IS TAKING OUR FREEDOMS, and they will be forced to remove the bargaining position by politics instead of good policy. This will be voted on by the Senate, and will have to be ratified by 67 Senators. Trust me, this treaty will have its day in front of the people.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2054be436fb48e9b1d7e8b24b853b05c", "text": "That's not what is entirely happening. It's two separate situations. They don't have equal voting and some are able to vote more than once. The two investors want to keep it that way while the rest want to implement an even voting system. The two investors have been asked to drop their lawsuit against the old CEO since he's no longer with the company but it's implied that they will continue to sue him because he still has influence and the ability to elect new board members which he recently added two. Also it's disengrnous to say just the two investors. They are being asked to do this by the shareholders.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3fd948cde00191d690fa4f9864f8eb30", "text": "All sorts of conditions, yes. Most commonly is a limitation on the exercise date. The two more common would be American which is exercisable any time, and European which are only exercisable on their expiry date. Sometimes they may be linked to the original asset, and might only be convertible to stock if that original asset is given/sold back to the company. (Effectively perhaps making the bond convertible to stock). Lots more details on the Pedia, but in short, basically you need to read the warrant contract individually, as each will differ.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56468d9a818c8e7457e3f054891a5673", "text": "I vote for Plan B: PLAN B: Put into 401 K whatever I have in April (will be less than max) and just pay the extra tax. This is path of least resistance and easy but expensive. This plan is the simplest and has the least moving parts. It will be over in April, is easily understood, and does not add extra risk to your life. That being said, the real plan is for next year: save for taxes along the way instead of getting hit with a big bang.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f1e8c5ba2bbd1302597d9a89ab0c762", "text": "In the question you cited, I assumed immediate exercise, that is why you understood that I was talking about 30 days after grant. I actually mentioned that assumption in the answer. Sec. 83(b) doesn't apply to options, because options are not assets per se. It only applies to restricted stocks. So the 30 days start counting from the time you get the restricted stock, which is when you early-exercise. As to the AMT, the ISO spread will be considered AMT income in the year of the exercise, if you file the 83(b). For NQSO it is ordinary income. That's the whole point of the election. You can find more detailed explanation on this website.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c12c7ea3fc4a5873fd78f6dd42a2638", "text": "On most proxy statements (all I have ever received) you have the ability to abstain from voting. Just go down the list and check Abstain then return the form. You will effectively be forfeiting your right to vote. EDIT: According to this, after January 1, 2010 abstaining and trashing the voting materials are the same thing. Prior to January 1, 2010 your broker could vote however they wanted on your behalf if you chose not to vote yourself. The one caveat is this seems to only apply to the NYSE (unless I am reading it wrong). So not sure about stocks listed on the NASDAQ.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a1c51c9bd26a6418eede3b925ff78171", "text": "**Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution** The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which does not expressly state whether the Vice President becomes the President or Acting President if the President dies, resigns, is removed from office, or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers of the presidency. The Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted on February 10, 1967. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&amp;message=Excludeme&amp;subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/economy/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.24", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cf3ee798df981b9efef187f812a8619", "text": "If you're talking about ADBE options, that is an American style option, which can be exercised at any time before expiration. You can exercise your options by calling your broker and instructing them to exercise. Your broker will charge you a nominal fee to do so. As an aside, you probably don't want to exercise the option right now. It still has a lot of time value left, which you'll lose if you exercise. Just sell the option if you don't think ADBE will keep going up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30795bf761172e21925a435795e9341f", "text": "Owners of American-style options may exercise at any time before the option expires, while owners of European-style options may exercise only at expiration. Read more: American Vs. European Options", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e72fec842579c94379154c5c9e31b87d", "text": "IESC has a one-time, non-repeatable event in its operating income stream. It magnifies operating income by about a factor of five. It impacts both the numerator and the denominator. Without knowing exactly how the adjustments are made it would take too much work for me to calculate it exactly, but I did get close to their number using a relatively crude adjustment rule. Basically, Yahoo is excluding one-time events from its definitions since, although they are classified as operating events, they distort the financial record. I teach securities analysis and have done it as a profession. If I had to choose between Yahoo and Marketwatch, at least for this security, I would clearly choose Yahoo.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3d42480931d9f5d13947a15a0739972", "text": "Do you realise that the examples you have given are for stock splits not for dividends, that is why the date payable is before the ex-date for the split. The payments for the split occur on 30th June and the first day the stock trades with the new split is on the next trading day, being the ex-date, 1st July.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db8344437995d7d7ef05aa29fe18db47", "text": "Sorry, it appears not, according to http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2008/508/perspectives/p12.htm: ...and the election to make Roth 401(k) contributions (these are after-tax contributions) is irrevocable. Fairmark says the same thing. PS, don't complain too loudly, given the reason for the problem. :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba6acbc9647ce3489c4578930493d383", "text": "Automatic exercisions can be extremely risky, and the closer to the money the options are, the riskier their exercisions are. It is unlikely that the entire account has negative equity since a responsible broker would forcibly close all positions and pursue the holder for the balance of the debt to reduce solvency risk. Since the broker has automatically exercised a near the money option, it's solvency policy is already risky. Regardless of whether there is negative equity or simply a liability, the least risky course of action is to sell enough of the underlying to satisfy the loan by closing all other positions if necessary as soon as possible. If there is a negative equity after trying to satisfy the loan, the account will need to be funded for the balance of the loan to pay for purchases of the underlying to fully satisfy the loan. Since the underlying can move in such a way to cause this loan to increase, the account should also be funded as soon as possible if necessary. Accounts after exercise For deep in the money exercised options, a call turns into a long underlying on margin while a put turns into a short underlying. The next decision should be based upon risk and position selection. First, if the position is no longer attractive, it should be closed. Since it's deep in the money, simply closing out the exposure to the underlying should extinguish the liability as cash is not marginable, so the cash received from the closing out of the position will repay any margin debt. If the position in the underlying is still attractive then the liability should be managed according to one's liability policy and of course to margin limits. In a margin account, closing the underlying positions on the same day as the exercise will only be considered a day trade. If the positions are closed on any business day after the exercision, there will be no penalty or restriction. Cash option accounts While this is possible, many brokers force an upgrade to a margin account, and the ShareBuilder Options Account Agreement seems ambiguous, but their options trading page implies the upgrade. In a cash account, equities are not marginable, so any margin will trigger a margin call. If the margin debt did not trigger a margin call then it is unlikely that it is a cash account as margin for any security in a cash account except for certain options trades is 100%. Equities are convertible to cash presumably at the bid, so during a call exercise, the exercisor or exercisor's broker pays cash for the underlying at the exercise price, and any deficit is financed with debt, thus underlying can be sold to satisfy that debt or be sold for cash as one normally would. To preempt a forced exercise as a call holder, one could short the underlying, but this will be more expensive, and since probably no broker allows shorting against the box because of its intended use to circumvent capital gains taxes by fraud. The least expensive way to trade out of options positions is to close them themselves rather than take delivery.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ca517255ee0717d98a251c70cdee2489
Help me understand Forex in Interactive Brokers
[ { "docid": "d5734b807aee32ecde45ad6c7b1473de", "text": "You're confusing open positions and account balance. Your position in GBP is 1000, that's what you've bought. You then used some of it to buy something else, but to the broker you still have an open position of 1000 GBP. They will only close it when you give them the 1000GBP back. What you do with it until then is none of their business. Your account balance (available funds) in GBP is 10.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d880b5026c820d20291b65f8cfa7baa5", "text": "\"I definitely can recommend you a site called babypips. Their beginner course section is great to get a good overview what you \"\"could\"\" do in FOREX trading. For starting out I definitely recommend a dummy account! (NEVER use real money in the beginning!)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a5e26a54c14df9789647c1dea47ee96", "text": "There are some brokers in the US who would be happy to open an account for non-US residents, allowing you to trade stocks at NYSE and other US Exchanges. Some of them, along with some facts: DriveWealth Has support in Portuguese Website TD Ameritrade Has support in Portuguese Website Interactive Brokers Account opening is not that straightforward Website", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b235004e22e3e1e2bc35f1b4309da30e", "text": "\"Brokers need to assess your level of competency to ensure that they don't allow you to \"\"bite off more than you can chew\"\" and find yourself in a bad situation. Some brokers ask you to rate your skills, others ask you how long you've been trading, it always varies based on broker. I use IB and they gave me a questionairre about a wide range of instruments, my skill level, time spent trading, trades per year, etc. Many brokers will use your self-reported experience to choose what types of instruments you can trade. Some will only allow you to start with stocks and restrict access to forex, options, futures, etc. until you ask for readiness and, for some brokers, even pass a test of knowledge. Options are very commonly restricted so that you can only go long on an option when you own the underlying stock when you are a \"\"newbie\"\" and scale out from there. Many brokers adopt a four-tiered approach for options where only the most skilled traders can write naked options, as seen here. It's important to note that all of this information is self-reported and you are not legally bound to answer honestly in any way. If, for example, you are well aware of the risks of writing naked options and want to try it despite never trading one before, there is nothing stopping you from saying you've traded options for 10 years and be given the privilege by your broker. Of course, they're just looking out for your best interest, but you are by no means forced into the scheme if you do not wish to be.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa1fd4c1ea9ab614af95103a1847a75c", "text": "Disclosure: I am working for an aggregation startup business called Brokerchooser, that is matching the needs of clients to the right online broker. FxPro and similar brokers are rather CFD/FX brokers. If you want to trade stocks you have to find a broker who is registered member of an exchange like LSE. Long list: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/traders-and-brokers/membership/member-firm-directory/member-firm-directory-search.html From the brokers we have tested at Brokerchooser.com I would suggest:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "170473bd8e884ff4f8835a20e2c6cc1b", "text": "Disregarding leverage and things alike, I would like to know what's the difference between opening a position in Forex on a pair through a broker, for example, and effectively buy some currency in a traditional bank-to-bank transition The forex account may pay or charge you interest whereas converting your currency directly will not. Disregarding leverage, the difference would be interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d12677c5ce536252d1fb9b80104aee05", "text": "This is exactly how I started, starting a simulation account on the CBOE website just to see what situation was profitable because it was all greek to me. Actually after learning the greeks, I realize that site was worse and eventually read some books and got better tools. The screenshot you have is telling you the strikes, but unfortunately they are showing you the technical name of the contract on the exchanges. For example, just like you type in AAPL to buy shares of AAPL stock, you can type in VIX1616K16E to get that one particular contract, expiration and strike. So lets break it down just by inferring, because this is what I just did with that picture: You know the current price of VIX, $17.06 Calls expiring November 16th, 2016: What is changing? SYMBOL / YEAR / EXPIRATION DAY / STRIKE / OPTION-STYLE (?) So knowing that in the money options will be more expensive, and near the money options will be slightly cheaper, and out the money will be even cheaper, you can see what is going on, per expiration.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e452b219724c5f5bd7923cc1230effeb", "text": "Have you looked at ThinkorSwim, which is now part of TD Ameritrade? Because of their new owner, you'll certainly be accepted as a US customer and the support will likely be responsive. They are certainly pushing webinars and learning resources around the ThinkorSwim platform. At the least you can start a Live Help session and get your answers. That link will take you to the supported order types list. Another tab there will show you the currency pairs. USD is available with both CAD and JPY. Looks like the minimum balance requirement is $25k across all ThinkorSwim accounts. Barron's likes the platform and their annual review may help you find reasons to like it. Here is more specific news from a press release: OMAHA, Neb., Aug 24, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) today announced that futures and spot forex (foreign exchange) trading capabilities are now available via the firm's thinkorswim from TD AMERITRADE trading platform, joining the recently introduced complex options functionality.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0eabeb93cababb5106d595ec924f6c44", "text": "Is my observation that the currency exchange market is indirect correct? Is there a particular reason for this? Why isn't currency traded like stocks? I guess yes. In Stocks its pretty simple where the stock is held with a depository. Hence listing matching is simple and the exchange of money is via local clearing. Currency markets are more global and there is no one place where trades happen. There are multiple places where it happens and is loosely called Fx market place. Building a matching engine is also complex and confusing. If we go with your example of currency pair, matches would be difficult. Say; If we were to say all transactions happen in USD say, and list every currency as item to be purchased or sold. I could put a trade Sell Trade for Quantity 100 Stock Code EUR at Price 1.13 [Price in USD]. So there has to be a buy at a price and we can match. Similarly we would have Stock Code for GBP, AUD, JPY, etc. Since not every thing would be USD based, say I need to convert GBP to EUR, I would have to have a different set of Base currency say GBP. So here the quantity would All currencies except GBP which would be price. Even then we have issues, someone using USD as base currency has quoted for Stock GBP. While someone else using GBP has quoted for Stock USD. Plus moving money internationally is expensive and doing this for small trades removes the advantages. The kind of guarantees required are difficult to achieve without established correspondence bank relationships. One heavily traded currency pair, the exchange for funds happens via CLS Bank.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9349e5a17f56799ad62bf36addb6df5", "text": "You've said what's different in your question. There's 330 microseconds of network latency between IEX and anywhere else, so HFTs can't get information about trades in progress on IEX and use it to jump in ahead of those traders on other exchanges. All exchanges should have artificially induced latency of this kind so that if a trade is submitted simultaneously to all exchanges it reaches the furthest away one before a response can be received from the closest one, thus preventing HFT techniques.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2041307b762fa5e48cadb6e57334b1bc", "text": "You can use interactive brokers. It allows you to have a single account to trade stocks and currencies from several countries.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ffc8f0633f8b405fbcf04b373537fdbc", "text": "Depending on your broker, you can buy these stocks directly at the most liquid local exchanges. For instance, if you are US resident and want to to buy German stocks (like RWE) you can trade these stocks over InteractiveBrokers (or other direct brokers in the US). They offer direct access to German Xetra and other local markets.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30aaa612684f58901097058380ef7de2", "text": "I'm not disputing whether IB is good to start. I'm disputing that anything going through them is 'low latency.' 50-100ms is a lifetime against high frequency traders. Also, if you're co-locating w/ them and using a direct feed and still getting that latency you're getting ripped off. It should take 100ms *for a message to travel between Chicago and NY*, let alone between your computer and the exchange one at the same colo.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90da52d0db0ff30eb04f78eb18a7a3d0", "text": "While most all Canadian brokers allow us access to all the US stocks, the reverse is not true. But some US brokers DO allow trading on foreign exchanges. (e.g. Interactive Brokers at which I have an account). You have to look and be prepared to switch brokers. Americans cannot use Canadian brokers (and vice versa). Trading of shares happens where-ever two people get together - hence the pink sheets. These work well for Americans who want to buy-sell foreign stocks using USD without the hassle of FX conversions. You get the same economic exposure as if the actual stock were bought. But the exchanges are barely policed, and liquidity can dry up, and FX moves are not necessarily arbitraged away by 'the market'. You don't have the same safety as ADRs because there is no bank holding any stash of 'actual' stocks to backstop those traded on the pink sheets.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0643397497e4dc64d752d89cd18058c", "text": "It isn't that the companies force traders, it is more the other way around. Traders wouldn't trade without margin. The main reason is liquidity and taking advantage of minor changes in the forex quotes. It goes down to pips and traders make profit(loss) on movement of pips maybe by 1 or 2 and in some cases in 1/1000 or less of a pip. So you need to put in a large amount to make a profit when the quotes move up or down. Supposedly if they have put in all the amount upfront, their trading options are limited. And the liquidity in the market goes out of the window. The banks and traders cannot make a profit with the limited amount of money available at their disposal. So what they would do is borrow from somebody else, so why not the broker itself in this case maybe the forex company, and execute the trades. So it helps everybody. Forex companies make their profit from the fees, more the trades done, more the fees and hence more profit. Traders get to put their fingers in many pies and so their chances of making profits increases. So everybody is happy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81c016998574efc6dbf2244659066d3b", "text": "\"Strategy would be my top factor. While this may be implied, I do think it helps to have an idea of what is causing the buy and sell signals in speculating as I'd rather follow a strategy than try to figure things out completely from scratch that doesn't quite make sense to me. There are generally a couple of different schools of analysis that may be worth passing along: Fundamental Analysis:Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statements and health, its management and competitive advantages, and its competitors and markets. When applied to futures and forex, it focuses on the overall state of the economy, interest rates, production, earnings, and management. When analyzing a stock, futures contract, or currency using fundamental analysis there are two basic approaches one can use; bottom up analysis and top down analysis. The term is used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative analysis and technical analysis. Technical Analysis:In finance, technical analysis is a security analysis methodology for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis use many of the same tools of technical analysis, which, being an aspect of active management, stands in contradiction to much of modern portfolio theory. The efficacy of both technical and fundamental analysis is disputed by the efficient-market hypothesis which states that stock market prices are essentially unpredictable. There are tools like \"\"Stock Screeners\"\" that will let you filter based on various criteria to use each analysis in a mix. There are various strategies one could use. Wikipedia under Stock Speculator lists: \"\"Several different types of stock trading strategies or approaches exist including day trading, trend following, market making, scalping (trading), momentum trading, trading the news, and arbitrage.\"\" Thus, I'd advise research what approach are you wanting to use as the \"\"Make it up as we go along losing real money all the way\"\" wouldn't be my suggested approach. There is something to be said for there being numerous columnists and newsletter peddlers if you want other ideas but I would suggest having a strategy before putting one's toe in the water.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
77b5a068ed776b444e2933d8f567075f
Against what income are broker fees deducted?
[ { "docid": "a466255400ad63956a96c33886d5dda3", "text": "\"You don't \"\"deduct\"\" transaction fees, but they are included in your cost basis and proceeds, which will affect the amount of gain/loss you report. So in your example, the cost basis for each of the two lots is $15 (10$ share price plus $5 broker fee). Your proceeds for each lot are $27.50 (($30*2 - $5 )/2). Your gain on each lot is therefore $12.50, and you will report $12.50 in STCG and $12.50 in LTCG in the year you sold the stock (year 3). As to the other fees, in general yes they are deductible, but there are limits and exceptions, so you would need to consult a tax professional to get a correct answer in your specific situation.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "c0b1aab11f4c933674933f8bcf85508c", "text": "The commission is per trade, there is likely a different commission based on the type of security you're trading, stock, options, bonds, over the internet, on the phone, etc. It's not likely that they charge an account maintenance fee, but without knowing what kind of account you have it's hard to say. What you may be referring to is a fund expense ratio. Most (all...) mutual funds and exchange traded funds will charge some sort of expense costs to you, this is usually expressed as a percent of your holdings. An index fund like Vanguard's S&P 500 index, ticker VOO, has a small 0.05% expense ratio. Most brokers will have a set of funds that you can trade with no commission, though there will still be an expense fee charged by the fund. Read over the E*Trade fee schedule carefully.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5db324f25d180b02a9e3523efe4ef4a4", "text": "I would say it's all relative. Take the following two scenarios: If you were facing these options, would you chose #2 just because you pay a lower tax rate, even though you make less money? These numbers are of course fictional, but the point I'm trying to make is that everyone will seek the method that allows them to make the most money. If they have to pay a higher tax rate, so be it. One other thought: daytraders will have higher expenses, which are deductible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b069d22b7c968294f963f273dd8ee0a9", "text": "Yes, if you can split your income up over multiple years it will be to your advantage over earning it all in one year. The reasons are as you mentioned, you get to apply multiple deductions/credits/exemptions to the same income. Rather than just 1 standard deduction, you get to deduct 2 standard deductions, you can double the max saved in an IRA, you benefit more from any non-refundable credits etc. This is partly due to the fact that when you are filing your taxes in Year 1, you can't include anything from Year 2 since it hasn't happened yet. It doesn't make sense for the Government to take into account actions that may or may not happen when calculating your tax bill. There are factors where other year profit/loss can affect your tax liability, however as far as I know these are limited to businesses. Look into Loss Carry Forwarded/Back if you want to know more. Regarding the '30% simple rate', I think you are confusing something that is simple to say with something that is simple to implement. Are we going to go change the rules on people who expected their mortgage deduction to continue? There are few ways I can think of that are more sure to cause home prices to plummet than to eliminate the Mortgage Interest Deduction. What about removing Student Loan Interest? Under a 30% 'simple' rate, what tools would the government use to encourage trade in specific areas? Will state income tax deduction also be removed? This is going to punish those in a state with a high income tax more than those in states without income tax. Those are all just 'common' deductions that affect a lot of people, you could easily say 'no' to all of them and just piss off a bunch of people, but what about selling stock though? I paid $100 for the stock and I sold it for $120, do I need to pay $36 tax on that because it is a 'simple' 30% tax rate or are we allowing the cost of goods sold deduction (it's called something else I believe when talking about stocks but it's the same idea?) What about if I travel for work to tutor individuals, can I deduct my mileage expenses? Do I need to pay 30% income tax on my earnings and principal from a Roth IRA? A lot of people have contributed to a Roth with the understanding that withdrawals will be tax free, changing those rules are punishing people for using vehicles intentionally created by the government. Are we going to go around and dismantle all non-profits that subsist entirely on tax-deductible donations? Do I need to pay taxes on the employer's cost of my health insurance? What about 401k's and IRA's? Being true to a 'simple' 30% tax will eliminate all 'benefits' from every job as you would need to pay taxes on the value of the benefits. I should mention that this isn't exactly too crazy, there was a relatively recent IRS publication about businesses needing to withhold taxes from their employees for the cost of company supplied food but I don't know if it was ultimately accepted. At the end of the day, the concept of simplifying the tax law isn't without merit, but realize that the complexities of tax law are there due to the complexities of life. The vast majority of tax laws were written for a reason other than to benefit special interests, and for that reason they cannot easily be ignored.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "675a70aadcb10c31e3cc28eca8b61c0c", "text": "Brokers will have transaction fees in addition to the find management fees, but they should be very transparent. Brokering is a very competitive business. Any broker that added hidden fees to their transactions would lose customers very quickly to other brokers than can offer the same services. Hedge funds are a very different animal, with less regulation, less transparency, and less competition. Their fees are tolerated because the leveraged returns are usually much higher. When times are bad, though, those fees might drive investors elsewhere.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "99bb25d0b743df906c2a541a30c45585", "text": "It is not your brokerage's responsibility to tell you **what** to buy, whether explicitly, or implicitly through their fee structure. This is **not** an article about Robin Hood. It's an argument condemning all active investing with repeated mostly-irrelevant mentions of Robin Hood as one of the hundreds of entities that makes that possible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bdd2e14dc990aa712c3092fbe817087", "text": "I received a $2,000 bonus... Gross Income is income from whatever source derived, including (but not limited to) “compensation for services, including fees, commissions, fringe benefits, and similar items.” Adjusted Gross Income is defined as gross income minus adjustments to income. My question is, must I still report this money on my tax return and if so, how? Yes, and it would be on line 21 of your 1040 with supporting documentation. Are these legal fees deductible as an expense, and where would I list them? Yes, you would aggregate your deductible expenses and place these on your Schedule A. Instructions here. Good Luck. Edit: As Ben Miller pointed out in the comments, the deduction would be placed in either line 23 or 28 depending on the nature of the attorney (investment related or not).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de91a74d3d2cb9541a9866e233ae6c28", "text": "Typically that applies if the broker Form 1099-B reports an incorrect basis to the IRS. If the Form 1099-B shows incorrect basis relative to your records, then you can use 8949, column (g) to report the correct basis. The 8949 Instructions provide a brief example. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/i8949--2013.pdf Although you have an obligation to report all income, and hence to report the true basis, as a practical matter this information will usually be correct as presented by the broker. If you have separate information or reports relating to your investments, and you are so inclined, then you can double-check the basis information in your 1099-B. If you aren't aware of basis discrepancies, then the adjustments probably don't apply to you and your investments can stick to Schedule D.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29141964b7c403471b9ebb1598075ea3", "text": "You can deduct retirement contributions (above the line even), but not as a business expense. So you can't avoid the SE taxes, sorry.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f33e2bcb2cdc6da2742b0438139a2fa0", "text": "There is a LOT of shuffling going on in the financial services industry. I would not immediately say your advisor is acting in bad faith. The DOL fiduciary changes are quite significant for some brokers. Investment Advisors who are fee-based have less of an impact since they are already fiduciaries. That being said, your issue is still the same. How can you get a low-cost solution to your problem? You might want to consider Vanguard, Fidelity, or another mutual fund company that can keep your costs low. However, you should understand that if you are using mutual funds, the fees are paid one way or another. 12b1 fees, commissions, and expenses are all deducted from the fund's gross returns. You have to choose between low cost and paid advice. you cannot get high-quality low-cost advice. Fortunately, there are a lot of new solutions out there, robo-advisors, indexing, asset allocation mutual funds, ETFs, and more. Do a bit of homework and you should be able to come up with a reasonable solution. I hope you found this helpful. Kirk", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd32fe9ac63a48f7adcb39dea2923ad9", "text": "I am an Israeli based citizen who represents and Indian company who sells its products in Israel. As an agent I am entitled to commission on sales on behalf the Indian company who advised that. Any commission paid to you will be applicable to TDS at 20.9% of the commission amount, the tax will be paid and a Tax paid certificate will be given to you. According to a Bilateral Double tax avoidance treaty if the tax has been deducted in India you will get credit for this tax in Israel.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a936d2048a9a5aaf00b15383d3040ce9", "text": "If you have made $33k from winning trades and lost $30k from loosing trades your net gain for the year would be $3k, so obviously you would pay taxes only on the net $3k gains.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "01146864ca51d161601ebe09cd8359b9", "text": "First of all, this is a situation when a consultation with a EA working with S-Corporations in California, CA-licensed CPA or tax preparer (California licenses tax preparers as well) is in order. I'm neither of those, and my answer is not a tax advice of any kind. You're looking at schedule CA line 17 (see page 42 in the 540NR booklet). The instructions refer you to form 3885A. You need to read the instructions carefully. California is notorious for not conforming to the Federal tax law. Specifically, to the issue of the interest attributable to investment in S-Corp, I do not know if CA conforms. I couldn't find any sources saying that it doesn't, but then again - I'm not a professional. It may be that there's an obscure provision invalidating this deduction, living in California myself - I wouldn't be surprised. So I suggest hiring a CA-licensed tax preparer to do this tax return for you, at least for the first year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a87688fb747cdc8f66ebfc69393bdf18", "text": "This is taxed as ordinary income. See the IRC Sec 988(a)(1). The exclusion you're talking about (the $200) is in the IRC Sec 988(e)(2), but you'll have to read the Treasury Regulations on this section to see if and how it can apply to you. Since you do this regularly and for profit (i.e.: not a personal transaction), I'd argue that it doesn't apply.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "160028dad1a8e6ec1b09f8395175d164", "text": "In my experience they charge you coming and going. For example, if a brokerage firm is advertising that their commissions are only $7/trade, then that means you pay money to buy the stock, plus $7 to them, and later on if you want to sell that stock you must pay $7 to get out of the deal. So, if you want to make any money on a stock (say, priced at $10) you would have to sell it at a price above $10+$7+$7=$24. That kind of sale could take a few years to turn a profit. However, with flat-rate fees like that it is advantageous to buy in bulk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "863caebe164e5bd922034f24c3029475", "text": "\"New SEC rules also now allow brokers to collect fees on non-dividend bearing accounts as an \"\"ADR Pass-Through Fee\"\". Since BP (and BP ADR) is not currently paying dividends, this is probably going to be the case here. According to the Schwab brokerage firm, the fee is usually 1-3 cents per share. I did an EDGAR search for BP's documents and came up with too many to read through (due to the oil spill and all of it's related SEC filings) but you can start here: http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/m/q207/adr.html\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
df5a487625c3e8d8684f97025c5f24d0
Swap hedging a currency hedge
[ { "docid": "315ddfb46845a469aa626f79868f7837", "text": "I decided to try this in order to get a feel of it. As far as the interest rates are concerned, it works. You can set it up and forget about holding time as long as the rates and positions stay within a range. The problem is that currency volatility turns the interest paid for shorting USD/JPY into noise at best. And if you look to past performance over a year... Let's just say there is a reason they pay you to hold NZD. So, unless you think buying NZD/USD is a good idea to begin with, you should put your money elsewhere.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "90b990119812669ab920916a9ac08514", "text": "\"When you invest in an S&P500 index fund that is priced in USD, the only major risk you bear is the risk associated with the equity that comprises the index, since both the equities and the index fund are priced in USD. The fund in your question, however, is priced in EUR. For a fund like this to match the performance of the S&P500, which is priced in USD, as closely as possible, it needs to hedge against fluctuations in the EUR/USD exchange rate. If the fund simply converted EUR to USD then invested in an S&P500 index fund priced in USD, the EUR-priced fund may fail to match the USD-priced fund because of exchange rate fluctuations. Here is a simple example demonstrating why hedging is necessary. I assumed the current value of the USD-priced S&P500 index fund is 1,600 USD/share. The exchange rate is 1.3 USD/EUR. If you purchase one share of this index using EUR, you would pay 1230.77 EUR/share: If the S&P500 increases 10% to 1760 USD/share and the exchange rate remains unchanged, the value of the your investment in the EUR fund also increases by 10% (both sides of the equation are multiplied by 1.1): However, the currency risk comes into play when the EUR/USD exchange rate changes. Take the 10% increase in the price of the USD index occurring in tandem with an appreciation of the EUR to 1.4 USD/EUR: Although the USD-priced index gained 10%, the appreciation of the EUR means that the EUR value of your investment is almost unchanged from the first equation. For investments priced in EUR that invest in securities priced in USD, the presence of this additional currency risk mandates the use of a hedge if the indexes are going to track. The fund you linked to uses swap contracts, which I discuss in detail below, to hedge against fluctuations in the EUR/USD exchange rate. Since these derivatives aren't free, the cost of the hedge is included in the expenses of the fund and may result in differences between the S&P500 Index and the S&P 500 Euro Hedged Index. Also, it's important to realize that any time you invest in securities that are priced in a different currency than your own, you take on currency risk whether or not the investments aim to track indexes. This holds true even for securities that trade on an exchange in your local currency, like ADR's or GDR's. I wrote an answer that goes through a simple example in a similar fashion to the one above in that context, so you can read that for more information on currency risk in that context. There are several ways to investors, be they institutional or individual, can hedge against currency risk. iShares offers an ETF that tracks the S&P500 Euro Hedged Index and uses a over-the-counter currency swap contract called a month forward FX contract to hedge against the associated currency risk. In these contracts, two parties agree to swap some amount of one currency for another amount of another currency, at some time in the future. This allows both parties to effectively lock in an exchange rate for a given time period (a month in the case of the iShares ETF) and therefore protect themselves against exchange rate fluctuations in that period. There are other forms of currency swaps, equity swaps, etc. that could be used to hedge against currency risk. In general, two parties agree to swap one quantity, like a EUR cash flow, payments of a fixed interest rate, etc. for another quantity, like a USD cash flow, payments based on a floating interest rate, etc. In many cases these are over-the-counter transactions, there isn't necessarily a standardized definition. For example, if the European manager of a fund that tracks the S&P500 Euro Hedged Index is holding euros and wants to lock in an effective exchange rate of 1.4 USD/EUR (above the current exchange rate), he may find another party that is holding USD and wants to lock in the respective exchange rate of 0.71 EUR/USD. The other party could be an American fund manager that manages a USD-price fund that tracks the FTSE. By swapping USD and EUR, both parties can, at a price, lock in their desired exchange rates. I want to clear up something else in your question too. It's not correct that the \"\"S&P 500 is completely unrelated to the Euro.\"\" Far from it. There are many cases in which the EUR/USD exchange rate and the level of the S&P500 index could be related. For example: Troublesome economic news in Europe could cause the euro to depreciate against the dollar as European investors flee to safety, e.g. invest in Treasury bills. However, this economic news could also cause US investors to feel that the global economy won't recover as soon as hoped, which could affect the S&P500. If the euro appreciated against the dollar, for whatever reason, this could increase profits for US businesses that earn part of their profits in Europe. If a US company earns 1 million EUR and the exchange rate is 1.3 USD/EUR, the company earns 1.3 million USD. If the euro appreciates against the dollar to 1.4 USD/EUR in the next quarter and the company still earns 1 million EUR, they now earn 1.4 million USD. Even without additional sales, the US company earned a higher USD profit, which is reflected on their financial statements and could increase their share price (thus affecting the S&P500). Combining examples 1 and 2, if a US company earns some of its profits in Europe and a recession hits in the EU, two things could happen simultaneously. A) The company's sales decline as European consumers scale back their spending, and B) the euro depreciates against the dollar as European investors sell euros and invest in safer securities denominated in other currencies (USD or not). The company suffers a loss in profits both from decreased sales and the depreciation of the EUR. There are many more factors that could lead to correlation between the euro and the S&P500, or more generally, the European and American economies. The balance of trade, investor and consumer confidence, exposure of banks in one region to sovereign debt in another, the spread of asset/mortgage-backed securities from US financial firms to European banks, companies, municipalities, etc. all play a role. One example of this last point comes from this article, which includes an interesting line: Among the victims of America’s subprime crisis are eight municipalities in Norway, which lost a total of $125 million through subprime mortgage-related investments. Long story short, these municipalities had mortgage-backed securities in their investment portfolios that were derived from, far down the line, subprime mortgages on US homes. I don't know the specific cities, but it really demonstrates how interconnected the world's economies are when an American family's payment on their subprime mortgage in, say, Chicago, can end up backing a derivative investment in the investment portfolio of, say, Hammerfest, Norway.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e034c4331d15e3aef5d73451913e17b2", "text": "If you have significant assets, such as a large deposit, then diversification of risks such as currency risk is good practice - there are many good options, but keeping 100% of it in roubles is definitely not a good idea, nor is keeping 100% of it in a single foreign currency. Of course, it would be much more beneficial to have done it yesterday, and moments of extreme volatility generally are a bad time to make large uninformed trades, but if the deposit is sufficiently large (say, equal to annual expenses) then it would make sense to split it among different currencies and also different types of assets as well (deposit/stocks/precious metals/bonds). The rate of rouble may go up and down, but you also have to keep in mind that future events such as fluctuating oil price may risk a much deeper crisis than now, and you can look to experiences of the 1998 crisis as an example of what may happen if the situation continues to deteriorate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "47a5e4549179e488b684bb692424bdb1", "text": "Ok, so A &gt; B = $3, and A &lt; B = $4.25, so A gets + $1.25 which they use towards their debt? Can you buy interest rate swaps from a brokerage? Can individuals enter into swaps, and bet rates will go higher?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae4e14c0cb5e0aaa699d1711f8503bce", "text": "This is copying my own answer to another question, but this is definitely relevant for you: A bid is an offer to buy something on an order book, so for example you may post an offer to buy one share, at $5. An ask is an offer to sell something on an order book, at a set price. For example you may post an offer to sell shares at $6. A trade happens when there are bids/asks that overlap each other, or are at the same price, so there is always a spread of at least one of the smallest currency unit the exchange allows. Betting that the price of an asset will go down, traditionally by borrowing some of that asset and then selling it, hoping to buy it back at a lower price and pocket the difference (minus interest). Going long, as you may have guessed, is the opposite of going short. Instead of betting that the price will go down, you buy shares in the hope that the price will go up. So, let's say as per your example you borrow 100 shares of company 'X', expecting the price of them to go down. You take your shares to the market and sell them - you make a market sell order (a market 'ask'). This matches against a bid and you receive a price of $5 per share. Now, let's pretend that you change your mind and you think the price is going to go up, you instantly regret your decision. In order to pay back the shares, you now need to buy back your shares as $6 - which is the price off the ask offers on the order book. Similarly, the same is true in the reverse if you are going long. Because of this spread, you have lost money. You sold at a low price and bought at a high price, meaning it costs you more money to repay your borrowed shares. So, when you are shorting you need the spread to be as tight as possible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4928107daac55e5455a1f8a674e89ce", "text": "Use other currencies, if available. I'm not familiar with the banking system in South Africa; if they haven't placed any currency freezes or restrictions, you might want to do this sooner than later. In full crises, like Russian and Ukraine, once the crisis worsened, they started limiting purchases of foreign currencies. PayPal might allow currency swaps (it implies that it does at the bottom of this page); if not, I know Uphold does. Short the currency Brokerage in the US allow us to short the US Dollar. If banks allow you to short the ZAR, you can always use that for protection. I looked at the interest rates in the ZAR to see how the central bank is offsetting this currency crisis - WOW - I'd be running, not walking toward the nearest exit. A USA analogy during the late 70s/early 80s would be Paul Volcker holding interest rates at 2.5%, thinking that would contain 10% inflation. Bitcoin Comes with significant risks itself, but if you use it as a temporary medium of exchange for swaps - like Uphold or with some bitcoin exchanges like BTC-e - you can get other currencies by converting to bitcoin then swapping for other assets. Bitcoin's strength is remitting and swapping; holding on to it is high risk. Commodities I think these are higher risk right now as part of the ZAR's problem is that it's heavily reliant on commodities. I looked at your stock market to see how well it's done, and I also see that it's done poorly too and I think the commodity bloodbath has something to do with that. If you know of any commodity that can stay stable during uncertainty, like food that doesn't expire, you can at least buy without worrying about costs rising in the future. I always joke that if hyperinflation happened in the United States, everyone would wish they lived in Utah.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7b84c856eb772803ebfa337eef126f3", "text": "\"Yes, you're still exposed to currency risk when you purchase the stock on company B's exchange. I'm assuming you're buying the shares on B's stock exchange through an ADR, GDR, or similar instrument. The risk occurs as a result of the process through which the ADR is created. In its simplest form, the process works like this: I'll illustrate this with an example. I've separated the conversion rate into the exchange rate and a generic \"\"ADR conversion rate\"\" which includes all other factors the bank takes into account when deciding how many ADR shares to sell. The fact that the units line up is a nice check to make sure the calculation is logically correct. My example starts with these assumptions: I made up the generic ADR conversion rate; it will remain constant throughout this example. This is the simplified version of the calculation of the ADR share price from the European share price: Let's assume that the euro appreciates against the US dollar, and is now worth 1.4 USD (this is a major appreciation, but it makes a good example): The currency appreciation alone raised the share price of the ADR, even though the price of the share on the European exchange was unchanged. Now let's look at what happens if the euro appreciates further to 1.5 USD/EUR, but the company's share price on the European exchange falls: Even though the euro appreciated, the decline in the share price on the European exchange offset the currency risk in this case, leaving the ADR's share price on the US exchange unchanged. Finally, what happens if the euro experiences a major depreciation and the company's share price decreases significantly in the European market? This is a realistic situation that has occurred several times during the European sovereign debt crisis. Assuming this occurred immediately after the first example, European shareholders in the company experienced a (43.50 - 50) / 50 = -13% return, but American holders of the ADR experienced a (15.95 - 21.5093) / 21.5093 = -25.9% return. The currency shock was the primary cause of this magnified loss. Another point to keep in mind is that the foreign company itself may be exposed to currency risk if it conducts a lot of business in market with different currencies. Ideally the company has hedged against this, but if you invest in a foreign company through an ADR (or a GDR or another similar instrument), you may take on whatever risk the company hasn't hedged in addition to the currency risk that's present in the ADR/GDR conversion process. Here are a few articles that discuss currency risk specifically in the context of ADR's: (1), (2). Nestle, a Swiss company that is traded on US exchanges through an ADR, even addresses this issue in their FAQ for investors. There are other risks associated with instruments like ADR's and cross-listed companies, but normally arbitrageurs will remove these discontinuities quickly. Especially for cross-listed companies, this should keep the prices of highly liquid securities relatively synchronized.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93ed9100864a8c4146441b8c7bc0dab5", "text": "Now, is there any clever way to combine FOREX transactions so that you receive the US interest on $100K instead of the $2K you deposited as margin? Yes, absolutely. But think about it -- why would the interest rates be different? Imagine you're making two loans, one for 10,000 USD and one for 10,000 CHF, and you're going to charge a different interest rate on the two loans. Why would you do that? There is really only one reason -- you would charge more interest for the currency that you think is less likely to hold its value such that the expected value of the money you are repaid is the same. In other words, currencies pay a higher interest when their value is expected to go down and currencies pay a lower interest when their value is expected to go up. So yes, you could do this. But the profits you make in interest would have to equal the expected loss you would take in the devaluation of the currency. People will only offer you these interest rates if they think the loss will exceed the profit. Unless you know better than them, you will take a loss.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6996692fbe4d27caab7f47a22d1b3cb9", "text": "Interest rate swaps are used to transfer risk from one party to another. They can be used to transfer many types of risk but most common are interest rate risk and exchange rate risk There are a few key concepts that I have noticed most people have trouble with which Are below: 1) The Notional amount: this is the amount that the two legs (the floating and fixed) will be based on. If you think about each leg as a loan the notional amount would be the principal, however in a swap this amount never changes hands. Rather it is just an amount used to calculate what the dollar amount exchanged should be. 2) The floating and fixed legs are the interest rates that will be exchanged. The fixed leg will always pay out the same amount no matter the changes in the market while the floating rate will change periodically depending on market conditions. As a side note it is often agreed that only the difference in the two rates will be paid rather then sending the money back and forth. 3) And finally it is important to note that at the inception of the swap the notional value will always be 0. Many people miss this but when you think about it no company would want to sign a deal the from inception puts them in a loosing position. I hope that helped without a more specific question all I can do is list random facts about swaps and hope they are useful to you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9584a6f6554b2d2367ec417532961f0", "text": "e.g. a European company has to pay 1 million USD exactly one year from now While that is theoretically possible, that is not a very common case. Mostly likely if they had to make a 1 million USD payment a year from now and they had the cash on hand they would be able to just make the payment today. A more common scenario for currency forwards is for investment hedging. Say that European company wants to buy into a mutual fund of some sort, say FUSEX. That is a USD based mutual fund. You can't buy into it directly with Euros. So if the company wants to buy into the fund they would need to convert their Euros to to USD. But now they have an extra risk parameter. They are not just exposed to the fluctuations of the fund, they are also exposed to the fluctuations of the currency market. Perhaps that fund will make a killing, but the exchange rate will tank and they will lose all their gains. By creating a forward to hedge their currency exposure risk they do not face this risk (flip side: if the exchange rate rises in a favorable rate they also don't get that benefit, unless they use an FX Option, but that is generally more expensive and complicated).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b51e15974dd48332f992862cc5d6fab", "text": "\"I know some derivative markets work like this, so maybe similar with futures. A futures contract commits two parties to a buy/sell of the underlying securities, but with a futures contract you also create leverage because generally the margin you post on your futures contract is not sufficient to pay for the collateral in the underlying contract. The person buying the future is essentially \"\"borrowing\"\" money while the person selling the future is essentially \"\"lending\"\" money. The future you enter into is generally a short term contract, so a perfectly hedged lender of funds should expect to receive something that approaches the fed funds rate in the US. Today that would be essentially nothing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "128d222913be065a4e270541bff04ba4", "text": "Depends on the countries and their rules about moving money across the border, but in this case that appears entirely reasonable. Of course it would be a gamble unless you can predict the future values of currency better than most folks; there is no guarantee that the exchange rate will move in any particular direction. I have no idea whether any tax is due on profit from currency arbitrage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ead7c9267f9e549354648cf5ca4cd186", "text": "\"I though that only some hedge funds operated that way and others were specific vehicles to provide an efficient hedge? This one is described as \"\"betting against chipmakers\"\" and is blaming a substantial loss against one market, so it can't be doing a great job of hedging itself. Though I think we're saying the same thing and just have a different view of the common meaning of \"\"hedge fund\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ff355ec9fab54d9fe94d3a6baa313515", "text": "Let's make a few assumptions: You have several ways of achieving (almost) that, in ascending complexity: Note that each alternative will have a cost which can be small (forwards, futures) or large (CFDs, debit) and the hedge will never be perfect, but you can get close. You will also need to decide whether you hedge the unrealised P&L on the position and at what frequency.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "61d4dc5d0d5d24072fd42eeb5e6639bc", "text": "I've thought of the following ways to hedge against a collapsing dollar:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2631eae9633f063f2dc1e9802e506444", "text": "If you look at it from the hedging perspective, if you're unsure you're going to need to hedge but want to lock in an option premium price if you do need to do so, I could see this making sense.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
441b41f06d7186e549fee4d574326f8a
Do I need to be proactive about telling the tax man (HMRC) I earn more than the child benefit threshold?
[ { "docid": "0d14dbf9701d9636a65fbec42de19feb", "text": "unregister for child benefit but apparently If I do that then my wife will stop getting the automatic national insurance stamp each year and will lose years of state pension You probably got this wrong according to Citizen's Advice. You can choose not to receive any Child Benefit, if you don't want to pay the extra tax. However, HMRC is encouraging you to still fill out a Child Benefit claim form even if you choose not to actually receive any Child Benefit payments from them. This is because filling your claim form for Child Benefit can help you build up national insurance credits which can help protect your future state pension. This is particularly important if you've stopped work to look after children full time. It can also help protect your entitlement to other benefits such as Guardian's Allowance, and ensure your child is automatically issued with a National Insurance number before their 16th birthday. Completing a Child Benefit claim form will make it easier for payments to start again if your circumstances change and your income falls below the £50,000 limit. As for Self Assessment If you decide to continue getting Child Benefit, you'll have to fill in a self-assessment tax return. This is when you'll have to declare you were getting Child Benefit and pay the extra tax, known as the High Income Child Benefit Charge. You'll have to register for self-assessment if you are not already registered. You can choose to pay the tax charge either: The following is important though:- It is your responsibility to pay the extra tax, even if you don't hear from HMRC. SOURCE", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8268e9706128d119eab6a97dde210f0a", "text": "IANAL. In the UK, you (as a Director) would have obligations to minimise any tax liabilities under these two clauses: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/172 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/174 Although I can't see the CPS bringing any cases of criminal charge against over-payment of taxes. It wouldn't be unrealistic to have a scenario where shareholders of a failed enterprise sued a Director who was negligent in minimising tax liabilities. That said, I think the Starbucks strategy is flagrantly breaching the intent of the law, if not the letter.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "159a621b71425fbbf701fb689de69bd5", "text": "\"You may have misunderstood some parts of the system. If you make a pension contribution in any given year, the tax relief is based on your income for that year - the gross pension contribution is subtracted from your gross income and you only end up paying tax based on the reduced gross income. So if the higher rate threshold is £40K, you have income for the year of £65K, and you make a gross contribution of £25K, then you'll get tax relief at 40% on the whole contribution, i.e. £10K. If your income for the year is less, e.g. £50K, then you'll get tax relief at 40% on £10K and at 20% on the other £15K, i.e. £7K. So if you're significantly into the higher-rate band, it's usually not worth making a contribution large enough to reduce you to basic-rate tax - better to wait till the next tax year for the rest. Overall, while you probably could do what you suggest subject to the caveats below, why not just spread the pension contribution over the three years, rather than making it all up front? If you are confident you can invest the money at better than the 3.4% interest on the loan, then it might make sense to borrow, but you should be pretty clear that you're deliberately borrowing to invest (otherwise known as investing with leverage). Or you might know that your income is going to drop next year. Another clarification, as your comment on another answer mentions: basic-rate tax relief is claimed directly by your pension provider (\"\"relief at source\"\"), whereas the higher-rate part of the relief comes straight to you via your tax return. So for the above £25K gross contribution example, you'd hand over £20K initially and then get £5K back at the end of the tax year, leaving you with £15K less in your pocket. If you did want to make a £20K net contribution and had enough higher-rate salary to cover it, the gross contribution you'd end up with would be £33,333, and you'd need to find £6,666 more temporarily. Note that there are also limits on the annual contribution you can make of £40K (the \"\"annual allowance\"\"), but you can carry forward allowances from three previous years so it's very unlikely to be relevant.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ea83557af9a5d48e3d8b1794e9161bd", "text": "If this is a business expense - then this is what is called reimbursement. Reimbursement is usually not considered as income since it is money paid back to you for an expense you covered for your employer with your after-tax money. However, for reimbursement to be considered properly executed, from income tax stand point, there are some requirements. I'm not familiar with the UK income tax law specifics, but I reason the requirements would not differ much from places I'm familiar with: before an expense is reimbursed to you, you should usually do this: Show that the expense is a valid business expense for the employer benefit and by the employer's request. Submit the receipt for reimbursement and follow the employer's procedure on its approval. When income tax agent looks at your data, he actually will ask about the £1500 tab. You and you'll employer will have to do some explaining about the business activity that caused it. If the revenue agent is not satisfied, the £750 that is paid to you will be declared as your income. If the required procedures for proper reimbursement were not followed - the £750 may be declared as your income regardless of the business need. Have your employer verify it with his tax accountant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4bd4532cbf311f482521dedb9c34ea4", "text": "\"As long as you paid 100% of your last year's tax liability (overall tax liability, the total tax to pay on your 1040) or 90% of the total tax liability this year, or your underpayment is no more than $1000, you won't be penalized as long as you pay the difference by April 15th. That's per the IRS. I don't know where the \"\"10% of my income\"\" came from, I'm not aware of any such rule.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85ff947d923a0fb0c528b80bbdf65584", "text": "HMRC may or may not find out about it; the risks and penalties involved if they do find out make it unwise not to just declare it and pay the tax on it. Based on the fact you asked the question, I am assuming that you currently pay all your tax through PAYE and don't do a tax return. You would need to register for Self Assessment and complete a return; this is not at all difficult if your tax situation is straightforward, which it sounds like yours is. Then you would owe the tax on the additional money, at whatever applicable rate (which depends on how much you earn in your main job, the rate tables are here: https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates/current-rates-and-allowances ). If it truly is a one off you could simply declare it on your return as other income, but if it is more than that then you would need to look at setting up as Self Employed - there is some good advice on the differences here: http://www.brighton-accountants.com/blog/tax-self-employment-still-employed/ : Broadly, you are likely to be running a business if you have a regular, organised activity with a profit motive, which continues for at least a few months. If the work is one-off, or very occasional (say, a few times per year), or not very organised, or of very low value (say, under £2,000 per year), then it might qualify as casual income. If you think it is beyond the definition of casual income then you would also need to pay National Insurance, as described in the previous link, but otherwise the tax treatment would be the same.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f6fc677d6cb6bd6df28c89bea847238", "text": "Another person, not a shareholder or director, will be treated as when a bank loans you money. You are loaning out money and you are sort of getting interest income out of it or some other benefit, which needs to be put down in you company's annual return. Full source on the HMRC website. But for a shareholder or director is different matter. Check the HMRC source for sure and check with your accountant, if you have one. If you owe your company money You or your company may have to pay tax if you take a director’s loan. Your personal and company tax responsibilities depend on how the loan is settled. You also need to check if you have extra tax responsibilities if: If the loan was more than £10,000 (£5,000 in 2013-14) If you’re a shareholder and director and you owe your company more than £10,000 (£5,000 in 2013 to 2014) at any time in the year, your company must: You must report the loan on your personal Self Assessment tax return. You may have to pay tax on the loan at the official rate of interest. If you paid interest below the official rate If you’re a shareholder and director, your company must: You must report the interest on your personal Self Assessment tax return. You may have to pay tax on the difference between the official rate and the rate you paid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b19b22ee8d55cec0980dff641e6ca784", "text": "I would not expect any problems. Your interest will have tax deducted at 20% which I don't think you would be entitled to reclaim because you don't get a personal allowance if you aren't resident in the UK, and unless you have a huge amount of UK earnings you would not be legally liable to any higher rates of tax so there would be no issues there. If you were liable to more tax you would be obliged to inform the Inland Revenue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84180fd41889d3c3c16c76ce39ff99b9", "text": "\"would it make sense to set up multiple bank accounts to avoid going above their thresholds? Quite possiblly yes but you need to pay attention to the fine print. I don't know what the situation is in poland but in the UK accounts that pay high interest often have strings attached. For example the santander 123 current account pays very good interest but it has an account fee and some other requirements that are difficult to meet if you are not using it as your \"\"main current account\"\". You need to read the terms carefully, if you go over the threshold does the lower rate only apply to money over the threshold? or does it apply to all the money in the account? Are there any other restrictions on how you use the account. Also I don't know if poland has any provisions for limited tax-advantaged savings (like the ISA scheme we have in the UK). If it does then that can add further complications. How to calculate how to maximize the profit here? Well in theory you would get the best account you can and fill it to the threshold. Then the next best account and so-on. You would move any interest paid in an account that was already full to the threshold to the best non-full account (or if the account strongly peanalises going over perhaps move an ammount of money equivilent to the interest just before the interest is paid). In practice that is a lot of work, so if the rates on the different accounts are similar you may want to leave some margin for interest or (in the case of an account that pays the lower rate on the overage while still paying the higher rate on money below the threshold) accepting that some of your money will earn slightly less than idea. Another option some accounts may offer is just to pay the interest to another account, avoiding the need to move it yourself. Finally you should check out your government's limits for compensation in the event of banks going bust. As a general rule you don't want to put more than that ammount in a single bank even if doing so would get you the best interest.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e83feba157f0c90f26f199964255ef39", "text": "\"That $200 extra that your employer withheld may already have been sent on to the IRS. Depending on the size of the employer, withholdings from payroll taxes (plus employer's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes) might be deposited in the US Treasury within days of being withheld. So, asking the employer to reimburse you, \"\"out of petty cash\"\" so to speak, might not work at all. As JoeTaxpayer says, you could ask that $200 less be withheld as income tax from your pay for the next pay period (is your Federal income tax withholding at least $200 per pay period?), and one way of \"\"forcing\"\" the employer to withhold less is to file a new W-4 form with Human Resources/Payroll, increasing the number of exemptions to more than you are entitled to, and then filing a new W-4 changing your exemptions back to what they are right now once when you have had $200 less withheld. But be careful. Claims for more exemptions than you are entitled to can be problematic, and the IRS might come looking if you suddenly \"\"discover\"\" several extra children for whom you are entitled to claim exemptions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ff702402806dae33bfe074ade9c59b45", "text": "Being a tax professional, my understanding is that the threshold limit is a single limit for all your source(s) of income. Now many people who already draw salary which is liable to tax, develop application for mobile and generate some income. Such income is liable to tax, if along with other income they exceed the threshold limit. Income will have surely related expenses. And the expenses which are related to earning of the income are allowed to be deducted.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e681e4b1b318f21ad1c28a92d8859cea", "text": "There is no clear answer, it might be or not be. Depends a lot on your situation. 1)Yes it is taxable but as Italy has a double taxation agreement with UK, you might not have to pay. You can get a detailed guidance on the HMRC website. 2) Apply here for a certificate of residence 3)You can only claim back if Italy taxes you more than UK would. If it is less than you will have to pay the remaining portion to HMRC. You do this in the self assessment form/tax return/call up HMRC. 4)Tell the truth, explain your whole scenario and don't withheld relevant information assuming you may lower you tax by doing so.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "86c02effdb691f1d65361e398e167b86", "text": "According to HMRC it seems that if you overpay, then at least part of the interest generated by that ISA is taxable (emphasis mine): If, by mistake, you put more than £10,680 into your ISAs in a tax year, the excess payments are invalid, and you are not entitled to any tax relief on investments purchased with the excess payments. You should not try to correct this mistake yourself. Instead, you should call the ISA Helpline and explain the problem to them. They will advise you what action you need to take. However, as AlexMuller pointed out, HMRC also states (in section 6.1 here) that the ISA Manager (ie. the bank/building society) should not allow you to overpay. Managers’ systems must ensure that ... no more than the cash ISA subscription limit can be subscribed to a cash ISA in a tax year and that no more than the overall subscription limit can be subscribed to a stocks and shares ISA in a tax year. As to what an individual ISA Manager would do should you attempt to over-pay, I imagine it would vary from Manager to Manager. ING Direct, for example, has the following policy (Taken from Section 12.5 here): ...f you send us a payment for an amount which would take you over the ISA investment limit under the ISA Regulations, we will send the excess above the investment limit, or, if you sent us the payment by cheque, the whole of that payment, back to you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70a52b4c0f3fde7f782b50da8799b4a9", "text": "\"If a country had a genuine completely flat income tax system, then it wouldn't matter who paid the tax since it doesn't depend on the employee's other income. Since not many countries run this, it doesn't really make sense for the employee to \"\"take the burden\"\" of the tax, as opposed to merely doing the administration and paying the (probable) amount of tax at payroll, leaving the employee to use their personal tax calculation to correct the payment if necessary. Your prospective employer is probably saying that your tax calculation in Singapore is so simple they can do it for you. They may or may not need to know a lot of information about you in order to do this calculation, depending what the Singapore tax authorities say. If you're not a Singapore national, they may or may not be relying on bilateral tax agreements with your country to assert that you won't have to pay any further tax on the income in your own country. It's possible they're merely asserting that you won't owe anything else in Singapore, and in fact you will have taxes to report (even if it's just reporting to your home tax authority that you've already paid the tax). Still, for a foreign worker a guarantee you won't have to deal with the local tax authority is a good thing to have even if that's all it is. Since there doesn't appear to be any specific allowance for \"\"tax free money\"\" in the Singapore tax system, it looks like what you have here is \"\"just\"\" the employer agreeing to do something that will normally result in the correct tax being paid in your behalf. This isn't uncommon, but it's also not exactly what you asked for. And in particular if you have two jobs in Singapore then they can't both be doing this, since tax is not flat. The example calculation includes varying tax rates for the first X amount of income that (I assume without checking) are per person, not per employment. Joe's answer has the link. In practice in the UK (for example), there are plenty of UK nationals working in the UK who don't need to do a full tax return and whose tax is collected entirely at source (between PAYE and deductions on bank interest and suchlike). In this sense the employer is required by law to take the responsibility for doing the admin and making the tax payments to HMRC. Note that a UK employer doesn't need to know your circumstances in detail to make the correct payroll deductions: all they need is a so-called \"\"tax code\"\", which is calculated by HMRC and communicated to the employer, and which basically encodes how much they can pay you at zero rate before the various tax rate tiers kick in. That's all the employer needs to know here for the typical employee: they don't need to know precisely what credits and liabilities resulted in the figure. However, these employers still don't offer empoyees a net salary (that is, they don't take on the tax burden), because different employees will have different tax codes, which the employer would in effect be cancelling out by offering to pay two people the same net salary regardless of their individual circumstances. The indications seem to be that the same applies in Singapore: this offer is really a net salary subject to certain assumptions (the main one being that you have no other tax liabilities in Singapore). If you're a Singapore millionaire taking that job for fun, you might find that the employer doesn't/can't take on your non-standard tax liability on this marginal income.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c0e6846af33c06f1b909aa93cf47bf0", "text": "\"The answer, as usual, is \"\"it depends\"\". Essentially, you'll have to pay VAT on your turnover, and if you have a million turnover, you'll have to be VAT registered. In that case, you'll either charge VAT on top of the million, or you'll have to send 200k to HMRC straight away. OTOH, being VAT registered means you can offset the VAT on company expenditure against the VAT on the company's income. After that, you'll deduct all allowable expenditure from the income of the company. That doesn't include your living expenses (those are your problem, not the company's) but basically anything that makes the company tick. Company expenditure also includes salaries paid to the company's employees etc. The company will then pay corporation tax on the remainder. Oh, and once all that's done and you get some dividends from the company on top of your salary, you get to pay income tax on those, once it becomes your money. But the money in the company isn't yours, it's the company's. Big difference.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7416d510ca61428b034926cf72ad7b2", "text": "\"Appears to be a hypothetical question and not really worth answering but... Must it be explained.. no, not until audited. It's saying that for everything reported on a tax return, people have to include an explanation for everything, which you do not, unless you want to make some type of 'disclosure' which is a different matter. Must it be reported.. Yes, based on info presented. All income is taxable unless \"\"specifically exempted\"\" per the US Tax code or court cases. Gift vs Found Income... it's not 'found' income as someone gave (gifted) the money to him. Generally, gifts received are not taxable and don't have to be reported.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
272919a61be2917df7eafa0ed3b99440
I want to invest and save for my house downpayment at the same time
[ { "docid": "ae797d88c5b76adca7b12362c7fd28a9", "text": "Yes you should invest; and yes you should save for the house down payment. These should be two separate pools of money and the goals and time frames for them are different. With a 3 year time frame for the down payment on the house, the risk you should accept should be essentially zero. That means it is less of an investment and more plain vanilla savings account, or maybe a higher interest account, or a CD. The worst thing to have happen would be to try and save for the house while the value of your investment keeps dropping. You have to decide how to allocate your income between retirement accounts and saving for the house, while still meeting all your other obligations. The exact balance depends on how much you need to save for retirement, and things such as rules for the company match.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "31eb14798fa124a9d56118dfc3f58f28", "text": "Lots of good advice on investing already. You may also want to think about two things: A Bausparvertrag. You can set this up for different monthly saving rates. You'll get a modest interest payment, and once you have saved up enough (the contract is zuteilungsreif), you will be eligible for a loan at a low rate. However, you can only use the loan for building, buying or renovating real estate. With interest rates as low as they are right now, this is not overly attractive. However, depending on your salary, you may qualify for subsidies, and these could indeed be rather attractive. This may be helpful (in German). A Riester-Rente. This is a subsidized saving scheme - you save something every year and again get subsidies at the end of the year. I think the salary thresholds where you qualify for a subsidy are a bit higher for the Riester-Rente than for a Bausparvertrag, and even if you don't qualify for a subsidy, your contributions will be deducted from your taxable income. I wouldn't invest all my leftover money in these, considering that you commit yourself for the medium to long term, but they might well be attractive options for at least part of your money, say 20-25% of what you aim at saving every month. Finally, as others have written: banks and insurance companies exist to make money, and they live off their provisions. Get an independent financial advisor you pay by the hour, who doesn't get provisions, and have him help you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71146df668f12b055a8d5912ca96a59b", "text": "It depends on the relative rates and relative risk. Ignore the deduction. You want to compare the rates of the investment and the mortgage, either both after-tax or both before-tax. Your mortgage costs you 5% (a bit less after-tax), and prepayments effectively yield a guaranteed 5% return. If you can earn more than that in your IRA with a risk-free investment, invest. If you can earn more than that in your IRA while taking on a degree of risk that you are comfortable with, invest. If not, pay down your mortgage. See this article: Mortgage Prepayment as Investment: For example, the borrower with a 6% mortgage who has excess cash flow would do well to use it to pay down the mortgage balance if the alternative is investment in assets that yield 2%. But if two years down the road the same assets yield 7%, the borrower can stop allocating excess cash flow to the mortgage and start accumulating financial assets. Note that he's not comparing the relative risk of the investments. Paying down your mortgage has a guaranteed return. You're talking about CDs, which are low risk, so your comparison is simple. If your alternative investment is stocks, then there's an element of risk that it won't earn enough to outpace the mortgage cost. Update: hopefully this example makes it clearer: For example, lets compare investing $100,000 in repayment of a 6% mortgage with investing it in a fund that pays 5% before-tax, and taxes are deferred for 10 years. For the mortgage, we enter 10 years for the period, 3.6% (if that is the applicable rate) for the after tax return, $100,000 as the present value, and we obtain a future value of $142,429. For the alternative investment, we do the same except we enter 5% as the return, and we get a future value of $162,889. However, taxes are now due on the $62,889 of interest, which reduces the future value to $137,734. The mortgage repayment does a little better. So if your marginal tax rate is 30%, you have $10k extra cash to do something with right now, mortgage rate is 5%, IRA CD APY is 1%, and assuming retirement in 30 years: If you want to plug it into a spreadsheet, the formula to use is (substitute your own values): (Note the minus sign before the cash amount.) Make sure you use after tax rates for both so that you're comparing apples to apples. Then multiply your IRA amount by (1-taxrate) to get the value after you pay future taxes on IRA withdrawals.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "223d04166775ce3700f5f23a7cda3e3d", "text": "Two ideas. EDIT: you should also do alot of research about how to invest this money properly. Something low risk but will beat inflation by a margin.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "886e10a51f92d7a079ec4b39db998528", "text": "\"I love the idea of #1, keep that going. I don't think #2 is very realistic. Given the short time frame putting money at risk for a higher yield may not work in your favor. If it was me, I'd stick to a \"\"high interest\"\" savings account (around 1%). I don't mind #3 either, however, I'd be socking whatever you could to mortgage principle so you can get out of PMI sooner rather than later. That would be my top priority. Given the status of interest rates, you may end up saving money in the long run. I doubt it, but you may. If you choose to go with #3, don't settle for a house that you really don't like. Get something that you want. Who knows it may take you a year or so to find something!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "997ffcf0eb3fb67c5b69f9379e46ed51", "text": "If you can get a mortgage with 10% downpayment and the seller will accept (some may want at least 20% downpayment for whatever reasons) and with PMI it still lower than your rent, sounds like it's a good idea to buy now. Of course this assumes that the money you'd be otherwise saving for 20% downpayment will be used to pay off a mortgage faster.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c0129ccf189b8444f3ea2693d965ba8", "text": "\"First off, I would label this as speculation, not investing. There are many variables that you don't seem to be considering, and putting down such a small amount opens you to a wide variety of risks. Not having an \"\"emergency fund\"\" for the rental increases that risk greatly. (I assume that you would not have an emergency fund based upon \"\"The basic idea is to save up a 20% down payment on a property and take out a mortgage\"\".) This type of speculation lent a hand in the housing bubble. Is your home paid off? If not you can reduce your personal risk (by owning your home), and have a pretty safe investment in real estate. Mission accomplished. My hope for you would be that you are also putting money in the market. Historically it has performed quite well while always having its share of \"\"chicken littles\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "613922ad4af2b6f8dad0417ea4fd4d0c", "text": "The common opinion is an oversimplification at best. The problem with buying a house using cash is that it may leave you cash-poor, forcing you to take out a home equity loan at some point... which may be at a higher rate than the mortgage would have been. On the other hand, knowing that you have no obligation to a lender is quite nice, and many folks prefer eliminating that source of stress. IF you can get a mortgage at a sufficiently low rate, using it to leverage an investment is not a bad strategy. Average historical return on the stock market is around 8%, so any mortgage rate lower than that is a relatively good bet and a rate MUCH lower (as now) is that much better a bet. There is, of course, some risk involved and the obligation to make mortgage payments, and your actual return is reduced by what you're paying on the mortage... but it's still a pretty good deal. As far as investment vehicles: The same answers apply as always. You want a rate of return higher than what you're paying on the mortgage, preferably market rate of return or better. CDs won't do it, as you've found. You're going to have to increase the risk to increase the return. That does mean picking and maintaining a diversified balance of investments and investment types. Working with index funds makes diversifying within a type easy, but you're probably going to want both stocks and bonds, rebalancing between them when they drift too far from your desired mix. My own investments are a specific mix with one each of bond fund, large cap fund, small cap fund, REIT, and international fund. Bonds are the biggest part of that, since they're lowest risk, but the others play a greater part in producing returns on the investments. The exact mix that would be optimal for you depends on your risk tolerance (I'm classified as a moderately aggressive investor), the time horizon you're looking at before you may be forced to pull money back out of the investments, and some matters of personal taste. I've been averaging about 10%, but I had the luxury of being able to ride out the depression and indeed invest during it. Against that, my mortgage is under 4% interest rate, and is for less than 80% of the purchase price so I didn't need to pay the surcharge for mortgage insurance. In fact, I borrowed only half the cost of the house and paid the rest in cash, specifically because leveraging does involve some risk and this was the level of risk I was comfortable with. I also set the duration of the loan so it will be paid off at about the same time I expect to retire. Again, that's very much a personal judgement. If you need specific advice, it's worth finding a financial counselor and having them help you run the numbers. Do NOT go with someone associated with an investment house; they're going to be biased toward whatever produces the most income for them. Select someone who is strictly an advisor; they may cost you a bit more but they're more likely to give you useful advice. Don't take my word for any of this. I know enough to know how little I know. But hopefully I've given you some insight into what the issues are and what questions you need to ask, and answer, before making your decisions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "abeead7391f1ad7e527550a2bca32fd5", "text": "\"For some people, it should be a top priority. For others, there are higher priorities. What it should be for you depends on a number of things, including your overall financial situation (both your current finances and how stable you expect them to be over time), your level of financial \"\"education\"\", the costs of your mortgage, the alternative investments available to you, your investing goals, and your tolerance for risk. Your #1 priority should be to ensure that your basic needs (including making the required monthly payment on your mortgage) are met, both now and in the near future, which includes paying off high-interest (i.e. credit card) debt and building up an emergency fund in a savings or money-market account or some other low-risk and liquid account. If you haven't done those things, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, and do not consider making advance payments on your mortgage. Mason Wheeler's statements that the bank can't take your house if you've paid it off are correct, but it's going to be a long time till you get there and they can take it if you're partway to paying it off early and then something bad happens to you and you start missing payments. (If you're not underwater, you should be able to get some of your money back by selling - possibly at a loss - before it gets to the point of foreclosure, but you'll still have to move, which can be costly and unappealing.) So make sure you've got what you need to handle your basic needs even if you hit a rough patch, and make sure you're not financing the paying off of your house by taking a loan from Visa at 27% annually. Once you've gotten through all of those more-important things, you finally get to decide what else to invest your extra money in. Different investments will provide different rewards, both financial and emotional (and Mason Wheeler has clearly demonstrated that he gets a strong emotional payoff from not having a mortgage, which may or may not be how you feel about it). On the financial side of any potential investment, you'll want to consider things like the expected rate of return, the risk it carries (both on its own and whether it balances out or unbalances the overall risk profile of all your investments in total), its expected costs (including its - and your - tax rate and any preferred tax treatment), and any other potential factors (such as an employer match on 401(k) contributions, which are basically free money to you). Then you weigh the pros and cons (financial and emotional) of each option against your imperfect forecast of what the future holds, take your best guess, and then keep adjusting as you go through life and things change. But I want to come back to one of the factors I mentioned in the first paragraph. Which options you should even be considering is in part influenced by the degree to which you understand your finances and the wide variety of options available to you as well as all the subtleties of how different things can make them more or less advantageous than one another. The fact that you're posting this question here indicates that you're still early in the process of learning those things, and although it's great that you're educating yourself on them (and keep doing it!), it means that you're probably not ready to worry about some of the things other posters have talked about, such as Cost of Capital and ROI. So keep reading blog posts and articles online (there's no shortage of them), and keep developing your understanding of the options available to you and their pros and cons, and wait to tackle the full suite of investment options till you fully understand them. However, there's still the question of what to do between now and then. Paying the mortgage down isn't an unreasonable thing for you to do for now, since it's a guaranteed rate of return that also provides some degree of emotional payoff. But I'd say the higher priority should be getting money into a tax-advantaged retirement account (a 401(k)/403(b)/IRA), because the tax-advantaged growth of those accounts makes their long-term return far greater than whatever you're paying on your mortgage, and they provide more benefit (tax-advantaged growth) the earlier you invest in them, so doing that now instead of paying off the house quicker is probably going to be better for you financially, even if it doesn't provide the emotional payoff. If your employer will match your contributions into that account, then it's a no-brainer, but it's probably still a better idea than the mortgage unless the emotional payoff is very very important to you or unless you're nearing retirement age (so the tax-free growth period is small). If you're not sure what to invest in, just choose something that's broad-market and low-cost (total-market index funds are a great choice), and you can diversify into other things as you gain more savvy as an investor; what matters more is that you start investing in something now, not exactly what it is. Disclaimer: I'm not a personal advisor, and this does not constitute investing advice. Understand your choices and make your own decisions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a7975f7b904e476239cf8f0dc1eb4de", "text": "\"If I buy property when the market is in a downtrend the property loses value, but I would lose money on rent anyway. So, as long I'm viewing the property as housing expense I would be ok. This is a bit too rough an analysis. It all depends on the numbers you plug in. Let's say you live in the Boston area, and you buy a house during a downtrend at $550k. Two years later, you need to sell it, and the best you can get is $480k. You are down $70k and you are also out two years' of property taxes, maintenance, insurance, mortgage interest maybe, etc. Say that's another $10k a year, so you are down $70k + $20k = $90k. It's probably more than that, but let's go with it... In those same two years, you could have been living in a fairly nice apartment for $2,000/mo. In that scenario, you are out $2k * 24 months = $48k--and that's it. It's a difference of $90k - $48k = $42k in two years. That's sizable. If I wanted to sell and upgrade to a larger property, the larger property would also be cheaper in the downtrend. Yes, the general rule is: if you have to spend your money on a purchase, it's best to buy when things are low, so you maximize your value. However, if the market is in an uptrend, selling the property would gain me more than what I paid, but larger houses would also have increased in price. But it may not scale. When you jump to a much larger (more expensive) house, you can think of it as buying 1.5 houses. That extra 0.5 of a house is a new purchase, and if you buy when prices are high (relative to other economic indicators, like salaries and rents), you are not doing as well as when you buy when they are low. Do both of these scenarios negate the pro/cons of buying in either market? I don't think so. I think, in general, buying \"\"more house\"\" (either going from an apartment to a house or from a small house to a bigger house) when housing is cheaper is favorable. Houses are goods like anything else, and when supply is high (after overproduction of them) and demand is low (during bad economic times), deals can be found relative to other times when the opposite applies, or during housing bubbles. The other point is, as with any trend, you only know the future of the trend...after it passes. You don't know if you are buying at anything close to the bottom of a trend, though you can certainly see it is lower than it once was. In terms of practical matters, if you are going to buy when it's up, you hope you sell when it's up, too. This graph of historical inflation-adjusted housing prices is helpful to that point: let me just say that if I bought in the latest boom, I sure hope I sold during that boom, too!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2e56ff7678cd9108fa44449779b9177", "text": "In all likelihood, the best thing you can do, if these really are your only two options (ie no other debt at all), paying-down your mortgage will shorten the term of the mortgage, and mean you spend less on your house in the long run. Investing is should be a long-term activity - so yes, the likelihood is that, given a modest investment, it will gain at historical averages over the life of the investment vehicle. However, that is not a guarantee, and is an inherent risk. Whereas paying-down a mortgage lowers your financial obligations and risk, investing increases your risk. I want to know how you got a 2.1% interest rate on a mortgage, though - the lowest I've seen anywhere is 3.25%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c341364afeab9a693ed255b3f300d17", "text": "\"This is the meat of your potato question. The rephrasing of the question to a lending/real estate executive such as myself, I'd ask, what's the scenario? \"\"I would say you're looking for an Owner Occupied, Super Jumbo Loan with 20% Down or $360K down on the purchase price, $1.8 mil purchase price, Loan Amount is ~$1.45 mil. Fico is strong (assumption). If this is your scenario, please see image. Yellow is important, more debt increases your backend-DTI which is not good for the deal. As long as it's less than 35%, you're okay. Can someone do this loan, the short answer is yes. It's smart that you want to keep more cash on hand. Which is understandable, if the price of the property declines, you've lost your shirt and your down payment, then it will take close to 10 years to recover your down. Consider that you are buying at a peak in real estate prices. Prices can't go up more than they are now. Consider that properties peaked in 2006, cooled in 2007, and crashed in 2008. Properties declined for more than 25-45% in 2008; regardless of your reasons of not wanting to come to the full 40% down, it's a bit smarter to hold on to cash for other investments purposes. Just incase a recession does hit. In the end, if you do the deal-You'll pay more in points, a higher rate compared to the 40% down scenario, the origination fee would increase slightly but you'll keep your money on hand to invest elsewhere, perhaps some units that can help with the cashflow of your home. I've highlighted in yellow what the most important factors that will be affected on a lower down payment. If your debt is low or zero, and income is as high as the scenario, with a fico score of at least 680, you can do the deal all day long. These deals are not uncommon in today's market. Rate will vary. Don't pay attention to the rate, the rate will fluctuate based on many variables, but it's a high figure to give you an idea on total cost and monthly payment for qualification purposes, also to look at the DTI requirement for cash/debt. See Image below:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "488a2e2da0765eb148803ded8cdeccfb", "text": "Like @littleadv, I don't consider a mortgage on a primary residence to be a low-risk investment. It is an asset, but one that can be rather illiquid, depending on the nature of the real estate market in your area. There are enough additional costs associated with home-ownership (down-payment, insurance, repairs) relative to more traditional investments to argue against a primary residence being an investment. Your question didn't indicate when and where you bought your home, the type of home (single-family, townhouse, or condo) the nature of your mortgage (fixed-rate or adjustable rate), or your interest rate, but since you're in your mid-20s, I'm guessing you bought after the crash. If that's the case, your odds of making a profit if/when you sell your home are higher than they would be if you bought in the 2006/2007 time-frame. This is no guarantee of course. Given the amount of housing stock still available, housing prices could still fall further. While it is possible to lose money in all sorts of investments, the illiquid nature of real estate makes it a lot more difficult to limit your losses by selling. If preserving principal is your objective, money market funds and treasury inflation protected securities are better choices than your home. The diversification your financial advisor is suggesting is a way to manage risk. Not all investments perform the same way in a given economic climate. When stocks increase in value, bonds tend to decrease (and vice versa). Too much money in a single investment means you could be wiped out in a downturn.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79ecf644625863c23f86774ee6e00f66", "text": "\"When I was 23, the Toronto housing market was approaching a record high, and I thought, \"\"I must buy a place or I'll be locked out.\"\" And I did. Bad decision. I should have waited and saved my money. For the record, I thought I would never recover, but I did. Patience grasshopper. In actual fact the U.K. housing market is probably approaching a low, and you have a job that is paying you well enough. BUT the lesson I learned wasn't about buying at a high or a low, it was about the need never to let external factors rush your decision making. Your decisions have to make sense for your own unique situation. If you're living at home and you have domestic bliss, mum and dad aren't crimping your style (if you know what I mean), then, enjoy it. Your credit balance sounds understandable. It's not fatal. But it's a budget killer. Make adjustments (somehow/anyhow) so that you are paying it down month by month. Take it down to £0. You will feel amazing once you do it. After that, use the money that you were paying onto your credit card and start saving it. Whether you ultimately use the money for a house down-payment or your retirement, doesn't matter. Just get into the situation where you're saving.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f1877663f1e751238a9a0105861d6747", "text": "\"Have you ever tried adding up all your mortgage payments over the years? That sum, plus all the money that you put as a down payment (including various fees paid at closing) plus all the repair and maintenance work etc) is the amount that you have \"\"invested\"\" in your house. (Yes, you can account for mortgage interest deductions if you like to lower the total a bit). Do you still feel that you made a good \"\"investment\"\"?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da95074b0c587333fa350554d8d1ff79", "text": "Not for the tax break, no; as others have said that still costs you money. However, with rates being low right now and brought a bit lower by the tax break, this is an opportunity for the safest form of leveraged investing you will ever find. If you invest that money, the returns on investment will probably be better than the mortgage rate, and that leaves you with a net profit. There is some risk if the market collapses, but it's less risk than any other form of borrowing to invest. That also leave you with more flexibility if you need cash in a hurry; you can draw down the investments rather than taking another loan. If the risk bothers you, you can do what I did and split the difference. I put 50% down and financed the rest. I sometimes regret not having pushed it harder, since it has worked out well for me ... but that was the level of risk I was comfortable with.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
1aef3fae63a979c881fc2d88f2798b45
What could be the best tax saving option before a month of financial year end
[ { "docid": "8cc580ba6436559c6830165d5702216b", "text": "I was thinking to do mix of ELSS and Tax Saving FDs. But is my choice correct? Also what other options I am left with? This depends on individual's choice and risk appetite. Generally at younger age, investment in ELSS / PPF is advisable. Other options are Life Insurance, Retirement Plans by Mutual Funds, NSC, etc", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "053ae805f6a2cba4fc3f70c4c1216044", "text": "The tax consequence is that if you wait until January of 2011 to invest, you won't have the option to sell as a long-term capital gain in 2011. However, this is not a huge point in practice: If your income this year was very low, but will go up in 2011, you might want to convert some or all of it into a roth ira this year. This would let you pay the tax on it at your low tax rate for this year, rather than at the likely higher rate when you retire. An investment consequence is the fact that your money is sitting there, earning a lower expected rate of return than it could be. Not knowing your situation, I can't say how aggressive your holdings will be. Taking a fairly aggressive portfolio, 9% expected yearly return, and not investing for a month, you lose about .75% on average. Not huge, but something to consider. Remember that any decision you make here isn't permanent. If your previous allocation in the 401(k) was 100% in stock funds, you could put it in something like VTI, Vanguard's total US stock market ETF.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f73770a2da33ab40245475e5bc5ee82", "text": "\"You may want, or at least be thinking of, the annualized method described in Pub 505 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p505/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000194669 (also downloadable in PDF) and referred to in Why are estimated taxes due \"\"early\"\" for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only? . This doesn't prorate your payments as such; instead you use your income and deductions etc for each of the 3,2,3,4-month \"\"quarters\"\" to compute a prorated tax for the partial year, and pay the excess over the amount already paid. If your income etc amounts are (nearly) the same each month, then this computation will result in payments that are 3,2,3,4/12ths of 90% of your whole-year tax, but not if your amounts vary over the year. If you do use this method (and benefit from it) you MUST file form 2210 schedule AI with your return next filing season to demonstrate that your quarterly computations, and payments, met the requirements. You need to keep good per-period (or per-month) records of all tax-relevant amounts, and don't even try to do this form by hand, it'll drive you nuts; use software or a professional preparer (who also uses software), but I'd expect someone in your situation probably needs to do one of those anyway. But partnership puts a wrinkle on this. As a partner, your taxable income and expense is not necessarily the cash you receive or pay; it is your allocated share of the partnership's income and expenses, whether or not they are distributed to you. A partnership to operate a business (like lawyers, as opposed to an investment partnership) probably distributes the allocated amounts, at least approximately, rather than holding them in the partnership; I expect this is your year-end draw (technically a draw can be any allowed amount, not necessarily the allocated amount). In other words, your husband does earn this money during the year, he just receives it at the end. If the year-end distribution (or allocation if different) is significant (say more than 5% of your total income) and the partnership is not tracking and reporting these amounts (promptly!) for the IRS quarters -- and I suspect that's what they were telling you \"\"affects other partners\"\" -- you won't have the data to correctly compute your \"\"quarterly\"\" taxes, and may thus subject yourself to penalty for not timely paying enough. If the amount is reasonably predictable you can probably get away with using a conservative (high-side) guess to compute your payments, and then divide the actual full-year amounts on your K-1 over 12 months for 2210-AI; this won't be exactly correct, but unless the partnership business is highly seasonal or volatile it will be close enough the IRS won't waste its time on you. PS- the \"\"quarters\"\" are much closer to 13,9,13,17 weeks. But it's months that matter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27a5a5296e910059e806233cc78595fd", "text": "We need more info to give a better answer, but in short: if you assume you will make $0 in other employment income next year, there is a HUGE tax benefit in deferring 50k until next year. Total tax savings would probably be something like $15k [rough estimate]. If you took the RRSP deduction this year, you would save something like 20k this year, but then you would be taxed on it next year if you withdraw it, probably paying another 5k the year after. ie: you would get about the same net tax savings in both years, if you contributed to your RRSP and withdrew next year, vs deferring it to next year. On a non-tax basis, you would benefit by having the cash today, so you could earn investment income on your RRSP, but you would want to go low-risk as you need the money next year, so the most you could earn would be something like 1.5k @ 3%. The real benefit to the RRSP contribution is if you defer your withdrawal into your retirement, because you can further defer your taxes into the future, earning investment income in the meantime. But if you need to withdraw next year, you won't get that opportunity.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8a34d5de6f3676427fdea0189bc6428", "text": "It would be quite the trick for (a) the government to run all year and get all its revenue in April when taxes are due and (b) for people to actually save the right amount to be able to cut that check each year. W2 employers withhold the estimated federal and state taxes along with the payroll (social security) tax from each paycheck. Since the employer doesn't know how many kids you have, or how much mortgage interest, etc you will take deductions for, you can submit a W4 form to adjust withholdings. The annual Form 1040 in April is to reconcile exact numbers, some people get a refund of some of what they paid in, others owe some money. If one is self-employed, they are required to pay quarterly estimated taxes. And they, too, reconcile exact numbers in April.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ccd5eb1d0b5465caec02197574beaf4", "text": "This all comes down to time: You can spend the maximum on taxes and penalties and have your money now. Or you can wait about a decade and not pay a cent in taxes or penalties. Consider (assuming no other us income and 2017 tax brackets which we know will change): Option 1 (1 year): Take all the money next year and pay the taxes and penalty: Option 2 (2 years): Spread it out to barely exceed the 10% bracket: Option 3 (6 years): Spread it out to cover your Standard Deduction each year: Option 4 (6-11 years): Same as Option 3 but via a Roth Conversion Ladder:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8aa87c29e49314ea96dafd5d5e09b19", "text": "Good professional tax advice is expensive. If your situation is simple, then paying someone doesn't give you more than you could get from a simple software package. In this case, doing your own taxes will save you money this year, and also help you next year, as your situation grows steadily more complex. If you don't do your own taxes when you're single with a part time job, you'll never do it when you have a family, a full time job, a side business, and many deductions. Learning how to do your taxes over time, as your 'tax life' becomes complex, is a valuable skill. If your situation is complex, you will need pay a lot to get it done correctly. Sometimes, that cost is worthwhile. At bare minimum, I would say 'attempt to do your taxes yourself, first'. This will force you to organize your files, making the administrative cost of doing your return lower (ie: you aren't paying your tax firm to sort your receipts, because you've already ordered them nicely with your own subtotals, everything perfectly stapled together). If your situation is complex, and you find a place to get it done cheaply (think H&R Block), you will not be getting value for service. I am not saying a low-end tax firm will necessarily get things wrong, but if you don't have a qualified professional (read: university educated and designated) doing your return, the complexities can be ignored. Low-end tax firms typically hire seasonal staff, train them for 1-2 weeks, and mostly just show them how to enter tax slips into the same software you could buy yourself. If you underpay for professional services, you will pay the price, metaphorically speaking. For your specific situation, I strongly recommend you have a professional service look at your returns, because you are a non-resident, meaning you likely need to file in your home country as well. Follow what they do with your return, and next year, see how much of it you can do yourself. Before you hire someone, get a fee quote, and shop around until you find someone you are comfortable with. $1k spent now could save you many headaches in the future.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "631bc94058215d246ca94f6f20e91eb5", "text": "The short answer is that it depends on the taxation laws in your country. The long answer is that there are usually tax avoidance mechanisms that you can use which may make it more economically feasible for you to go one way or the other. Consider the following: The long term average growth rate of the stock market in Australia is around 7%. The average interest on a mortgage is 4.75%. Assuming you have money left over from a 20% deposit, you have a few options. You could: 1) Put that money into an index fund for the long term, understanding that the market may not move for a decade, or even move downwards; 2) Dump that money straight into the mortgage; 3) Put that money in an offset account Option 1 will get you (over the course of 30-40 years) around 7% return. If and when that profit is realised it will be taxed at a minimum of half your marginal tax rate (probably around 20%, netting you around 5.25%) Option 2 will effectively earn you 4.75% pa tax free Option 3 will effectively earn you 4.75% pa tax free with the added bonus that the money is ready for you to draw upon on short notice. Of the three options, until you have a good 3+ months of living expenses covered, I'd go with the offset account every single time. Once you have a few months worth of living expenses covered, I would the adopt a policy of spreading your risk. In Australia, that would mean extra contributions to my Super (401k in the US) and possibly purchasing an investment property as well (once I had the capital to positively gear it). Of course, you should find out more about the tax laws in your country and do your own maths.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "955dc80329787563d4de1d4ca95f3b9a", "text": "First of all, I agree with both the conclusion in the question and Ganesh’s answer – avoid funds or stockmarket based instruments, given the short timescale and need to draw an income. However I think looking at savings accounts only is missing a trick. At the moment there are several current accounts that pay >2% interest on balances the size of which you’re proposing. The list of which accounts are offering which rates / conditions at which point in time will vary, so here is a link to a good source of regularly updated information: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-loophole There are some conditions, but the best interest rate on offer (that isn't limited to one year) appears to be 3% – much better than the leading instant access savings account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0dae50b5d6c8199652419e5dd726b2aa", "text": "I will answer this question broadly for various jurisdictions, and also specifically for the US, given the OP's tax home: Generally, for any tax jurisdiction If your tax system relies on periodic prepayments through the year, and a final top-up/refund at the end of the year (ie: basically every country), you have 3 theoretical goals with how much you pre-pay: Specifically, for the U.S. All information gathered from here: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes. In short, depending on your circumstance, you may need to pay quarterly estimated tax payments to avoid penalties on April 15th. Even if you won't be penalized, you, may benefit from doing so anyway (to force yourself to save the money necessary by April 15th). I have translated the general goals above, into US-specific advice:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e974e9c76ecdd9f3ffe8704ae2d3f48", "text": "\"How can I avoid this, so we are taxed as if we are making the $60k/yr that we want to receive? You can't. In the US the income is taxed when received, not when used. If you receive 1M this year, taking out 60K doesn't mean the other 940K \"\"weren't received\"\". They were, and are taxable. Create a pension fund in the corporation, feed it all profits, and pay out $60k/yr of \"\"pension\"\". I doubt that the corporation could deduct a million a year in pension funding. You cannot do that. You can only deposit to a pension plan up to 100% of your salary, and no more than $50K total (maybe a little more this year, its adjusted to inflation). Buy a million dollars in \"\"business equipment\"\" of some sort each year to get a deduction, then sell it over time to fund a $60k/yr salary. I doubt such a vehicle exists. If there's no real business purpose, it will be disallowed and you'll be penalized. Your only purpose is tax avoidance, meaning you're trying to shift income using your business to avoid paying taxes - that's illegal. Do crazy Section 79 life insurance schemes to tax-defer the income. The law caps this so I can only deduct < $100k of the $1 million annually, and there are other problems with this approach.\\ Yes. Wouldn't go there. Added: From what I understand, this is a term life insurance plan sponsored by the employer for the employee. This is not a deferral of income, but rather a deduction: instead of paying your term life insurance with your own after tax money, your employer pays with their pre-tax. It has a limit of $50K per employee, and is only available for employees. There are non-discrimination limitations that may affect your ability to use it, but I don't see how it is at all helpful for you. It gives you a deduction, but its money spent, not money in your pocket. End added. Do some tax avoidance like Facebook does with its Double Irish trick, storing the income in some foreign subsidiary and drawing $60k/yr in salary to be taxed at $60k/yr rates. This is probably cost-prohibitive for a $1MM/yr company. You're not Facebook. What works with a billion, will not work with a million. Keep in mind that you're a one-man business, things that huge corporations like Google or Facebook can get away with are a no-no for a sole-proprietor (even if incorporated). Bottom line you'll probably have to pay the taxes. Get a good tax professional to help you identify as much deductions as possible, and if you can plan income ahead - plan it better.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a30c7eb9e87bc88e5f6f9fef0e1ae22b", "text": "\"I would suggest you pay quarterly. Or, if you prefer, do the extra withholding. Don't wait until the end of the year. My experience is that of having a day job with freelance work on the side. I've spent a few years just freelancing, and I paid quarterly as requested to avoid the penalties. Now that I have a good day job again, my freelancing is just a small part of my income, and so I end up with a net return and no longer have to pay quarterly. You shouldn't wait until the end of the year to pay. This is assuming your wife is bringing in a decent income. The only scenario where you would want to wait is if her income is only a small amount (such as my wife's plans for an Etsy store). To the IRS, it doesn't really make a difference whether you withhold extra or pay quarterly. Of those two choices, my preference is to pay quarterly - it's easy to set up calendar reminders on the quarterly payment dates, which are always the same. I did the same as bstpierre when estimating my payments: just take last year's tax (for the business) and divide by 4 (adjusting for any obvious situational differences). That's usually close enough. Paying quarterly instead of via withholding means you get to hold on to your money (on average) for 6 weeks longer. Granted, that doesn't mean much with today's interest rates, but it's something. You may prefer the simpler accounting for withholding, though - you can \"\"set and forget\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9260b267d593f6be555fafa6752bc74e", "text": "Part of the difficulty in this sort of planning is that you are also betting on future tax rates and comparing them with current taxes. If you are in a low tax bracket now, but expect to be in a higher one when you take the money out, it is better to pay the taxes now. If you are in a high tax bracket now, but expect to be in a lower one when you retire/take the money out, then it is better to defer the taxes until then. If you think that future sessions of Congress will decide to tax withdrawals from Roth accounts, then you should contribute to traditional accounts. The problem is that you don't know with certainty what the future will bring. So you have to make educated guesses about what might happen, and what you can do now to protect yourself from it. Ideally, plan so that even if the bad things happen, you will be reasonably comfortable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b8a3b2671830f2a8002f9dfbe2dd4b08", "text": "Or am missing something? Yes. The rate of 8.53 is illustration. There is no guarantee that the rate will be applicable. My yearly premium is Rs. 26289. On this amount I will save tax of Rs. 7887. So net premium is Rs. 18402. The other way to look at this is invest Rs 26289 [or actually less of Eq Term Deposit premium]. If you invest into Eq Term Deposit [lock-in for 6 years] with tax benefits, your numbers are going to be very different and definitely better than LIC returns. Edits:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ee232426f873c73418bdcadf24765ed", "text": "The rule that I know is six months of income, stored in readily accessible savings (e.g. a savings or money market account). Others have argued that it should be six months of expenses, which is of course easier to achieve. I would recommend against that, partially because it is easier to achieve. The other issue is that people are more prone to underestimate their expenses than their income. Finally, if you base it on your current expenses, then budget for savings and have money left over, you often increase your expenses. Sometimes obviously (e.g. a new car) and sometimes not (e.g. more restaurants or clubs). Income increases are rarer and easier to see. Either way, you can make that six months shorter or longer. Six months is both feasible and capable of handling difficult emergencies. Six years wouldn't be feasible. One month wouldn't get you through a major emergency. Examples of emergencies: Your savings can be in any of multiple forms. For example, someone was talking about buying real estate and renting it. That's a form of savings, but it can be difficult to do withdrawals. Stocks and bonds are better, but what if your emergency happens when the market is down? Part of how emergency funds operate is that they are readily accessible. Another issue is that a main goal of savings is to cover retirement. So people put them in tax privileged retirement accounts. The downside of that is that the money is not then available for emergencies without paying penalties. You get benefits from retirement accounts but that's in exchange for limitations. It's much easier to spend money than to save it. There are many options and the world makes it easy to do. Emergency funds make people really think about that portion of savings. And thinking about saving before spending helps avoid situations where you shortchange savings. Let's pretend that retirement accounts don't exist (perhaps they don't in your country). Your savings is some mix of stocks and bonds. You have a mortgaged house. You've budgeted enough into stocks and bonds to cover retirement. Now you have a major emergency. As I understand your proposal, you would then take that money out of the stocks and bonds for retirement. But then you no longer have enough for retirement. Going forward, you will have to scrimp to get back on track. An emergency fund says that you should do that scrimping early. Because if you're used to spending any level of money, cutting that is painful. But if you've only ever spent a certain level, not increasing it is much easier. The longer you delay optional expenses, the less important they seem. Scrimping beforehand also helps avoid the situation where the emergency happens at the end of your career. It's one thing to scrimp for fifteen years at fifty. What's your plan if you would have an emergency at sixty-five? Or later? Then you're reducing your living standard at retirement. Now, maybe you save more than necessary. It's not unknown. But it's not typical either. It is far more common to encounter someone who isn't saving enough than too much.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a623fd663710ec8e383dcf5d15970c4", "text": "Putting money into a Roth IRA or 401(k) will save you money if your taxes this year will be lower than your taxes in retirement. See also the Wikipedia retirement-savings matrix.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
0c7a510b88b6dff608e5cfb6b77771ef
Options revisited: Gold fever
[ { "docid": "2865984a64db25a71c7b3f2c57f1afc5", "text": "\"Your plan already answers your own question in the best possible way: If you want to be able to make the most possible profit from a large downward move in a stock (in this case, a stock that tracks gold), with a limited, defined risk if there is an upward move, the optimal strategy is to buy a put option. There are a few Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that track the price of gold. think of them as stocks that behave like gold, essentially. Two good examples that have options are GLD and IAU. (When you talk about gold, you'll hear a lot about futures. Forget them, for now. They do the same essential thing for your purposes, but introduce more complexity than you need.) The way to profit from a downward move without protection against an upward move is by shorting the stock. Shorting stock is like the opposite of buying it. You make the amount of money the stock goes down by, or lose the amount it goes up by. But, since stocks can go up by an infinite amount, your possible loss is unlimited. If you want to profit on a large downward move without an unlimited loss if you're wrong and it goes up, you need something that makes money as the stock drops, but can only lose so much if it goes up. (If you want to be guaranteed to lose nothing, your best investment option is buying US Treasuries, and you're technically still exposed to the risk that US defaults on its debt, although if you're a US resident, you'll likely have bigger problems than your portfolio in that situation.) Buying a put option has the exact asymmetrical exposure you want. You pay a limited premium to buy it, and at expiration you essentially make the full amount that the stock has declined below the strike price, less what you paid for the option. That last part is important - because you pay a premium for the option, if it's down just a little, you might still lose some or all of what you paid for it, which is what you give up in exchange for it limiting your maximum loss. But wait, you might say. When I buy an option, I can lose all of my money, cant I? Yes, you can. Here's the key to understanding the way options limit risk as compared to the corresponding way to get \"\"normal\"\" exposure through getting long, or in your case, short, the stock: If you use the number of options that represent the number of shares you would have bought, you will have much, much less total money at risk. If you spend the same \"\"bag 'o cash\"\" on options as you would have spent on stock, you will have exposure to way more shares, and have the same amount of money at risk as if you bought the stock, but will be much more likely to lose it. The first way limits the total money at risk for a similar level of exposure; the second way gets you exposure to a much larger amount of the stock for the same money, increasing your risk. So the best answer to your described need is already in the question: Buy a put. I'd probably look at GLD to buy it on, simply because it's generally a little more liquid than IAU. And if you're new to options, consider the following: \"\"Paper trade\"\" first. Either just keep track of fake buys and sells on a spreadsheet, or use one of the many online services where you can track investments - they don't know or care if they're real or not. Check out www.888options.com. They are an excellent learning resource that isn't trying to sell you anything - their only reason to exist is to promote options education. If you do put on a trade, don't forget that the most frustrating pitfall with buying options is this: You can be basically right, and still lose some or all of what you invest. This happens two ways, so think about them both before you trade: If the stock goes in the direction you think, but not enough to make back your premium, you can still lose. So you need to make sure you know how far down the stock has to be to make back your premium. At expiration, it's simple: You need it to be below the strike price by more than what you paid for the option. With options, timing is everything. If the stock goes down a ton, or even to zero - free gold! - but only after your option expires, you were essentially right, but lose all your money. So, while you don't want to buy an option that's longer than you need, since the premium is higher, if you're not sure if an expiration is long enough out, it isn't - you need the next one. EDIT to address update: (I'm not sure \"\"not long enough\"\" was the problem here, but...) If the question is just how to ensure there is a limited, defined amount you can lose (even if you want the possible loss to be much less than you can potentially make, the put strategy described already does that - if the stock you use is at $100, and you buy a put with a 100 strike for $5, you can make up to $95. (This occurs if the stock goes to zero, meaning you could buy it for nothing, and sell it for $100, netting $95 after the $5 you paid). But you can only lose $5. So the put strategy covers you. If the goal is to have no real risk of loss, there's no way to have any real gain above what's sometimes called the \"\"risk-free-rate\"\". For simplicity's sake, think of that as what you'd get from US treasuries, as mentioned above. If the goal is to make money whether the stock (or gold) goes either up or down, that's possible, but note that you still have (a fairly high) risk of loss, which occurs if it fails to move either up or down by enough. That strategy, in its most common form, is called a straddle, which basically means you buy a call and a put with the same strike price. Using the same $100 example, you could buy the 100-strike calls for $5, and the 100-strike puts for $5. Now you've spent $10 total, and you make money if the stock is up or down by more than $10 at expiration (over 110, or under 90). But if it's between 90 and 100, you lose money, as one of your options will be worthless, and the other is worth less than the $10 total you paid for them both.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ad534cee6acb8b83f8e574759524feae", "text": "You'll still lose a little bit if you buy a put option at the current price. No such thing as free hedging. Let's say you have 100 shares of IAU that you bought for exactly $12.50 per share. This is $1,250. Now let's say you bought a put option with a strike price of $13 that expires in April 2011. The current price for this option is $1.10 per share, or $110. You can sell your IAU for $1,300 any time before the expiration date, but this leaves $60 in time value. The price of the options will always have a time component that is a premium on the difference between the current price and the strike price. (Oh, forgot to add in commissions to this.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e26623e08553c09696cac38fbef44909", "text": "gold is incredibly volatile, I tried spreadbetting on it. During the month of its highest gain, month beginning to month end, I was betting it would go up - and I still managed to lose money. It went down so much, that my stop loss margin would kick in. Don't do things with gold in the short term its a very small and liquid market. My advice with gold, actually buy some physical gold as insurance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2459cf66b1ae2c89abbe5f95e4ee0a94", "text": "Make a portfolio with gold and put options for gold. If the price rises again, sell a part of your gold and use it to buy new put options. If the price goes down, then use your put options to sell gold at a favorable price.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "234d69bfb72ed4adf33d3eb4134b168c", "text": "\"Ryan's suggestion to index for your main strategy is dead on. Your risk is highest with one given stock, and decreases as you diversify. Yet, picking the stocks one at a time is an effort, when done right, it's time consuming. For what one can say about Jim \"\"mad money\"\" Cramer, his advice to spend an hour a month studying each stock you own, is pretty decent advice. Penny stocks are sub one dollar priced, typically small companies which in theory can grow to be large companies, but the available information tends to be tougher to get hold of. Options are a discussion for a different thread, I discussed the covered call strategy elsewhere and show that options are not necessarily high risk, it depends how they are used.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95e392331ea40b47c5aa6e86a019aa5b", "text": "Oanda.com trades spot forex and something they call box options, it's not quite what you are looking for, but maybe worth looking up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "701044a51a7f47011eb598f92c1ca560", "text": "Gold's valuation is so stratospheric right now that I wonder if negative numbers (as in, you should short it) are acceptable in the short run. In the long run I'd say the answer is zero. The problem with gold is that its only major fundamental value is for making jewelry and the vast majority is just being hoarded in ways that can only be justified by the Greater Fool Theory. In the long run gold shouldn't return more than inflation because a pile of gold creates no new wealth like the capital that stocks are a claim on and doesn't allow others to create new wealth like money lent via bonds. It's also not an important and increasingly scarce resource for wealth creation in the global economy like oil and other more useful commodities are. I've halfway-thought about taking a short position in gold, though I haven't taken any position, short or long, in gold for the following reasons: Straight up short-selling of a gold ETF is too risky for me, given its potential for unlimited losses. Some other short strategy like an inverse ETF or put options is also risky, though less so, and ties up a lot of capital. While I strongly believe such an investment would be profitable, I think the things that will likely rise when the flight-to-safety is over and gold comes back to Earth (mainly stocks, especially in the more beaten-down sectors of the economy) will be equally profitable with less risk than taking one of these positions in gold.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c9eaf83dd1c479f504d360c86cb7bd2", "text": "\"A good time to invest in gold WAS about ten years ago, when it had reached a 20-year bottom around $300 an ounce. That's when I was buying (gold stocks, not physical gold). Since then, it's gone up 5-6 times in ten years. It might continue to go up of course, but it also has long way down to go, because it has come up \"\"too far, too fast.\"\" I have since sold my gold stocks. Alternatives to gold include other metals such as silver and copper (which actually belong in the same chemical family) as well as platinum and palladium. But they, too, have run up a lot in price over the past ten years.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9cf1a9d3d8234f8adeeb92f3ab10905", "text": "\"During Graham's career, gold and currency were the same thing because of the gold standard. Graham did not advise investing in currencies, only in bonds and stocks, the latter only for intelligent speculation. Graham died a couple of years after Nixon closed the gold window, ending the gold standard. Gold may be thought of as a currency even today, as endowments and other investors use it as a store of value or for diversification of risks. However, currency or commodities investing does not seem Graham-like. How could you reliably estimate intrinsic value of a currency or commodity, so that you can have a Graham-like margin of safety after subtracting the intrinsic value from the market value? Saying that gold is \"\"clearly underpriced in today's market\"\" is just hand-waving. A Graham analysis such as \"\"net net\"\" (valuing stocks by their current tangible assets net of all liabilities) is a quantitative analysis of accounting numbers audited by CPAs and offers a true margin of safety.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "edb1f705ad85940e241269d785bb0f6b", "text": "Originally dollars were exchangeable for specie at any time, provided you went to a govt exchange. under Bretton Woods this was a generally fixed rate, but regardless there existed a spread on gold. This ceased to be the case in 71 when the Nixon shock broke Bretton woods.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cc918d7d360e8385f3ff962b9230f3a", "text": "\"The difficulty with investing in mining and gold company stocks is that they are subject to the same market forces as any other stocks, although they may whether those forces better in a crisis than other stocks do because they are related to gold, which has always been a \"\"flight to safety\"\" move for investors. Some investors buy physical gold, although you don't have to take actual delivery of the metal itself. You can leave it with the broker-dealer you buy it from, much the way you don't have your broker send you stock certificates. That way, if you leave the gold with the broker-dealer (someone reputable, of course, like APMEX or Monex) then you can sell it quickly if you choose, just like when you want to sell a stock. If you take delivery of a security (share certificate) or commodity (gold, oil, etc.) then before you can sell it, you have to return it to broker, which takes time. The decision has much to do with your investing objectives and willingness to absorb risk. The reason people choose mutual funds is because their money gets spread around a basket of stocks, so if one company in the fund takes a hit it doesn't wipe out their entire investment. If you buy gold, you run the risk (low, in my opinion) of seeing big losses if, for some reason, gold prices plummet. You're \"\"all in\"\" on one thing, which can be risky. It's a judgment call on your part, but that's my two cents' worth.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18a4ec884d5992249a95fe141fdd1279", "text": "No. The value of the dollar will continue to decline, in turn adding to the value of gold. The current prices are not high for metals, although not rock bottom prices. Especially given what central banks are going to do. (QE). We are nowhere near a gold bubble.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68307d5be9ffcdcde08545453139e73a", "text": "\"Buying physical gold: bad idea; you take on liquidity risk. Putting all your money in a German bank account: bad idea; you still do not escape Euro risk. Putting all your money in USD: bad idea; we have terrible, terrible fiscal problems here at home and they're invisible right now because we're in an election year. The only artificially \"\"cheap\"\" thing that is well-managed in your part of the world is the Swiss Franc (CHF). They push it down artificially, but no government has the power to fight a market forever. They'll eventually run out of options and have to let the CHF rise in value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cef4fa3efefe86f85f703ff4e020704f", "text": "\"If there is a very sudden and large collapse in the exchange rate then because algorithmic trades will operate very fast it is possible to determine “x” immediately after the change in exchange rate. All you need to know is the order book. You also need to assume that the algorithmic bot operates faster than all other market participants so that the order book doesn’t change except for those trades executed by the bot. The temporarily cheaper price in the weakened currency market will rise and the temporarily dearer price in the strengthened currency market will fall until the prices are related by the new exchange rate. This price is determined by the condition that the total volume of buys in the cheaper market is equal to the total volume of sells in the dearer market. Suppose initially gold is worth $1200 on NYSE or £720 on LSE. Then suppose the exchange rate falls from r=0.6 £/$ to s=0.4 £/$. To illustrate the answer lets assume that before the currency collapse the order book for gold on the LSE and NYSE looks like: GOLD-NYSE Sell (100 @ $1310) Sell (100 @ $1300) <——— Sell (100 @ $1280) Sell (200 @ $1260) Sell (300 @ $1220) Sell (100 @ $1200) ————————— buy (100 @ $1190) buy (100 @ $1180) GOLD-LSE Sell (100 @ £750) Sell (100 @ £740) ————————— buy (200 @ £720) buy (200 @ £700) buy (100 @ £600) buy (100 @ £550) buy (100 @ £530) buy (100 @ £520) <——— buy (100 @ £500) From this hypothetical example, the automatic traders will buy up the NYSE gold and sell the LSE gold in equal volume until the price ratio \"\"s\"\" is attained. By summing up the sell volumes on the NYSE and the buy volumes on the LSE, we see that the conditions are met when the price is $1300 and £520. Note 800 units were bought and sold. So “x” depends on the available orders in the order book. Immediately after this, however, the price of the asset will be subject to the new changes of preference by the market participants. However, the price calculated above must be the initial price, since otherwise an arbitrage opportunity would exist.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "184b192142a08e69ff99c90145a0ef1a", "text": "You're missing the cost-of-carry aspect: The cost of carry or carrying charge is the cost of storing a physical commodity, such as grain or metals, over a period of time. The carrying charge includes insurance, storage and interest on the invested funds as well as other incidental costs. In interest rate futures markets, it refers to the differential between the yield on a cash instrument and the cost of the funds necessary to buy the instrument. So in a nutshell, you'd have to store the gold (safely), invest your money now, i.e. you're missing out on interests the money could have earned until the futures delivery date. Well and on top of that you need to get the gold shipped to London or wherever the agreed delivery place is. Edit: Forgot to mention that of course there are arbitrageurs that make sure the futures and spot market prices don't diverge. So the idea isn't that bad as I might have made it sound but being in the arbitrage business myself I should disclaim that profits are small and arbitraging is highly automated, so before you spot a $1 profit somewhere between any two contracts, you can be quite sure it's been taken by an arbitrageur already.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97ec06c6f3e947c0fc43550513e76f6d", "text": "I just wrote an article about this and how Im playing it (ALOT of long dated OotM (out of the money) PUT options). Especially with the Fed forcing rate hikes (as if they think we dont understand theyre hiking only to cut rates in a few months when a recession shows) and the economys growth weakening. I don't see a single catalyst for resuming the boom in auto sectors. (my article) https://lonewolf.liberty.me/car-mageddon-is-upon-us-and-how-to-play-it/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5fc1225abe1e6651a20b3d8eea0eab7", "text": "\"Ok, I think what you're really asking is \"\"how can I benefit from a collapse in the price of gold?\"\" :-) And that's easy. (The hard part's making that kind of call with money on the line...) The ETF GLD is entirely physical gold sitting in a bank vault. In New York, I believe. You could simply sell it short. Alternatively, you could buy a put option on it. Even more risky, you could sell a (naked) call option on it. i.e. you receive the option premium up front, and if it expires worthless you keep the money. Of course, if gold goes up, you're on the hook. (Don't do this.) (the \"\"Don't do this\"\" was added by Chris W. Rea. I agree that selling naked options is best avoided, but I'm not going to tell you what to do. What I should have done was make clear that your potential losses are unlimited when selling naked calls. For example, if you sold a single GLD naked call, and gold went to shoot to $1,000,000/oz, you'd be on the hook for around $10,000,000. An unrealistic example, perhaps, but one that's worth pondering to grasp the risk you'd be exposing yourself to with selling naked calls. -- Patches) Alternative ETFs that work the same, holding physical gold, are IAU and SGOL. With those the gold is stored in London and Switzerland, respectively, if I remember right. Gold peaked around $1900 and is now back down to the $1500s. So, is the run over, and it's all downhill from here? Or is it a simple retracement, gathering strength to push past $2000? I have no idea. And I make no recommendations.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69923fb1d6e6e062c5b30216a5600c26", "text": "Even with non-voting shares, you own a portion of the company including all of its assets and its future profits. If the company is sold, goes out of business and liquidates, etc., those with non-voting shares still stand collect their share of the funds generated. There's also the possibility, as one of the comments notes, that a company will pay dividends in the future and distribute its assets to shareholders that way. The example of Google (also mentioned in the comments) is interesting because when they went to voting and non-voting stock, there was some theoretical debate about whether the two types of shares (GOOG and GOOGL) would track each other in value. It turned out that they did not - People did put a premium on voting, so that is worth something. Even without the voting rights, however, Google has massive assets and each share (GOOG and GOOGL) represented ownership of a fraction of those assets and that kept them highly correlated in value. (Google had to pay restitution to some shareholders of the non-voting stock as a result of the deviation in value. I won't get into the details here since it's a bit of tangent, but you could easily find details on the web.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "49183a72c0b15726b887ab56f8c064b5", "text": "\"This is a tough question, because it is something very specific to your situation and finances. I personally started at a young age (17), with US$1,000 in Scottrade. I tried the \"\"stock market games\"\" at first, but in retrospect they did nothing for me and turned out to be a waste of time. I really started when I actually opened my brokerage account, so step one would be to choose your discount broker. For example, Scottrade, Ameritrade (my current broker), E-Trade, Charles Schwab, etc. Don't worry about researching them too much as they all offer what you need to start out. You can always switch later (but this can be a little of a hassle). For me, once I opened my brokerage account I became that much more motivated to find a stock to invest in. So the next step and the most important is research! There are many good resources on the Internet (there can also be some pretty bad ones). Here's a few I found useful: Investopedia - They offer many useful, easy-to-understand explanations and definitions. I found myself visiting this site a lot. CNBC - That was my choice for business news. I found them to be the most watchable while being very informative. Fox Business, seems to be more political and just annoying to watch. Bloomberg News was just ZzzzZzzzzz (boring). On CNBC, Jim Cramer was a pretty useful resource. His show Mad Money is entertaining and really does teach you to think like an investor. I want to note though, I don't recommend buying the stocks he recommends, specially the next day after he talks about them. Instead, really pay attention to the reasons he gives for his recommendation. It will teach you to think more like an investor and give you examples of what you should be looking for when you do research. You can also use many online news organizations like MarketWatch, The Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance (has some pretty good resources), and TheStreet. Read editorial (opinions) articles with a grain of salt, but again in each editorial they explain why they think the way they think.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a5b9eea6d14dc2048fce131cfeec431c
Methods for forecasting price?
[ { "docid": "79b5424f9466484faeef9e8c886e37e6", "text": "\"Assuming a price is set on an free market there are particular difficulties to pricing. A free market is one where the price is entirely determined by the willingness of people to buy and sell at a particular price point. What you perceive as price, is actually the \"\"tick\"\", i.e. the quote of the last transaction. The first and most serious major obstacle to pricing is a variation of the prisoners dilemma, a psychological phenomenon. For instance, bitcoin might be worth 4$ now, but you believe it will be worth 5$ in 3 days. Will you buy bitcoin? If acting only on your conviction, yes. But what if you consider what other people will do? Will others believe bitcoin will be worth 5$ in 3 days? Will they act on their conviction? Will the others believe that others believe that it wil be worth 5$ in 3 days, and will the others believe that the others who believe will act on their conviction? Will the others believe that others believe of still others who believe that they will act on their conviction? It goes on like this ad-infinitum. The actual behavior of any individual on the market is essentially chaotic and unpredictable (for the reason stated above and others). This is related to a phenomenon you call market efficiency. An efficient market always reflects the optimal price-point at any given time. If that is so, then you cannot win on this market, because at the time you would have to realize a competitive edge, everybody else has already acted on that information. Markets are not 100% efficient of course. But modern electronic markets can be very, very efficient (as say compared to stock markets fro 100 years ago, where you could get a competitive edge just by having access to a fast courier). What makes matters rather more difficult for price forecasting is that not only are humans engaging in the market, machines are as well. The machines may not be terribly good at what they do, but they are terribly fast. The machines that work well (i.e. don't loose much) will survive, and the ones that don't will die in short order. Since speed is one of the major benefits of the machines over humans, they tend to make markets even more efficient. Another phenomenon to price forecasting is that of information and entropy. Suppose you found a reliable method to predict a market at a given time. You act on this information and indeed you make a profit. The profit you will be able to achieve will diminish over time until it reaches zero or reverts. The reason for this is that you acted on private information, which you leaked out by engaging in a trade. The more successful you are in exploiting your forecast, the better you train every other market participant to react to their losses. Since for every trade you make successfully, there has to be somebody who lost. People or machines who lose on markets usually exit those markets in some fashion. So even if the other participants are not adjusting their behavior, your success is weeding out those with the wrong behavior. Yet another difficulty in pricing forecasts are black-swan events. Since information can have a huge impact on pricing, the sudden appearance of new information can throw a conservative forecast completely off the rails and incur huge losses (or huge unexpected benefits). You cannot quantify black-swan events in any shape or form. It is my belief that you cannot predict efficient and well working markets. You might be able to predict some very sub-optimal markets, but usually, hedge-funds are always on the hunt for inefficient markets to exploit, so by simple decree of market economics, the inefficient markets tend to be a perpetually dying species.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c0eb9d6fadbe1fe4754c9d470eabf64", "text": "well there are many papers on power spot price prediction, for example. It depends on what level of methodology you would like to use. Linear regression is one of the basic steps, then you can continue with more advanced options. I'm a phd student studying modelling the energy price (electricity, gas, oil) as stochastic process. Regarding to your questions: 1. mildly speaking, it's really hard, due to its random nature! (http://www.dataversity.net/is-there-such-a-thing-as-predictive-analytics/) 2. well, i would ask what kind of measure of success you mean? what level of predicted interval one could find successful enough? 3. would you like me to send you some of the math-based papers on? 4. as i know, the method is to fully capture all main characteristics of the price. If it's daily power price, then these are mean-reversion effect, high volatility, spike, seasonality (weekly, monthly, yearly). Would you tell me what kind of method you're using? Maybe we can discuss some shared ideas? Anna", "title": "" }, { "docid": "75eb6b18fbd847609b48d145eea7c83f", "text": "\"It's not impossible to forecast the future price of a commodity. However, it's exactly that; an educated guess, much like the weather, and the further out that prediction is made, the higher the percentage error is expected. A lot of information is gathered by various instruments, spotters etc at a very high cost of time and money, to produce a prediction that starts breaking down after about five days and is no more than a wild guess after about ten. How accurately a price can be forecast depends on the commodity. There are seasonal and thus cyclical changes in many commodities, on top of which there is a general trend which is nearer term. A pretty decent prediction can thus be arrived at with a relatively simple seasonally-adjusted percentage change algorithm; take a moving average of the last few measurements, compute the percent change versus the same period last year (current minus last divided by last) and multiply it by last year's number for the current day or month to arrive at a pretty decent prediction for the current and near-future periods (up to about as far ahead as you have looked behind). Another thing you may need to do is normalize. Many price graphs are very jittery; the price of a stock may fluctuate many percentage points on a single day, and there's a lot of \"\"noise\"\" inherent in them. A common tool to normalize is a box-and-whisker plot, which for a given time period will aggregate all samples within that period, and give you a measurement of the lowest sample, highest sample, median, and quartiles (the range of each 25% of the full sample space). Box plots can also be plotted on the \"\"interquartile range\"\" or \"\"middle fifty\"\"; this throws away the very noisy outliers and constructs a much more regular plot from the inner part of the bell curve. You can reverse-engineer a best-fit line connecting the elements of each box, and the closer two lines are, the more likely the real future data will be around that area (because the quartile between those to lines is very dense; 25% of the values are in a very small range meaning many samples occurred there). Lastly, there are outside factors that are not included in simple percentage growth. Big news must be taken into account by introducing more subjective guesses about future data. If you see an active hurricane season coming (or a hurricane bearing down on Galveston/Houston) then it's reasonable to assume that the price of oil and/or refined oil products (like gas and jet fuel) will skyrocket. A cyclical growth model will not predict these events, but you can factor in the likelihood of a big change with a base onto which you add last year's numbers, and onto that you add regular growth. Conversely, when a huge spike happens due to a non-cyclical event like a natural disaster, you must smooth it out by reducing the readings to fit in the curve, otherwise your model for next year will expect the same anomaly at the same time and so it will be wrong. These adjustments are necessary, but the more of them you make, the less the graph reflects real history and the more it reflects what you think it should have been.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "5b5e3ad5eedadb699deaf191b14424aa", "text": "\"I believe you are looking for price forecasts from analysts. Yahoo provides info in the analyst opinions section: here is an example for Apple the price targets are located in the \"\"Price Target Summary\"\" section.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "105d56c81f6e2fbc365e6571b8b8d301", "text": "you could try [FRED](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=HO7), or maybe try the CME and ICE's websites for some decent data.. haven't looked just suggestions - pretty sure the symbol for the Libor futures is EM, you could approximate from that so long as it's not a doctoral thesis", "title": "" }, { "docid": "faa8b56eb94acc86948a4221b8a79aa5", "text": "Assuming you were immersed in math with your CS degree, the book **'A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street' by Andrew Lo** is a very interesting book about the random walk hypothesis and it's application to financial markets and how efficient markets might not necessarily imply complete randomness. Lots of higher level concepts in the book but it's an interesting topic if you are trying to branch out into the quant world. The book isn't very specific towards algorithmic trading but it's good for concept and ideas. Especially for general finance, that will give you a good run down about markets and the way we tackle modern finance. **A Random Walk Down Wall Street** (which the book above is named after) by **Burton Malkiel** is also supposed to be a good read and many have suggested reading it before the one I listed above, but there really isn't a need to do so. For investing specifically, many mention **'The Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham** who is the role model for the infamous Warren Buffet. It's an older book and really dry and I think kind of out dated but mostly still relevant. It's more specifically about individual trading rather than markets as a whole or general markets. It sounds like you want to learn more about markets and finance rather than simply trading or buying stocks. So I'd stick to the Andrew Lo book first. --- Also, since you might not know, it would be a good idea to understand the capital asset pricing model, free cash flow models, and maybe some dividend discount models, the last of which isn't so much relevant but good foundations for your finance knowledge. They are models using various financial concepts (TVM is almost used in every case) and utilizing them in various ways to model certain concepts. You'd most likely be immersed in many of these topics by reading a math-oriented Finance book. Try to stay away from those penny stock trading books, I don't think I need to tell a math major (who is probably much smarter than I am) that you don't need to be engaging in penny stocks, but do your DD and come to a conclusion yourself if you'd like. I'm not sure what career path you're trying to go down (personal trading, quant firm analyst, regular analyst, etc etc) but it sounds like you have the credentials to be doing quant trading. --- Check out www.quantopian.com. It's a website with a python engine that has all the necessary libraries installed into the website which means you don't have to go through the trouble yourself (and yes, it is fucking trouble--you need a very outdated OS to run one of the libraries). It has a lot of resources to get into algorithmic trading and you can begin coding immediately. You'd need to learn a little bit of python to get into this but most of it will be using matplotlib, pandas, or some other library and its own personal syntax. Learning about alpha factors and the Pipeline API is also moderately difficult to get down but entirely possible within a short amount of dedicated time. Also, if you want to get into algorithmic trading, check out Sentdex on youtube. He's a python programmer who does a lot of videos on this very topic and has his own tool on quantopian called 'Sentiment Analyzer' (or something like that) which basically quantifies sentiment around any given security using web scrapers to scrape various news and media outlets. Crazy cool stuff being developed over there and if you're good, you can even be partnered with investors at quantopian and share in profits. You can also deploy your algorithms through the website onto various trading platforms such as Robinhood and another broker and run your algorithms yourself. Lots of cool stuff being developed in the finance sector right now. Modern corporate finance and investment knowledge is built on quite old theorems and insights so expect a lot of things to change in today's world. --- With a math degree, finance should be like algebra I back in the day. You just gotta get familiar with all of the different rules and ideas and concepts. There isn't that much difficult math until you begin getting into higher level finance and theory, which mostly deals with statistics anyways like covariance and regression and other statistic-related concepts. Any other math is simple arithmetic.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d008a892deb44faa5fcc7a59cdb2cb0", "text": "\"I'll give the TLDR answer. 1) You can't forecast the price direction. If you get it right you got lucky. If you think you get it right consistently you are either a statistical anomaly or a victim of confirmation bias. Countless academic studies show that you can not do this. 2) You reduce volatility and, importantly, left-tail risk by going to an index tracking ETF or mutual fund. That is, Probability(Gigantic Loss) is MUCH lower in an index tracker. What's the trade off? The good thing is there is NO tradeoff. Your expected return does not go down in the same way the risk goes down! 3) Since point (1) is true, you are wasting time analysing companies. This has the opportunity cost of not earning $ from doing paid work, which can be thought of as a negative return. \"\"With all the successful investors (including myself on a not-infrequent basis) going for individual companies directly\"\" Actually, academic studies show that individual investors are the worst performers of all investors in the stock market.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81c016998574efc6dbf2244659066d3b", "text": "\"Strategy would be my top factor. While this may be implied, I do think it helps to have an idea of what is causing the buy and sell signals in speculating as I'd rather follow a strategy than try to figure things out completely from scratch that doesn't quite make sense to me. There are generally a couple of different schools of analysis that may be worth passing along: Fundamental Analysis:Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statements and health, its management and competitive advantages, and its competitors and markets. When applied to futures and forex, it focuses on the overall state of the economy, interest rates, production, earnings, and management. When analyzing a stock, futures contract, or currency using fundamental analysis there are two basic approaches one can use; bottom up analysis and top down analysis. The term is used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative analysis and technical analysis. Technical Analysis:In finance, technical analysis is a security analysis methodology for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis use many of the same tools of technical analysis, which, being an aspect of active management, stands in contradiction to much of modern portfolio theory. The efficacy of both technical and fundamental analysis is disputed by the efficient-market hypothesis which states that stock market prices are essentially unpredictable. There are tools like \"\"Stock Screeners\"\" that will let you filter based on various criteria to use each analysis in a mix. There are various strategies one could use. Wikipedia under Stock Speculator lists: \"\"Several different types of stock trading strategies or approaches exist including day trading, trend following, market making, scalping (trading), momentum trading, trading the news, and arbitrage.\"\" Thus, I'd advise research what approach are you wanting to use as the \"\"Make it up as we go along losing real money all the way\"\" wouldn't be my suggested approach. There is something to be said for there being numerous columnists and newsletter peddlers if you want other ideas but I would suggest having a strategy before putting one's toe in the water.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9d3a69f8a6b441e6dc66b013eb677a9", "text": "id like to start by saying youre still doing this yourself, and i dont actually have all the info required anyway, dont send it but &gt;[3] Descriptive Statistical Measures: Provide a thorough discussion of the meaning and interpretation of the four descriptive &gt;statistical measures required in your analysis: (1) Arithmetic Mean, (2) Variance, (3) Standard Deviation and (4) Coefficient of &gt;Variation. For example, how are these measures related to each other? In order to develop this discussion, you may want to &gt;consult chapters 2 and 3 of your textbook. This topic is an important part of your report. can be easily interpreted, im guessing the mean is simply just the observed (and then projected stock price for future models) the standard deviation determines the interval in which the stock price fluctuates. so you have like a curve, and then on this curve theirs a bunch of normal distributions modeling the variance of the price plotted against the month also the coefficient of variation is just r^2 so just read up on that and relate it to the meaning of it to the numbers you have actually my stats are pretty rusty so make sure you really check into these things but otherwise the formulas for part 4 is simple too. you can compare means of a certain month using certain equations, but there are different ones for certain situations you can test for significance by comparing the differences of the means and if its outside of your alpha level then it probably means your company is significantly different from the SP index. (take mu of SP - mu of callaway) you can also find more info on interpreting the two different coefficients your given if you look up comparing means of linear regression models or something", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96ffe6a551593b9b69ec6a68d6a2175b", "text": "You may refer to project http://jstock.sourceforge.net. It is open source and released under GPL. It is fetching data from Yahoo! Finance, include delayed current price and historical price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "00135dcac4fb6133749e18b232752e96", "text": "you can check google scholar for some research reports on it. depends how complex you want to get... it is obviously a function of the size of the portfolio of each type of asset. do you have a full breakdown of securities held? you can get historical average volumes during different economic periods, categorized by interest rates for example, and then calculate the days required to liquidate the position, applying a discount on each subsequent day.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e04fdd9e2f818c3c0db9d0d4357bf7fb", "text": "Also, this would be a sick way to predict the weather. What if there were options on rain that had week long maturities? One could back out from the price and different maturities the probability of it raining on a certain day.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af8936f2118d658d9f57e27f1caf14bd", "text": "\"No. Some grocery stores may discount specific products based on inventory to drive sales using \"\"loss leaders\"\" where the product is intentionally priced as a loss for the business. While commodity futures may impact some prices, I'm not sure one can easily extract the changes solely due to futures shifts.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60c9eac57d227944f7dd9dfc37899a80", "text": "\"First, to mention one thing - better analysis calls for analyzing a range of outcomes, not just one; assigning a probability on each, and comparing the expected values. Then moderating the choice based on risk tolerance. But now, just look at the outcome or scenario of 3% and time frame of 2 days. Let's assume your investable capital is exactly $1000 (multiply everything by 5 for $5,000, etc.). A. Buy stock: the value goes to 103; your investment goes to $1030; net return is $30, minus let's say $20 commission (you should compare these between brokers; I use one that charges 9.99 plus a trivial government fee). B. Buy an call option at 100 for $0.40 per share, with an expiration 30 days away (December 23). This is a more complicated. To evaluate this, you need to estimate the movement of the value of a 100 call, $0 in and out of the money, 30 days remaining, to the value of a 100 call, $3 in the money, 28 days remaining. That movement will vary based on the volatility of the underlying stock, an advanced topic; but there are techniques to estimate that, which become simple to use after you get the hang of it. At any rate, let's say that the expected movement of the option price in this scenario is from $0.40 to $3.20. Since you bought 2500 share options for $1000, the gain would be 2500 times 2.8 = 7000. C. Buy an call option at 102 for $0.125 per share, with an expiration 30 days away (December 23). To evaluate this, you need to estimate the movement of the value of a 102 call, $2 out of the money, 30 days remaining, to the value of a 102 call, $1 in the money, 28 days remaining. That movement will vary based on the volatility of the underlying stock, an advanced topic; but there are techniques to estimate that, which become simple to use after you get the hang of it. At any rate, let's say that the expected movement of the option price in this scenario is from $0.125 to $ 1.50. Since you bought 8000 share options for $1000, the gain would be 8000 times 1.375 = 11000. D. Same thing but starting with a 98 call. E. Same thing but starting with a 101 call expiring 60 days out. F., ... Etc. - other option choices. Again, getting the numbers right for the above is an advanced topic, one reason why brokerages warn you that options are risky (if you do your math wrong, you can lose. Even doing that math right, with a bad outcome, loses). Anyway you need to \"\"score\"\" as many options as needed to find the optimal point. But back to the first paragraph, you should then run the whole analysis on a 2% gain. Or 5%. Or 5% in 4 days instead of 2 days. Do as many as are fruitful. Assess likelihoods. Then pull the trigger and buy it. Try these techniques in simulation before diving in! Please! One last point, you don't HAVE to understand how to evaluate projected option price movements if you have software that does that for you. I'll punt on that process, except to mention it. Get the general idea? Edit P.S. I forgot to mention that brokers need love for handling Options too. Check those commission rates in your analysis as well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bea9e988a1f22d46aa61a5179ca7bf5", "text": "Standard Markowitz's portfolio optimization takes trend into account, not mean reversion. Otherwise, since a portfolio is a linear combination of your individual assets, you could 1st model them separately and than establish a second-layer criteria for weighting. For the 1st layer, mean reversion (as well as trend) of returns can be captured with a ARIMA model, and for the 2nd layer, you could use the Kelly criterion, for instance. A more direct approach to mean-reversion portfolio selection is working with pairs trading. I'm not linking any materials as those topics are plentiful on the web. ...If that's still not the answer you're looking for... The problem with predicting economic cycles is that, they are long, and we hardly have a sufficient measured history to forecast anything reliable. In order to predict the mean reversion of a stock or bond market cycle, you've got to measure their long-term mean first. And there you'll have disagreements right on the start... Some researchers (see Jeremy Siegel) have tried to measure the long-term mean of returns for various asset classes. Some argue that stocks are the long-run winners and that CAPM explains that, but others say that's just questionable, since measurements go just as far as the western countries (US, UK, etc.) have thrived. Other countries have much more recent economic records.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf0daa4cff8d959a279c6cc91d5bcc87", "text": "\"You can interpret prices in any way you wish, but the commonly quoted \"\"price\"\" is the last price traded. If your broker routes those orders, unlikely because they will be considered \"\"unfair\"\" and will probably be busted by the exchange, the only way to drive the price to the heights & lows in your example is to have an overwhelming amount of quantity relative to the order book. Your orders will hit the opposing limit orders until your quantity is exhausted, starting from the best price to the worst price. This is the functional equivalent to a market order.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7a498ff5b209063fefb4cac4f013b83", "text": "Use the Black-Scholes formula. If you know the current price, an options strike price, time until expiration, and risk-free interest rate, then knowing the market price of the option will tell you what the market's estimation of the volatility is. This does rely on a few assumptions, such as Gaussian random walk, but those are reasonable assumptions for most stocks. You can also get a list of past stock prices, put them in Excel, and ask Excel to calculate the standard deviation with stdev.s(), but that gives you the past volatility. The market's estimate of future volatility is more relevant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d9685b927b92b8d056c3264e56cf9e4", "text": "\"When structures recur at different scales, they're called \"\"fractals\"\", and there is something called the \"\"fractal markets hypothesis\"\" which attempts to analyse stock market movements as fractals and in terms of (related) chaos theory. Whether you can profit from it I have no idea. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Many of the non-academic pages linked in the search results (previous link) remind me of technical analysis/chartist stuff (which - to me - always seems to be a lot better at explaining things after the event than actually predicting things).\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
910bb720bed44af8d13122fdc473b27a
How does a financial advisor choose debt funds and equity funds for us?
[ { "docid": "24e365db9a2daca1e695d54caa256d10", "text": "\"There are raters of stock and bond funds of which Morningstar's is the best. Standard and Poor's and Value line offer reports that aren't quite as good. If you are able to read and understand these reports yourself, you don't need a professional. Such help is necessary for people who are \"\"rank beginners\"\" in investments.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf54036c6776fec58c6975a58b2792a0", "text": "A financial advisor is a service professional. It is his/her job to do things for you that you could do for yourself, but you're either too busy to do it yourself (and you want to pay somebody else), or you'd rather not. Just like some people hire tax preparers, or maids, or people to change their oil, or re-roof their houses. Me, I choose to self-manage. I get some advise from Fidelity and Vanguard. But we hired somebody this year to re-roof our house and someone else to paint it.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8e0cc6474e82e1d2d036cd295fc54b37", "text": "\"You're right, the asset allocation is one fundamental thing you want to get right in your portfolio. I agree 110%. If you really want to understand asset allocation, I suggest any and all of the following three books, all by the same author, William J. Bernstein. They are excellent – and yes I've read each. From a theory perspective, and being about asset allocation specifically, the Intelligent Asset Allocator is a good choice. Whereas, the next two books are more accessible and more complete, covering topics including investor psychology, history, financial products you can use to implement a strategy, etc. Got the time? Read them all. I finished reading his latest book, The Investor's Manifesto, two weeks ago. Here are some choice quotes from Chapter 3, \"\"The Nature of the Portfolio\"\", that address some of the points you've asked about. All emphasis below is mine. Page 74: The good news is [the asset allocation process] is not really that hard: The investor only makes two important decisions: Page 76: Rather, younger investors should own a higher portion of stocks because they have the ability to apply their regular savings to the markets at depressed prices. More precisely, young investors possess more \"\"human capital\"\" than financial capital; that is, their total future earnings dwarf their savings and investments. From a financial perspective, human capital looks like a bond whose coupons escalate with inflation.   Page 78: The most important asset allocation decision is the overall stock/bind mix; start with age = bond allocation rule of thumb. [i.e. because the younger you are, you already have bond-like income from anticipated employment earnings; the older you get, the less bond-like income you have in your future, so buy more bonds in your portfolio.] He also mentions adjusting that with respect to one's risk tolerance. If you can't take the ups-and-downs of the market, adjust the stock portion down (up to 20% less); if you can stomach the risk without a problem, adjust the stock portion up (up to 20% more). Page 86: [in reference to a specific example where two assets that zig and zag are purchased in a 50/50 split and adjusted back to targets]   This process, called \"\"rebalancing,\"\" provides the investor with an automatic buy-low/sell-high bias that over the long run usually – but not always – improves returns. Page 87: The essence of portfolio construction is the combination of asset classes that move in different directions at least some of the time. Finally, this gem on pages 88 and 89: Is there a way of scientifically picking the very best future allocation, which offers the maximum return for the minimum risk? No, but people still try.   [... continues with description of Markowitz's \"\"mean-variance analysis\"\" technique...]   It took investment professionals quite a while to realize that limitation of mean-variance analysis, and other \"\"black box\"\" techniques for allocating assets. I could go on quoting relevant pieces ... he even goes into much detail on constructing an asset allocation suitable for a large portfolio containing a variety of different stock asset classes, but I suggest you read the book :-)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d9396749268a659ce313b7b2c78795b7", "text": "The most obvious example would be a situation where a Company is growth constrained, but cash flow positive. It may have enough cash flow to service $10 million of debt, but it needs to build a new facility that will cost $20 million. There is the option to raise debt and equity or just raise equity and move quicker to getting that facility up and running. There are also situations where debt is used to replace equity (i.e. dividend recapitalization or leveraged share redemption).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7fd0e843fca80da2dcfa715ff3d71960", "text": "The US Treasury is not directly/transactionally involved, but can affect the junk bond market by issuing new bonds when rates rise. Since US bonds are considered completely safe, changes in yield will affect low quality debt. For example, if rates rose to levels like 1980, a 12% treasury bond would drive the prices of junk bonds issued today dramatically lower. Another price factor is likelihood of default. Companies with junk credit ratings have lousy balance sheets, so negative economic conditions or tight short term debt markets can result in default for many of these companies. Whether bonds in a fund are new issues or purchased on the secondary market isn't something that is very relevant to the individual investor. The current interest rate environment is factored into the market already via prices of bonds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27eac77085ef8132f3750af1c9f86670", "text": "Sorry, I got even more confused. I assumed IC referred to equity only. At least under English accounting practice it's the norm to refer only to equity investment as capital in that context. The debt is listed as both an asset (cash or whatever asset the cash has been put towards) and a liability, cancelling it out. That being the case, the number would be the same, no?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c93f7fb9d94277d6f31585b9f7c8b4e", "text": "\"You're missing the point here. The goal of ratings firms is **not** to accurately price debt. That's the market's job. The goal of ratings companies is to evaluate the ability of the company to service their debt instrument, much like how the goal of a public accounting firm is to assure that a company's financial statements follow GAAP. The article implicitly makes the assertion that Aaa rated securities have pretty low default rates; it's mainly only the area of CDO backed securities that there's a large disconnect between the rating and default risk. While this does raise questions about the worthiness of these ratings and the way they went about modeling and rationalizing them, it hardly suggests that they are \"\"wrong over 50% of the time.\"\" As a side note, why not make it against the law for mutual funds to have rules that allow them to only hold Aaa rated securities? These funds that demand high credit ratings are only contributing to the conflict of interest by essentially \"\"asking for it.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c0799dfc1e51a71540e0aa8aa6cb460", "text": "Some qualitative factors to consider when deciding whether to finance with equity vs debt (for a publicly traded company): 1) The case for equity: Is the stock trading high relative to what management believes is its intrinsic value? If so, raising equity may be attractive since management would be raising a lot of $$$, but the downside is you give up future earnings since you are diluting current ownership 2) The case for debt: What is the expected return for the project in which the raised capital will be utilized for? Is its expected return higher than the interest payments (in % terms)? If so raising debt would be more attractive than raising equity since current ownership would not be diluted That's all I can think of off the top of my head right now, I'm sure there are a few more qualitative factors to consider but I think these two are the most intuitive", "title": "" }, { "docid": "934ef0bc0a19ea24509fa1f5c7af0b94", "text": "In my original question, I was wondering if there was a mathematical convention to help in deciding on whether an equity offering OR debt offering would be a better choice. I should have clarified better in the question, I used Vs. which may have made it unclear.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e7dd6fe932a88902d7ad3c1efd10deb", "text": "On reading couple of articles & some research over internet, I got to know about diversified investment where one should invest 70% in equity related & rest 30% in debt related funds Yes that is about right. Although the recommendation keeps varying a bit. However your first investment should not aim for diversification. Putting small amounts in multiple mutual funds may create paper work and tracking issues. My suggestion would be to start with an Index EFT or Large cap. Then move to balanced funds and mid caps etc. On this site we don't advise on specific funds. You can refer to moneycontrol.com or economictimes or quite a few other personal finance advisory sites to understand the top funds in the segments and decide on funds accordingly. PS: Rather than buying paper, buy it electronic, better you can now buy it as Demat. If you already have an Demat account it would be best to buy through it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3752027275a54f8d477ceff2be25b5e8", "text": "\"Technically, anyone who advises how you should spend or proportion your money is a financial adviser. A person that does it for money is a Financial Advisor (difference in spelling). Financial Advisors are people that basically build, manage, or advise on your portfolio. They have a little more institutional knowledge on how/where to invest, given your goals, since they do it on a daily basis. They may know a little more than you since, they deal with many different assets: stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds, insurances (home/health/life), REITs, options, futures, LEAPS, etc. There is risk in everything you do, which is why what they propose is generally according to the risk-level you want to assume. Since you're younger, your risk level could be a little higher, as you approach retirement, your risk level will be lower. Risk level should be associated with how likely you're able to reacquire your assets if you lose it all as well as, your likelihood to enjoy the fruits from your investments. Financial Advisors are great, however, be careful about them. Some are payed on commissions, which are given money for investing in packages that they support. Basically, they could get paid $$ for putting you in a losing situation. Also be careful because some announce that they are fee-based - these advisers often receive fees as well as commissions. Basically, associate the term \"\"commission\"\" with \"\"conflict-of-interest\"\", so you want a fee-only Advisor, which isn't persuaded to steer you wrong. Another thing worth noting is that some trading companies (like e*trade) has financial services that may be free, depending how much money you have with them. Generally, $50K is on the lower end to get a Financial Advisors. There has been corruption in the past, where Financial Advisors are only given a limited number of accounts to manage, that means they took the lower-valued ones and basically ran them into the ground, so they could get newer ones from the lot that were hopefully worth more - the larger their portfolio, the more $$ they could make (higher fees or more commissions) and subjectively less work (less accounts to have to deal with), that's subjective, since the spread of the wealth was accross many markets.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "59f54cbaa67b1798e28fbcb031da4510", "text": "\"The term \"\"stock\"\" here refers to a static number as contrasted to flows, e.g. population vs. population growth. Stock, in this context, is not at all related to an equity instrument. Yes, annual refinance costs, interest rate payments etc. are what we should be looking at when assessing debt burden. Those are flows. That was my point when cautioning against naive debt GDP comparisons. Also, keep in mind that by borrowing in it's sovereign currency, the US has an enormous amount of monetary tools to handle the debt if it ever became a problem. Greece, by comparison, is at the mercy of the ECB, so they only have fiscal levers to pull. The interest expense does not strike me as especially concerning, but I'd be happy to verify BIS or IMF reports if you would like.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06cabc9409ed479bef4f066363863dbb", "text": "\"Most articles on investing recommend that investors that are just starting out to invest in index stock or bonds funds. This is the easiest way to get rolling and limit risk by investing in bonds and stocks, and not either one of the asset classes alone. When you start to look deeper into investing there are so many options: Small Cap, Large Cap, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, option strategies, and on and on. This can end up being a full time job or chewing into a lot of personal time. It is a great challenge to learn various investment strategies frankly for the average person that works full time it is a huge effort. I would recommend also reading \"\"The Intelligent Asset Allocator\"\" to get a wider perspective on how asset allocation can help grow a portfolio and reduce risk. This book covers a simple process.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6a5c5df9cb8565dd591940be0b2d64f", "text": "International means from all over the world. In the U.S. A Foreign Equity fund would be non-US stocks. There's an odd third choice I'm aware of, a fund of US companies that derive their sales from overseas, primarily.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a23f46c91fb6becab2eb7e9c3f35fb56", "text": "Life Strategy funds are more appropriate if you want to maintain a specific allocation between stocks and bonds that doesn't automatically adjustment like the Target Retirement funds which have a specific date. Thus, it may make more sense to take whichever Life Strategy fund seems the most appropriate and ride with it for a while unless you know when you plan to retire and access those funds. In theory, you could use Vanguard's Total Market funds,i.e. Total Stock Market, Total International, and Total Bond, and have your own allocations between stocks and bonds be managed pretty easily and don't forget that the fees can come in a couple of flavors as betterment doesn't specify where the transaction fees for buying the ETFs are coming out just as something to consider.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b163e05a8bc82fc2d2c28d0c5c8e1f6", "text": "\"You need to hope that a fund exists targeting the particular market segment you are interested in. For example, searching for \"\"cloud computing ETF\"\" throws up one result. You'd then need to read all the details of how it invests to figure out if that really matches up with what you want - there'll always be various trade-offs the fund manager has to make. For example, with this fund, one warning is that this ETF makes allocations to larger firms that are involved in the cloud computing space but derive the majority of their revenues from other operations Bear in mind that today's stock prices might have already priced in a lot of future growth in the sector. So you might only make money if the sector exceeds that predicted growth level (and vice versa, if it grows, but not that fast, you could lose money). If the sector grows exactly as predicted, stock prices might stay flat, though you'd still make a bit of money if they pay dividends. Also, note that the expense ratios for specialist funds like this are often quite a bit higher than for \"\"general market\"\" funds. They are also likely to be traded less frequently, which will increase the \"\"bid-ask\"\" spread - i.e. the cost of buying into and getting out of these funds will be higher.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "11d7b3a389522f80d9d899b9bff4ec81", "text": "\"You quickly run into issues of what denotes \"\"similar\"\", and how to construct an appropriate index methodology. For example, do you group all CB arb funds together globally or separate them by country? Is long-bias equity long-short different to no-bias and variable-bias? Is a fund that concentrates on sovereign debt more like a macro fund or a fixed income fund? And so on. By definition, hedge funds try not to mimic their peers, with varying degrees of success. Even if you get through that problem, how do you create the index? You may not be able to get return numbers for all the \"\"similar\"\" funds, and even if you do, how do you weight them? By AUM, or equal weight? There are commercial indices out there (CSFB, Eurekahedge, Marhedge, Barclays, MSCI, etc) but there's no one accepted standard, and it's unlikely that there ever will be as a result. It's certainly interesting to look at your performance versus one of these indices, and many investors do monitor fund performance this way, but to demand strict benchmarking to one of them is a big ask...\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a34658004b250d21328f31cb29fe6c24
Are stocks suitable for mid term money storage?
[ { "docid": "9198b4c3cf05d27ed8b936a6d176adf2", "text": "\"You have several options depending on your tolerance for risk. Certainly open an investment account with your bank or through any of the popular discount brokerage services. Then take however much money you're willing to invest and start earning some returns! You can split up the money into various investments, too. A typical default strategy is to take any money you won't need for the long term and put it in an Index Fund like the S&P 500 (or a European equivalent). Yes, it could go down, especially in the short term, but you can sell shares at any time so you're only 2-3 days away at any time from liquidity. Historically this money will generate a positive return in the long run. For smaller time frames, a short-term bond fund often gives a slightly better return than a money market account and some people (like me!) use short-term bond funds as if it were a money market account. There is a very low but real risk of having the fund lose value. So you could take a certain percentage of your money and keep it \"\"close\"\" in a bond fund. Likewise, you can sell shares at any time, win or lose and have the cash available within a couple days.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "247dfb2dc3b33e6a52abd129f07abd93", "text": "The volatility of an index fund should usually be a lot lower than that of an individual stock. However even with a broad index fund you should consider the fact that being down by 10% in the time frame you refer to is quite possible! So is being up by 10% of course. A corporate bond might be a better choice if you can find one you trust.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "9b06e7307088dc7210864a5d44d88371", "text": "I am understanding the OP to mean that this is for an emergency fund savings account meant to cover 3 to 6 months of living expenses, not a 3-6 month investment horizon. Assuming this is the case, I would recommend keeping these funds in a Money Market account and not in an investment-grade bond fund for three reasons:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e6a893421677586f657499d3a01381b", "text": "\"It sounds like you want a place to park some money that's reasonably safe and liquid, but can sustain light to moderate losses. Consider some bond funds or bond ETFs filled with medium-term corporate bonds. It looks like you can get 3-3.5% or so. (I'd skip the municipal bond market right now, but \"\"why\"\" is a matter for its own question). Avoid long-term bonds or CDs if you're worried about inflation; interest rates will rise and the immediate value of the bonds will fall until the final payout value matches those rates.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62769608f166b86eac37da984ac5e9f8", "text": "\"Nobody has mentioned your \"\"risk tolerance\"\" and \"\"investment horizon\"\" for this money. Any answer should take into account whether you can afford to lose it all, and how soon you'll need your investment to be both liquid and above water. You can't make any investment decision at all and might as well leave it in a deposit-insured, zero-return account until you inderstand those two terms and have answers for your own situation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "87fd0ffbacf2f9c408959b74bf24807b", "text": "I interned at a wealth management firm that used very active momentum trading, 99% technicals. Strictly ETFs (indexes, currencies, commodities, etc), no individual equities. They'd hold anywhere from 1-4 weeks, then dump it as soon as the chart starts turning over. As soon as I get enough capital I'm adopting their same exact strategy, it's painfully easy", "title": "" }, { "docid": "700d562ac8cc25dccfd48cd894eb4ef0", "text": "\"Some thoughts: 1) Do you have a significant emergency fund (3-6 months of after-tax living expenses)? If not, you stand to take a significant loss if you have an unexpected need for cash that is tied up in investments. What if you lose/hate your job or your car breaks down? What if a you want to spend some time with a relative or significant other who learns they only have a few months to live? Having a dedicated emergency fund is an important way to avoid downside risk. 2) Lagerbaer has a good suggestion. Given that if you'd reinvested your dividends, the S&P 500 has returned about 3.5% over the last 5 years, you may be able to get a very nice risk-free return. 3) Do you have access to employer matching funds, such as in a 401(k) at work? If you get a dollar-for-dollar match, that is a risk-free pre-tax 100% return and should be a high priority. 4) What do you mean by \"\"medium\"\" volatility? Given that you are considering a 2/3 equity allocation, it would not be at all out of the realm of possibility that your balance could fall by 15% or more in any given year and take several years to recover. If that would spook you, you may want to consider lowering your equity weights. A high quality bond fund may be a good fit. 5) Personally, I would avoid putting money into stocks that I didn't need back for 10 years. If you only want to tie your money up for 2-5 years, you are taking a significant risk that if prices fall, you won't have time to recover before you need your money back. The portfolio you described would be appropriate for someone with a long-term investment horizon and significant risk tolerance, which is usually the case for young people saving for retirement. However, if your goals are to invest for 2-5 years only, your situation would be significantly different. 6) You can often borrow from an investment account to purchase a primary residence, but you must pay that amount back in order to avoid significant taxes and fees, unless you plan to liquidate assets. If you plan to buy a house, saving enough to avoid PMI is a good risk-free return on your money. 7) In general, and ETF or index fund is a good idea, the key being to minimize the compound effect of expenses over the long term. There are many good choices a la Vanguard here to choose from. 8) Don't worry about \"\"Buy low, sell high\"\". Don't be a speculator, be an investor (that's my version of Anthony Bourdain's, \"\"don't be a tourist, be a traveler\"\"). A speculator wants to sell shares at a higher price than they were purchased at. An investor wants to share in the profits of a company as a part-owner. If you can consistently beat the market by trying to time your transactions, good for you - you can move to Wall Street and make millions. However, almost no one can do this consistently, and it doesn't seem worth it to me to try. I don't mean to discourage you from investing, just make sure you have your bases covered so that you don't have to cash out at a bad time. Best of luck! Edit Response to additional questions below. 1) Emergency fund. I would recommend not investing in anything other than cash equivalents (money market, short-term CDs, etc.) until you've built up an emergency fund. It makes sense to want to make the \"\"best\"\" use of your money, but you also have to account for risk. My concern is that if you were to experience one or more adverse life events, that you could lose a lot of money, or need to pay a lot in interest on credit card debt, and it would be prudent to self-insure against some of those risks. I would also recommend against using an investment account as an emergency fund account. Taking money out of investment accounts is inefficient because the commissions/taxes/fees can easily eat up a significant portion of your returns. Ideally, you would want to put money in and not touch it for a long time in order to take advantage of compounding returns. There are also high penalties for early disbursements from retirement funds. Just like you need enough money in your checking account to buy food and pay the rent every month, you need enough money in an emergency fund to pay for things that are a real possibility, even if they are less common. Using a credit card or an investment account is a relatively expensive way to do this. 2) Invest at all? I would recommend starting an emergency fund, and then beginning to invest for retirement. Once your retirement savings are on track, you can begin saving for whatever other goals you may have\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf1d1ea0e3677666ea9f6e49220977f5", "text": "\"RED FLAG. You should not be invested in 1 share. You should buy a diversified ETF which can have fees of 0.06% per year. This has SIGNIFICANTLY less volatility for the same statistical expectation. Left tail risk is MUCH lower (probability of gigantic losses) since losses will tend to cancel out gains in diversified portfolios. Moreover, your view that \"\"you believe these will continue\"\" is fallacious. Stocks of developed countries are efficient to the extent that retail investors cannot predict price evolution in the future. Countless academic studies show that individual investors forecast in the incorrect direction on average. I would be quite right to objectively classify you as a incorrect if you continued to hold the philosophy that owning 1 stock instead of the entire market is a superior stategy. ALL the evidence favours holding the market. In addition, do not invest in active managers. Academic evidence demonstrates that they perform worse than holding a passive market-tracking portfolio after fees, and on average (and plz don't try to select managers that you think can outperform -- you can't do this, even the best in the field can't do this). Direct answer: It depends on your investment horizon. If you do not need the money until you are 60 then you should invest in very aggressive assets with high expected return and high volatility. These assets SHOULD mainly be stocks (through ETFs or mutual funds) but could also include US-REIT or global-REIT ETFs, private equity and a handful of other asset classes (no gold, please.) ... or perhaps wealth management products which pool many retail investors' funds together and create a diversified portfolio (but I'm unconvinced that their fees are worth the added diversification). If you need the money in 2-3 years time then you should invest in safe assets -- fixed income and term deposits. Why is investment horizon so important? If you are holding to 60 years old then it doesn't matter if we have a massive financial crisis in 5 years time, since the stock market will rebound (unless it's a nuclear bomb in New York or something) and by the time you are 60 you will be laughing all the way to the bank. Gains on risky assets overtake losses in the long run such that over a 20-30 year horizon they WILL do much better than a deposit account. As you approach 45-50, you should slowly reduce your allocation to risky assets and put it in safe haven assets such as fixed income and cash. This is because your investment horizon is now SHORTER so you need a less risky portfolio so you don't have to keep working until 65/70 if the market tanks just before retirement. VERY IMPORTANT. If you may need the savings to avoid defaulting on your home loan if you lose your job or something, then the above does not apply. Decisions in these context are more vague and ambiguous.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cc00e61174d102fff008e8fa1aad7fa", "text": "\"For a two year time frame, a good insured savings account or a low-cost short-term government bond fund is most likely the way I would go. Depending on the specific amount, it may also be reasonable to look into directly buying government bonds. The reason for this is simply that in such a short time period, the stock market can be extremely volatile. Imagine if you had gone all in with the money on the stock market in, say, 2007, intending to withdraw the money after two years. Take a broad stock market index of your choice and see how much you'd have got back, and consider if you'd have felt comfortable sticking to your plan for the duration. Since you would likely be focused more on preservation of capital than returns during such a relatively short period, the risk of the stock market making a major (or even relatively minor) downturn in the interim would (should) be a bigger consideration than the possibility of a higher return. The \"\"return of capital, not return on capital\"\" rule. If the stock market falls by 10%, it must go up by 11% to break even. If it falls by 25%, it must go up by 33% to break even. If you are looking at a slightly longer time period, such as the example five years, then you might want to add some stocks to the mix for the possibility of a higher return. Still, however, since you have a specific goal in mind that is still reasonably close in time, I would likely keep a large fraction of the money in interest-bearing holdings (bank account, bonds, bond funds) rather than in the stock market. A good compromise may be medium-to-high-yield corporate bonds. It shouldn't be too difficult to find such bond funds that can return a few percentage points above risk-free interest, if you can live with the price volatility. Over time and as you get closer to actually needing the money, shift the holdings to lower-risk holdings to secure the capital amount. Yes, short-term government bonds tend to have dismal returns, particularly currently. (It's pretty much either that, or the country is just about bankrupt already, which means that the risk of default is quite high which is reflected in the interest premiums demanded by investors.) But the risk in most countries' short-term government bonds is also very much limited. And generally, when you are looking at using the money for a specific purpose within a defined (and relatively short) time frame, you want to reduce risk, even if that comes with the price tag of a slightly lower return. And, as always, never put all your eggs in one basket. A combination of government bonds from various countries may be appropriate, just as you should diversify between different stocks in a well-balanced portfolio. Make sure to check the limits on how much money is insured in a single account, for a single individual, in a single institution and for a household - you don't want to chase high interest bank accounts only to be burned by something like that if the institution goes bankrupt. Generally, the sooner you expect to need the money, the less risk you should take, even if that means a lower return on capital. And the risk progression (ignoring currency effects, which affects all of these equally) is roughly short-term government bonds, long-term government bonds or regular corporate bonds, high-yield corporate bonds, stock market large cap, stock market mid and low cap. Yes, there are exceptions, but that's a resonable rule of thumb.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a92f7d57341d16580b73939484db1966", "text": "Risk. Volatility. Liquidity. Etc. All exist on a spectrum, these are all comparative measures. To the general question, is a mutual fund a good alternative to a savings account? No, but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea for your to allocate some of your assets in to one right now. Mutual funds, even low volatility stock/bond blended mutual funds with low fees still experience some volatility which is infinitely more volatility than a savings account. The point of a savings account is knowing for certain that your money will be there. Certainty lets you plan. Very simplistically, you want to set yourself up with a checking account, a savings account, then investments. This is really about near term planning. You need to buy lunch today, you need to pay your electricity bill today etc, that's checking account activity. You want to sock away money for a vacation, you have an unexpected car repair, these are savings account activities. This is your foundation. How much of a foundation you need will scale with your income and spending. Beyond your basic financial foundation you invest. What you invest in will depend on your willingness to pay attention and learn, and your general risk tolerance. Sure, in this day and age, it is easy to get money back out of an investment account, but you don't want to get in the habit of taping investments for every little thing. Checking: No volatility, completely liquid, no risk Savings: No volatility, very liquid, no principal risk Investments: (Pick your poison) The point is you carefully arrange your near term foundation so you can push up the risk and volatility in your investment endeavors. Your savings account might be spread between a vanilla savings account and some CDs or a money market fund, but never stock (including ETF/Mutual Funds and blended Stock/Bond funds). Should you move your savings account to this mutual fund, no. Should you maybe look at your finances and allocate some of your assets to this mutual fund, sure. Just look at where you stand once a year and adjust your checking and savings to your existing spending. Savings accounts aren't sexy and the yields are awful at the moment but that doesn't mean you go chasing yield. The idea is you want to insulate your investing from your day to day life so you can make unemotional deliberate investment decisions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d365b4480c725511653ad90c95226c7f", "text": "1-2 years is very short-term. If you know you will need the money in that timeframe and cannot risk losing money because of a stock market correction, you should stay away from equities (stocks). A short-term bond fund (like VBISX) will pay around 1%, maybe a bit more, and only has a small amount of risk. Money Market funds are practically risk-free (technically speaking they can lose money, but it's extremely rare) but rates of return are dismal. It's hard to get bigger returns without taking on more risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b255e47ebb7c1a770f6272185f798254", "text": "At a very high-level, the answer is yes, that's a good idea. For money that you want to invest on the scale of decades, putting money into a broad, market-based fund has historically given the best returns. Something like the Vanguard S&P 500 automatically gives you a diverse portfolio, with super low expenses. As it sounds like you understand, the near-term returns are volatile, and if you really think you might want this money in the next few years, then the stock market might not be the best choice. As a final note, as one of the comments mentioned, it makes sense to hold a broad, market-based fund for your IRA as well, if possible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e52155c7cd64c68a652f09464c274bcc", "text": "If you have money and may need to access it at any time, you should put it in a savings account. It won't return much interest, but it will return some and it is easily accessible. If you have all your emergency savings that you need (at least six months of income), buy index-based mutual funds. These should invest in a broad range of securities including both stocks and bonds (three dollars in stocks for every dollar in bonds) so as to be robust in the face of market shifts. You should not buy individual stocks unless you have enough money to buy a lot of them in different industries. Thirty different stocks is a minimum for a diversified portfolio, and you really should be looking at more like a hundred. There's also considerable research effort required to verify that the stocks are good buys. For most people, this is too much work. For most people, broad-based index funds are better purchases. You don't have as much upside, but you also are much less likely to find yourself holding worthless paper. If you do buy stocks, look for ones where you know something about them. For example, if you've been to a restaurant chain with a recent IPO that really wowed you with their food and service, consider investing. But do your research, so that you don't get caught buying after everyone else has already overbid the price. The time to buy is right before everyone else notices how great they are, not after. Some people benefit from joining investment clubs with others with similar incomes and goals. That way you can share some of the research duties. Also, you can get other opinions before buying, which can restrain risky impulse buys. Just to reiterate, I would recommend sticking to mutual funds and saving accounts for most investors. Only make the move into individual stocks if you're willing to be serious about it. There's considerable work involved. And don't forget diversification. You want to have stocks that benefit regardless of what the overall economy does. Some stocks should benefit from lower oil prices while others benefit from higher prices. You want to have both types so as not to be caught flat-footed when prices move. There are much more experienced people trying to guess market directions. If your strategy relies on outperforming them, it has a high chance of failure. Index-based mutual funds allow you to share the diversification burden with others. Since the market almost always goes up in the long term, a fund that mimics the market is much safer than any individual security can be. Maintaining a three to one balance in stocks to bonds also helps as they tend to move in opposite directions. I.e. stocks tend to be good when bonds are weak and vice versa.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0221b08de55ce6d99cfc7df8255d9b26", "text": "Hey thanks for your response. The commodity is actually electricity, so definitely not able to store. Would you mind giving me a short summary of your thought process or an example of how you compare liquid markets vs illiquid ones when looking at more traditional commodities? If that is a bit much to ask, as I am sure it could get quite involved do you have any reading recommendations? This little project has sparked an interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0917b869f6a039582d7eb14689bceea3", "text": "It's worth pointing out that a bulk of the bond market is institutional investors (read: large corporations and countries). For individuals, it's very easy to just put your cash in a checking account. Checking accounts are insured and non-volatile. But what happens when you're GE or Apple or Panama? You can't just flop a couple billion dollars in to a Chase checking account and call it a day. Although, you still need a safe place to store money that won't be terribly volatile. GE can buy a billion dollars of treasury bonds. Many companies need tremendous amounts of collateral on hand, amounts far in excess of the capacity of a checking account; those funds are stored in treasuries of some sort. Separately, a treasury bond is not a substitute investment for an S&P index fund. For individuals they are two totally different investments with totally different characteristics. The only reason an individual investor should compare the return of the S&P against the readily available yield of treasuries is to ensure the expected return of an equity investment can sufficiently pay for the additional risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5551e1d6c53d78ac4f021ce3d5c4c4b4", "text": "I traded futures for a brief period in school using the BrokersXpress platform (now part of OptionsXpress, which is in turn now part of Charles Schwab). They had a virtual trading platform, and apparently still do, and it was excellent. Since my main account was enabled for futures, this carried over to the virtual account, so I could trade a whole range of futures, options, stocks, etc. I spoke with OptionsXpress, and you don't need to fund your acount to use the virtual trading platform. However, they will cancel your account after an arbitrary period of time if you don't log in every few days. According to their customer service, there is no inactivity fee on your main account if you don't fund it and make no trades. I also used Stock-Trak for a class and despite finding the occasional bug or website performance issue, it provided a good experience. I received a discount because I used it through an educational institution, and customer service was quite good (probably for the same reason), but I don't know if those same benefits would apply to an individual signing up for it. I signed up for top10traders about seven years ago when I was in secondary school, and it's completely free. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and the interface was poorly designed and slow. Furthermore, at that time, there were no restrictions that limited the number of shares you could buy to the number of outstanding shares, so you could buy as many as you could afford, even if you exceeded the number that physically existed. While this isn't an issue for large companies, it meant you could earn a killing trading highly illiquid pink sheet stocks because you could purchase billions of shares of companies with only a few thousand shares actually outstanding. I don't know if these issues have been corrected or not, but at the time, I and several other users took advantage of these oversights to rack up hundreds of trillions of dollars in a matter of days, so if you want a realistic simulation, this isn't it. Investopedia also has a stock simulator that I've heard positive things about, although I haven't used it personally.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "531b4168ddf30bcc15f30b86c0f9b4e3", "text": "You could buy Bitcoins. They are even more deflationary than Swiss Francs. But the exchange rate is currently high, and so is the risk in case of volatility. So maybe buy an AltCoin instead. See altcoin market capitalization for more information. Basically, all you'd be doing is changing SwissFrancs into Bitcoin/AltCoin. You don't need a bank to store it. You don't need to stockpile cash at home. Stays liquid, there's no stock portfolio (albeit a coin portfolio), unlike in stocks there are no noteworthy buy and sell commissions, and the central bank can't just change the bills as in classic-cash-currency. The only risk is volatility in the coin market, which is not necessarely a small risk. Should coins have been going down, then for as long as you don't need that money and keep some for everyday&emergency use on a bank account, you can just wait until said coins re-climb - volatility goes both ways after all.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
f4c5aa138e464743fa359920f7c27d53
Military Separation
[ { "docid": "c4105ba7b2993458d4a5aea750e0483b", "text": "It's not usually a good idea to buy a house as an investment. Buy a house because you want the house, not for an investment. Your money will make more money invested somewhere other than a house. Additionally, based on talking about renting rooms to pay the mortgage and the GI bill, I assume you are planning on going to school and not working? I am not that familiar with VA loans, but I imagine they will require you show some form of income before they are willing to give you a loan. 14% returns over the long run are very good, but last year the market was up almost 30%, if you were only at 14% for last year you left quite a bit on the table. I would advise against individual stocks for investments except as a hobby. Put the majority of your investments into ETF's/low fee mutual funds and keep a smaller amount that you can afford to lose in stocks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3eff2d19c29b1c7d18c9fb810330fac4", "text": "\"Welcome to Money.SE, and thank you for your service. In general, buying a house is wise if (a) the overall cost of ownership is less than the ongoing cost to rent in the area, and (b) you plan to stay in that area for some time, usually 7+ years. The VA loan is a unique opportunity and I'd recommend you make the most of it. In my area, I've seen bank owned properties that had an \"\"owner occupied\"\" restriction. 3 family homes that were beautiful, and when the numbers were scrubbed, the owner would see enough rent on two units to pay the mortgage, taxes, and still have money for maintenance. Each situation is unique, but some \"\"too good to be true\"\" deals are still out there.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "36cb12699bb468880569a4c53d75b940", "text": "Then the USA can respond by pulling troops out of these countries and NATO. Think of all the carbon we will save not sending all those planes and tanks and people in other countries. They can spend some of their budgets on protection then, maybe the French can make a green Jet to defend their country.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "014717b0a438d8ecfe0f5b6b5e0047c7", "text": "Military Real Estate is your source for relocation information, rental information and home purchase information for properties located around the many military bases nationwide. Our partners have realtors and property managers with experience working directly with military members, as well as expertise in the VA loan process.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a63c0c7e884d98efdcb80c000f58cdba", "text": "I was thinking something similar but that he is trying to fish for 'the best deal' by 'walking away'....or he wants show his base he was very conflicted and not totally roll over on them. It did seem odd that only every news outlet reported inside sources say he was pulling out and he would announce his decision in a couple days.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4982443bb8fbf43408ad0137c541b583", "text": "In Virginia, there are lot of Military Homes. We can help for those people which are looking the Military Rental Homes for any location in U.S. Government can provide the various facilities such as schools, Colleges, hospitals, wandering etc. In the Virginia, all the military homes owners are military man. They have very strict rules and regulations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b13b574bcbd9b1d3e5b7fed0e1a269cd", "text": "You're reading what you want, not what I wrote. I didn't say we should send those 2,000,000 people home. I said there is no reason to **increase** spending on the military. For 2018, the proposal is to spend $10 billion on developing and building new planes, while only $300 million is for pay raises and new recruits. If you're telling me that $10 billion in building aircraft (high skilled labor jobs) will help the same number of people as putting $10 billion towards, say, building domestic *infrastructure* (low-skilled labor jobs), you're out of your mind.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d580807bf94a718204d63c21b6166d8", "text": "\"You're not the tender soul I was replying to, who goes looking for things to be offended by. But since you apparently recently read an article which makes you an expert.. Clearly military screening is far from perfect. The suicide rate for all members is higher than average. Add transgender in and the likelyhood of an incident increases disproportionately. And that's an interesting spin: it's barring transgenders from the military that makes them suicidal, not the other way around. Got it. Now factor in the costs of \"\"sensitivity training\"\", reassignment surgeries, and the inevitable lawsuits and it's a recipe for disaster.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79e943682c6737bf1086e4a9567728fa", "text": "\"&gt;Clearly military screening is far from perfect. The suicide rate for all members is higher than average. You make a jump in logic here which is not falsifiable that it is screening practices which lead to higher suicide rates. &gt;Add transgender in and the likelyhood of a n incident increases disproportionately. Theres really no ecidence to support this argument as far as I am aware. Please show me how transgender military members have a higher rate of suicide than the general pop of military members. &gt;And that's an interesting spin: it's barring transgenders from the military that makes them suicidal, not the other way around. Got it. Yea, turns out discriminating against people at an institutional level increases their rates of suicide. I find it hard to believe youre surprised by this. Being socially ostracized is a huge risk factor for suicide and depression. &gt;Now factor in the costs of \"\"sensitivity training\"\", reassignment surgeries, and the inevitable lawsuits and it's a recipe for disaster. It hasnt been an issue at all so far. Why would it start now? Youre using the same arguments people have used every time civil rights are increased, every time theyre wrong. Theyre wrong now.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2227ec76ccee2e995f5c9b51829cb79b", "text": "By numbers I assume you mean monetary amounts... the article doesn't define the separation that way... &gt;In one of these countries live members of what Temin calls the “FTE sector” (named for finance, technology, and electronics, the industries which largely support its growth). These are the 20 percent of Americans who enjoy college educations, have good jobs, and sleep soundly knowing that they have not only enough money to meet life’s challenges, but also social networks to bolster their success.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94667ad62fb3375b20d4048baa0f4fbd", "text": "The DoD wants to cut some of those bases, it's the people in Washington who don't want this to happen. These bases bring in money to the communities of which they are a part of, even if they're unnecessary and sometimes a hindrance when thinking in terms of military strategy. So the legislative branch blocks the closures that the DoD want because if these bases did close, it'll hurt the communities within their districts, thus hurting their chances of re-election.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8181a9e98919dd4272a923ce711ff228", "text": "\"Not true. The language used in the Navy &amp; Army clauses are different. There is a duty to \"\"maintain\"\" the Navy and \"\"support\"\" the armies. There is no such mandate in the postal clause. Nor can the act of establishing be read as implying maintenance, because the Constitution specifically includes those things for the Army and Navy, suggesting it was not implied. You can establish something and then privatize it. Government-chartered companies were common at the time, so it's not like the idea didn't occur to them. Strictly speaking, I don't see any reason that Congress couldn't also privatize the army and navy, assuming that \"\"maintain\"\" and \"\"support\"\" don't imply direct congressional control. But that's a harder argument, compared to this much easier distinction in the case of the post office.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "619b6fc61f1d3d1020b9d3218840bc0a", "text": "I work at a manufacturing facility near Savannah, GA. When it was finalized that we would shut down at the end of the week, the upper management was out a day early. They all drove to the airport and flew out of here on Thursday. This left the employees and supervisors (and a few area managers) to left everyone navigate the confusing and uncertain shut down and evacuation process. I lost all of the respect I had for management.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "202dbdb520e8dfcb3c58f7da365f69e0", "text": "Who do you think the Missile defense system is supposed to protect? South Korea. You would think they would help flip the bill instead of American tax payers. I would be ok if we drew our entire military presence from SK.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53d239a54ecc5d60e6833ee4b40c6bd2", "text": "The number of government departments involved in anything the US (or any government) does is bewildering, but the invasion of Iraq was, by definition, a military venture intended to overthrow their leader and change the regime. The exit strategy was to attempt nation building to achieve stability. The US military acts for the US government, as do other departments and to muddle the question by listing departments is to miss the point – which is privatization of government functions, be they military or just involved in military ventures. If the contractors weren’t really required but were hired anyway….I don’t know how that’s defended. The fact remains: *security functions were outsourced*. That doing so is efficient or not is a good debate, but another debate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9341ad4dd0b746e67d82ce1f065c2064", "text": "You're just blatantly wrong. There are literally hundreds of thousands of combat veterans and police officers in the US vastly more qualified than you. Beyond that, your scenario requires an instantaneous dissolution of society which is an absurd notion. Your little dream scenario is just a childish fantasy. It's not rooted in reality so stop pretending it is so that you can publicly masturbate to the idea of trying to rip off your betters.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb4c7d1c7cda9b4f3da4d3f0c19e811e", "text": "What would you call an overseas military venture in which the military was NOT a tool of the government? Such other departments as were present in Iraq to do whatever they do were there because the military were there first, and as a means for the military to get out. To make it sound as though they’d have been there anyway and the military issue was a mere coincidence is absurd. I’d limit it to say it’s the military which is mostly wasteful (I’m not among those who don’t believe government can ever do anything right). But whether it’s measured in manpower or dollars, the fact remains that security functions are being outsourced. Is there any reason to think this will not continue? Or increase?", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
c245e44f26cded663d085e5a8d2298f6
Why would you sell your bonds?
[ { "docid": "cb1bad3f5b868f3c1f98d1a67f4c13a4", "text": "You sell any investment because you need to do something else with the money -- rebalance your investments, buy something, pay off a debt....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80d84c637b2391c22cd0374fda950391", "text": "\"Investment strategies abound. Bonds can be part of useful passive investment strategy but more active investors may develop a good number of reasons why buying and selling bonds on the short term. A few examples: Also, note that there is no guarantee in bonds as you imply by likening it to a \"\"guaranteed stock dividend\"\". Bond issuers can default, causing bond investors to lose part of all of their original investment. As such, if one believes the bond issuer may suffer financial distress, it would be ideal to sell-off the investment.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3e9716a7dae9d0ef47a03d0a17927d78", "text": "Notes and Bonds sell at par (1.0). When rates go up, their value goes down. When rates go down, their value goes up. As an individual investor, you really don't have any business buying individual bonds unless you are holding them to maturity. Buy a short-duration bond fund or ETF.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b70a0767127af96e29b1b5b41b93e99", "text": "\"I can think of a few reasons for this. First, bonds are not as correlated with the stock market so having some in your portfolio will reduce volatility by a bit. This is nice because it makes you panic less about the value changes in your portfolio when the stock market is acting up, and I'm sure that fund managers would rather you make less money consistently then more money in a more volatile way. Secondly, you never know when you might need that money, and since stock market crashes tend to be correlated with people losing their jobs, it would be really unfortunate to have to sell off stocks when they are under-priced due to market shenanigans. The bond portion of your portfolio would be more likely to be stable and easier to sell to help you get through a rough patch. I have some investment money I don't plan to touch for 20 years and I have the bond portion set to 5-10% since I might as well go for a \"\"high growth\"\" position, but if you're more conservative, and might make withdrawals, it's better to have more in bonds... I definitely will switch over more into bonds when I get ready to retire-- I'd rather have slow consistent payments for my retirement than lose a lot in an unexpected crash at a bad time!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aaf2f42c69d1a1d80b68a0ebd347b608", "text": "The reason the market value is low is because the market does not believe that the company or country will pay. Another reason for it to go down is lack of liquidity in the market. However if you believe that the conditions would improve by the time bond matures, and you don't need money right now, then you can wait for maturity and get the maturity value.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a839323b89e2d86486c8c088661d715f", "text": "They get higher interest payments. If they were to sell now they would get a premium over par. They get principal back if they hold so no gain, only gain if they sell now. But then they have to put it elsewhere (another bond, this time lower interest?) so it's a wash. Depends what you use the money for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "907deeaa3c67ab33eead5ceaece419ad", "text": "The point of short-selling as a separate instrument is that you can you do it when you can't sell the underlying asset... usually because you don't actually own any of it and in fact believe that it will go down. Shorting allows you to profit from a falling price. Another (non-speculative) possibility is that you don't have the underlying asset right now (and thus can't sell it) but will get it at a certain point in the future, e.g. because it's bonds that you've used to guarantee a loan... or grain that's still growing on your fields.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "478cdde040cedfb6e01af7f6e8296744", "text": "I looked into the investopedia one (all their videos are mazing), but that detail just was not clear to me, it also makes be wonder, if a country issues bonds to finance itself, what happens at maturity when literally millions of them need to be paid? The income needs to have grown to that level or it defaults? Wouldn't all the countries default if that was the case, or are bonds being issued to being able to pay maturity of older bonds already? (I'm freaking myself out by realizing this)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f5f8e55a69c763efd9c32592762998ef", "text": "When the market moves significantly, you should rebalance your investments to maintain the diversification ratios you have selected. That means if bonds go up and stocks go down, you sell bonds and buy stocks (to some degree), and vice versa. Sell high to buy low, and remember that over the long run most things regress to the mean.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6f5042870c1a4aa59de7578bdc238f6", "text": "&gt; The purpose of buying these bonds was not to step in due to the absence of a market. Rather, the purpose was to deliberately bid up the price of these bonds (ahead of the market), causing their price to rise and yields (interest rates) to drop. There are some important things you need to understand about bubbles and how they form. When interest rates are artificially low and down payments aren't required for many loans, do you agree this is a recipe for a bubble?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "03b1b1ff2669c5a7655dfae34ee02e90", "text": "You only pay tax on the capital gain of the bond, not the principal, unless the source of the money for the principal was gain from another investment, if that makes sense. In other words, if you bought the bond with income earned from your job, that money was already taxed as income, so it isn't subject to taxation again when you redeem the bond. On the other hand, if you cashed out of one investment and used those proceeds to buy a bond, then the entire amount might be taxable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14cee9078b37b49a75d3694d935e28bd", "text": "And this is bad why? What is the total funding? What is the total return? Do you have the necessary facts to evaluate this? Basing opinions on partial evidence makes poor public policy. Most municipal bonds might actually work out for the better good of communities. Certainly the total amount of bonds listed as going bad in this story is a tiny, tiny fraction of total bonds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "731bd197a7cbfbb1f1d38f9348447847", "text": "\"Its because of the economic uncertainty in the world. They are the \"\"risk-free\"\" investment as it is an almost guaranteed return if you exclude inflation and US gov't defaulting. A lot of people are afraid to invest elsewhere given the current economic climate. The yield on bonds is also low due to government intervention. Quantitative easing 1 and 2 and operation twist has forced yield this low, as that is what the government wants.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "132ecb257ac4664dc0b3037828419962", "text": "You should definitely favor holding bonds in tax-advantaged accounts, because bonds are not tax-efficient. The reason is that more of their value comes in the form of regular, periodic distributions, rather than an increase in value as is the case with stocks or stock funds. With stocks, you can choose to realize all that appreciation when it is most advantageous for you from a tax perspective. Additionally, stock dividends often receive lower tax rates. For much more detail, see Tax-efficient fund placement.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c27cfde6597ec260ee214ddc112e92dc", "text": "\"First note that CIBC issued these bonds with a zero coupon, so they do not pay any interest. They were purchased by the market participants at a small premium, paying an average of 100.054 for a nominal value of 100. This equates to a negative annual \"\"redemption\"\" yield of 0.009% - i.e., if held until maturity, then the holder will witness a negative annual return of 0.009%. You ask \"\"why does this make sense?\"\". Clearly it makes no sense for a private individual to purchase these bonds since they will be better off simply holding cash. To understand why there is a demand for these bonds we need to look elsewhere. The European bond market is currently suffering a dwindling supply owing to the ECBs bond buying programme (i.e., quantitative easing). The ECB is purchasing EUR 80 billion per month of Eurozone sovereign debt. This means that the quantity of high grade bonds available for purchase is shrinking fast. Against this backdrop we have all of those European institutions and financial corporations who are legally obliged to purchase bonds to be held as assets against their obligations. These are mostly national and private pension funds as well as insurance companies and fund managers. In this sort of environment, the price of high quality bonds is quickly bid up to the point where we see negative yields. In this environment companies like CIBC can borrow by issuing bonds with a zero coupon and the market is willing to pay a small premium over their nominal value. TL/DR The situation is further complicated by the subdued inflation outlook for the Eurozone, with a very real possibility of deflation. Should a prolonged period of deflation materialise, then negative redemption yield bonds may provide a positive real return.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f2195b1e5cbd163326130ce19f688aa", "text": "\"Not a bond holder, but when we get dividends we usually just buy up a benchmark index tracking ETF unless/until we're ready to rebalance our portfolio. Most of the trades in the day are earmarked with the reason \"\"spending cash\"\". I'd assume it's similar for bond holders and coupons.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "13ad0143a8523b975c7b299bed7ecf3c", "text": "\"The rate of the bond is fixed. But there is a risk known as \"\"interest rate risk\"\". Basically, if you have a 2 percent bond and market rates are 4 percent, you'll have to offer your bond at a discount or nobody would buy it. So if you ever needed to sell it, you'd lose a bit of money.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
a6d759124393b5af720208caeb113e76
Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017?
[ { "docid": "ba69afe6737ba4bb5dd89ee462e20e5a", "text": "Stock A last traded at $100. Stock A has 1 million shares outstanding. No seller is willing to sell Stock A for less than $110 a share. One buyer is willing to buy 1 share for $110. The order executes. The buyer pays the seller $110. Stock A's new price is $110. An $110 investment increased the market cap by $10 million. Neat trick (for all who own Stock A).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "010b125cc1d4bd32e988b62c1b1cffdd", "text": "\"No, a jump in market capitalization does not equal the amount that has been invested. Market cap is simply the stock price times the total number of shares. This represents a theoretical value of the company. I say \"\"theoretical\"\" because the company might not be able to be sold for that at all. The quoted stock price is simply what the last buyer and seller of stock agreed upon for the price of their trade. They really only represent themselves; other investors may decide that the stock is worth more or less than that. The stock price can move on very little volume. In this case, Amazon had released a very good earnings report after the bell yesterday, and the price jumped in after hours trading. The stock price is up, but that simply means that the few shares traded overnight sold for much higher than the closing price yesterday. After the market opens today and many more shares are traded, we'll get a better idea what large numbers of investors feel about the price. But no matter what the price does, the change in market cap does not equal the amount of new money being invested in the company. Market cap is the price of the most recent trades extrapolated out across all the shares.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1192c57a240d42fb0b50336f1dd4282", "text": "\"The market capitalization of a stock is the number of shares outstanding (of each stock class), times the price of last trade (of each stock class). In a liquid market (where there are lots of buyers and sellers at all price points), this represents the price that is between what people are bidding for the stock and what people are asking for the stock. If you offer any small amount more than the last price, there will be a seller, and if you ask any small amount less than the last price, there will be a buyer, at least for a small amount of stock. Thus, in a liquid market, everyone who owns the stock doesn't want to sell at least some of their stock for a bit less than the last trade price, and everyone who doesn't have the stock doesn't want to buy some of the stock for a bit more than the last trade price. With those assumptions, and a low-friction trading environment, we can say that the last trade value is a good midpoint of what people think one share is worth. If we then multiply it by the number of shares, we get an approximation of what the company is worth. In no way, shape or form does it not mean that there is 32 billion more invested in the company, or even used to purchase stock. There are situations where a 32 billion market cap swing could mean 32 billion more money was invested in the company: the company issues a pile of new shares, and takes in the resulting money. People are completely neutral about this gathering in of cash in exchange for dilluting shares. So the share price remains unchanged, the company gains 32 billion dollars, and there are now more shares outstanding. Now, in some sense, there is zero dollars currently invested in a stock; when you buy a stock, you no longer have the money, and the money goes to the person who no longer has the stock. The issue here is the use of the continuous tense of \"\"invested in\"\"; the investment was made at some point, but the money doesn't really stay in this continuous state of being. Unless you consider the investment liquid, and the option to take money out being implicit, it being a continuous action doesn't make much sense. Sometimes the money is invested in the company, when the company causes stocks to come into being and sells them. The owners of stocks has invested money in stocks in that they spent that money to buy the stocks, but the total sum of money ever spent on stocks for a given company is not really a useful value. The market capitalization is an approximation, which under the efficient market hypothesis (that markets find the correct price for things nearly instantly) is reasonably accurate, of the value the company has collectively to its shareholders. The efficient market hypothesis isn't accurate, but it is an acceptable rule of thumb. Now, this value -- market capitalization -- is arguably not the total value of a company: other stakeholders include bond holders, labour, management, various contract counter-parties, government and customers. Some companies are structured so that almost all value is captured not by the stock owners, but by contract counter-parties (this is sometimes used for hiding assets or debts). But for most large publically traded companies, it (in theory) shouldn't be far off.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4281c150f771e7826991543427f819bb", "text": "No. The market cap has no relation to actual money that flowed anywhere, it is simple the number of shares multiplied by the current price, and the current price is what potential buyers are (were) willing to pay for the share. So any news that increases or decreases interest in shares changes potentially the share price, and with that the market cap. No money needs to flow.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "7fb7c13002e733a544e44b933d8248ef", "text": "Dividends would be a possible factor you are ignoring. If Dell has another quarter or two to pay out dividends that could account for some of the difference there. I don't think there is a confirmed date of when the deal is done yet other than around the end of Dell's second quarter which was in the LA Times link you cited. There is also the potential for the terms of the deal to be revised that is another possibility here. Have you examined other deals where a public company went private to see how the stock performed in the last few months before the deal closed?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9bdf2d69d773d5186d5aabbb80c32c1e", "text": "Yeah the three companies they put weren't the best examples of market irrationality and there are better ones, but I think they were the biggest targets of a short news piece. TSLA is arguably one of the prime examples. I also listed CMG in my original statement but there are plenty more too that are continually pumped up for no good reason at all. Amazon is actually beginning to make some big leaps and bounds. I used to be a doubter (still don't invest in them or anything) but I do think Amazon has a bright future, barring the possibility of a gov't split up, but with how well the gov't has received Amazon so far, I don't see that as an issue for the near term, even though Amazon is getting to become quite a monopoly is many industries.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bad7eb5169b8e64cef17b745be8f02db", "text": "So, the market thinks the value of Wholefoods to Amazon is about $19billion. Who cares? It's not about what Amazon gets, its about what Wholefood shareholders can get instead. What's they're alternative to this deal? Who will pay that much? Anyone? Just because it's a good deal for Amazon, doesn't mean it's a bad deal for Whole Food shareholders", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4abb0b19a0c5f907b80017b1f1b1ef0d", "text": "\"Simply put, yes. I bought that call. I was betting the shares would rise in value by Jan 2018, and chose the $130 strike. With a strike nearly a year away, I paid a premium that was all time value as the shares traded at Now the shares are replaced by $128. The time value has gone to zero, and there is no intrinsic \"\"in the money\"\" value. If the shares were bought at $140, the time value stills drops to zero, but the option is closed at $10 in the money. My answer was for a cash deal. In a case where the old shares are replaced by new shares or a combination of shares and money, the options terms are changed to reflect the combination of new assets for old. Update based on disclosure that it's Monsanto we are discussing. Bayer and Monsanto have announced that they signed a definitive agreement under which Bayer will acquire Monsanto for USD 128 per share in an all-cash transaction. Based on Monsanto’s closing share price on May 9, 2016, the day before Bayer’s first written proposal to Monsanto, the offer represents a premium of 44 percent to that price. You can see that the deal has been in the works for some time now. Further research shows they expect the deal to close by \"\"the end of 2017\"\". It's not a done deal. This is why the options are still trading. Now the shares are replaced by $128. The time value has gone to zero, and there is no intrinsic \"\"in the money\"\" value. If the shares were bought at $140, the time value stills drops to zero, but the option is closed at $10 in the money. My answer was for a cash deal. In a case where the old shares are replaced by new shares or a combination of shares and money, the options terms are changed to reflect the combination of new assets for old. Update based on disclosure that it's Monsanto we are discussing. Bayer and Monsanto have announced that they signed a definitive agreement under which Bayer will acquire Monsanto for USD 128 per share in an all-cash transaction. Based on Monsanto’s closing share price on May 9, 2016, the day before Bayer’s first written proposal to Monsanto, the offer represents a premium of 44 percent to that price. You can see that the deal has been in the works for some time now. Further research shows they expect the deal to close by \"\"the end of 2017\"\". It's not a done deal. This is why the options are still trading.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "672067a3a9979708817228320dc670ec", "text": "The trades after that date were Ex-DIV, meaning after 5 pm Dec 12, new trades did not include the shares that were to be spun out. The process is very orderly, no one pays $60 without getting the spinoff, and no one pays $30 but still gets it. The real question is why there's that long delay nearly three weeks to make the spinoff shares available. I don't know. By the way, the stock options are adjusted as well. Someone owning a $50 put isn't suddenly in the money on 12/13. Edit - (I am not a hoarder. I started a fire last night and realized I had a few Barron's in the paper pile) This is how the ABT quote appeared in the 12/24 issue of Barron's. Both the original quote, and the WI (when issued) for the stock less the spin off company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1191b085a69103a24611cadecff7bd21", "text": "\"I did a quick search, they have a $2B/5yr deal with google cloud. Downside is Google is a competitor potentially, especially in the ad market. Upside is SNAP revenue increased from $58M in 2015 to just over $404M in 2016. I think in today's market, everyone wants to hold the next \"\"Amazon\"\" or \"\"Google\"\" stocks at their conception. Sure would be nice if you had a few thousand in Amazon at their IPO. So I think pure speculation is why they were trading above IPO price for so long. It could be the next biggest thing, or it could fail in 5 years we never know these things lol\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4223f8940def8819879518d111c3d238", "text": "I think the $500mm number was bullshit. A common trick is that a private company will raise $50mm for 10% of the company, and say they're worth $500mm. But then it turns out that the new investors get preferences- like they're guaranteed to be paid back first if the company goes bankrupt, or they're guaranteed to get back the first $100mm of an IPO. Since the company really sold 10% of itself *plus other stuff*, they are worth less than $500mm. Therefore, I find Ellen Pao's claim that Reddit was worth $250mm in 2015 credible. It is also why I'm suspicious about the $1.7b number today.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c2b95717ae491f8621c0ad89783bdcd0", "text": "Watch for Walmart to buy Blue Apron or the same time of businesssoon. Probably Blue Apron because the yare gonna be prime for buying the next year. I know people are all on the Amazon taking of the world bandwagon but losing sight at what Walmart is doing is dumb because they are far more primed to do so. Just my two cents though. EDIT: Also Amazon stock is insanely over priced and inflated while Walmart is right at the point where you want to jump that bandwagon and ride the wave to being rich.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f4717c94f68f3964e5d74a248084bb4", "text": "U.S. stocks traded slightly lower on Friday, weighed down by slumping Amazon.com shares following disappointing earnings while the main indexes were on track to finish the week with modest losses. ... what? DJI is up 250 points over the week, S&amp;P is flat but slightly up. Whose news is this?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "487f70fefde2260535df8ddd74de4414", "text": "NAV is how much is the stuff of the company worth divided by the number of shares. This total is also called book value. The market cap is share price times number of shares. For Amazon today people are willing to pay 290 a share for a company with a NAV of 22 a share. If of nav and price were equal the P/B (price to book ratio) would be 1, but for Amazon it is 13. Why? Because investors believe Amazon is worth a lot more than a money losing company with a NAV of 22.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2d980bfbf8118c595eded6b6b4671af", "text": "Not sure where you got the 296 crores figure. The data on the sheet shows activity by category of investors. In the end NET of all BUY and SELL across all categories will always be Zero. It has no bearing on whether the stock market goes up or goes down. If you compare only activity by certain category, say FII then there could be more SELL compared to BUY or vice-versa.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "86f7fb8aee91031e8893956bc83201aa", "text": "Are you implying that Amazon is a better investment than GE because Amazon's P/E is 175 while GE's is only 27? Or that GE is a better investment than Apple because Apple's P/E is just 13. There are a lot of other ratios to consider than P/E. I personally view high P/E numbers as a red flag. One way to think of a P/E ratio is the number of years it's expected for the company to earn its market cap. (Share price divided by annual earnings per share) It will take Amazon 175 years to earn $353 billion. If I was going to buy a dry cleaners, I would not pay the owner 175 years of earnings to take control of it, I'd never see my investment back. To your point. There is so much future growth seemingly built in to today's stock market that even when a company posts higher than expected earnings, the company's stock may take a hit because maybe future prospects are a little less bright than everyone thought yesterday. The point of fundamental analysis is that you want to look at a company's management style and financial strategies. How is it paying its debt? How is it accumulating the debt? How is it's return on assets? How is the return on assets trending? This way when you look at a few companies in the same market segment you may have a better shot at picking the winner over time. The company that piles on new debt for every new project is likely to continue that path in to oblivion, regardless of the P/E ratio. (or some other equally less forward thinking management practice that you uncover in your fundamental analysis efforts). And I'll add... No amount of historical good decision making from a company's management can prepare for a total market downturn, or lack of investor confidence in general. The market is the market; sometimes it's up irrationally, sometimes it's down irrationally.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef35ffb7ebe8a1683a42f55fa42e23bb", "text": "From Wikipedia: 'Bezos was one of the first shareholders in Google, when he invested $250,000 in 1998. That $250,000 investment resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock worth about $3.1 billion today.' His wealth may be tied to amazon but he is a savvy investor. Recently, I was watching an early interview he did with Charlie Rose, and I read more about him - which led to reading the Wikipedia article.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc596ab411b839e7fddc66f3efd63334", "text": "Various types of corporate actions will precipitate a price adjustment. In the case of dividends, the cash that will be paid out as a dividend to share holders forms part of a company's equity. Once the company pays a dividend, that cash is no longer part of the company's equity and the share price is adjusted accordingly. For example, if Apple is trading at $101 per share at the close of business on the day prior to going ex-dividend, and a dividend of $1 per share has been declared, then the closing price will be adjusted by $1 to give a closing quote of $100. Although the dividend is not paid out until the dividend pay date, the share price is adjusted at the close of business on the day prior to the ex-dividend date since any new purchases on or after the ex-dividend date are not entitled to receive the dividend distribution, so in effect new purchases are buying on the basis of a reduced equity. It will be the exchange providing the quote that performs the price adjustment, not Google or Yahoo. The exchange will perform the adjustment at the close prior to each ex-dividend date, so when you are looking at historical data you are looking at price data that includes each adjustment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a2597ff9b7701bb15d381e14a0bc724", "text": "\"What does ETFs have to do with this or Amazon? Actually, investing in ETFs means you are killing actively managed Mutual Funds (managed by people, fund managers) to get an average return (and loss) of the market that a computer manage instead of a person. And the ETF will surely have Amazon stocks because they are part of the index. I only invest in actively managed mutual funds. Yes, most actively managed mutual funds can't do better than the index, but if you work a bit harder, you can find the many that do much better than the \"\"average\"\" that an index give you.\"", "title": "" } ]
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What capital gains taxes do I owe on stock sales in India?
[ { "docid": "0bfbb3a0f9d2ac58c9bb99f9390209f7", "text": "\"Long term: Assuming you sold stock ABC through a registered stock exchange, e.g., the Bombay Stock Exchange or the National Stock Exchange of India, and you paid the Securities Transaction Tax (STT), you don't owe any other taxes on the long term capital gain of INR 100. If you buy stock BCD afterwards, this doesn't affect the long term capital gains from the sale of stock ABC. Short term: If you sell the BCD stock (or the ABC stock, or some combination therein) within one year of its purchase, you're required to pay short term capital gains on the net profit, in which case you pay the STT and the exchange fees and an additional flat rate of 15%. The Income Tax Department of India has a publication titled \"\"How to Compute your Capital Gains,\"\" which goes into more detail about a variety of relevant situations.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "34e87e91ff8b78526824f05425be21de", "text": "You would not owe any taxes in the 2015 year, unless you got exercised and called away in 2015. The premium would be short term capital gains barring some other exception I'm not aware of, and if you retain a gain on the underlying shares then that would still be long term capital gains. If it gets called in say April 2016, is the premium+profit+dividends all long term capital gains for the year 2016? The profits are long term capital gains and the premium serves to lower your cost basis, dividends have their own conditions so you'll have to do separate research on that, fortunately they'll likely be negligible compared to the potential capital gains and options premium.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac92b9bf00a4d1b18d5a4e79b41b059e", "text": "Typically, the discount is taxable at sale time But what about taxes? When the company buys the shares for you, you do not owe any taxes. You are exercising your rights under the ESPP. You have bought some stock. So far so good. When you sell the stock, the discount that you received when you bought the stock is generally considered additional compensation to you, so you have to pay taxes on it as regular income. Source: Turbotax. Second source. Your pretax rate of return would be: 17% (100/85) In your scenario where the stock price is fixed at $100. Your tax rate would be your marginal rate. If the stock stayed at 100, you would still be taxed as income on $15/share (the discount) and would receive no benefit for holding the stock one year. Assuming you are in the 25% tax bracket, your after tax rate of return would be 13% ((15*.75)+85)/85)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7976020809b0020375b57fb5be4dbcb", "text": "Is the remaining amount tax free? As in, if the amount shown (which I can sell) on etrade is $5000 then if I sell the entire shares will my bank account be increased by $5000? The stocks they sell are withholding. So let's say you had $7000 of stock and they sold $2000 for taxes. That leaves you with $5000. But the actual taxes paid might be more or less than $2000. They go in the same bucket as the rest of your withholding. If too much is withheld, you get a refund. Too little and you owe them. Way too little and you have to pay penalties. At the end of the year, you will show $7000 as income and $2000 as withheld for taxes from that transaction. You may also have a capital gain if the stock increases in price. They do not generally withhold on stock sales, as they don't necessarily know what was your gain and what was your loss. You usually have to handle that yourself. The main point that I wanted to make is that the sale is not tax free. It's just that you already had tax withheld. It may or may not be enough.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f9f12283747233c77cd51b2d3cbe33c", "text": "France taxes capital / dividend gains accrued in France. Hence you will not be able to reduce this liability. India does have a Double Tax Avoidance Treaty with France and you can claim relief for the tax paid in France.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6402f4647bbd723317bbe4ea5e5179f", "text": "How would I go about doing this? Are there any tax laws I should be worried about? Just report it as a regular sale of asset on your form 8949 (or form 4797 if used for trade/business/rental). It will flow to your Schedule D for capital gains tax. Use form 1116 to calculate the foreign tax credit for the taxes on the gains you'd pay in India (if any).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5cd255593318509c2eba3620efead98a", "text": "You wouldn't fill out a 1099, your employer would or possibly whoever manages the stock account. The 1099-B imported from E-Trade says I had a transaction with sell price ~$4,500. Yes. You sold ~$4500 of stock to pay income taxes. Both the cost basis and the sale price would probably be ~$4500, so no capital gain. This is because you received and sold the stock at the same time. If they waited a little, you could have had a small gain or loss. The remainder of the stock has a cost basis of ~$5500. There are at least two transactions here. In the future you may sell the remaining stock. It has a cost basis of ~$5500. Sale price of course unknown until then. You may break that into different pieces. So you might sell $500 of cost basis for $1000 with a ~$500 capital gain. Then later sell the remainder for $15,000 for a capital gain of ~$10,000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee913e8ea8db7a5465c14f52c1d98bf1", "text": "The tax cost at election should be zero. The appreciation is all capital gain beyond your basis, which will be the value at election. IRC §83 applies to property received as compensation for services, where the property is still subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture. It will catch unvested equity given to employees. §83(a) stops taxation until the substantial risk of forfeiture abates (i.e. no tax until stock vests) since the item is revocable and not yet truly income. §83(b) allows the taxpayer to make a quick election (up to 30 days after transfer - firm deadline!) to waive the substantial risk of forfeiture (e.g. treat shares as vested today). The normal operation of §83 takes over after election and the taxable income is generally the value of the vested property minus the price paid for it. If you paid fair market value today, then the difference is zero and your income from the shares is zero. The shares are now yours for tax purposes, though not for legal purposes. That means they are most likely a capital asset in your hands, like other stocks you own or trade. The shares will not be treated as compensation income on vesting, and vesting is not a tax matter for elected shares. If you sell them, you get capital gain (with tax dependent on your holding period) over a basis equal to FMV at the election. The appreciation past election-FMV will be capital gain, rather than ordinary income. This is why the §83(b) election is so valuable. It does not matter at this point whether you bought the restricted shares at FMV or at discount (or received them free) - that only affects the taxes upon §83(b) election.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e4e0889cafa3e615afc8b6cef174d5a", "text": "We have a house here in India worth Rs. 2 Crores. We want to sell it and take money with us. Selling the house in India will attract Capital Gains Tax. Essentially the price at which you sell the property less of the property was purchased [or deemed value when inherited by you]. The difference is Capital Gains. You have to pay tax on this gains. This is currently at 10% without Indexation and 20% with Indexation. Please note if you hold these funds for more than an year, you would additionally be liable for Wealth tax at 1% above Rs 50 lacs. Can I gift this whole amount to my US Citizen Daughter or what is the maximum limit of Gift amount What will be the tax liability on me and on my Daughter in case of Gift Whether I have to show it in my Income Tax Return or in my Daughter's Tax Return. What US Income Tax Laws says. What will be the procedure to send money as Gift to my Daughter. Assuming you are still Indian citizen when to gift the funds; From Indian tax point of you there is no tax to you. As you daughter is US citizen, there is no gift tax to her. There is no limit in India or US. So you can effectively gift the entire amount without any taxes. If you transfer this after you become a US Resident [for tax purposes], then there is a limit of USD 14,000/- per year per recipient. Effective you can gift your daughter and son-in-law 14,000/- ea and your husband can do the same. Net 14,000 * 4 USD per year. Beyond this you either pay tax or declare this and deduct it from life time estate quota. Again there is no tax for your daughter. What are the routes to take money from India to US Will the money will go directly from my Bank Act.to my Daughter's Bank Account. Will there will be wire transfer from bank to bank Can I send money through other money sender Certified Companies also. The best way is via Bank to Bank transfer. A CA Certificate is required to certify that taxes have been paid on this funds being transferred. Under the liberalized remittance scheme in India, there is a limit of USD 1 Million per year for moving funds outside of India. So you can move around Rs 6-7 Crore a year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4cdfa5eb579e2b1f99667e415dc13ca6", "text": "An order is not a transaction. It is a request to make a transaction. If the transaction never occurs (e.g. because you cancel the order), then no fees should be charged. will I get the stamp duty back (the 0.5% tax I paid on the shares purchase) when I sell the shares? I'm not a UK tax expert, but accorging to this page is seems like you only pay stamp tax when you buy shares, and don't get it back when you sell (but may be responsible for capital gains taxes). That makes sense, because there's always a buyer and a seller, so if you got the tax back when you sold, the tax would effectively be transferred from the buyer to the seller, and the government would never collect anything.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd32fe9ac63a48f7adcb39dea2923ad9", "text": "I am an Israeli based citizen who represents and Indian company who sells its products in Israel. As an agent I am entitled to commission on sales on behalf the Indian company who advised that. Any commission paid to you will be applicable to TDS at 20.9% of the commission amount, the tax will be paid and a Tax paid certificate will be given to you. According to a Bilateral Double tax avoidance treaty if the tax has been deducted in India you will get credit for this tax in Israel.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18d8988a421db7d06a74d7eb76b12ac8", "text": "From India Tax point of view: Some one else may give the US tax treatment. Refer to this similar question what taxes I need to pay in India Capital Gains. My accountant never asked or reported the bought property in taxes- should he reported in taxes?Did he do wrong not reporting should I report the property in my next year taxes? If you mean in IT Returns, yes it should be declared. Can i bring the money back if needed? By Back if you mean repatriate to US, The capital portion would be Ease if the loan property was purchased or loan repaid from NRE. Else there is limit on the amount and paperwork. Consult a CA. If I rent the property instead of selling, do I have to report the income and what income? should I be filling taxes on the rental income in India or just in USA or both You are taxable for the rent and have to report it as income and pay taxes in India.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6748f8cb4a00cd6c66001641b1ec61a", "text": "Looks like there are no specific rule in India to prevent Wash sales. See the link below. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/personal-finance-news/investors-can-rejig-portfolio-book-short-term-loss-to-save-tax/articleshow/7812788.cms?intenttarget=no", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70772d40b7d6a28b23290a08fa72a915", "text": "This is taxable in India. You need to declare the income and pay taxes accordingly", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0b2c3803926031441d17b0be5547416", "text": "\"You owe no tax on the option transaction in 2015 in this case. How you ultimately get taxed depends on how you dispose of the position. If it expires, then you will have a short-term capital gain on the option position at expiration. If it is exercised, then the option is \"\"gone\"\" for tax purposes and your basis in the underlying is adjusted. From IRS Publication 550: If a call you write is exercised and you sell the underlying stock, increase your amount realized on the sale of the stock by the amount you received for the call when figuring your gain or loss. The gain or loss is long term or short term depending on your holding period of the stock. In your case, this will be a long-term capital gain. For completeness, if you buy to cover the option back from the market before expiration or exercise, then it is also a short-term capital gain. Also, keep in mind that this all assumes that this covered call is \"\"qualified\"\" so that it does not count as a straddle. You can find more about that in Pub 550. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#en_US_2014_publink100010630 All of this is for US tax purposes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37c2382b45e55c431fdc9686dd772e26", "text": "Firstly 795 is not even. Secondly - generally you would pay tax on the sale of the 122 shares, whether you buy them back or not, even one minute later, has nothing to do with it. The only reason this would not create a capital gains event is if your country (which you haven't specified) has some odd rules or laws about this that I, and most others, have never heard of before.", "title": "" } ]
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