On the face of it, it doesn't look like a very good deal - neither pension not annuity company are in it for the fun of it, so they'll take their cut from your money, and then invest it anyway. The rest depends on what they promise you - if they just promise you market returns then I don't see much sense to do it, you can do it yourself. If they promise you some pre-defined average return not depending on market conditions (and hope to get ahead by actually getting better return and pocket the difference) then it might make sense, if you are not a very proficient investor. This will get you a known benefit you can count on (at least if you get a company with good rating/insurance/etc.) without worrying about markets volatility and having to keep the discipline and calm when markets jump around. It may be hard, especially for somebody of advanced age.  Also, there's the part of government adding money - it depends on how much of it is added, is it enough to cover the extra fees?


I've been monitoring tickets to Hawaii from AZ for the past year or so and have not seen anything advertised under $650. It seems in the past every so often I'd get an email from Hawaiian air for a low fare of $380 or so. Sucks.


"I think there are two questions here: (a) Is it better to continue living with your parents while you save up for a bigger down payment on a house, or to move out as soon as possible? (b) Is it better to pay off a student loan and make a smaller down payment on the house, or to keep paying on the student loan and use the cash for a larger down payment on the house? Regarding (a), this is mostly a personal priorities question. You don't say if you're paying your parents anything, but even if you are, it's likely a lot less than the cost of your buying your own home. It is almost certainly ECONOMICALLY better to stay with your parents. But do you like living with your parents, and do they like having you around? Or are they pushing you to move out? Are you fighting with them regularly? Do you just like the idea of being more independent? If you'd prefer to have your own place, how important is it to you? Is it worth the additional cost? These are questions only you can answer. Regarding (b), you need to compare the cost of the student loan and the mortgage loan. Start with the interest rates of each. For the mortgage loan, if your down payment is below a certain threshold -- 20% last time I bought a house -- you have to pay for the lender's mortgage insurance, so add that in if applicable. If you are paying ""points"" to get a reduced interest rate, factor that in too. Then whichever is more expensive, that's the one that you want to make smaller. If one or both are variable rate loans (well, you say the student loan is fixed), than you have to guess what the rates might be in the future."


He is worth $17.5 billion today Note that he is worth that dollar figure, but he doesn't have that many dollars. That's the worth of his stake in the company (number of shares he owns times the assumed value per share), i.e. assuming its total value being several hundreds of billions, as pundits assume. However, it is not a publicly traded company, so we don't really know much about its financials.


"I understood everything until ""Party B gets $3 from A but still owes his bank $4.25."" Doesn't B only owe $3 to his bank after the prime is now 2%?  I understand though that B is paying out $4.25 but only receiving $3, thus having a net of -$1.25"


Linking life to work is the absurd part.  That's why I support  the universal basic income.  It eliminates the need for a minimum wage and goes some distance in decoupling human life from economic values.  Also what's up with the predominantly black neighborhood line?  If you meant poor area or bad part of town its better to use those words.


"> Why not lobby for single-payer healthcare and a universal basic income like $1000/mo/adult and $500/mo/child?  I like both your ideas.  I don't know all the answers but I think our system can do better but I am fed up with trickle-down solutions like ""let the rich keep more of their money"" or ""let the free market work""."


You are in a difficult situation because of US regulation, that is much more demanding to fulfill than in EU or rest of the world.  Second, Interactive Brokers stopped serving FX for US clients. Third, EU brokers - like Saxo Bank - don't accept US clients: Almost any private client can open an account with Saxo Bank, although there are few exceptions. You can’t open an account if you are US, Iranian or North Korean resident - Brokerchooser: Saxo Bank Review Working for Brokerchooser, I would say you are limited to Oanda or Gain Capital. The latter is an ECN broker, and operates through other white label partners, you could try Forex.com also.


P/E can use various estimates in its calculation as one could speculate about future P/E rations and thus could determine a future valuation if one is prepared to say that the P/E should be X for a company. Course it is worth noting that if a company isn't generating positive earnings this can be a less than useful tool, e.g. Amazon in the 1990s lost money every quarter and thus would have had a N/A for a P/E. PEG would use P/E and earnings growth as a way to see if a stock is overvalued based on projected growth. If a company has a high P/E but has a high earnings growth rate then that may prove to be worth it. By using the growth rate, one can get a better idea of the context to that figure. Another way to gain context on P/E would be to look at industry averages that would often be found on Yahoo! Finance and other sites.


"If you don't want to do the deep research on each individual company, you might want to look at index funds and similar ""whole market"" investments."


There are things called food deserts, where fresh produce is simply not available, I'm talking about areas where you are *miles* away from the closest store with fresh produce, mostly in poor areas.  Add that into the minimal time afforded to actually get and prepare meals you can see that those people who most need the nutrition are least able to get it.


The solar roof is more expensive until you factor in that you get free electricity for life after it's installed. That power has value. It reduces your electric bill.   If all you want is to cover your house, then use a tarp.


Which of Lewis' facts are you taking issue with exactly? I guarantee that if there was a single untruth in the book, the HFT firms would have an army of lawyers suing Lewis, Katsuyama, the publisher, and anybody else they thought was unjustly accusing them of wrongdoing.


Looks like it is a 20% penalty on the withdrawal (along with income tax).  Funds can be withdrawn for any reason, but withdrawals that are not for documented qualified medical expenses are subject to income taxes and a 20% penalty. The 20% tax penalty is waived for persons who have reached the age of 65 or have become disabled at the time of the withdrawal. Then, only income tax is paid on the withdrawal  Wikipedia HSA article Even though you are leaving the country, you still earned and contributed to the plan while you were working/living, so it is still subject to the taxes/laws in place. On a somewhat related note, check out this question here, as it may help you out a bit (similar but not really duplicate) - How do I withdraw all money from my HSA account as a non-resident?


This is one of the unfortunate flaws of democracy, a Demagogue can convince people to choose what is in the longer run bad for them. I would consider my self a democratic socialist and when I see what people vote for in some countries, like rising corporate tax to an insane amount that no companies will invest in said country (the opposite is ofc true).


Several things to consider: I don't see why your friend should pay any tax. It's not his income at all. And I am not sure where your income should be taxed in this scenario. Is he declaring it as his income somehow? The bank won't do it for him, the transfer as such should be transparent. On the other hand, money transiting on his account could in principle look suspicious, although €300 is unlikely to raise alarm. What I do know is that if you do pay taxes, 20% is not particularly high as such. There are four brackets of income tax (and tax-like contributions to the pension system) in the Netherlands, between 36.55% and 52%. Rates for personal taxes in the Netherlands are simply way higher than what you might be used to in Eastern Europe or what has been mentioned in comments.  In fact, if anything, 20% seems too low. I am at a loss guessing what it could correspond to, you could ask your friend how he came to that number. There various tax discounts (kortingen) and deductions (aftreken) that apply to freelance work (and some that apply to all incomes). €3000 yearly is quite low and would probably not be taxed at all if you were recently registered as freelance (zzp'er) in the Netherlands and had no other sources of income. But on the other hand, if your money is treated as being part of your friend's income, these wouldn't apply, as he is probably already benefiting from them. There are special rules for copyright fees. Not sure this is necessarily 100% kosher but I have met people who got paid that way for articles they wrote in trade publications.


Ask the company if they can make an adjustment for the next paycheck. If they can't then do the following: Increase the number of Federal exemptions by 1. In 2014 a personal exemption reduces your apparent income by $3950.  If you are in the 10 % tax bracket and you are paid every two weeks you will see the amount of taxes withheld drop by ($3950*0.10/26) or ~$15. The 13 Paychecks later change it back. If you are in the 15 % tax bracket and you are paid every two weeks you will see the amount of taxes withheld drop by ($3950*0.15/26) or ~$23. Then 9 Paychecks later change it back If you are in the 25 % tax bracket and you are paid every two weeks you will see the amount of taxes withheld drop by ($3950*0.10/26) or ~$38. Then 5 paychecks later change it back. Remember the money isn't gone, it has just been transferred prematurely to the federal treasury.  You could also wait until you complete your taxes this spring, then see if you needed to make an adjustment to your exemptions. If you normally get a large refund then you should be increasing your exemptions anyway. If you are always writing a check to the IRS then you weren't getting enough withheld. Also make sure that payroll has the correct numbers. Most companies include the number of federal and state exemptions on the paycheck stub, or the pdf of the stub.


I thought your answer was spot on until I read this  >With a little cash, the government can get that industrial machine working at efficiency again.  What is the industry that Spain can offer the world on a profitable basis?  There may be one, but I'll need someone else to tell me.


Since the tenant reportedly left money in your mailbox, and now the money is missing, a crime must have been committed.  As such, have her file a report with law enforcement and provide you with a copy of that report. Remind her that, for her safety, it is best to file the report during daylight hours with other people present. You didn't make it clear to your tenant the methods in which she could provide payment.  That was a mistake.  At the same time, her decision to leave cash in a mailbox was foolish. If she is willing to file a report with law enforcement and provide you with a copy, tell her that you will split the loss and only require half her rent as a one-time courtesy.  Make it clear that you are losing half the money too. If she is not willing to file a report, require the full rent.


The gym I used to use was around £35-40 a month, its quite a big whack but if you think about it; its pretty good value for money. That includes gym use, swimming pool use, and most classes Paying for a gym session is around £6 a go, so if you do that 3 times a week, then make use of the other facilities like swimming at the weekends, maybe a few classes on the nights your not at the gym it does work out ok As for deals, my one used to do family membership deals, and I think things like referring a friend gives you money off etc. They will probably also put on some deals in January since lots of people want to give it a go being new year and all


Smartphone? GPS? If you have really absurd rules, your enforcers might require you to put up several signs to notify others about your policing of absurd acts like possessing dried plants in public, or whatever.  Humans, being smart and reactive (not passive) animals, will naturally gravitate towards the most reasonable rules and perhaps change their own to match the prevailing norms, because those who had absurd rules would not be dealt with much. Perhaps package deliveries would not be allowed to any house that allows murder, rape, theft... and nobody would want to do any business with someone who allowed violent crimes. They'd be ostracized. If humans can establish a complex internet system, complete with tubes and kitten pics, we can establish a way to let every property owner establish their own rules and then innovate from there with social and trade consequences for those who have stupid rules.  The basic premise is that, if you own your own house, you should have control over it, but you must pay the consequences if your rules make others not want to come or do any business with you. No monopoly should be able to apply their own rules against you. A texan like George Bush should have no power over a New York City resident, and vice versa.


No not deductible. But - If you work more than one job, you run the risk of having too much SS withheld. Each employer doesn't know what the others pays you. Tax time reconciles this.  And much thanks to Dilip for the following clarification - Not only does each employer not know what the others pays you, but even if you tell him, he will not care. He is required to withhold Social Security tax on the wages he pays you (and send in an equal amount as his contribution) regardless of what anyone else pays you. If the sum of your taxable wages from all employers exceed the maximum wages subject to Social Security, the excess withholding is credited towards the income tax due (and thus reduces the amount to be paid or increases the refund you are owed) but the employer's (excess) contribution that he sent in is not returned to him..... Also, there is no such things as excess Medicare tax having been withheld because there is no maximum wage beyond which Medicare tax does not apply.


It's easy to take the moral high ground on topics like these but when put into practice I don't know a single person who would live in a city/community/neighborhood where the majority of people were only skilled enough to work in a fast food setting


Best Buy places heavy emphasis on it's employees to sell Extended Warranty/Protection Plans. It is extremely annoying when they try to sell you a warranty on a $10 alarm clock - more so when the warranty cost more than the product. I avoid Best Buy as much as possible just because I don't wan't to hear the warranty pitch anymore.


Start with real analysis before you jump into stochastic calculus. The two books I have (Oksendal: Stochastic Differential Equations and Steele: Stochastic Calculus and Financial Applications) both begin with formal algebraic set-theory definitions of probability spaces, random variables, functions, and stochastic processes. If you're not comfortable with that sort of language it's hard to gain traction in any further reading.


"My question is, using previous data how do I calculate my returns? ""Stupid"" is the person who does not ask. Better to have visited first, but even asking after the fact will get you an education, at a very low cost.  You would only see those returns had you invested at the beginning of the period advertised. ""Past results are not a guarantee of future returns.""  Since we have no idea where you are in life, there's little advice I can give you except to invite you to learn. You can easily spend 100 hours on this Stack reading advice on the beginning investor, and every stage after that. We all needed to start somewhere, and in your case, just showing up was a great first step."


One important thing that hasn't been mentioned here is that the vast majority of companies have eventually eliminated their Company provided Pension Plans and replaced it with a 401K with some degree of matching.  There is a cost advantage to doing this as companies no longer have to maintain or work to maintain a 100% vested pension plan.  This takes a great burden off them.  They also don't have to manage the pension/annuity that the retirement benefit entails.


"Can the companies from USA give job to me (I am from New Zealand)? Job as being employee - may be tricky. This depends on the labor laws in New Zealand, but most likely will trigger ""nexus"" clause and will force the employer to register in the country, which most won't want to do. Instead you can be hired as a contractor (i.e.: being self-employed, from NZ legal perspective). If so, what are the legal documents i have to provide to the USA for any taxes? If you're employed as a contractor, you'll need to provide form W8-BEN to your US employer on which you'll have to certify your tax status. Unless you're a US citizen/green card holder, you're probably a non-US person for tax purposes, and as such will not be paying any tax in the US as long as you work in New Zealand. If you travel to the US for work, things may become tricky, and tax treaties may be needed. Will I have to pay tax to New Zealand Government? Most likely, as a self-employed. Check how this works locally. As for recommendations, since these are highly subjective opinions that may change over time, they're considered off-topic here. Check on Yelp, Google, or any local NZ professional review site."


It was the fact that they wanted to split the company in two, with two completely separate websites that didnt' talk to each other.  The DVD business still brings in a serious amount of their revenue, so they shouldn't be so quick to kill it off.


This is not me but something that I follow quite closely.  From a finance/business perspective it will be very interesting to see how online video games will continue to develop into a spectator sport with leagues, sponsors, advertisers, and agents.  The prize pool for the [2014 International] (http://www.dota2.com/international/overview/) was over $10M raised by fans of the video game, greater than golf's [2014 Masters] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_Tournament#cite_note-immelman-47) which paid out $9M.   The video game streaming service [Twitch was bought out by Amazon] (http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/26/amazons-twitch-acquisition-is-about-beating-google-and-apple/) just a few days ago for around $1B.  We're definitely in the wild west when it comes to video games.


The Fed rate is so important because it sets a cost on lending institutions (banks, credit unions). It is the rate of interest that a bank gets by loaning its cash overnight to the Fed. Presumably, the Fed then loans the cash to other institutions around the world.  The banks loan money to individuals at a higher rate. Savers get a rate between what the Fed gives and what the bank gets. When times are tough the Fed will lower their rate to try to increase the lending that banks do. This is called Qualitive Easing.  The overnight rate is very low right now. That means that the Fed cannot lower rates to try to stimulate the economy. So to enable the Fed to do its voodoo they have to raise rates so that later they can lower them if needed.


I cant be the only person who thinks these fines a ridiculous. First they end up hurting the shareholders, second no actual accountability is attained through these fines. You fine then, they squeeze their bottom line to pay it and its back to business as usual.


Yup he sure is.  And he will be for possibly 3.5, possibly 7.5 more years.  But Derrick Rose is on a vet minimum and only 1 season under contract.  Is he going to have to prove himself every season now?  I mean with injuries as severe as he has had, I consider high level professional play to be a major success.  But a league where rose takes the early retirement only due to teams not making offers, now that is a league that I would be unhappy with


Yes, of course. Your business is active since it was established, it just didn't do anything. This is of course re the State taxes, the IRS considers LLC as a disregarded entity and it flows directly to your Schedule C if you're a single member, or your 1065 if you're multiple members. State of Texas never considers LLC as a disregarded (See here questions 13 and 14). You may not pay any taxes, but you have to file.


If you are looking to hire a competent work injury attorney, then do your homework; research them, their work ethic, their commitment, their knowledge and record of winning. The right professionals have the experience to help people get what is owed to them


"In double-entry bookkeeping, no transaction is ever negative. You only deal in positive numbers. We ""simulate"" negative numbers by calling numbers debits and credits, where one is the negative of the other. Only a balance can be negative. In this case, Income is a credit account. That means that things that increase your balance are credits and things that reduce your balance are debits. So a gift from grandma is a credit. It's a positive number, and you write it in the credit column. You pretty much never subtract from Income except to correct a mistake. Assets, like a checking account, are debit accounts. Increases are debits and decreases are credits. You routinely have both debits and credits on a checking account, i.e. you put money in and you take money out. Every transaction affects (at least) two accounts: one with a debit and one with a credit. So in this case, the gift from grandma credits income and debits checking. Buying food credits checking and debits expenses."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/politics/trump-fed-jerome-powell.html) reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Richard Fisher, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, who worked with Mr. Powell at the Fed, said Mr. Powell &quot;Is neither a hawk nor a dove.""  > Jon Faust, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University who worked with Mr. Powell at the Fed, said Mr. Powell had endeavored to understand monetary policy and had demonstrated a strong grasp of the subject.  > The next year, President Barack Obama nominated Mr. Powell to the Fed alongside a Democrat, the Harvard economist Jeremy Stein, in a package deal that was meant to attract bipartisan support.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/79ujmq/trump_is_expected_to_name_jerome_powell_as_next/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~238151 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*: **Powell**^#1 **Fed**^#2 **economic**^#3 **work**^#4 **policy**^#5"


> Buffet could easily take the lead here by starting a company solely dedicated to paying off people's mortgages using his own money.  If he is right that would only fix a few symptoms of the problem and only for a short time.  The corrupt system would quickly overwhelm his actions.


Excavators are adaptable machines and they can be utilized as a part of an assortment of ways. Other than burrowing or uncovering they can likewise be utilized to destroy dividers, lift inconvenient articles like logs, empty mud and slop out of pits and pools and so forth.


The continent of Africa has lots of natural resources, but did not fare as well as the USA, so that alone doesn't explain everything. However, there was mass migration from the old world to the new world for the entire US history.  88 people control more wealth than the poorest half of the world (3.6B people or whatever). That is a relatively meaningless statistic, alone.  Thanks to automation and globalization, intellectual property, and access to capital, I see the trend continuing until 9 people control 99.9999999% of the world's wealth.  I may look up Ricardian theory.


Fidelity Investments offers Solo 401(k) plans without any management fees. The plan administrator is typically the employer itself (so, your business, or you as the principal manager). You (as the individual employee) are the participant.


This is a somewhat subjective question, but if you are following a particular personal finance methodology, just do whatever they recommend. For example, I believe that Dave Ramsey's program calls for the emergency fund to be in a different account.


finance is far from a useless degree, as a whole the business school will have one of the highest employment rates for your college and within that school finance/accounting/maybe some sort of business information technology will be the 3 highest employment and starting salary.  You may not be driving an audi and wearing a nice suit while watching the market everyday, but a finance degree in competent hands will give you an extremely high chance at not having to work some retail or food job. Degrees don't equal jobs, not hard to major in finance or CS and get a minor in something related to the other. Not only doubles the job pool u can look at, but gives you a more specific set of skills that certain companies will be begging for


"I would pay off the student loans first because they are unsecured.   Mortgage debt is against an appreciating asset and is therefore ""better"" than unsecured debt.   I recommend you pay both off, but start with the unsecured student loans."


Good idea. That is enough money to never work again, if a life is well planned. A person does not need more than that, to have a happy and lengthy life, doing what they love.  I retired at 47 with less than this.


To supplement Ben's answer: Following 'smart money' utilizes information available in a transparent marketplace to track the holdings of professionals.  One way may be to learn as much as possible about fund directors and monitor the firms holdings closely via prospectus. I believe certain exchanges provide transaction data by brokers, so it may be possible for a well-informed individual to monitor changes in a firms' holdings in between prospectus updates.  An example of a play on 'smart money':  S&P500 companies are reviewed for weighting and the list changes when companies are dropped or added. As you know there are ETFs and funds that reflect the holdings of the SP500.  Changes to the list trigger  'binary events' where funds open or close a position. Some people try to anticipate the movements of the SP500 before 'smart money' adjusts their positions. I have heard some people define smart money as people who get paid whether their decisions are right or wrong, which in my opinion, best captures the term. This Udemy course may be of interest: https://www.udemy.com/tools-for-trading-investing/


I wrote a bplan.  Went balls to the wall making it detailed.  Put it in a drawer and never looked at it again.    My recommendation is to not go into every detail.  I think the idea is to get a skeleton and then fill out a paragraph for each.  It makes you think about the aspects of starting a business that you may not have thought about.  Other than that, go get the book, Lean Startup by Eric Ries and read that to about 66% through... that ought to be enough for you to get going.  As you're business gets started and you mature fast enough, then read the remaining 33%.


"Is there anything to this?  I know China has been acquiring very large amounts of debt relative to their GDP, but it's almost all been thrown into infrastructure as far as I've heard... which is usually one of the best ""investments"" a country can make.  As someone who isn't an economist, this seems at least partially politically motivated, as the timing alone of this seems very suspect.  What's the other side of the coin on this one?"


Actually the extra payment comes off the back end of the mortgage. So technically the mortgage is ony reduced one month.  However, banks always recalculate the amortization table when the last payment is paid or a payoff amount is requested. There is a difference between the two situations but that is a minor amount. The 30 year note offers flexibility that the 15 does not. Pick one, save money-15 year, get flexibility-30 year.


"Brokerages offer you the convenience of buying and selling financial products. They are usually not exchanges themselves, but they can be. Typically there is an exchange and the broker sends orders to that exchange. The main benefit that brokers offer is a simpler commission structure. Not all brokers have their own liquidity, but brokers can have their own allotment of shares of a stock, for example, that they will sell you when you make an order, so that you get what you want faster. Regarding accounts at the exchanges to track actual ownership and transfer of assets, it is not safe to assume thats how that works. There are a lot of shortcomings in how the actual exchange works, since the settlement time is 1 - 3 business days, depending on the product (so upwards of 5 to 6 actual days). In a fast market, the asset can change hands many many times making the accounting completely incorrect for extended time periods. Better to not worry about that part, but if you'd like to read more about how that is regulated look up ""Failure To Deliver"" regulations on short selling to get a better understanding of market microstructure. It is a very antiquated system."


You buy stocks for dividends over the long term.  If a share of stock pays $1.00 in dividends every quarter, that's four dollars a year.  If you bought it for $40, it pays out $4 in a year, and it's still worth roughly $40 at the end of the year, you're $4 richer.  People will often invest large amounts of money in stable stocks not planning to sell it, but only collect the dividends which are either re-invested or pulled out as income.


This is such a wrong view point on it. The rest of the developed world disagrees with you.   Why stop there, they should bring back slavery, imagine all the new business that will be profitable if we had slaves.


There are more than a few ideas here. Assuming you are in the U.S., here are a few approaches: First, DRIPs: Dividend Reinvestment Plans. DRIP Investing: How To Actually Invest Only A Hundred Dollars Per Month notes:  I have received many requests from readers that want to invest in   individual stocks, but only have the available funds to put aside $50   to $100 into a particular company. For these investors, keeping costs   to a minimum is absolutely crucial. I have often made allusions and   references to DRIP Investing, but I have never offered an explanation   as to how to logistically set up DRIP accounts. Today, I will attempt   to do that. A second option, Sharebuilder, is a broker that will allow for fractional shares. A third option are mutual funds. Though, these often will have minimums but may be waived in some cases if you sign up with an automatic investment plan.  List of mutual fund companies to research. Something else to consider here is what kind of account do you want to have?  There can be accounts for specific purposes like education, e.g. a college or university fund, or a retirement plan. 529 Plans exist for college savings that may be worth noting so be aware of which kinds of accounts may make sense for what you want here.


Yes, at that stage income is income regardless of source. Assuming you're talking about overall profit, not just the individual wins when gambling.


From my 15 years of experience, no technical indicator actually ever works. Those teaching technical indicators are either mostly brokers or broker promoted so called technical analysts. And what you really lose in disciplined trading over longer period is the taxes and brokerages. That is why you will see that teachers involved in this field are mostly technical analysts because they can never make money in real markets and believe that they did not adhere to rules or it was an exception case and they are not ready to accept facts. The graph given above for coin flip is really very interesting and proves that every trade you enter has 50% probability of win and lose. Now when you remove the brokerage and taxes from win side of your game, you will always lose. That is why the Warren Buffets of the world are never technical analysts. In fact, they buy when all technical analysts fails. Holding a stock may give pain over longer period but still that is only way to really earn. Diversification is a good friend of all bulls. Another friend of bull is the fact that you can lose 100% but gain any much as 1000%. So if one can work in his limits and keep investing, he can surely make money. So, if you have to invest 100 grand in 10 stocks, but 10 grand in each and then one of the stocks will multiply 10 times in long term to take out cost and others will give profit too... 1-2 stocks will fail totally, 2-3 will remain there where they were, 2-3 will double and 2-3 will multiply 3-4 times. Investor can get approx 15% CAGR earning from stock markets... Cheers !!!


">Can you learn how to evaluate operations efficiency without working at McKinsey?  Look up MBA course schedules, operations management, look at books in this area.  > Also, how many people does McKinsey employ?   Learn to use Google.  >Do they just do all of the training for the consulting field?  Search for companies in ""management consulting"".  You will find Bain, Boston Consulting, etc.  Use google to search for ""McKinsey Competitors"""


The Bank have risk. In goods, thrre are two profiles, essentially it can be convenient and hence the usage, pay off monthly or spending future earnings today for luxury. The way cash advance is seen, emergency, ran out of cash in foreign/remote location... Debit cards not working etc. One generally needs small amount of cash. The other segment is loss of income. Essentially I have run out of cash and I need to borrow. This is additional risk and hence is limited or curtailed.


The slips from your bank for your HSA account are for an account already established and thus the bank is willing to accept your deposits even if they arrive at the bank after the April 15 deadline, as long as the postmark  is April 15 or earlier. The account exists in the bank, they know who you are, and that the payment is received after April 15 is just due to the normal (or even abnormal) delays in postal delivery. For the new account that you tried to establish (with appropriate notarization and timely postmark etc), the credit union could not  have received the paperwork as of the close of business on April 15 (except in the very unlikely circumstance that a local letter deposited in the mailbox in the morning gets delivered the same day by USPS: don't extrapolate from stories of how mail was delivered in London in Victorian times). Ergo, you did not  have an HSA account in the credit union as of April 15, and they are perfectly correct in refusing to open an account with a April 15 date and put money into it for the previous tax year. To answer the question asked:  Are they allowed to ignore the postmark date? Yes, not only are they allowed to ignore the postmark date, the IRS insists that they ignore the postmark date. The credit union prefers to report only the truth: as of April 15, you had not established an HSA account as of April 15; to say otherwise would be making a false statement to the IRS.


In that case, put it in a high yield savings account until you are ready to invest it. $15000 is really small, especially for starting a business. Additionally, your plan is just to throw the money at whatever you can, which means you have no real plan. Sit on it and think.


"AOL Mail (stylized as Aol Mail) is a free web-based email service provided by AOL, a division of Verizon Communications. The service is sometimes referred to as AIMMail where ""AIM"" stands for AOL Instant Messenger.For any issue call toll free number +61-283206015 to get quick solution."


It's not a problem. Tesla is in business of selling it vehicles. If their employees have so much confidence in their cars that they're willing to put their own money into it, that should only give us non employees more confidence.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta-mexico-idUSKCN1B91JQ) reduced by 45%. (I'm a bot) ***** > MEXICO CITY - There is a serious risk that the United States could withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, and Mexico must have a &quot;Plan B&quot; for that eventuality, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo was quoted as saying on Tuesday.  > Talks on renegotiating the accord between the United States, Canada and Mexico began earlier this month, and the next round of discussions are due to begin on Friday in Mexico City.  > &quot;The best thing Mexico can do given the atypical nature of the negotiation is to have an alternative plan, clear and pragmatic, to face something that is not our objective, but which may be the result of a process that does not move forward,&quot; Guajardo told El Economista.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6wt7cw/mexico_minister_sees_risk_of_us_nafta_exit_flags/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~200668 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*: **MEXICO**^#1 **Plan**^#2 **States**^#3 **United**^#4 **Guajardo**^#5"


I am a web developer by day and financial systems programmer by night.  You'll need to learn a compiled language and how to scale data storage if you want to code for finance. I would suggest you learn C# or Java if you really want a decent gig programming in the finance industry. Anybody using PHP and API's to trade isn't somebody you want to work for. It will cause way more headaches than it's worth and you miss opportunities due to speed and efficiency of a language like PHP. You will hit a wall with it at some point (some problem/bug/whatever that can't be solved), and it will really bring you down when you realize it has to be re-done in another language. That being said, PHP is great for the front end (showing people the data and letting them search etc), but the core of it that grabs stats and does the calculations should be in a compiled language.   PHP can also be used to quickly test ideas to see if it's worth building a full system that will scale. Basically a rough draft of the program to see if it's going to work out. Why? Well in PHP you can get things done very quickly with very little code because a large amount of libraries and functions exist and it's a very easy language to understand. But it's not efficient, and that's why you create the real deal program using C, C#, or java, or whatever.  Scalability of data storage will be important to. You'll need to store a ton of information and you'll need to be able to sort/change/remove/add it quickly. Many databases already exist to do this and I see you know MySQL already a good bit. You'll need to get very familiar with it because the database is going to be your biggest bottleneck in terms of speed. It doesn't matter how well your software works if the database is taking 5 seconds to return a query. Learn to tweak MySQL, learn about MSSQL, look into Firebird. Also learn about at least one NoSQL storage solution (these databases can store a massive amount of information, but they work differently than a sql database does). I would recommend learning MongoDB if you already know PHP. It is a good transition from SQL style databases to Key Storage databases.   Hope this helps...


The government employs 13 million people. Not even including that small time construction guy paid to redo the sidewalk at the city hall. Or money given in grants for research employing scientists. That's 1 out of 10 good paying jobs. But yeah let's pretend increasing taxes on less than 1% of the population, and 500 companies out of 28 million is worse than lowering it, and firing chunks of 13 million employees.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1503.pdf) reduced by 99%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Alternative risk outcomes All risk outcomes capture ex-post risk realizations rather than ex- ante risks.  > 4.8 1.2 1.6 Figure 2: Positive Correlation Tests - Dynamics t+1 t+2 t+3 t+4 t+5 t+6 Displacement Probability in Year t+k t+7 t+8 Notes: Risk realization in t + 1 may fail to fully capture the unemployment risk faced by an individual as she is making her coverage choice at time t, which justifies using risk realizations for that individual further into the future.  > 05 Individual-level model &beta;OLS =.082 &beta;2SLS =.245 0.05.1.15 Firm Displacement Risk in t.2 Notes: The Figure uses cross-sectional variation in displacement risk across firms as a risk shifter to estimate how UI coverage choices react to variation in risk that is not driven by individual moral hazard.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/76t73y/lse_riskbased_selection_in_unemployment_insurance/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~229382 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*: **risk**^#1 **coverage**^#2 **individual**^#3 **work**^#4 **selection**^#5"


NSCC illiquid charges are charges that apply to the trading of low-priced over-the counter (OTC) securities with low volumes. Open net buy quantity represents the total unsettled share amount per stock at any given time during a 3-day settlement cycle. Open net buy quantity must be less than 5,000,000 shares per stock for your entire firm Basically, you can't hold a long position of more than 5 million shares in an illiquid OTC stock without facing a fee. You'll still be assessed this fee if you accumulate a long position of this size by breaking your purchase up into multiple transactions. Open net sell quantity represents the total unsettled share amount per stock at any given time during a 3-day settlement cycle. Open net sell quantity must be less than 10% percent of the 20-day average volume If you attempt to sell a number of shares greater than 10% of the stock's average volume over the last 20 days, you'll also be assessed a fee. The first link I included above is just an example, but it makes the important point: you may still be assessed a fee for trading OTC stocks even if your account doesn't meet the criteria because these restrictions are applied at the level of the clearing firm, not the individual client.  This means that if other investors with your broker, or even at another broker that happens to use the same clearing firm, purchase more than 5 million shares in an individual OTC stock at the same time, all of your accounts may face fees, even though individually, you don't exceed the limits. Technically, these fees are assessed to the clearing firm, not the individual investor, but usually the clearing firm will pass the fees along to the broker (and possibly add other charges as well), and the broker will charge a fee to the individual account(s) that triggered the restriction. Also, remember that when buying OTC/pink sheet stocks, your ability to buy or sell is also contingent on finding someone else to buy from/sell to. If you purchase 10,000 shares one day and attempt to sell them sometime in the future, but there aren't enough buyers to buy all 10,000 from you, you might not be able to complete your order at the desired price, or even at all.


It seems too simple, but at the same time I feel that I'm over thinking/complicating things. My biggest fear is being sued or something. I feel like business ownership involves exposing yourself. It's like you're playing in the big leagues and every crooked person or competing business is out to get you. I'm not an expert on business law but I feel like that's something you largely acquire from business ownership and at the same time is something that you need to have an extremely firm grasp on or you'll get eaten alive. If I am over-complicating things and being overly cautious, what stops others from starting up small businesses? My second fear is getting busted for breaking some unknown law. In any case, I don't want to loose all of my hard-earned cash to anything accept a bad business plan.


Just common courtesy.  It seems to me that some people bring their extremely rough social skills from their home life and apply it to work.  There does not seem to be any training at all on how to greet people and what is appropriate behavior.  A lot of this, I'm sure, is regional.  When I visit other parts of the country I do notice a marked difference.  The retail drones in NY are *particularly* awful.


"1. What forms do I need to file to receive money from Europe None. Your client can pay you via wire transfer. They need to know your name, address, account number, and the name of your bank, its SWIFT number and its associated address. The addresses and names are required to make sure there are no typos in the numbers. 2. What forms do I need to file to pay people in Latin America (or any country outside the US) None. 1099s only need to be filled out when the contractor has a US tax ID. Make sure they are contractors. If they work for you for more than 2 years, that can create a problem unless they incorporate because they might look like ""employees"" to the IRS in which case you need to be reporting their identitites to the IRS via a W-8BEN form. Generally speaking any foreign contractor you have for more than 2 years should incorporate in their own country and you bill that corporation to prevent employee status from occurring. 3. Can I deduct payments I made to contractors from other countries as company expense Of course."


I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:  - [/r/talkbusiness] [This Chinese company creates a platform that allows people to buy time of their favorite…](https://np.reddit.com/r/talkbusiness/comments/783vxj/this_chinese_company_creates_a_platform_that/)  [](#footer)*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*  [](#bot)


SPY is up 29% YTD. If you are 100% S&P and not up 28.9% plus your deposits, I'd be concerned — check your fund's management fees. Are you calling a top?  Proper asset allocation would adjust holding on a regular basis. At the simplest level, say 70% S&P 30% short term/bond fund. It's time to re-adjust to the mix that's right for you, and not market-time. If 2014 sees a huge drop, the re-allocation to 70/30 buys back in at a lower price. If up again, a bit gets shifted out. Last, it makes sense for your deposits to match your allocation split, to lessen the divergence from your target numbers. Note: Asset allocation is a bit more complex than I just described. A good thing to research a bit. (Happy to see someone edit a couple good references here, especially if they aren't looking to offer a full response.) Here are a few choice questions on this site that are related to asset allocation:


We go for the lesser of two evils, which would be Obama. You may not think he differs significantly from Bush, but he *does* differ. Romney would be indistinguishable from Bush in terms of economic policy. More tax cuts, more austerity and more invocations of the Free Market Fairy to solve the economy through magic.  In the meanwhile we start building support for a strong candidate in 2016, someone who actually represents us instead of the 1%.


This is a big and complex topic, but it's one I think people get wrong a lot.  There's a lot of ways to treat a child's pocket money: Tell a kid that they're getting $10/week allowance.  Help them keep it safe, but don't give them access to it: Put it in a drawer in your office, or a piggie bank on a high shelf.  Encourage them to save up for a big purchase.  Help them decide what to spend it on.  When they find something they want, talk it over with them to make sure it's right for them. This seems like a good approach, because it encourages thrift, long term thinking, savings, and other important elements of real life.  But it's a TERRIBLE idea.  All it does is make the child think of it as if it wasn't really their money.  The child gets no benefits from this, and will certainly not learn anything about savings. Give the kid $10/week.  Full stop. This seems like a bad idea, because the kid is just going to waste it.  Which they will.  :)  That's the point!  There's NO way to learn except by experience. Try and shift control of discretionary spending to the child as and when appropriate.  Give them some money for clothes, or a present for their birthday, and let them spend it.  If they're going to be spending all day at some event, give them money for lunch.  And if they misspend it - tough!  No kid is going to starve in one day because the spend their lunch money at a video arcade, but they will learn a valuable lesson.  :) You have to be careful here of two mistakes.  First, only do this for truly discretionary spending.  If your kid needs clothes for school, then you better make sure they actually buy it.  Second, make sure that you don't end up filling in the gaps.  What you're teaching here is opportunity costs, and that won't work if your child gets to have his cake and eat it too.  (Or go to the movies and STILL get that new Xbox game.) Have them get a job.  And, it should go without saying, give them control of the money.  It's incredibly tempting to force them to save, be responsible, etc.  But all this does is force them to look responsible...for as long as their under your thumb.  Nothing will impart the lessons about why being responsible is important like being irresponsible.  And it's sure as hell better to learn that lesson with some paper route money when your 14 than with your rent money when your 24...


Hello i am Anushka from Bangalore city i am providing independent, girls, housewife and rich lady for man satisfaction in Bangalore city, I am a 25 old young female and i am promoting this agency for gentlemen who love fun, excitement. Call me 07759099020  http://www.anushkaraj.in


You are purchasing an Asset, I believe.


I wouldn't be so sure. There are many, many articles and under cover investigations mentioning poor working conditions. That shows to me that it is institutional. As founder / CEO / chairperson, for better or for worse the responsibility is ultimately his.   I wouldn't call him greedy but thrifty, sure. Doesn't he drive a 20 year old Volvo? Good on him - just don't become too thrifty to the point it negatively impacts your employees wellbeing (I'm not saying at all that it is amazons fault that some of their employees sleep in tents outside the factory, but It's the only business in the UK I've heard this happen at. Shows there is *something* going on).


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-18/conservatives-campaigning-against-yellen-s-reappointment-to-fed) reduced by 83%. (I'm a bot) ***** > House conservatives have mounted a campaign to urge President Donald Trump not to reappoint Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who is expected to meet with him on Thursday as the president narrows his search for the next leader of the U.S. central bank.  > Representative Warren Davidson, an Ohio Republican and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is circulating a letter for colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee to sign against Yellen&#039;s re-appointment, he said.  > Yellen reached out lawmakers at the start of her term in 2014 but her relationship with conservatives has remained tense.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/77hskt/conservatives_are_campaigning_against_yellens/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~231560 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*: **Yellen**^#1 **Fed**^#2 **President**^#3 **Trump**^#4 **House**^#5"


"I said ""most"" sir, not ""all"". Maybe a MA in Philosophy might help =)  In all seriousness, you could learn Math without going to school just the way you could learn law without going to school. Your premise is that you don't need to go to Bschool to learn business..so yeah."


I am not familiar with the startup you mentioned, but in general there are three approaches to avoid losing money in insurance business: review before policy is issued (underwriting) review before claim is paid (claims handling) setting high enough rates to cover underwriting losses The fact that Trov is customer friendly / lax (make your choice of term) when issuing a policy says nothing about their rates or claims payment. It is even possible they are building a portfolio for sale, and do not really care about the claims performance (policies are sold / customers acquired now, and it takes a time for claims to arrive).


"If you are afraid of your government defaulting, then you also have reason to fear that your country's so-called ""AAA"" corporate bonds might not be a safe investment.  When governments default, they often do things like: In these scenarios, it is not predictable whether government bonds will suffer more or less than any particular corporate bonds. You might want to diversify into precious metals, foreign currencies, and/or foreign securities.  For the most security, you might want to choose investment vehicles that your government would have a hard time confiscating.  Of course, you will face currency fluctuation risks if you do so."


"Beyond the yield/price relationship, a good intuitive way to understand it is just this: these people control a substantial amount of money that could be essentially loaned to governments.   If they feel a particular policy is likely to lead to inflation or default, they may decide not to loan that country any more money.  All else being equal, with a smaller supply of possible borrowers, the country will have to pay higher interest to fund a particular amount of debt. Furthermore they may loudly publicly announce that they will no longer lend to that country, in which case other participants may be persuaded that they too should no longer lend at the going rate.  What's more, this is somewhat self-fulfilling: as rates go up, the country will spend more money servicing its debt, and will in fact become a worse risk.   So I think the thing that gives them their ""vigilante"" nature is that governments worry they will round up a posse and things will run away.  As far as actual incentives, I would welcome more information but I think the main bond vigilante case is that they are basically long on the country but want it to tighten up its policy so their existing holdings don't decline."


"Yeah, this isn't much better than the decline of retail drivel, arguably it's a more repeated storyline that completely misses the roots.    Failing to ""innovate"" with ""high touch"" tactics didn't kill Toys R Us.  That's irrelevant.  They had a culture going back years that wasn't customer-first driven, they wanted to completely own the toy market  and made several terrible decisions when they didn't get their way.    They partnered with Amazon to be their exclusive toy supplier, ToysRUs becomes the world's largest toy site, all good.  Then, Amazon true to its mission allowed any toy supplier to sell on Amazon Marketplace.    Instead of embracing collaboration, Toys R Us threw a hissy fit.  They wouldn't accept Amazon's generous to make any new products that they launched still exclusive, not allowing anyone else to offer it.    Toys R Us sales are going up during this time, mind you because of larger selection brings more customers and everyone benefits.    Toys R Us' executives continue to whine and throw a suit.  After 5 years, Amazon just settles and gives them a pay-off.  Toys R Us raises funding and goes their own way with their own site.    But obviously in a competitive space as retail where customer first matters, Toys R Us' decision to destroy their Amazon partnership killed Toys R Us."


Inflation is good for the economy primarily because it is an incentive to invest.  If inflation is occurring, then keeping your holdings in cash is a net loser; 5% inflation means that in a year, your $100 is now worth $95.24 (1/1.05), so unless you're getting really good interest, that's a bad thing.  On the other hand, if you invested that $100 in a business, you can outgain inflation more easily since inflation should drive the business's profits. Deflation (negative inflation), on the other hand, is bad for investing because it encourages holding cash.  If deflation of 5% occurs, then you can get a 5% ROI by simply holding onto twenty dollar bills; why would you invest in a business that was in a deflationary economy (and thus would likely earn less money)? Mild inflation also increases flexibility in the economy, because businesses make a little more money (in terms of denominated money); that allows them more flexibility in expansion.  Salaries for some also go up, meaning that spending goes up, and often with more flexibility in how those salaries are spent; inflation doesn't hit all sectors exactly the same, so often this leaves significant portions of the middle class with more money to spend (and thus driving economic growth). More than salary growth, though, inflation seems to drive job creation.  From the New York Times, this article quotes a paper by George Akerloff which shows that job creation tends to be more significant than rising salaries during periods of low inflation (ie, what we're talking about here).  Salary increases will come here largely from job seeking rather than raises, because businesses don't tend to cut wages and thus are reticent to significantly raise salaries; they'd rather just hire more people, and then cut jobs when the economy weakens (or inflation drops).  This is even more true in low wage jobs, such as minimum wage positions, where wages cannot be cut but salary increases have little real effect on job retention; it's easier to change the number of hours for PT employees, or the number of PT/FT employees. Deflation, on the other hand, leads to decreased flexibility, layoffs, and lower consumer spending.  While it sounds good to say 'hey, prices are going down!' to your average consumer, you have to keep in mind that those prices are what keep the businesses going that drive our economy and pay your salary (either directly or indirectly).  If your employer started making 5% less per year, do you think they'd keep you employed?  Maybe not, and at the bottom (service industries, fast food restaurants, grocers, etc.) there would be significant cutbacks if deflation hit them. I would note that 5% inflation is probably a bit high; most economists like 2% to 3%, and the Federal Reserve has said that 2% is the right target.  They're mostly concerned with avoiding deflation, as that's a big risk to the economy; the advantages of mild inflation are relatively minor, compared to the damages of deflation, and tend to be more correlations (you get mild inflation in a good economy, as much or more than you need mild inflation for a good economy). Most important, probably, is consistent inflation.  Consumers and businesses can act rationally if the inflation rate is relatively stable and predictable.  When inflation jumps or drops, it changes the potential outcomes for choices made by investors, consumers, and businesses, meaning choices they made in the past are now suboptimal; if the inflation rate is jumping around (1% one year, 4% another, -1% the next) investors, businesses, and consumers will be relatively conservative in their choices, which leads to a bad economy.


No. Because the force required to deter a Russian invasion is a bell of a lot less than what the US is building up.   You are still in Afghanistan 15 years later. Europe doesn't need to build force to do stuff like that.


I'm used to reddit being much more harsh. I fully welcome advice. I have been struggling with my experience and I thank you for taking the time.  I just figured the company would say bad things about me if I jumped shipwhen it didn't work for me and they didn't have a backup. I suppose one could sue them if they say bad things? But this place was not even following OT laws or their own OT rules and it is 9 year old company. If they get audited they will literally lose millions, and yet they never have? Idk how this stuff works.


When you do finance problems the first thing you need to think about is how the interest is accrued. Is it monthly semi annually or yearly? Once you understand the period of time on the interest and payments it’ll help you understand these problems more. Also a good thing to memorize is converting from EAR to APR. and APR to EAR. You’ll use that a lot. Good luck!


"You're right.  I did include ""is it reasonable"" in the title.  Therefore that brings in the acceptability of those taxes.  However I am making the case that I would like capital gains to be taxed most similarly to regular income (or at least in a parallel bracket), which is independent of the amount needed to be brought in.  I think parallel brackets would be the most productive since it would encourage people to both produce and invest, because you would get the lowest taxes by maximizing both."


The key is whether you plan to stay in Sweden forever, or plan to move back to Brazil after completion of 2 years. If you have not decided, best is stay invested in Brazil. Generally markets factor in currency prices so if you move the money into Krona and try and move it back it would in ideal market be more or less same. In reality it may be more or less and can't be predicted.


I have thrown the book away along time ago so I can't point to the specific chapter and page. It's in there. The book is garbage and the author is scam artist. If you're holding a copy in your hand I would tell you to look in the references but wait...it doesn't have any.


"A diversified portfolio (such as a 60% stocks / 40% bonds balanced fund) is much more predictable and reliable than an all-stocks portfolio, and the returns are perfectly adequate. The extra returns on 100% stocks vs. 60% are 1.2% per year (historically) according to https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/saving-investing/model-portfolio-allocations To get those average higher stock returns, you need to be thinking 20-30 years (even 10 years is too short-term). Over the 20-30 years, you must never panic and go to cash, or you will destroy the higher returns. You must never get discouraged and stop saving, or you will destroy the higher returns. You have to avoid the panic and discouragement despite the likelihood that some 10-year period in your 20-30 years the stock market will go nowhere. You also must never have an emergency or other reason to withdraw money early. If you look at ""dry periods"" in stocks, like 2000 to 2011, a 60/40 portfolio made significant money and stocks went nowhere. A diversified portfolio means that price volatility makes you money (due to rebalancing) while a 100% stocks portfolio means that price volatility is just a lot of stress with no benefit. It's somewhat possible, probably, to predict dry periods in stocks; if I remember the statistics, about 50% of the variability in the market price 10 years out can be explained by normalized market valuation (normalized = adjusted for business cycle and abnormal profit margins). Some funds such as http://hussmanfunds.com/ are completely based on this, though a lot of money managers consider it. With a balanced portfolio and rebalancing, though, you don't have to worry about it very much. In my view, the proper goal is not to beat the market, nor match the market, nor is it to earn the absolute highest possible returns. Instead, the goal is to have the highest chance of financing your non-financial goals (such as retirement, or buying a house). To maximize your chances of supporting your life goals with your financial decisions, predictability is more important than maximized returns. Your results are primarily determined by your savings rate - which realistic investment returns will never compensate for if it's too low. You can certainly make a 40-year projection in which 1.2% difference in returns makes a big difference. But you have to remember that a projection in which value steadily and predictably compounds is not the same as real life, where you could have emergency or emotional factors, where the market will move erratically and might have a big plunge at just the wrong time (end of the 40 years), and so on. If your plan ""relies"" on the extra 1.2% returns then it's not a reasonable plan anyhow, in my opinion, since you can't count on them. So why suffer the stress and extra risk created by an all-stocks portfolio?"


That's because the telecommunication companies of America were given over $200 Billion in tax breaks to bring broadband to every rural area of America in the 90s. Instead they um, they did nothing.   I have family that can barely get a cell signal on their phone and can only get dial-up but can literally see Buffalo from their backyard. At night they can see lights in Canada across the lake. On the plus side they live in a big beautiful renovated farm house and made plenty of money investing off Baron's and other printed reading material, raised a valedictorian and can still collect the items they like on eBay.


Dog walking business. Sounds stupid but it works around here. My gf currently walks a ton of dogs and we decided to just make it into a business and eventually hire people. Her schedule is full and she just can't walk every persons dog who contacts us, which is why we went this route.   Edit: Oh, and very very far. About 2,500 miles. I'm on the east coast.


"This may be relevant: it suggests that IRS is lenient with the attachment of the form with 1040. To paraphrase: ""The ruling involved a taxpayer who timely filed the election with the IRS within 30 days of the property transfer but who did not attach a copy of the election to his or her Form 1040 for the year of the transfer.  Fortunately for the taxpayer in question, the ruling indicated that the submission of the election to the IRS within 30 days of the property transfer fulfilled the requirements for a valid election, and the failure to attach the copy to the tax return did not affect the validity of the election.  The IRS requested that the taxpayer forward a copy of the election to the IRS to be associated with the processing of the tax return. - See more at: http://www.bnncpa.com/services/employee_benefit_plans/blog/irs_rules_that_failure_to_attach_83b_election_to_form_1040_did_not_invalida#sthash.0c3h2nJY.dpuf"" If someone wants to grok the IRS ruling: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/1405008.pdf And this is the article where I saw the above referenced. www.bnncpa.com/services/employee_benefit_plans/blog/irs_rules_that_failure_to_attach_83b_election_to_form_1040_did_not_invalida"


If you literally know almost nothing?  I suggest:  1) learn financial terms, such as going through a glossary  2) learn how to read financial statements (balance, income, and cash flow sheets)  edit:   If you mean just in terms of a job?  I have no advice other than to keep your mind open, adapt, and be proactive/enthusiastic.


"You're correct that the trading costs would be covered by the expense ratio. Just to be clear here, the expense ratio is static and doesn't change very often. It's set in such a way that the fund manager *expects* it to cover *all* of their operational costs. It's not some sort of slider that they move around with their costs.  I'm not familiar with any ETF providers doing agreements which cover rent and equipment (hedge funds do - see ""hedge fund hotels""). ETF providers do routinely enter into agreements with larger institutions that cover stuff like marketing. PowerShares, for a while, outsourced all of the management of the Qs to BNY and was responsible solely for marketing it themselves."


In my opinion, the fee is criminal.  There are ETFs available to the public that have expenses as low as .05%. The index fund VIIIX an institution level fund available to large 401(k) plans charges .02%. I'll pay a total of under 1% over the next 50 years,  Consider that at retirement, the safe withdrawal rate has been thought to be 4%, and today this is considered risky, perhaps too high. Do you think it's fair, in any sense of the word to lose 30% of that withdrawal?  Another angle for you - In my working years, I spent most of those years at either the 25% or 28% federal bracket taxable income. I should spend my retirement at 15% marginal rate. On average, the purpose of my 401(k) was to save me (and my wife) 10-13% in tax from deposit to withdrawal. How long does it take for an annual 1.1% excess fee to negate that 10% savings? If one spends their working life paying that rate, they will lose half their wealth to those managing their money.  PBS aired a show in its Frontline series titled The Retirement Gamble, it offers a sobering look at how such fees are a killer to your wealth.


I used to do bankruptcy work as a debtor's attorney and the number of clients with $40-50k+ in student loans working for barely above minimum wage was staggering. The majority of them were from for profit schools like the ones that advertise during daytime TV.


Corzine should be held accountable but it would have been nice if Donald Rumsfeld's losing $9 billion dollars in Iraq would have also produced the same sort of outrage from his fellow republicans.   The Republicans are complete hypocrites when it comes to prosecuting corruption.


And he has to pay for it every home repair and every month the property sets empty.  His loss each month is not $250, but probably closer to $500.  In generally you need to clear at least $200 ABOVE PTI (principle, taxes and interest) to cover repair and the like to property. From your post, it sounds like your dad was forced into the land-lord business by the recession.  Unless he plans to hold the property until its rental value has increased by $500 a month, he should consider selling it and writing-off the loss.  Losing money bit by bit on a house isn't a tax write-off event.  Selling a property for less than you bought it for generally is. FYI, I got the $500/month loss by assuming that repairs/emptiness/etc will cost you about $200 a month, and added $50 for your dad's time managing the property.


Today’s up and coming tech companies are taking value from the existing companies so I believe there can be a net loss.  Also, efficiency gains are going to a smaller portion of the population, and if they don’t increase their spending to make up for the decrease in the spending of those who are falling behind, then that might cause a decrease in economic activity.    Of course, there are a lot more up and coming people in the word too, so they could very well outnumber those in the US/Western Europe regions.


"Straight Line Depreciation is the easiest method of depreciation, don't over think it.  Straight Line = (Assets Cost - Assets Salvage Value)/Useful life  In this case the Straight Line is $2m per year, it is not culmulative unless you are looking at accumulated depreciation account on the balance sheet.  Here is a schedule of the depreciation:  * Year 1 - $2m * Year 2 - $2m * Year 3 - $2m * Year 4 - $2m * Year 5 - $2m  See, can't get much easier than that!  Once you get into more complicated questions they'll throw tax rates at you and ask about cash flows, or the NPV of the cash flows.  You need to take into account the fact that the Depreciation is not a ""cash expense"" but it does affect cash flow by reducing the taxable income of the project.  Also, you need to consider the fact that the asset will be sold in year 5 and the value will need to be part of your cash flow and NPV calculations.  I hope this was helpful, if not I'll try to do my best answering any other questions.  Good Luck!"


I'm not in a MLM or anything but I'm a business owner and I'm wondering why people keep saying it's a scam because people lose money? Any opportunity has risk and the ratio of success to fail is pretty similar for normal businesses.   These seem like sales jobs with commission only/exotic compensation plans. It's normal that people fail at this. Are they not compensating people that meet their targets?  At any rate, I feel like the business itself isn't a scam, but a lot of the salespeople are scummy by not really explaining the odds. I also don't like the cult-like vibe I get from some people in those groups.


Your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) do not in any way impact on your future ISA allowances. The only thing that uses up your ISA allowance is you paying new cash into an ISA account. So you can leave your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) and simply open new ISA(s) for future contributions which suit your current plans.


Yes, one such strategy is dividend arbitrage using stock and in the money options. You have to find out which option is the most mispriced before the ex-dividend date.


"Good debt and ""Bad debt"" are just judgement calls.  Each person has their own opinion on when it is acceptable to borrow money for something, and when it is not.  For some, it is never acceptable to borrow money for something; they won't even borrow money to buy a house.  Others, of course, are in debt up to their eyeballs. All debt costs money in interest.  So when evaluating whether to borrow or not, you need to ask yourself, ""Is the benefit I am getting by borrowing this money worth the cost?"" Home ownership has a lot of advantages: For many, these advantages, coupled with the facts that home mortgages are available at extremely low interest rates and that home mortgage interest is tax-deductible (in the U.S.), make home mortgages ""worth it"" in the eyes of many. Contrast that with car ownership: For these reasons, there are many people who consider the idea of borrowing money to purchase a car a bad idea.  I have written an answer on another question which outlines a few reasons why it is better to pay cash for a car."


"> the economy has experienced a huge expansion    what is ""the economy""?  share values have been expanding for the last 8 years.  too bad wages haven't expanded at all. even after trump.  the rich get richer .. and everybody else can go fuck themselves."


Here is my personal opinion.  Please take what I say with a grain of salt.  I've been in your position before so I had to rewire myself.    With that said, all your poor decisions were made in the past.  Certainly, today, there are consequences that you are facing for the decisions you made, but still, they were in the past.  So, you CAN eat and you CAN live.  Perhaps, not to your liking but this is a rare opportunity.  You see, (I am assuming your American), we Americans often feel that more in life means more happiness.  But being in debt like you can show you that there is another path.  Just having enough.    Things like, enjoying every bite of the meal you just ate, or enjoying every moment while you're not thinking about the poor decisions you've made in the past will help you greatly in the future.  I found that because of my debt problems living in the present moment was the only way I could stop myself from loosing all sanity.  In fact, because of that I started to not focus on how to get out of debt, but how to live with debt.  It became much easier once I was able to naturally accept that there is debt, and it will be paid someday, but this is how life is and it doesn't bother me.  I found that by letting it go, eventually not only the mental problem, but the debt began to solve itself.    I know it sounds like mumbo-jumbo, but doing everything as a small step, for example, when you get in the shower today, feel the hot water.  I mean like, REALLY FEEL IT.  You have HOT RUNNING WATER.  Think about the hot water and how good it is.  This is the moment.  Maybe tomorrow you won't have hot running water, but that's ok because IT'S NOT TOMORROW, it's today.  Doing it like that, with everything, saved me from most likely something horrible.  Hth you a bit.


How are these zoning laws enforced and drawn up? Who ensures they are properly followed? Who handles penalties when they are not followed?   Who handles disputes when right-of-way issues come up?  How is all this done while still maintaining the rights of those who actually live on the land and may not have massive bank accounts?  How are all these people, doing things that actively get in the way of a business doing what it wants and is ultimately seen by those that just want to build something as a feckless bureaucracy, get paid?


No it wouldn't. You'd have to change the law to make **both** settlements and damages non-deductible.  In another comment on this thread I wrote about what's deductible and what's not. The **fine** paid to the government is not deductible. The **damages** or **restitution** paid to another party are.   Since a settlement is essentially damages and/or restitution paid to someone who's not the US Government, then it's deductible.   I haven't read the case law, but I'm sure that the argument is that since they got money that they shouldn't have in the first place, then they shouldn't have to pay taxes on it. Otherwise, what's to stop the IRS from making them pay taxes on phantom income all over the place?  The fine paid to the Govt is the punishment, and I'm sure that the prosecutors aren't complete morons and do take the tax consequences into consideration.


>it will be supplanted by another ride-sharing company.  Uber is essentially a transnational minicab company at its heart, it isn't really a ride-sharing anything, someone doing ride sharing well could absolutely eat significantly into uber's space, but probably not supplant it (And Uber is doing a whole slew of things now too..).


If for every buyer, there's a seller, doesn't that also mean that there were $25B in outflows in the same time period? Yes for every buyer there is a seller. The inflows are not being talked in that respect. about there being $25B in inflows to US equity markets since the election...what does that mean? Lets say the index was at X. After a month the index is at X+100.  So lets say there are only 10 companies listed. So if the Index has moved X to X+100, then share price S1 has moved to S1+d1. So if you sum all such shares/trades that have increased in value, you will get what in inflow. In the same period there could be some shares that have lost value. i.e. the price or another share was S2 and has moved to S2-d2. The sum of all such shares/trades that have decreased in value, you will get outflow. The terms are Gross outflow, Gross inflow. In Net terms for a period, it can only be Inflow or outflow; depending on the difference between inflow and outflow. The stats are done day to day and aggregated for the time period required.  So generally if the index has increased, it means there is more inflow and less outflow. At times this analysis is also done on segments, FI's inflow is more compared to outflow or compared to inflow of NBFI or Institutional investors or Foreign participants etc.


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There's no need to move it to a different currency, but if your bank is in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain or Greece, you might consider moving it to a different Eurozone country. Finland, Austria, Germany or the Netherlands seem safest at present. There's a small risk of a forcible Eurozone exit followed by redenomination of bank deposits into a new currency that will immediately collapse.


I did a historical analysis a few years back of all well-known candlestick patterns against my database of 5 years worth of 1-minute resolution data of all FTSE100 shares.  There wasn't a single pattern that showed even a 1% gain with 60% reliability.  Unfortunately I don't have spread data other than for a handful of days where I recorded live prices rather than minutely summaries, but my suspicion is that most of the time you wouldn't even earn back the spread on such a trade.


"Comment from the article:  ""In effect, Google acquired the talent it needed, got the IPR it wanted, and did not have to purchase the whole company and bring in the baggage it did not want.  What an Amazing deal for Google.  I have no idea where this leaves HTC, though.""  Could not agree more.  Not sure how HTC is winning in this aspect.  I guess we will have to wait and see."


No, I don't mix business and personal affairs.


Have you considered doing some small freelance programming jobs? One site I like for this type of thing is eLance.com, but I am sure there are others. Heck, you are soon going to be up all night anyway, why not earn some cash during those hours the rest of us foolishly waste on sleep?


Excellent question for a six year old! Actually, a good question for a 20 year old!  One explanation is a bit more complicated. Your son thinks that after the Christmas season the company is worth more. For example, they might have turned $10 million of goods into $20 million of cash, which increases their assets by $10 million and is surely a good thing. However, that's not the whole picture: Before the Christmas season, we have a company with $10 million of goods and the Christmas season just ahead, while afterwards we have a company with $20 million cash and nine months of slow sales ahead.  Let's say your son gets $10 pocket money every Sunday at 11am. Five minutes to 11 he has one dollar in his pocket. Five minutes past 11 he has 11 dollars in his pocket. Is he richer now? Not really, because every minute he gets a bit closer to his pocket money, and five past eleven he is again almost a week away from the next pocket money On the other hand... on Monday, he loses his wallet with $10 inside - he is now $10 poorer. Or his neighbour unexpectedly offers him to wash his car for $10 and he does it - he is now $10 richer.  So if the company got robbed in August with all stock gone, no insurance, but time to buy new stock for the season, they lose $10 million, the company is worth $10 million less, and the share price drops. If they get robbed just before Christmas sales start, they don't make the $20 million sales, so they are $10 million poorer, but they are $20 million behind where they should be - the company is worth $20 millions less, and the share price drops twice as much. On the other hand, if there is a totally unexpected craze for a new toy going on from April to June (and then it drops down), and they make $10 million unexpectedly, they are worth $10 million more. Expected $10 million profit = no increase in share price. Unexpected $10 million profit - increase in share price.  Now the second, totally different explanation. The share price is not based on the value of the company, but on what people are willing to pay. Say it's November and I own 100 shares worth $10. If everyone knew they are worth $20 in January, I would hold on to my shares and not sell them for $10! It would be very hard to convince me to sell them for $19!  If you could predict that the shares will be worth $20 in January, then they would be worth $20 now. The shareprice will not go up or down if something good or bad happens that everyone expects. It only goes up or down if something happens unexpectedly.


Just browsed their website. Not a single name of anybody involved. Their application process isn't safe(No https usage while transferring private information).  And considering they contacted you rather than you contacting them, I will be very wary about how they got my details. And they are located in Indonesia. And a simple google takes me to a BOILER SCAM thread. So all in all you have been scammed. Try asking for your money back, but may not be that helpful. Next time before giving your money to somebody, do some due diligence. These type of scams aren't new and are very common.


In the US, illegal. Giving free investment advice (opinions) is really hard to get arrested for. Might lose you a friend, but nothing that would get cross-wise with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That said, I would never put those opinions in writing.


Edit: This is paywalled so I pasted it here.  LONDON—The synthetic CDO, a villain of the global financial crisis, is back.  A decade ago, investors’ bad bets on collateralized debt obligations helped fuel the crisis. Billed as safe, they turned out to be anything but. Now, more investors are returning to CDOs—and so are concerns that excess is seeping into the aging bull market.  In the U.S., the CDO market sunk steadily in the years after the financial crisis but has been fairly flat since 2014. In Europe, the total size of market is now rising again—up 5.6% annually in the first quarter of the year and 14.4% in the last quarter of 2016, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.  Collateralized debt obligations package a bunch of assets, such as mortgage or corporate loans, into a security that is chopped up into pieces and sold to investors.  The assets inside a synthetic CDO aren’t physical debt securities but rather derivatives, which in turn reference other investments such as loans or corporate debt.  During the financial crisis, synthetic CDOs became a symbol of the financial excesses of the era. Labelled an “atomic bomb” in the movie “The Big Short,” they ultimately were the vehicle that spread the risks from the mortgage market throughout the financial system.  Synthetic CDOs crammed with exposure to subprime mortgages—or even other CDOs—are long gone. The ones that remain contain credit-default swaps referencing a range of European and U.S. companies, effectively allowing investors to bet whether corporate defaults will pick up.  Desperate for something that pays better than basic government bonds, insurance companies, asset managers and high-net worth investors are scooping up investments like synthetic CDOs, bankers say, which had largely become the preserve of hedge funds after 2008.  Investment banks, which create and sell CDOs, are happy to oblige. Placid markets have made trading revenue weak this year, and such structured products are an increasingly important business line.  Synthetic CDOs got “bad press,” says Renaud Champion, head of credit strategies at Paris-based hedge fund La Française Investment Solutions. But “that market has never ceased to fully function,” he added.  These days, Mr. Champion still trades synthetic CDOs, receiving a stream of income for effectively insuring against a sharp rise in European corporate defaults.  Many investors, though, still view the products as unnecessarily complex and are concerned they may be hard to offload when markets get choppy—as they did in the last crisis. From the DepthsThe amount outstanding of European collateralized debt obligations has been growing again after years of shrinking.  “We don’t see that demand from our clients and we wouldn’t recommend it,” said Markus Stadlmann, chief investment officer at Lloyds Private Banking, citing concerns over the products’ lack of transparency and lack of liquidity, meaning it could be hard to offload a position when needed.  The return of synthetic CDOs could present other risks. Even if banks are currently less willing to loan money to help clients juice returns, credit default swaps can be very leveraged, potentially allowing investors to make outsize bets.  Structured products accounted for nearly all the $2.6 billion year-on-year growth in trading-division revenue at the top 12 global investment banks in the first quarter, according to Amrit Shahani, research director at financial consultancy Coalition.  “There has been an uptick in interest in any kind of yield-enhancement structure,” said Kokou Agbo-Bloua, a managing director in Société Générale SA’s investment bank.  The fastest growth this year has come in credit—the epicenter of the 2007-08 crisis. The top global 12 investment banks had around $1.5 billion in revenue in structured credit in the first quarter, according to Coalition, more than doubling since the first quarter of 2016. Structured equities are largest overall, a business dominated by sales of derivatives linked to moves in stock prices, with revenue of $5 billion in the first quarter.  “The low-yield environment hurts,” said Lionel Pernias, a credit-fund manager at AXA Investment Managers. “So there are a lot of asset owners looking at structured credit.”  These days, the typical synthetic CDO involves a portfolio of credit-default swaps on a range of companies. The portfolio is sliced into tranches, and investors receive payouts based on the performance of the swaps. Those investors owning lower tranches tend to get paid more but are subject to higher losses if the swaps sour. Structured GrowthBank revenues from structured products such as collateralized debt obligations are rising faster than conventionaltrading of stocks, bonds and currencies.  For instance, an investor can sell insurance against a pick-up in defaults in the lowest—or “equity”—tranche of the iTraxx Europe index, a widely traded CDS benchmark that tracks European investment-grade companies. In return, the investor will receive regular payments, but those will shrink with every company default and stop altogether once 3% of the portfolio has been wiped out through defaults.  During the financial crisis, synthetic CDOs based on standardized indexes like iTraxx Europe suffered losses as traders expected defaults to pick up. Investors who held on, though, have since done “great,” says Mr. Champion.  Investors who agreed to insure against a rise in defaults for 10 years on the equity tranche of the iTraxx Europe index in March 2008 have made roughly 10% a year, according to an analysis of data from IHS Markit . That’s despite defaults from two companies in the index: Italian lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena and Portugal Telecom International Finance BV.  In contrast, investors who sold insurance on tailored CDOs packed with riskier credits—such as Icelandic banks or monoline insurers—would have been on the hook for losses.  Synthetic CDOs have evolved since the crisis, bankers say. For instance, most are shorter-dated, running up to around two to three years rather than seven to 10 years. Some banks will only slice and dice standardized CDS indexes that trade frequently in the market rather than craft tailored baskets of credits.  There are also fewer banks involved in arranging these trades. Those active include BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Société Générale.  Postcrisis regulations have forced banks to set aside more capital against these transactions and use less leverage. That has encouraged banks to parcel out the risk to clients rather than keeping it on their own books.  “There is a lot more regulation and scrutiny and a lot less leverage,” said Mr. Agbo-Bloua.  Mr. Champion says he only trades tranches based on standardized CDS indexes, which he says are easier to buy and sell than more tailored products. Currently, he sees value in selling default protection on super-senior tranches.  Mr. Champion said he has to lay down only around $1 million in upfront margin costs on a $100 million trade of this kind.  “The cost of leverage in the derivatives space is very low,” he said.  Any expectations of default rates picking up could inflict losses on synthetic CDOs, though at the moment analysts forecast they should decline. Still, the memory of how the market behaved in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis is likely to keep many investors on the sidelines.  “If you’re the person responsible for buying the synthetic CDO that suddenly goes wrong, your career risk is bigger than if you’d bought a plain vanilla bond that goes wrong. It has a bad name,” said Ulf Erlandsson, a portfolio manager at start-up hedge fund Glacier Impact, who until recently oversaw credit for one of Sweden’s public pension funds.


You started with the unsupported statement; I would think you need to justify your position first before attacking theirs.  Edit: thanks for updating parent comment. Those are more opinion pieces though, facts to backup how obomacare and Dodd Frank harmed the middle class would make a stronger argument.  Edit edit and for those down voting you mistake my position, I'm trying to encourage productive discourse. I think both parties are dirty liars.


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"I haven't seen anything specifically about how PayPal operates, but my guess is that they maintain relationships with banks in many countries via affiliates, and they settle the money transfers internally within the PayPal system. You basically have two types of bank transfers (there are others as well that I'm not getting into): I think PayPal is a hybrid -- they send and receive money using drafts to keep costs down, and manage the international stuff by operating a proprietary network. So if you send money from Indonesia to the US, you pay ""PayPal Indonesia"", who then tells ""PayPal USA"" to issue funds to your recipient. So they are cheaper than a wire, faster than a check, but limited in terms of transaction size and some other factors."


Or maybe it's because Ivy League grads end up in positions of power, allowing them to get involved in such scandals. 3 groups? That doesn't sound like many data points. Also sounds like a significantly low percentage of all the Ivy Leaguers on Wall Street


There are a few issues: 1. Googlers', FB's et al (Brin&Page, Zuck, Sandberg) image as world saviors (pledging money, cancelling death etc...), while they finance hedenostic idleness. 2. These are public companies, so I guess this decadence is funded by public money. So there is a huge issue - especially when scores of people go unemployed.


"My original plan was to wait for the next economic downturn and invest   in index funds. These funds have historically yielded 6-7% annually   when entered at any given time, but maybe around 8-9% annually when   entered during a recession. These numbers have been adjusted for   inflation. Questions or comments on this strategy? Educate yourself as index funds are merely a strategy that could be applied to various asset classes such as US Large-cap value stocks, Emerging Market stocks, Real Estate Investment Trusts, US Health Care stocks, Short-term bonds, and many other possibilities. Could you be more specific about which funds you meant as there is some great work by Fama and French on the returns of various asset classes over time. What about a Roth IRA? Mutual fund? Roth IRA is a type of account and not an investment in itself, so while I think it is a good idea to have Roth IRA, I would highly advise researching the ins and outs of this before assuming you can invest in one. You do realize that index funds are just a special type of mutual fund, right? It is also worth noting that there are a few kinds of mutual funds: Open-end, exchange-traded and closed-end. Which kind did you mean? What should I do with my money until the market hits another   recession? Economies have recessions, markets have ups and downs. I'd highly consider forming a real strategy rather than think, ""Oh let's toss it into an index fund until I need the money,"" as that seems like a recipe for disaster. Figure out what long-term financial goals do you have in mind, how OK are you with risk as if the market goes down for more than a few years straight, are you OK with seeing those savings be cut in half or worse?"


Retained earnings is different from partner capital accounts. You can draw the money however the partners agree. Unless money is specifically transferred to the capital funds, earnings will not show up there.


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.


I am a trader for a large financial services firm.  Years ago, I got my CFA charter because I didn't have a finance background (I studied computer science).  I learned a bit about all aspects of finance and my trading profits definitely improved.  I also like principles and ethics associated with being a charter holder.  However, I already had a very good job and didn't *need* the credential.  I would recommend you stick with it!  It is a testament to yourself when you successfully complete tough tasks.


"People who choose ""good enough"" (satisficers) tend to be happier than people who choose ""the best"" (maximizers), see link.  So decide you want to be a satisficer for most decisions, and then work at it: deliberately limit the amount of time you spend on a small decision, and celebrate a non-optimal decision.  Decide to be good to yourself, and say it out loud.  Practice the skill."