">Every major car company is doing research. There is going to be massive competition.  You failed to address the part where I said Tesla *wants* major car companies to compete.  That has been the entire point all along, from the very start.  And competition would be good for Tesla, because instead of Tesla alone having to spend resources on educating the ignorant public (e.g. you), this way other auto manufacturers would be able to help.  And Tesla would have other yardsticks to compare to, and to say ""see, we're better than them.""  Tesla welcomes this.  Auto companies are behind the times because they've outsourced nearly all of their engineering expertise.  They are good at volume production and engines.  That's most of what's left of any major auto manufacturer.  So take away the engine, and they have nothing.  To make a compelling EV, they need to start from scratch, and it takes years to develop a car.  This is why competition hasn't come, and why compelling competition isn't coming.  The only companies with somewhat compelling offerings are those who started very early - BMW and Nissan - or those who have partnered with Tesla - Mercedes and sort-of-Toyota.  Porsche has a chance since they still have engineers, but they're dragging their feet.  Everyone else is basically fucked.  And not just because of the lack of engineering, but because of the nature of large companies.  It takes a lot to right a large ship.  Companies will be loathe to release compelling EVs because they will compete against themselves, they will have to advertise the EVs as if they are better than their gas offerings which still make up 99% of their sales.  This puts them in a sort of paralysis and they can't do anything about it.  *Someone* is going to take bites out of their market share, and it's either going to be them or it's going to be Tesla.  > In the real world there is specialization. Some companies design cars, others design batteries.  Have you seriously never heard of vertical integration?  My previous paragraph talks about the perils of the sort of specialization you're talking about.  Because automakers have spun off all their expertise, they are not nimble enough to compete in a changing market.  Vertical integration is not the answer to everything, but it is a very good way to make your company nimble and keep costs down if you can do it.  That's what Tesla is aiming for.  It's not a new concept...and the fact that you've never heard of it ""confirms my view that you don't understand the issues.""  > THE ACTUAL BATTERY COMPANIES wouldn't do it. But you think Musk knows more about batteries than the actual battery companies.  Tesla has particular expertise about automotive batteries, yes.  They do their own battery research and have their own IP and patents (which they've opened) related to it.  And they have a partner, Panasonic, who is the leader in batteries.  Did you know that?  Did you know that Panasonic is partnering in the battery factory?  Because it sounds like you didn't, which ""confirms my view that you don't understand the issues.""    Panasonic is partnering in their battery factory, and will be responsible for much of the production.  And Panasonic has been making quite a tidy profit on their battery manufacturing for several years thanks to Tesla.  >the ACTUAL BATTERY COMPANIES declined to spend massive capital for a plant to supply TSLA cars  Literally in the same exact call that this article is about, on the same day, Panasonic and Tesla announced that Panasonic is spending massive capital for a plant to supply TSLA cars.  Not only have they increased production at their own plant tremendously over the course of the last few years, they will end up spending a billion dollars on the Tesla plant (on the call, Elon said ""Tesla will provide 40-50% of the total cost. **Panasonic about 20-40%**. States 10% and other partners 10,15,20% depending on how vertical they go with the factory"", Panasonic has already committed 200-300 million for the initial buildout per the press release on earnings day, and will be onboard for at least a billion, but Elon thinks they may do more in the end).  So no, you really, *really* don't understand it."


It's important because you may be able to reduce the total amount of interest paid (by paying the loan faster); but you can do nothing to reduce the total of your principal repayments. The distinction can also affect the amount of tax you have to pay. Some kinds of interest payments can be counted as business expenses, which means that they reduce the amount of income you have to pay tax on. But this is not generally the case for money used to repay the loan principal.


It is true that this is possible, however, it's very remote in the case of the large and reputable fund companies such as Vanguard. FDIC insurance protects against precisely this for bank accounts, but mutual funds and ETFs do not have an equivalent to FDIC insurance. One thing that does help you in the case of a mutual fund or ETF is that you indirectly (through the fund) own actual assets. In a cash account at a bank, you have a promise from the bank to pay, and then the bank can go off and use your money to make loans. You don't in any sense own the bank's loans. With a fund, the fund company cannot (legally) take your money out of the fund, except to pay the expense ratio. They have to use your money to buy stocks, bonds, or whatever the fund invests in. Those assets are then owned by the fund. Legally, a mutual fund is a special kind of company defined in the Investment Company Act of 1940, and is a separate company from the investment advisor (such as Vanguard): http://www.sec.gov/answers/mfinvco.htm Funds have their own boards, and in principle a fund board can even fire the company advising the fund, though this is not likely since boards aren't usually independent. (a quick google found this article for more, maybe someone can find a better one: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mutual-fund-independent-board-rule-all-but-dead) If Vanguard goes under, the funds could continue to exist and get a new adviser, or could be liquidated with investors receiving whatever the assets are worth. Of course, all this legal stuff doesn't help you with outright fraud. If a fund's adviser says it bought the S&P 500, but really some guy bought himself a yacht, Madoff-style, then you have a problem. But a huge well-known ETF has auditors, tons of different employees, lots of brokerage and exchange traffic, etc. so to me at least it's tough to imagine a risk here. With a small fund company with just a few people - and there are lots of these! - then there's more risk, and you'd want to carefully look at what independent agent holds their assets, who their auditors are, and so forth. With regular mutual funds (not ETFs) there are more issues with diversifying across fund companies: With ETFs, there probably isn't much downside to diversifying since you could buy them all from one brokerage account. Maybe it even happens naturally if you pick the best ETFs you can find. Personally, I would just pick the best ETFs and not worry about advisor diversity. Update: maybe also deserving a mention are exchange-traded notes (ETNs). An ETN's legal structure is more like the bank account, minus the FDIC insurance of course. It's an IOU from the company that runs the ETN, where they promise to pay back the value of some index. There's no investment company as with a fund, and therefore you don't own a share of any actual assets. If the ETN's sponsor went bankrupt, you would indeed have a problem, much more so than if an ETF's sponsor went bankrupt.


Reminds me when people complain about not being able to retire but they never invested in any indexes or have a 401K. Like no shit you have no money you didn't plan well, why should I be taxed higher bc I did.  I use dividends to reinvests back into stocks or indexes. Capital income isnt the problem its financial education. Dont be upset I know how to handle my money; people should be educated better on financial planning. Teach that in public schools and embrace people investing money, not make out the rich as some kind of criminal. I can agree inherited wealth is bullshit but being self made and investing well shouldn't be looked down upon because people struggle with the realism that its their fault they dont have money to retire. Life is a bunch of opportunities and choices and yes some people get spoon fed opportunities but it's still a choice to be financially responsible. Stop blaming the rich and educate the working poor and below poverty level how to financially plan their future.


The problem there is that there's a tax due on that dividend. So, if you wish, you can buy the ETF and specify to reinvest dividends, but you'll have to pay a bit of tax on them, and keep track of your basis, if the account isn't a retirement account.


Cost basis is irrelevant because the entire distribution is taxed as ordinary income even if the custodian distributes stock or mutual fund shares to you. Such distributions save you the brokerage fees that you would incur had you taken a cash distribution and promptly bought the shares outside the retirement account for yourself but they have no effect on the tax treatment of the distribution: the market value of the shares distributed to you is taxed as ordinary income, and your basis in the newly acquired shares outside the retirement account is the market value of the shares, all prices being as of the date of the distribution.


not sure if serious, read on if you don't think the previous comment is sarcasm.  No, they don't. The point of investing is to buy a stake in something that will become more valuable in the future. Other things don't have to devalue for your investment to gain value. This is possible because the net value of everything is increasing over time (compare the value of all the world's private property today to its value in 1900).


This happens to my dad all the time. He requires a deposit up front, but sometimes he'll let people slide without a deposit, or they refuse to pay the balance or something.   After he has called and harrassed them about it, he boxes up the files of people that don't pay and hands it off to a lawyer. He has a deal worked out where he provides the lawyer with all the paperwork and the lawyer gets to keep 20% of whatever he can collect. The rest is just written off.  The key thing is determining how much time and money you want to sink trying to get that money back. You don't know the likelihood of actually collecting that money, and every hour you spend on it is an hour you could spend generating more business


> 500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data points per person.  500 million is a lot of people to keep track of, but 1500 data points per person probably isn't enough to get a reliable answer out of a machine learning algorithm. Unless each 'data point' is meant to mean something they definitively 'know' about each user.


I switched from Quicken for Mac to Moneydance, and have not regretted it.   I see only one weakness in MD compared with Quicken: its reporting is not very good.  Your information is all there and well organized, but sometimes it's hard work to extract it in a convenient form. Of course a lot depends on what you need from the application, but I strongly recommend you take a look at MD before deciding.


Now get high quality video cameras available for rent in India. Like never before it will help you to save your money and time. These video cameras by Landmark communication have got maximum flexibility and functionality. Grab them on rent at fairest prices today.


"Be wary of pump and dump schemes. This scheme works like this: When you observe that ""From time to time the action explodes with 100 or 200% gains and volumes exceeding one million and it then back down to $ 0.02"", it appears that this scheme was performed repeatedly on this stock. When you see a company with a very, very low stock price which claims to have a very bright future, you should ask yourself why the stock is so low. There are professional stock brokers who have access to the same information you have, and much more. So why don't they buy that stock? Likely because they realize that the claims about the company are greatly exaggerated or even completely made up."


If your friend thinks he can live there for free due to his unique interpretation of contract law, he is mistaken. He'll get evicted if he doesn't pay rent, and likely end up with a judgement against him for unpaid rent. At its core, a rental agreement ensures that in exchange for paying rent, he may occupy the property. You can argue up and down about payment methods, but the fact remains he must pay rent in order to live there. Your friend MAY have an argument that he could move out and not be subject to penalty for breaking the lease because the payment terms changed. He'd have to give notice and would still owe for the time he occupied the property. There's just no way he can live there for free. He may find this out the hard way.


Financial benefit? No. No matter whether you are paid based on a salary or by the hour, the frequency of your pay check has no effect since at the end of the year you will have received the exact same amount of money. Psychological benefit? Well, from the many answers and comments on this page that seem to think there is a difference, then apparently there is a large psychological difference. Whether that is a benefit or not, I guess, depends on your personality.


I went to undergrad at Cal.  3.0 wont get you into any large company on campus in business (budge brackets, top 3 consulting, big 4 accounting).  you won't even get an interview unless you are 3.5+.  Isn't the ratio career services typically quote like 13:1 students applying to interview or something?


Not exactly, patents don't give you anything. Patents just prevent others from doing what it is you did. Whether you exercise your patent is unrelated to having gotten one.  Also, patents in reality produce inefficiencies and detract from innovation. I don't care what they're theoretically designed to do partially because theoretically, we're all equal even though in reality we're clearly not.


"Getting ""physical stocks"" will in most cases only be for the ""fun of it"". Most stocks nowadays are registered electronically and thus the physical stock will be of no value - it will just be a certificate saying that you own X amount of shares in company X; but this information is at the same time registered electronically. Stocks are not like bearer bonds, the certificate itself contains no value and is registered to each individual/entity. Because the paper itself is worthless, stealing it will not affect your amount of stock with the company.  This is true for most stocks - there may exist companies who live in the 70s and do not keep track of their stock electronically, but I suspect it will only be very few (and most likely very small and illiquid companies)."


There aren't swarms of very profitable businesses waiting for a chance, if only less profitable businesses would get out of the way.  If they were more profitable, they would already be here.  The trade off is between businesses that don't pay as much as you would like and nothing at all.


The point is that the bid and ask prices dictate what you can buy and sell at (at market, at least), and the difference between the two, or spread, contributes implicitly to your gains or losses. For example, say your $1 stock actually had a bid of $0.90 and an ask of $1.10; i.e. say that $1 was the last price. You would have to buy the stock at the ask price of $1.10, but now you can only sell that stock at the bid price of $0.90. Thus, you would need to make at least that $0.20 spread before you can make a profit.


I have.   Two of us started a company around Christmas, we doubled in size every 3 weeks or so, by June we had well over 1 million customer and 70 employee, by September we went broke.  It was a hell of a ride.


I'm surprised by all these complicated answers. Yes @Victor, you can create a form that asks people to put down their financial information but you want to be careful and not put off potential tenants by asking for too many details. Depending on the OP's typical tenants, an extensive background and credit check may not be necessary. For example, if I have proof that someone is a graduate student at the local university, that's usually good enough for me because I am willing to bet that they will follow my contract.  Bidding war doesn't sound doable, you advertise a price correct? You can only be haggled down not up.  So my suggestion is to look at other rental advertisements in the area. Compare what you're offering (location, quality of house, cleanliness, amenities, etc) to the competition and price accordingly. If you're getting a flood of interest, then you're probably pricing below the average price in your area. Or you live in an area where demand is just much higher than supply, in which case you can also raise your rent.


"Your employer sends the money that you choose to contribute, plus employer match if any, to the administrator of the 401k plan who invests the money as you have directed, choosing between the alternatives offered by the administrator. Typically, the alternatives are several different mutual funds with different investment styles, e.g. a S&P 500 index fund, a bond fund, a money-market fund, etc.  Now, a statement such as ""I see my 401k is up 10%"" is meaningless unless you  tell us how you are making the comparison. For example, if you have just started employment and $200 goes into your 401k each month and is invested in a money-market fund (these are paying close to 0% interest  these days), then your 11th contribution increases your  401k from $2000 to $2200 and your 401k is ""up 10%"". More generally, suppose for simplicity that all the  401k investment is in just one (stock) mutual fund and that you own 100 shares of the fund as of right now.  Suppose also that your next contribution will not occur for three weeks when you get your next paycheck, at which time additional shares of the mutual fund will be purchased Now, the value of the mutual fund shares (often referred to as net asset value or NAV) fluctuates as stock prices rise and fall, and so the  401k balance = number of shares times NAV changes in accordance with these fluctuations. So,  if the NAV increases by 10% in the next two weeks, your 401k balance will have increased by 10%.  But you still own only 100 shares of the mutual fund. You cannot use the 10% increase  in value to buy more shares in the mutual fund  because there is no money to pay for the additional shares  you wish to purchase.  Notice that there is no point selling some of the shares (at the 10% higher NAV) to get cash  because you will be purchasing shares at the higher NAV too. You could, of course, sell shares of the stock mutual fund at the higher NAV and buy shares of some other fund available to you in the 401k plan.  One advantage of doing this inside the 401k plan is that you don't have to pay taxes (now) on the 10% gain that you have made on the sale. Outside tax-deferred plans such as 401k and IRA plans, such gains would be taxable in the year of the sale.  But note that selling the shares of the stock fund and buying something else indicates that you believe that the NAV of your stock mutual fund is unlikely to increase any further in the near future. A third possibility for your 401k being up by 10% is that the mutual fund paid a dividend or made a capital gains distribution in the two week period that we are discussing.  The NAV falls when such events occur, but if you have chosen to reinvest the dividends and capital gains, then the number of shares that you own goes up.  With the same example as before, the NAV goes up 10% in two weeks at which time a capital gains distribution occurs, and so the NAV falls back to where it was before.  So, before the capital gains distribution, you owned 100 shares at $10 NAV which went up to $11 NAV (10% increase in NAV) for a net increase in 401k balance from $1000 to $1100. The mutual fund distributes capital gains in the amount of $1 per share sending the NAV back to $10, but you take the $100 distribution and plow it back into the mutual fund, purchasing 10 shares at the new $10 NAV.  So now you own 110 shares at $10 NAV (no net change in price in two weeks) but your 401k balance is $1100, same as it was before the capital gains distribution and you are up 10%.  Or, you could have chosen to invest the distributions into, say, a bond fund available in your 401k plan and still be up 10%, with no change in your stock fund holding, but a new investment of $100 in a  bond fund. So, being up 10% can mean different things and does not necessarily mean that the ""return"" can be used to buy more shares."


"It surely doesn't HURT to keep a receipt. I tend to pile up receipts in my desk drawer, never look at them, and then every few months throw them all out. If a vendor writes a receipt by hand or if the cash register is not tied in to the credit card system, keeping a receipt could give you evidence against mistakes or fraud. Like if the vendor gives you a receipt for $10 and then sends a transaction to the credit card company for $20, you could use the receipt as evidence of the problem. But if the vendor is trying to really cheat you, the most likely thing for him to do is run the legitimate transaction through, and then some time later run a fake transaction. So say today you go to vendor X, buy something for $20, and he bills your credit card $20. Then a few days later he bills you another $100 even though you never came back to the store. Sure, you have a receipt for $20. But you don't have a receipt for the $100 because you never authorized that transaction. Your receipt proves nothing -- presumably you're not disputing the $20. If you complain to the bank or go to the police or whatever, saying, ""Hey look, I don't have a receipt for the $100"" doesn't prove anything. How do they know you didn't just throw it away? It's difficult to prove that you never had such a receipt."


I don't do corporate tax exclusively, but I don't think you're correct. The idea of pre-tax and post-tax earnings is significantly different from corporations than individuals since individuals see their taxes come out when they earn it and corporations pay taxes quarterly.  At the very least, it's certainly not equivalent to a charitable contribution.


"True! Apple basically makes the same phone every year, just with gimmick tools that ""wow"" iPhone users. The upgrades to all these new phones they release could easily be included in a current phone's monthly update, but they'd rather package it into a new phone for hundreds of dollars more."


"Credit reports have line items that, if all is well, say ""paid as agreed."" A car loan almost certainly gets reported. In your case it probably says the happy ""paid as agreed.""  It will continue to say that if you pay it off in full. You can get the happy ""paid as agreed"" from a credit card too.  You can get it by paying the balance by the due date every month, or paying the mininum, or anything in between, on time. But you'll blow less money in interest if you pay each bill in full each month. You don't have to carry a balance. In the US you can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit bureaus. Here's the way to do that with minimal upsell/cross-sell hassles. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/  In your situation you'd probably be smart to ask for a credit report every four months (from each bureau in turn) so you can see how things are going.  They don't give you your FICO score for free, but you don't really care about that until you're going for a big loan, like for a condo. It might be good to take a look at one of those free credit reports real soon, as you prepare to close out your car loan. If you need other loans, consider working with a credit union. They sometimes offer better interest rates, and they often are diligent about making credit bureau reports for their good customers; they help you build credit. You mentioned wanting to cut back on insurance coverage. It's a worthy goal, but it's generally called ""self-insuring"" in the business.  If you cancel your collision coverage and then wreck your car, you absorb the cost of replacing it. So think about your personal ability to handle that kind of risk."


Look for recommendations for textbooks, then, and buy them used online (amazon, to start - but there are other websites).   I bought Fabozzi's text after watching the Robert Shiller youtube course on finance (he uses that text, I believe).


"Far better than doing nothing and just ""job searching"".  Most (good) companies understand how rigorous the CFA program is, so it shows that you are doing what you can to progress on a financial career path.  It isn't the same has having relevant employment, but shows you are serious about the field.  Only downside is the initial cost of membership and registration (around $1000), which many companies will pay for if you work there.  Mine paid for registration, all the exams, study materials, etc..."


I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I think the approach of your article is flawed. It reads like a different person than the one that wrote your comment authored it. I believe that significantly detracts from any actual discussion.


"Some years ago, two ""academics,"" Ibbotson and Sinquefield did these calculations. (Roger) Ibbotson, is still around. So Google Roger Ibbotson, or Ibbotson Associates. There are a number of entries so I won't provide all the links."


Insurance is for events that are both and Unexpected and, for many people, catastrophic events are, for example, sickness, disability, death, car accidents, house fires, and burglaries, for which you may buy health, disability, life, auto, home, and renter's insurance.  It may be catastrophic for a family relying on a very old earner for that earner to die, and you can buy life insurance up to a very old age, but the premiums will reflect the likelihood of someone of that age dying within the covered period.  The more expected an event is, the more anything referred to as insurance is actually forced savings. Health insurance with no copays on regular checkups expects the insured to use them, so the cost of those checkups plus a profit for the insurance company is factored into the premiums ahead of time.  A wooden pencil breaking may be unexpected. Regardless of foreseeability, no one buys insurance on wooden pencils, as the loss of a pencil is not catastrophic. What is catastrophic can be context dependent. Health-care needs are typically unforeseeable, as you don't know when you'll get sick. For a billionaire, needing health-care, while unforeseeable, the situation would not be catastrophic, and the billionaire can easily self-insure his or her health to the same extent as most caps offered by health insurance companies. If you're on a fixed budget buying a laptop, if it unexpectedly failed, that would be catastrophic to you, so budgeting in the cost of insurance or an extended warranty while buying your laptop would probably make sense. Especially if you need that $2000 laptop, spending an extra 17.5% would safeguard against you having to come out of pocket and depleting your savings to replace it, even though that brings you to a grand total of $2350 before taxes. However, if you're in that tight of a situation, I would strongly recommend you to find a less expensive option that would allow you to self-insure. If you found a used laptop for much less (I can even see Apple selling refurbished Macs for less than $1000) you might decide that your budget allows you to self-insure, and you could profit from being careful with your hardware and resolving to cover any issues with it yourself.


there's only so much calculations a person can do before they're fatigued  people calculate how much time to give themselves to get ready for the day before work, they calculate necessary things during work, they calculate the gasoline or train ticket prices on their way home from work, they calculate how far they can stretch their budget after their rent increase, and then when they go shopping they have to calculate which toilet paper out of 20 choices is the most economical and not being sand paper  people are not lazy.... it's the system that makes people fatigued.  We have *too* many choices.  *Too* many calculations.


A person who always saves and appropriately invests 20% of their income can expect to have a secure retirement. If you start early enough, you don't need anything close to 20%. Now, there are many good reasons to save for things other than just retirement, of course. You say that you can save 80% of your income, and you expect most people could save at least 50% without problems. That's just unrealistic for most people. Taxes, rent (or mortgage payments), utilities, food, and other such mandatory expenses take far more than 50% of your income. Most people simply don't have the ability to save (or invest) 50% of their income. Or even 25% of their income.


I don't understand why they've bunkered down and kept this orca show going when they know it can all be over if they just remove that part. Stop the shows, free the orcas, they'll look like heroes, and everyone will flock to SeaWorld because they're good guys now. They listened and changed. People love those stories.  But they're destroying themselves with this. If they just got rid of the shows, people would love SeaWorld. They'd have higher attendance and more money to help more animals. The leadership is completely out of their minds.


It has been hinted at in some other answers, but I want to say it explicitly: Volatility is not risk. Volatility is how much an investment goes up and down, risk is the chance that you will lose money. For example, stocks have relatively high volatility, but the risk that you will lose money over a 40 year period is virtually zero (in particular if you invest in index funds). Bonds, on the other hand, have basically no volatility (their cash flow is totally predictable if you trust the future of your government), but there is a significant risk that they will perform worse than stocks over a longer period. So, volatility equals risk only if you are day trading. A 401(k) is literally the opposite of that. For further reading: Never confuse risk and volatility Also, investing is not gambling. Gambling is bad because the odds are stacked against you. You need more than average luck to actually win and the longer you play, the more you will lose. Investing means buying productive capital that will produce further value. The odds are in your favor. Even if you do a moderately bad job at investing, the longer you stay, the more you will win.


"/endthread   But honestly, we should have a link to something like this in the sidebar, since quite a few people visit this subreddit for ""what are my chances / how do I break in"" advice. A lot of your response applies to others as well (and honestly it's kind of annoying seeing redundant threads about career advice).   Either that, or we direct everyone to /r/financialcareers."


"Mutual funds invest according to their prospectus. If they declare that they match the investments to a certain index - then that's what they should do. If you don't want to be invested in a company that is part of that index, then don't invest in that fund. Short-selling doesn't ""exclude"" your investment. You cannot sell your portion of the position in the fund to cover it. Bottom line is that money has no smell. But if you want to avoid investing in a certain company and it is important to you - you should also avoid the funds that invest in it, and companies that own portions of it, and also probably the companies that buy their products or services. Otherwise, its just ""nice talk"" bigotry."


So to translate that to US English: taking an early retirement in lieu of impending layoffs.  If you have a layoff you're saying you have no need for the work and if you replace the workers then they come back to sue you (which seems to be what you're saying, and we have the same concept) but an early retirement is a voluntary exit with a compensation package such that any right to sue is forfeit because it was a consensual exit rather than mandatory.  Got it.  Thanks. :)


Its not just Citi and BoFA, even Barclays, HSBC and other large Banks are trading below book value in markets they are listed. Are there particular assets that are causing these two banks to be valued lower relative to their book values than the other banks? There no particular assets. Given the current economic situation most Banks are not making good returns, i.e. expected returns of markets are around 10-12% and the returns getting generated are around 4-6%. The overall slow down in various segments as well as regulations in most countries mean that banks have to relook at the business model in short term and generate more revenue. The market believes that Banks may loose money faster and hence the negative outlook and the trading below the book value. Note Book Value is derived in ideal conditions, i.e. when the company is healthy. If any company were to sell the assets in distress, the actual funds raised would be quite a bit less than Book Value. Its also to be noted that typically Banks would not close out and hence Book Value to an extent is just an indicator. Or is it a residual loathing based on their being the biggest losers of 2008 that are still around today? The 2008 has gone past. This is more recent. If you look most of these banks were doing quite well till last year and had recovered substantially after 2008.


Chiming with my experience, because I hate generalizations of an entire country.  I'm Indian, born and raised, but came to the US to do my undergrad/uni and now work out of the US. I had a lot of the same qualms about working with my Indian peers, but I've found that it also depends on the support structure that companies offer. High turnover is definitely an issue, but that seems to be because companies focus more on hiring and less on retention (offering signing bonuses but then little to no continued progress, limited growth opportunities, rigid hierarchy, terrible working hours).  I have someone who reports to me in India now and it's an experiment on how to better engage them, and it's worked better. Turns out you can expect more when you also treat them like an American employee while expecting american results. There are definitely still cultural clashes in work ethic etc. but they can be overcome if you get people to stick around long enough.  Of course, this is anecdotal but that's my two cents.


"If you or they feel uneasy about you simply paying more rent than them for equal usage, you can work out an agreement where they ""pay"" in other ways. For example, I once lived with someone that made about double what I did, and so he paid more rent than I did. In exchange, I was responsible for cleaning the kitchen. If your roommates hate cleaning then you could substitute something like running errands, cooking, or looking after plants/landscaping. If they have some specialized skills then they might be able to provide those instead (car maintenance, financial management, etc.). Of course you'll want to agree ahead of time on what the conditions of satisfaction for the task are, such as how often the kitchen will have to be cleaned and what the definition of ""clean"" is. You also can't be a jerk and make their job extra hard, such as by completely trashing the kitchen every night.  Obviously it will depend on the temperament of your roommates whether or not they'll be happy with this or feel insulted being ""the help"". It worked for us because it was a task he hated and one I didn't mind, and it kept me from feeling like I was mooching off him. I would feel them out when you propose a possible rent and utilities split. If they feel like it's an unfair burden on you, but they can't afford more, then you could suggest this as a way for everyone to contribute equally. Whatever you decide to do, don't hold it over their heads that you pay more. Agree on something that everyone feels is fair, whatever that is. If you want a concession due to paying more (such as you get the garage, get to pick the art on the walls, whatever), then agree to that up front. Then accept that you've made a fair deal and they don't owe you anything beyond what you've all agreed to. It's awful to feel like you live in someone else's home and that you are getting into ever deeper debt with a close friend or significant other, and it will breed resentment. If you can't do that, then don't share an apartment with them at all. The most important thing is that everyone feels it's fair, regardless of the numbers. If you cannot get to that agreement through dollars alone, you can have them contribute to the home in other ways, such as cleaning, cooking, or performing maintenance. Just make sure that everyone truly does feel it's fair and that you are all equals."


If it's possible in your case to get such a loan, then sure, providing the loan fees aren't in excess of the interest rate difference.  Auto loans don't have the fees mortgages do, but check the specific loan you're looking at - it may have some fees, and they'd need to be lower than the interest rate savings. Car loans can be tricky to refinance, because of the value of a used car being less than that of a new car.  How much better your credit is likely determines how hard this would be to get.  Also, how much down payment you put down.  Cars devalue 20% or so instantly (a used car with 5 miles on it tends to be worth around 80% of a new car's cost), so if you put less than 20% down, you may be underwater - meaning the principal left on the loan exceeds the value of the car (and so you wouldn't be getting a fully secured loan at that point). However, if your loan amount isn't too high relative to the value of the car, it should be possible.  Check out various lenders in advance; also check out non-lender sites for advice.  Edmunds.com has some of this laid out, for example (though they're an industry-based site so they're not truly unbiased). I'd also recommend using this to help you pay off the loan faster.  If you do refinance to a lower rate, consider taking the savings and sending it to the lender - i.e., keeping your payment the same, just lowering the interest charge.  That way you pay it off faster.


"Good ones, no there are not.  Go to a bookstore and pick up a copy of ""The Intelligent Investor.""  It was last published in 1972 and is still in print and will teach you everything you need to know.  If you have accounting skills, pick up a copy of ""Security Analysis"" by Benjamin Graham.  The 1943 version was just released again with a 2008 copyright and there is a 1987 version primarily edited by Cottle (I think).  The 1943 book is better if you are comfortable with accounting and the 1987 version is better if you are not comfortable and feel you need more direction. I know recent would seem better, but the fact that there was a heavy demand in 2008 to reprint a 1943 book tells you how good it is.  I think it is in its 13th printing since 2008.  The same is true for the 72 and 87 book.  Please don't use internet tutorials.  If you do want to use Internet tutorials, then please just write me a check now for all your money.  It will save me effort from having to take it from you penny by penny because you followed bad advice and lost money.  Someone has to capture other people's mistakes.  Please go out and make money instead.   Prudence is the mother of all virtues."


You're talking about porting your mortgage, which may be possible if your mortgage was portable to start with, or if your bank subsequently allows it. Note that although porting a mortgage involves keeping most of the original terms and conditions, the process is still much like applying for a new mortgage, including any lending requirements. Here's an article on the subject. EDIT: In response to OP's comment below: What will happen to the first property if I don't sell it? Because porting a mortgage is treated as if you were closing one mortgage and opening a new one, this means that you would need to pay off the first mortgage. Typically this would be done by selling the first property at the same time that you buy the second one. However, if you're not doing this, you'll need to raise funds another way, which could include opening a new mortgage on the first property (of course, if you're doing that, then there would have to be a good reason for porting the original mortgage; otherwise you might as well leave it where it is, and open a new mortgage on the second property instead). Does the article apply the to USA too? That article (and indeed this answer) are based on the situation in the UK. However, they appear to exist in the US too, though are rarer than in the UK.


"It's an interesting point that leaves me conflicted. In some sense being poor also means you are not going to get the same education, or the same value from education made available to you.  On the other hand, education seems to be universally empowering, and therefore we try to make it universally available. If the same is true of various enhancements, should we not make them also universally available? For me the ""if"" is still too big."


You're indeed right, this cannot be answered affirmatively. I will try, without going too deep in details, to brush a shallow portrait In its simplest form, a going concern company could be valued by the present value of a growing perpetuity (Cash Flow/(Required return - growth)), assuming compounding perpetual growth. That's a massive assumption for a yet to turn a dime company. That's why comparable transactions are usually used as benchmark. In this case, your PE can be thought as the inverse of a growing perpetuity, and it's size will be determined by the difference between return and growth. So when you're pre-revenue, you're basically trying to value a moonshot with everything to prove, no matter how genius the idea. Considering the high levels of financial risks due to failure, VCs will require biblical levels of returns (50% to 90% is not unheard of). Hence why they usually leave with a good chunk of the company in seed rounds. When you've had a few sales, you got to know your customer and you've tested the markets, your direction gets clearer and your prospects improve. Risks moves down a notch and the next round of financing will be at much lower rates. Your growth rate, still high but nowhere as crazy as before, can be estimated with relatively more precision. Companies turning a recurrent level of profits are the easiest to value (all else being equal). The financial mathematics are more appropriate now, and their value will be derived by current market conditions as well as comparable transactions. With unlimited resources and perfect markets, the value of the company will be the same wether the founder is at the helm or the VCs are in the place. But considering many founders need the VCs' resources to extract the value of their company and markets are imperfect, the value of the company can change significantly depending on the decisions. Hope that helps!


"It's not just that credit history is local; it's that it's a private business run for profit. The ""big three"" credit bureaus in the US are Experian, Equifax and Transunion.  They collect information on debt usage and abuse from various companies in the US, and charge a fee to provide that information (and their judgement of you) to companies interested in offering you further credit.  But there's nothing stopping a company from collecting international credit histories, or specialized credit histories either (for instance, there's a company called ChexSystems which focuses on retail purchase financing (mostly auto) and checking account abuse, while ignoring other types of lending). That being said, I don't know of any companies which currently collect international credit histories.  Perhaps in Europe, with more nations in close geographic proximity, there would be, but not in North America."


">We can also always use some English and history majors, but we should make sure we get just enough to satisfy the demand.  Or at least those who attend and go for those degrees should not be doing so under any delusions (as they currently are) that the degrees will entitle/enable them to obtain a high-paying job.  The same, BTW would be true of engineering degrees if/when the demand for engineers should go down.  There are no guarantees in life -- and colleges are LYING to youth when they are (even circumferentially) promoting a ""degree"" as if it were."


"lol I'm pretty sure your wife is only happy when she's getting railed by the neighbor.  Bro I live in New York it really doesn't take a lot to see the MET so good on you for trying to trump card the usual bunch of idiots in this subreddit with that silly shit?  >""Buy low. Sell high"",   lol.  Keep it right up.  I fucking love it.  Thanks man."


"I'm not sure I understand your question, but I'll try to answer what I think you're asking. I think you're asking this: ""A US bank receives a wire transfer from a Chinese bank. How does the   US bank ensure there's any money in fact arriving before crediting the   destination account?"" Well, the way wire transfers work is that the US bank would debit the senders' account with that US bank. So the US bank in fact transfers the money between two internal accounts: debit to the Chinese bank's account with that US bank and credit the destination customer account. If the Chinese bank doesn't have an account with the destination US bank - a third party intermediary is used that both banks have accounts with. Such third party will charge an additional fee (hence sometimes the wire transfer fees are slightly higher than you initially know when sending the money, the third party would debit from the transfer amount). ""Regular"" IBAN/ACH transfers work through regulatory channels that ensure integrity and essentially use a regulatory bank as that third party. But because they're done in batches and not on-line, they're much cheaper, and the accounting is for the whole batch and not each transfer separately. But batch processing means it will take a day or two of processing, while wire transfer takes hours at most."


Yes, you can do this buy placing a conditional order to buy at market if the price moves to 106 or above. Once the price hits 106 your market order will hit the market and you will purchase the stock at 106 or above. You can also place a tack profit order at 107 linked to your initial conditional buy order, so that once you buy order is executed and you buy at 106, a take profit order will be executed only if the price reaches 107 or above.  If the price never reaches 106, neither your market buy order or take profit order will hit the market and you won't buy or sell anything.


"I lived near Stockton for about a year and it boggles my mind, why would anyone pay $400,000 for a house there? That is East Bay money (or San Francisco Condo money). What does Stockton have that would cause people to ""flock"" there?"


The fundamental question remains - why was the change so necessary? Google Maps' platform is very open and easy for developers to build upon. I don't see why adding guided turn-by-turn required a complete rehash and rebuild of a maps program. (Not to mention, it doesn't even work on the iPhone 4.)  It is that bad, because what was provided before was that good.


No, it's not possible. Even if you had no deduction or credits, your federal tax on $16,604 would be: $9075 @ 10% = $907.50 +  $7529 @ 15% = $1129.35 = $2036.85 That assumes you are filing as single. There must be more to the story.  Typo in your income numbers?  Also, what do you mean by a self-employment tax deduction? Maybe update your question to include a breakdown of everything you entered? Edit: As noted in Loren's answer, it seems that it is indeed possible in at least one case (self-employment taxes).


Is that what you believe people's choices are in this system? Work for nothing or someone will kill you? The average person here has achieved a higher quality of life because of free market capitalism. Venezuela was starting to move in that direction, until they nationalized everything. Now people have to kill dogs in the street for food. Sounds great...


[A level grades are less than 35% of the grading distribution at Princeton](https://odoc.princeton.edu/faculty-staff/grading-princeton). And, [0.4% of people attending college attend an Ivy league school](https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2011/09/06/20-surprising-higher-education-facts). We'll round that up to 1% to take into account schools like Stanford, Duke, etc. that are close to Ivy League level but aren't called Ivy League. So, 35% of 1% is 0.35%. Goldman is recruiting from literally the top 1%.   There's nothing special about making a 3.5. There *is* something special about being in the top third of a university that accepts the top 1% of applicants. To suggest otherwise is to bleed ignorance.


I have been studying your entries all the way through my morning holiday, and I should admit the entire article has been very enlightening and very well written. I assumed I’d mean you can understand that for a few reason this blog does not view smartly in Internet Explorer 8. I want Microsoft might prevent converting their software. I’ve a question for you. Might you mind changing weblog roll hyperlinks? That may be in reality neat!


"> Ok, would  ""a form supply -side economics"" make you feel better about the term?  No, because this has nothing to do with supply side economics either.  I understand that you don't like supply side economics, and that you don't like non-competes, and that you are morally outraged by both and want to equate them, but they are simply not relevant to each other unless you want to define supply side economics as ""any policy that benefits business"".  Although in this case it doesn't even really benefit business.  It benefits some businesses over other businesses."


>The PriceCheck app is capable of doing the search by taking a picture of the product or speaking the product name, which isn't an option on the Amazon App as far as I'm aware.  These features have been in the Amazon app for Android since at least last April when I first got a smart phone.  I didn't know about the student app, weird.


As October comes and the The Fed Unwind approaches, the Zombies of the Financial crisis rise yet again searching for fresh meet.  And what timing for such a thing, with the OrangeNotTan seeking a new personal butt louse.  Interesting times with such a potential for disaster, its like watching a nuclear train wreck in slow motion.


I'd say product placement straddles the line between ads and general marketing.  If it's blatant then it's likely to turn me off to the product.  If they don't draw attention to it (or if they do but it's self-aware) then I don't mind it as much.  But I still wouldn't consider it an ad.


Yeah I live in Portland, not far from seattle. Housing crises here too. 1 bedroom apartment (with no door) cost me over 1300 a month. It's worse in some places. And this place is kind of a shithole, to boot. Even still, working at minimum wage, this shit is killing me.


The key is that you need to use your debit card to earn the higher interest rate. The bank can offer a higher interest rate on accounts connected with a debit card because: They earn additional income through debit card fees charged towards account holders, among other things. They offer the higher interest rate specifically to encourage people to use their debit cards. By offering a joint checking/savings account that requires you to use your debit card, the bank is assuming that you'll keep more money in your account than you would in a standard checking-only account. Your higher balance translates into more money the bank can loan out or invest, which usually leads to higher profit for them. Businesses pay fees to the bank to accept debit cards. These fees represent another source of profit for the bank. The more you use your debit card, the more the bank earns in fees, so the bank encourages you to use your debit card more frequently through incentives like a higher interest rate or waiving fees on your account if you use your card enough. Plus, since it's likely that an individual who maintains a fairly high balance in an account linked to a debit card is going to spend more (simply because they can spend more), banks will sometimes waive fees on the consumer side for balances over a certain amount.


For most Americans the date on the check determines the tax year.  A check with the date of Jan X 2016 will be reflected on the tax forms you will file in early 2017. That also means that the 401K money is also 2016 money, and so is the money for the flexible spending account, or health savings account. The change of year impacts everybody differently. That last/first check can make a big difference for some people. If you are trying to make sure you deposit the maximum amount of money into one of those accounts, knowing how many pay checks there is in the year is important. It also works the other way, getting an extra check can cause you to over deposit into those accounts. The taxes for that Jan 2016 paycheck are collected by your employer and periodically sent to the appropriate government office. You are paying those taxes on payday, even though you won't file that paperwork until 2017.


YNAB runs on Mac, Win, and Linux.


I went to Sears on Dec 22nd because it's very close to my house. I just wanted to get a few toys for my nieces/nephews.  Their toy section was smaller than the one at CVS/Walgreens.  What the fuck kind of department store doesn't carry toys.   They had less than 20 different items.


"In reality, though, it's essentially impossible to enforce in this case. Sure, a woman could sue if she didn't get the job, and the company might settle to avoid the headache, but I don't think it would be hard to defend with a ""we chose a more qualified candidate"" or some variation, whether true or not."


Make a portfolio with gold and put options for gold. If the price rises again, sell a part of your gold and use it to buy new put options. If the price goes down, then use your put options to sell gold at a favorable price.


I've done my taxes using turbotax for years and they were not simple, Schedule C (self-employed), rental properties, ESPP, stock options, you name it. It's a lot of work and occasionally i did find bugs in TurboTax. ESPP were the biggest pain surprisingly. The hardest part is to get all the paperwork together and you'd have to do it when you hire an accountant anyway. That said this year i am using an accountant as i incorporated and it's a whole new area for me that i don't have time to research. Also in case of an audit i'd rather be represented by a pro. I think the chance of getting audited is smaller when a CPA prepares your return.


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Any thoughts? I would love to hear your feedback. I have been making more on my cryptocurrency investments than I have in trading options. I am falling more and more in love with the cryptocurrency market. There's is nothing like it out there. I tell people, it's like investing in the internet 17 years ago!


"One of the most effective tools we have to keep ourselves from doing things is procrastination.  Most of the time procrastination is a bad thing because we use it to avoid doing things we should be doing.  But it's equally effective at keeping us from doing things that are not good for us, like overspending or overeating. How do we procrastinate things like this?  Put it on a big, fat, TODO list somewhere that you seldom look at.  That will get it out of your head...your subconscious will not keep bugging you about it because it's not worried about forgetting it.  Save the discount code in the list so you know you will have it if you ever want it.  Put other things that you are unlikely to do any time soon on that same list.  Then move on with your life and enjoy your freedom from useless and expensive clutter. I use online TODO lists (also google docs) for keeping track of things I'm supposed to be doing.  One of my lists, ""long term purchases,"" contains a bunch of expensive stuff that I have wanted at some point but not gotten around to purchasing.  I think the list has saved me a lot of money.  Stuff stays on that list a long time.  Ultimately most of the items on the list either become cheap or I lose interest in them. There's a reason salesmen push you to buy NOW NOW NOW.  They know if you procrastinate the decision, you are much less likely to buy."


No. Medical bills for yourself or your human companions may be: Canada Revenue Seeing-eye dogs and the like also get special treatment Nice Doggie There are pet medical insurance policies; but as they are often priced like human policies, they might exclude your animal if it has a pre-existing condition. Good Luck Scott


"Carly was the disaster that just kept giving.  She was unqualified and had an undeserved sense of superiority.  She was ""all hat and no cattle"", as they say in TX.  What really grinded my gears was her propensity to promote hollow slogans in an effort to raise morale and, I guess, to establish a vision.    She was widely despised within the company.  In her mind, she felt all resistance to her was collective opposition to ""change"".  In reality she was scorned for pushing idiotic change."


If it was all toward operating expenses (i.e. not investments) then I'd be all aboard the hate train. But that's not where it goes.  I don't spend time on reddit to educate people so I can shit on them. Just know that there are a lot of smart people who follow this company. I'm not here to prove that I'm one of them, but at least consider there is more to this story than an argument about whether someone checked a damn income statement. I mean, really?


So this is the point I'm trying to make here. The recruiter and hiring manager WON'T be up front with you because -- whether you'd like to admit it or not -- you are entering a potential business negotiation.  They want a good deal. You want a good deal. They are trying to assess your value to their company. You have an idea of your value to them AND other companies.  If you think you're worth 100K but I think your worth 50K to me, sorry we can't make this business agreement work. Best of luck. Sincerely no hard feelings.  I've got a stack of other resumes and you've got a schedule full of other interviews. We both go on with our lives.


The entire best schools progress starting with one level then onto the next and master skills in a logical order. Preferably your school ought to take after an evaluated syllabus that will guarantee that you build up a strong establishment of quality and strategy for your dancing. The essential thing is to be prepared in a pleasant environment in which you are comfortable.


You can simply deposit the check into your joint account. You should be able do that even without his signature. Then you can transfer the money out of that account and into yours.


"You can list it as other income reported on line 21 of form 1040.  In TurboTax, enter at: - Federal Taxes tab (Personal in  Home & Business) - Wages & Income -“I’ll choose what I work on” Button Scroll down to: -Less Common Income -Misc Income, 1099-A, 1099-C. -The next screen will give you several choices. Choose ""Other reportable Income"". You will reach a screen where you can type a description of the income and the amount. Type in the amount of income and categorize as Tutoring."


Say for example a trade totals $10,000.  A flat tax of 0.2% would be $20.  This is not much for the Buy & Holder b/c he only makes a few trades a year, say 10 transactions a year.  So their tax is only about $200 per year. (heck we could even drop it to 0.1%).  But DayTraders will routinely do 10 trades a day, or over 3000 trades a year.  So using that same 10K trade above, that could hypothetically be 3000x20 = $60,000 per year in taxes.  Computer Traders will do hundreds of trades per day.  Say 30,000 trades per year.  So that is $600,000.  So you can see how iit hardly affects legitimate investors, while making the HF traders control themselves a bit.  This is what we want.  The exchanges charge the flat tax with the transaction like a Sales tax.  It avoids excess regulation (the SEC already monitors trades, or is supposed to), and it hurts the gamblers (HFTs), while not hindering the good guys (investors).


">Please study the history of the labor movement in the United States. There's a reason we're paid actual money and not ""company bucks."" Because businesses WILL find a way to pay employees nothing if they can.  Nonsense.  Businesses must compete for labor.  They will pay the market wage.  >No. I want to ensure that the price paid for labor matches its real cost. Again, study the labor movement.  The price for labor is set by the supply and demand for labor.  That's it.  It's real ""cost"" whatever that means, is irrelevant.  And it's certainly not set by government mandate.  >Sounds like the same fucking thing people (racists) said during the labor movement.  I'm confused what you're saying.  Minimum wage laws are racist, as they overwhelmingly target minorities for job losses.  Let's focus on your policies, not those in the past.  >People who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Seriously, fuck you and your complete and total ignorance of history and complete lack of understanding about basic economic theory.  Seriously, fuck you and your complete and total ignorance of the billions of people lifted out of poverty over the last 100 years of countries adopting capitalistic policies.  How many hundreds of millions of people need to be slaughtered by communist dictators before you abandon your racist and misguided economic policies?"


Commission only, but many firms or whatever they're called will set you up with an office. I know he's in his first year and only will do 3-4 sales a year, but the commissions are 20-30k for each sale.


"I love that they say ""and look at the facts"" and it's all charts.  Charts are incredibly easy to bias.  Also, common sense wisdom based on charts isn't the way to analyze the economy. It'd be neat if they got a little more sophisticated with something like IS=LM instead of just 'DEBT RISING IS BAD'"


Difference between a limit and market order is largely a trade-off between price certainty and timing certainty. If you think the security is already well priced, the downside of a limit order is the price may never hit your limit and keep trading away from you. You'll either spend a lot of time amending your order or sitting around wishing you'd amended your order.  The downside of a market order is you don't know the execution price ahead of time. This is typically more of a issue with illiquid instruments where even smaller orders may have price impact. For small trades in more liquid securities your realized price will often resemble the last traded price. Hope that helps. Both have a purpose, and the best tool for the job will depend on your circumstances.


In the U.S., publicly traded companies are under the rules of Regulation Fair Disclosure, which says that a company must release information to all investors at the same time.  The company website and social media both count as fair disclosure, because every investor has access to those outlets, but a press release newswire service could also be the first outlet.  (What is forbidden by this regulation is the practice of releasing news first to the brokers, who could inform certain customers of the news early.) I think that the first outlet for press releases could be different for each company, depending on the internal procedures of the company.  Some would update their website first, and others would wait to update the site until the press release hits the newswire first.


"This is great guys! I'll take a ""comment per day"" approach and write my view on each concept raised. I don't mind how far fetched or crazy it might be, if it's a informative question (""What are derivatives?"") I will explain it in a informative manner. If it's an opinionated question (""What is the intrisic value of water?"" :P) I will try to explain it terms of Finance mainly but the general perspective will be opinionated.  First up is iamstandingbehindyou! I'll tackle your question first :) If you guys would like I can mention your twitter/personal site as a reference to the origin of the question. If not, I'll link to your reddit user :D"


">Why are we still working like we're slaves?  Do you ever wonder how we can put, in our pockets, computing power that people could only dream of decades ago, with access to the entire world at instantaneous speeds? Why we can maybe colonize Mars someday, why we have nicer homes, more secure cars, more advanced anything really?  It's because everybody is still working so much instead of taking the mindset of ""we have everything so let's just chill out."" We still have 40 hour work days ingrained in our mindset instead of ""we could probably get away with just working 3 days a week.""  Maybe you just want to chill out, but generally, it seems like the world doesn't want to."


When we speak about a product or service, we generally refer to its value. Currency, while neither a product or service, has its own value. As the value of currency goes down, the price of products bought by that currency will go up. You could consider the price of a product or service the value of the product multiplied by the value of the currency. For your first example, we compare two cars, one bought in 1990, and one bought in 2015. Each car has the same features (AC, radio, ABS, etc). We can say that, when these products were new, each had the same value. However, we can deduce that since the 1990 car cost $100, and the 2015 car cost $400, that there has been 75% inflation over 25 years. Comparing prices over time helps identify the inflation (or devaluation of currency) that an economy is experiencing. In regards to your second question, you can say that there was 7% inflation over five years (total). Keep in mind that these are absolute cumulative values. It doesn't mean that there was a 7% increase year over year (that would be 35% inflation over five years), but simply that the absolute value of the dollar has changed 7% over those five years. The sum of the percentages over those five years will be less than 7%, because inflation is measured yearly, but the total cumulative change is 7% from the original value. To put that in perspective, say that you have $100 in 2010, with an expected 7% inflation by 2015, which means that your $100 will be worth $93 in 2015. This means that the yearly inflation would be about 1.5% for five years, resulting in a total of 7% inflation over five years. Note that you still have a hundred dollar bill in your pocket that you've saved for five years, but now that money can buy less product. For example, if you say that $100 buys 50 gallons of gasoline ($2/gallon) in 2010, you will only be able to afford 46.5 gallons with that same bill in 2015 ($2.15/gallon). As you can see, the 7% inflation caused a 7% increase in gasoline prices. In other words, if the value of the car remained the same, its actual price would go up, because the value stayed the same. However, it's more likely that the car's value will decrease significantly in those five years (perhaps as much as 50% or more in some cases), but its price would be higher than it would have been without inflation. If the car's value had dropped 50% (so $50 in original year prices), then it would have a higher price (50 value * 1.07 currency ratio = $53.50). Note that even though its value has decreased by half, its price has not decreased by 50%, because it was hoisted up by inflation. For your final question, the purpose of a loan is so that the loaner will make a profit from the transaction. Consider your prior example where there was 7% inflation over five years. That means that a loan for $100 in 2010 would only be worth $93 in 2015. Interest is how loans combat this loss of value (as well as to earn some profit), so if the loaner expects 7% inflation over five years, they'll charge some higher interest (say 8-10%, or even more), so that when you pay them back on time, they'll come out ahead, or they might use more advanced schemes, like adjustable rates, etc. So, interest rates will naturally be lower when forecasted inflation is lower, and higher when forecasted inflation is higher. The best time to get a loan is when interest rates are low-- if you get locked into a high interest loan and inflation stalls, they will make more money off of you (because the currency has more value), while if inflation skyrockets, your loan will be worth less to loaner. However, they're usually really good about predicting inflation, so it would take an incredible amount of inflation to actually come out on top of a loan.


"For whatever it's worth.  Judging from the comments in the other answers, I think everyone is addressing your question, ""How can you possibly lose money,""  there are a lot of ways to possibly lose money in the stock market.  Here are my thoughts.  This is a chart of the S&P 500 from about 1996 to about 2012.  At the top from the first arrow the entire S&P500 index fell about 45%.  From the top of the second arrow the entire S&P500 index fell about 52%.  It is really easy to look at our sustained bull market and feel invincible.  And while I'll concede that not every company in the index fell over these two periods, bear in mind that the S&P500 index is a collection of the 500 largest companies in the United States, and the entire index lost half it's value twice.  As the companies contained in the index shrink in value, they were replaced by companies that are the new biggest 500 in the country, then those fell too, and so on and so forth until the entire index lost half. Value is a funny thing because it isn't necessarily tied to the performance of the business (look at the current rosy valuations of all these non-earnings tech-companies).  It could be that a company is still performing very well but there are just no buyers for the stock.   So, how can you lose money in the stock market?  Very easily.  In A practical sense, it's when you need the money and can no longer weather the storm.  People who went out for retirement around 2000 couldn't sit around and wait until 2007 for their account values to be replenished.  This is why you roll off your stock exposure as you age.  As you get older you don't have time and if you stop having income you can find yourself selling your assets at the least opportune time."


Right, but if the doctor is purposely and knowingly selling you bad medicine so he can get rich, and screw over thousands of other people I'd want him locked up all the same. This crisis we had was no error... They knew what they were doing the just didn't give a fuck.


Yes, but I make a distinction between someone who works full time for years to buy a home for themselves and maybe an investment property, and someone like Trump who abuses financial tools and regulations to generate excessive wealth and avoid his own obligations.


Maxing out an IRA would probably be step 1, if you exceed that probably just aim for saving in a taxable brokerage account. Just try and stick to ETFs if you're gonna index since they're slightly more tax efficient than a mutual fund


"Home ownership is thought to be a lifetime investment and is touted as a big part of the ""American Dream.""  That's changing now, as a lot of younger people have seen their parents' lifetime investments become worthless thanks to a lot of shoddy book keeping and lending practices. The 15-year mortgage is becoming more common these days, but that's still three times longer than what Canadians are achieving."


"Thanks for the response. I apologize I should have specified about the govt. job, I was referring to was a state job. More specifically it was 3 jobs with the California BOE as an Auditor 1 and Business Tax Rep. and also another job with the county assessors office as an Audit/Appraiser.  The state jobs were my best bet because of connections but they can only do so much since its a govt. job and people are cracking down on nepotism. With the little amount of research I just did, the pre-requisite to take the PMP certification is Four-year degree, 4,500 hours leading and directing projects. and 35 hours of project management education. That seems like a bit much and a somewhat vague as to what counts as relevant ""hours"" so i'll have to look into it more. But as of now, given my experience the PMP is not something I can't obtain until I have those hours under my belt?"


The question in my view is going into Opinion and economics. Why would I buy a bond with a negative yield? I guess you have answered yourself; Although the second point is more relevant for high net worth individual or large financial institutions / Governments where preserving cash is an important consideration. Currently quite a few Govt Bonds are in negative as most Govt want to encourage spending in an effort to revive economy.


The first place to look for an accountant is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants which has a directory of CPAs, accounting companies, and local accounting societies. I was also looking for one for my own small firm.  It really helps.


Have you people even heard of the automotive industry?  Unions are terrible for people and terrible for business.  If we were experiencing significant economic expansion right now it might be a bit different but that simply is not the case.


First, the recipient is not responsible for any gift tax, the giver pays the tax. The gift is not taxable income to the recipient and so the recipient does not pay any income tax on the gift either. More than that, and they tap into their lifetime exclusion, currently (2015) $5.43M. All that's needed is a simple form. More convoluted, would be to lend you the full amount and then forgive $14,000 per year. Unnescesary paperwork, in my opinion.


"There's a subtle difference. An MLM is allowed/legal if you can buy products at price A from the company and re-sell them at higher price B to your customers. Pyramid schemes almost always disguise themselves as MLM's. In Herbalife's new report they said they met the FTC's guidelines of earning at least 80% of their revenues from ""real customers outside of their distributor network"". In fact they said the number is closer to 90%. I find this particularly interesting because this number was real close to 0% less than a year ago and it magically has surpassed 80% in a short amount of time. Doesn't really add up."


No, you don't. But you do need to file FBAR to report your foreign accounts if you have $10K or more at any given day in all of them combined, when you're a US resident. You need to file FBAR annually by the end of June (note: it must be received by FinCEN by the end of June, but nowadays you file it electronically anyway).


Trader Joe's operates in 100% cash, no debt.  No unions, no shareholders to answer to. The owners don't take any of the money.  All the money is circulated back into the company.  They lease small buildings and pay the rent in advance.


Here's one option:  Telephone is a lower-tech yet relatively more secure means for transmitting your payment information when a secure web site isn't available. And yet another option:  You could send them an encrypted email, but this would require tools (e.g. GPG), setup (public keys), and expertise on their end which they are unlikely to already have. However, ChrisInEdmonton raised a good point in his comment.  How can you consider them to be a reputable seller when they don't take basic precautions to protect customers' payment information online? The seller may with good faith charge your card the correct amount and deliver the goods that you expect, but how will they protect your credit card information once in their hands?  Would you trust their internal systems if they can't even set up an HTTPS web site?


"I made a throwaway for this...   I work in IT for the government. I was tasked with finding a vendor that provided a particular kind of software. My bosses expected it would take me 4-6 months to source out companies, go through all the paperwork and process to work with them, try to get them to understand what we need, and them aid them in implementing their software on our stack.   Well, that seemed like an enormous waste of time (and ridiculously boring), so instead I wrote the software on my own time over the course of 4 months, built a subscription model around it, and incorporated a company. I've since sold the subscription based model to a number of other government bodies and clients. The government body I work for has around 250 employees, and I recently sold a subscription to a peer government body with over 1500 employees.   I built a free subscription tier that my current company uses so that i'm not taking any payment from them, to avoid any conflicts of interest, and built the entire project on my own time and resources.   The funny thing is, the software product I built easily beat out all the competitors in blind tests, and no one that I work for could ever imagine that I am capable of even being employed by such a company, forget building the whole stack and founding the company. In fact, all of upper management has been impressed with the software I ""found"", and how well it has worked... there has been a ton of positive feedback on it since it was launched.   I'm basically just sitting on this project (that is mostly self sustaining), until I can just cash out - which should be quite soon.   **Edit** to the people warning me what i'm doing is illegal, a few key points    - 1) The public sector can't legally profit from anything, my job is to limit cost, not make a profit... which leads to...    - 2) I'm not charging the government body I work for, it's a free implementation devoid of contract. I also ensured I do all the work on my own time, not company time. I live somewhere where most government employees work multiple jobs, so this isn't uncommon. In fact, my government body actually does often hire contractors who are also employed. So not only did I create the service on my own time, I gave it to my employer for free (other companies pay, of course)    - 3) I don't live in the US, things are different where I am. It is certainly not illegal, and I would even argue that (given this is the public sector) it is even somewhat ethical. My work saved my employer (the tax payer) a significant amount of money, which is a net positive. The service is of high quality, and I did not break any employment agreements or laws in the process.     - 4) I hired a lawyer to double check everything.     - 5) I absolutely am not in any way using any proprietary information for profit. I'm not even using my contacts through work as leverage for sales - everything so far has been cold calls and positive references from other clients. This was a key part of the project."


First, gather the information you have on her banking history.  She may have accounted for that money and moved it to a new account or otherwise spent it.  I don't expect you'll have much banking documentation from the 1950s, but if you do, then start there and trace the money. To the extent you can, you may try to contact the banks in question or their successors.  It may be difficult to trace them through mergers or closings.  Again, it's very possible that she spent or transferred those funds and there is nothing to find anyway. There is also a risk that if the money went unclaimed for too long, then the bank was obligated to escheat any remaining balance to the state of Ohio.  You can try contacting Ohio Department of Commerce about unclaimed funds and attempt to locate anything that may have rightly belonged to her.  You will need to gather documentation to do so.  You may be able to receive the funds from the state, if it has received them.


"Dividends are paid based on who owns the security on a designated day.  If a particular security pays once per year, you hold 364 days and sell on the day before the ""critical"" day, you get no dividend.  This is not special to 401(k) or to DRIP.  It's just how the system works. The ""critical"" day is the day before the posted ex-dividend date for the security. If you own at the end of that day, you get the dividend.  If you sell on that day or before, you do not. Your company changing providers is not in itself relevant.  The important factor is whether you can still hold your same investments in the new plan.  If not, you will not get the dividend on anything that you currently hold but ""sell"" due to the change in providers.  If you can, then you potentially get the dividend so long as there's no glitch in the transition. Incidentally, it works the other way too.  You might end up getting a dividend through the new plan for something that you did not hold the full year."


Why would someone invest in other instruments (e.g. stocks) to pay for   childrens' college education when the capital gains on those are   taxed, unlike a home equity loan? Many tax advantageous vehicles exist for the purpose of saving for college education such as 529 plans, Roth IRAs, Series EE and I bonds. Tax and penalty free distributions from a portfolio of stocks is possible if the distributions are for qualified education expenses and the account is in the form of a Roth IRA.  A house is collateral for a home equity line of credit.  A combination of unfortunate events could cause someone to default on the loan and loose their residence. Also, the tax advantages of 529 plans, and Roth IRAs are not applicable to purchase a motor boat.  With respect, some people like to leave the home equity loan untapped for other uses. More Details: 529 plans are not taxed by on the Federal level when the withdraws are used for college.  In many states, contributions to state sponsored 529 plans are deductible on the state level.  These are not self directed so you can't trade stocks/bonds in a 529 plan, however, certain plans allow you to lock in the rate you pay for credit at today's prices. If you want a self directed (ability to trade stocks/bonds) vehicle with tax free disbursements for qualified education, consider a Roth IRA. There are yearly contribution limits, and penalty if the proceeds are not used for qualified educational expenses. Also I believe interest revenue from Series EE and I bonds is tax free if the bond is used for education. There are special conditions and situations to 529 plans, Roth IRAs, Series EE and I bonds, the purpose of this answer was to expand upon the tax advantageous vehicles for higher education.


The headline is totally misleading.  Construction costs have risen by 30% according to the statistic. This is not construction wage growth by 30%. They don't address how much construction wage growth has actually occurred.  This increase in cost will be pushed onto the consumer. Increase in cost by 30% means people will have to get used to paying 30% more for construction services.


This is a topic you need to sit down and discuss with your parents. Income taxes probably aren't going to be a big issue, and will be refunded in April. Social Security and Medicare will not be refunded, but start you on the road to qualifying for them in the future. How much of you expenses you will now cover will be a family decision; how much of your college expenses you will be responsible for will also need to be discussed. These topics need to be understood before it is time to apply to schools in the fall of your senior year of high school. It is nice to know that you are at least thinking about saving money for your future and for emergencies.


lying about X to get Y is not a healthy behavior.   if you care about mental health you wouldn't normalize lying.  you're creating a stereotype where stoners are either sick or liars. if thats what your goal is then youre a jerk, if not youre an idiot.


The United States Federal Reserve has decided that interest rates should be low. (They think it may help the economy. The details matter little here though.) It will enforce this low rate by buying Treasury bonds at this very low interest rate. (Bonds are future money, so this means they pay a lot of money up front, for very little interest in the future. The Fed will pay more than anyone who offers less money up front, so they can set the price as long as they're willing to buy.) At the end of the day, Treasury bonds pay nearly no interest.   Since there's little money to be made with Treasuries, people who want better-than-zero returns will bid up the current-price of any other bonds or similar loan-like instruments to get what whatever rate of return that they can. There's really no more than one price for money; you can think of the price of those bonds as basically (Treasury rate + some modifier based on the risk) percent.  I realize thinking about bond prices is weird and different than other prices (you're measuring future-money using present-money and it's easy to be confused) and assure you it ultimately makes sense :) Anyway. Your savings account money has to compete with everyone else willing to lend money to banks. Everyone-else lends money for peanuts, so you get peanuts on your savings account too. Your banking is probably worth more to your bank on account of your check-card payment processing fees (collected from the merchant) than from the money they make lending out your savings (notice how many places have promotional rates if you make your direct deposits or use your check card to make a purchase N times a month).  In Europe, it's similar, except you've got a different central bank. If Europe's bank operated radically differently for an extended period of time, you'd expect to see a difference in the exchange rates which would ultimately make the returns from investing in those currencies pretty similar as well. Such a change may show up domestically as inflation in the country with the loose-money policy, and internationally as weakness against other currencies. There's really only one price for money around the entire world. Any difference boils down to a  difference in (perceived) risk.


"It can be a good thing for the bank to refinance your loan for you - since you will be keeping the loan at that particular institution.  This gives them more time to enjoy the free money you pay them in interest for the remaining life of the loan. Banks that offer ""No closing costs"" are betting that mortgage payers will move their mortgage to get the lower interest rates - and whomever holds the loan, gets the interest payments."


I don't have a problem with Wal-Mart, except in certain situations.  They just got caught bribing Mexicans despite advice from their American counsel.  That is extremely illegal and goes pretty high up in the corporate office.      I was just pointing out there's a big ass denominator, so it's a bit difficult to interpret any raw statistics about Wal-mart without taking that into context.  The article linked does this without remorse regarding Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid.


Less access to it means less people smoking it.  When it becomes legal, I'm more worried about new smokers being on the road than current ones.  People will smoke up and drive not knowing how impaired they are.


I'm not exactly sure, but it may be due to liquidity preference.  SPY has a much higher volume (30d average of roughly 70m vs. 3.3m, 1.9m for IVV, VOO respectively), and similarly has a narrow bid ask spread of about 0.01 compared to 0.02 for the other two.  I could be wrong, but I'm going to leave this post up and look in to it later, I'm curious too. The difference is very consistent though, so it may be something in their methodology.


As mentioned in the comments, there are costs associated with owning & living in an apartment. First you have to pay maintenance charges on a monthly basis and perhaps also property tax. Find out the overall outgoings when you live in that apartment & add the EMI payments to the bank, it should not be way higher than your current rent. As an advantage you are getting an asset when you buy an apartment & rent is a complete loss, ast least financial terms. So, real estate is in general a good idea over paying rent. As for the loan part, personal loans are by far the most expensive of loans as they are in general unsecured loans (but do check with your bank). One way is to try and get a student loan, which should be cheaper. If you can borrow from family that is the best option, you could return the money with perhaps bank fixed deposit rates, it is better to pay family interest than bank. If none of the options are workable, then personal loan is something you need to look at with a clear goal to pay it off as soon as possible and try to take it in stages, as an when you require it and if possible avoid taking all the 15,000/- at once.


"Well.... If you have alllll your money invested, and then there's a financial crisis, and there's a personal crisis at the same time (e.g. you lose your job) then you're in big trouble. You might not have enough money to cover your bills while you find a new job. You could lose your house, ruin your credit, or something icky like that.  Think 2008. Even if there's not a financial crisis, if the money is in a tax-sheltered retirement account then withdrawing it will incur ugly penalities. Now, after you've got an emergency fund established, things are different. If you could probably ride out six to twelve months with your general-purpose savings, then with the money you are investing for the long term (retirement) there's no reason you shouldn't invest 100% of the money in stocks. The difference is that you're not going to come back for that money in 6 months, you're going to come back for it in 40 years. As for retirement savings over the long term, though, I don't think it's a good idea to think of your money in those terms. If you ever lose 100% of your money on the stock market while you've invested in diversified instruments like S&P500 index funds, you're probably screwed one way or another because that represents the core industrial base of the US economy, and you'll have better things to worry about, like looking for a used shotgun. Myself, I prefer to give the suggestion ""don't invest any money in stocks if you're going to need to take it out in the next 5 years or so"" because you generally shouldn't be worried about a 100% loss of all the money in stocks your retirement accounts nearly so much as you should be worried about weathering large, medium-term setbacks, like the dot-com bubble crash and the 2008 financial crisis. I save the ""don't invest money unless you can afford to lose it all"" advice for highly speculative instruments like gold futures or social-media IPOs. Remember also that while you might lose a lot of your money on the stock market, your savings accounts and bonds will earn you pathetic amounts by comparison, which you will slowly lose to inflation. If you've had your money invested for decades then even during a crash you may still be coming out ahead relative to bonds."


The best, cheapest and safe way is to wire transfer that money from their Bank Account to yours. Ask your bank about information regarding inbound international wire transfer and provide those details to your dad. About how much amounts can he do so : if the amount is more than $10K, you need to provide enough information about where the money is coming from, sources and other legal details. Whatever way you chose, never do transfers in small chunks (which is called structuring), to avoid the legal hassle - as that might result in more issues and every bank has checks in place to find out this way of structuring. I would suggest wire transfer all the money, through proper channel, through the banks. It's better to pay some fees, follow the law and live peacefully than to go through some improper channels to avoid paltry fees and get into serious issues.


"Definitely not what I'm saying, I'm saying that instead of some of these companies spending 70% of their earnings on stock buybacks they should reinvest that money into their employees and pay out larger dividends to shareholders. I understand share repurchases are fine when not done in excess, but right now it's in excess to manipulate EPS and hit targets. You're missing the point, I'm not talking about the  ""NPV of a random project"".   Edit: this article I just found explains perfectly what I'm talking about: https://amp.businessinsider.com/whats-a-buyback-and-why-do-some-investors-hate-them-2016-6"


"All bonds carry a risk of default, which means that it's possible that you can lose your principal investment in addition to potentially not getting the interest payments that you expect.  Bonds (in the US anyway) are graded, so you can manage this risk somewhat by taking higher quality bonds, i.e. in companies or governments that are considered more creditworthy. Regular bank savings (again specific to the US) are insured by FDIC, so even if your bank goes bust, the US Government is backing them up to some limit.  That makes such accounts less risky.  There's generally no insurance on a bond, even if it is issued by a government entity. If you do your homework on the bond rating system and choose bonds in a rating band where you're comfortable, this could be a good option for you.  You'll find, however, that the bond market also ""knows"" that the interest rates are generally low, so be ware that higher interest issues are usually coming from less creditworthy (and therefore more risky) issuers. EDIT Here's some additional information based on the follow-up question in the comment.  When you buy a bond you are actually making a loan to the issuer.  They will pay you interest over the lifetime of the bond and then return your principal at the end of the term. (Verify this payment schedule - This is typical, but you should be sure that whatever you're buying works like this.)  This is not an investment in the value of the issuer itself like you would be making if you bought stock. With stock you are taking an ownership share in the company. This might entitle you to dividends if the company pays them, but otherwise your investment value on a stock will be tied to the performance of the company.  With the bond, the company might be in decline but the bond still a good investment so long as the company doesn't decline so much that they cannot pay their debts. Also, bonds can be issued by governments, but governments do not sell stock. (An ""ownership share of the government"" would not make sense.) This may be the so-called sovereign debt if issued by a sovereign government or it may be local (we call it municipal here in the US) debt issued by a subordinate level of government.  Bonds are a little bit like stock in the sense that there's a secondary market for them.  That means that if you get partway through the length of the bond and don't want to hold it, you can sell the bond to someone else.  Of course, it will be harder to sell a bond later if the company becomes insolvent or if the interest rates go up between when you buy and when you sell.  Depending on these market factors, you might end up with a capital gain or capital loss (meaning you get more or less than the principal that you put into the bond) at the time of a sale."


What?! At that level of military, nearly everything that person does is through email (at least, in the Army, it is). I was enlisted, but for a couple years they put me at division level. Working with a 1-star, 2-star, and half a dozen full birds and sergeant majors, I can tell you every. thing. is done through email. Even though these people are in the same building, they're emailing each other constantly and passing docs back and forth. Maybe Navy admirals don't get much official mail, I don't know. But it definitely wasn't like that in the Army.


">**He tells buyers** he ""is involved at every capacity"". This is a lie.  In the link you provided, this was never mentioned. The only claim made about 'The Donald' is that he said he was basically a spokesman for the project.   I'm not seeing any reasons given for the project collapse, or any context for the why's and how's of it. It is too bad that it never ended up happening, but sometimes investments are lost, for a variety of reasons."


I talked to the director of equity research at an international us based bank. He said that with mifid ii would force them to unbundle research fees in the US. It would be very difficult to have a different fee structure only for UK clients.


"Clearly you aren't in trading. While that is the case for IBanking, I personally work with numerous very successful traders who ""underperformed their peers"" and I'm not doing so bad myself either.   Having a good GPA has almost no correlation with being a good trader. Honestly, from the interviews I've given I've found that the kids with the extremely high GPA's 4.0, were less suited for the profession."