"Yes. A most emphatic yes.  I suggest you look at your 2014 return and project what 2015 will look like. I'd convert enough to ""top off"" the 15% bracket. Note, if you overshoot it, and in April 2016, see that you are say $5K into the 25% rate, you can just recharacterize the amount you went over and nail the bracket to the dollar.  If you have the time and patience, you can convert into 2 different Roth accounts. One account for one asset class, say large cap stocks/funds, the other, cash/bonds. In April, keep the account that outperformed, and only recharacterize the lagger. Roth Roulette is my name for this strategy. It's risk free, and has the potential to boost the value of your conversions.  Edit - To be clear, you are permitted to recharacterize (undo) any or all of the converted amount. You actually have until tax time (4/15 or so) plus the 6 month extension. You can recharacterize for any reason - A personal anecdote - I manage my mother in law's money. She is well under the 25% bracket cutoff. Each year I convert, and each April, recharacterize just enough to be at the top of the 15% bracket. Over $100K has been shifted from Traditional IRA to Roth by now. Taxed at 15% so her daughters will 'not' pay 25% when they withdraw. $10K in tax saved from uncle sam, for my effort of filling out paper twice a year for 12 years now. Well worth my effort."


Your debt is insane.  Forget investing, pay off your debt.  You owe 100% of your salary, with only one smallish asset (6K in the bank).  Sure you have a car, but the value of the car is falling rapidly and can be taken to near zero by a simple accident.  Once you have your debts paid off (or at least to a reasonable level) you can think about investing.  The 401K is the best place to start as you alluded to. Okay so you have some money left over and you want to do some other investing.  What is the goal of that investing?  If your desire is to learn about the stock market, and play a bit, then sure, by a few shares of some hot stock.   If your goal is to buy a house, then a savings account is probably best. It all depends on what you want to do.


I love you guys, you’re the most honest and hard working taxi drivers I’ve ever met.  People come to Siem reap two ways, by air and via the boarder from Thailand.  When I was there the busses would drop you off at Poipet and you would have to hire a car to take you the rest of the way.  Now the busses go direct.  People via land don’t plan out much.  I would have said years ago to get a contact in Poipet to hand out flyers.  Now it’s different.  I would work out deals with bus drivers and hotels.  Another idea would be to find maybe four other drivers and start a company.  I would advertise this company on trip advisor, and the other travel sites.  You will have better luck as a conglomerate of people rather than one guy.   The key is to get the client before anyone else snatches them up.  To keep the client you should learn as much about Angkor Wat as you can and double as a tour guide.  My driver just went to sleep after he dropped us off.  Know the best restaurants, don’t take them to places that give you kickbacks, really look out for the client.  You need to be more than just a driver.  You are their tour guide.  Make them feel safe and give them your knowledge.


I often sell covered calls, and if they are in the money, let the stock go. I am charged the same fee as if I sold online ($9, I use Schwab) which is better than buying back the option if I'm ok to sell the stock.  In my case, If the option is slightly in the money, and I see the options are priced well, i.e. I'd do another covered call anyway, I sometimes buy the option and sell the one a year out.  I prefer to do this in my IRA account as the trading creates no tax issue.


"There are only three circumstances where building your own ""index"" portfolio make sense, in my opinion."


There are several reasons why credit cards are popular in the US: On the other hand, debit cards do not have any of these going for them.  A debit card doesn't make much money for the bank unless you overdraw or something, so banks don't have incentive to push you to use them as much.  As a result they don't offer rewards other benefits. Some people say the ability to spend more than you have is a downside of a credit card.  But it's really an upside.  The behavior of doing that when it isn't needed is bad, but that's not the card's fault, it's the users'.  You can get a credit card with a very small limit if this is an issue for you. The question I find interesting is why debit cards are more popular in your home country.  I can't think of any advantage they offer besides free cash back.  But most people in the US don't use cash much either.  I have to think in your home country the banks have a different revenue model or perhaps your country isn't as eager to offer tons of easy credit to everyone as the US is.


Supplier of Talc Powder in India http://quartzpowdermanufacturers.com/supplier-of-talc-powder-in-india.php Shri Vinayak Industries is a very popular Supplier and Manufacturer of Talc Powder. We are offering supreme quality and a wide range of Talc Powder that is manufactured and processed from best raw material. Talc Powder is a type of mineral that is known as hydrated magnesium silicate scientifically and it naturally occurs in crystalline form. Our Talc Powder product is well known for its best quality and affordable prices. We provide ideal quality of soap stone powder. We are providing fruitful deals to the clients as we provide them at reasonable rates.


"Bank for International Settlements (BIS) are the guys in Switzerland that came up with the Basel accords and gave us fun things like Capital Adequacy Ratios and kept bankers constipated for the last decade.  It seems According to them, the bankers have been up to no good again and have been engaging in bank to bank currency swaps and derivative swaps in a manner that has allowed them to by pass regulatory safe guards and hide the debt off balance sheet, and a situation is occurring where they have to pay back their debt before the debt that is owed to them matures and that could lead to a credit crunch and liquidity crisis.  The trigger they feel for this could be a rise in inflation in the US which would lead to the Fed raising rates or an unforeseen shock to the dollar that would tighten the market.   ""Signs of excess are visible everywhere. “Corporate debt is now considerably higher than it was pre-crisis. Leverage indicators have reached levels reminiscent of those that prevailed during previous corporate credit booms. A growing share of firms face interest expenses exceeding earnings before interest and taxes,” said the report.  Up shit creek and its in danger of popping"


> If you aren't ivy league you have no hope of getting on wall st in front office.  BB associate here coming in to confirm this.  Front office wall st is comprised of 2 types of people.    1* Tier 1 (Ivy, 4.0 UChicago, London School of Econ, 4.0 NYU, etc)  undergrads who didn't make it into HF's and are looking for exp so they can move into HF realm.  These are usually interns from junior/sr summer that are now on 2 year analyst rotation programs (usually 4 rotations of 6 months).  2* MBA/MS and CFA Charterholders with past experience in capital markets.  This means they have already been working at a BB whether it was in relationship management or middle office.


"Have you avoided business articles, family bbqs, and friends for the past 20 years? Have you ever shopped anywhere else?    This is a comment a best buy executive would make. ""Oh it's bad? It works for me...could you tell me what's wrong?""    (Not that you're a spy. Or arrrreeeee youuuuu...)"


"I think a the thing with depression and recession is just what he uses  to define those economic statuses. He says at the begining that his thinking on the subject is what he uses and might not be conventional. Interest rates falling to near 0% might be the most common cause of a depression among others and why he chose to talk about it.   &nbsp; For the different methods of depression recovery I beleive he was trying to say that the path to a ""beautiful devleraging"" requires balance. Certaintly the deflationary tactics have there own merits, and are not solely for the purpose of offsetting the inflationary methods, but a balance of everything is the most crucial factor for an efficient recovery."


I think your reasons are good. Fundamentally accounting software is built to ensure you record your accounting data effectively with minimal mistakes and good auditing. But you still need to use the tool properly to get the benefit. One other advantage is that many accountants are familiar with, say QuickBooks, and can do your accounts more effectively if you use their preferred tool.


If you're trying to teach them the value of money and quantifying the dollar difference between prices, one very effective way to do this is by using bar charts. For instance, if a toy is $5, and movie they really want to see is $10, and a vacation they want to go on costs $2000, it can be a useful tool to help explain how the relative costs work.


The expense fees are high, and unfortunate. I would stop short of calling it criminal, however.  What you are paying for with your expenses is the management of the holdings in the fund. The managers of the fund are actively, continuously watching the performance of the holdings, buying and selling inside the fund in an attempt to beat the stock market indexes. Whether or not this is worth the expenses is debatable, but it is indeed possible for a managed fund to beat an index.  Despite the relatively high expenses of these funds, the 401K is still likely your best investment vehicle for retirement. The money you put in is tax deductible immediately, your account grows tax deferred, and anything that your employer kicks in is free money.  Since, in the short term, you have little choice, don't lose a lot of sleep over it.  Just pick the best option you have, and occasionally suggest to your employer that you would appreciate different options in the future. If things don't change, and you have the option in the future to rollover into a cheaper IRA, feel free to take it.


You bought a rental property in 2001. Hopefully you paid fair value else other issues come into play.  Say you paid $120K. You said you have been taking depreciation, which for residential real estate is taken over 27.5 years, so you are about halfway through. Since you don't depreciate land, you may have taken a total $50K so far.  With no improvements, and no transaction costs, you have $50K in depreciation recapture, taxed at a maximum 25% (or your lower, marginal rate) and a cap gain of the 5-10K you mentioned. Either can be offset by losses you've been carrying forward if you suffered large stock losses at some point.


No offense but ideas are cheap and easy to come by. Execution is the hard part.   I think your audience probably has plenty of ideas of their own that they need help implementing. Maybe your ideas could include that as well.....


By most estimates, North Korea doesn't have an effective means of retaliating with a nuclear weapon. Further, its not like we were attacking North Korea even when they have repeatedly attempted to assassinate the leader of South Korea, shelled South Korea, or Torpoedoed one of their ships.   The thing that keeps them from being steamrolled is that no one wants to pay to fix their country afterwards.


If it is closed, you should be able to trust that it is closed permanently. What you still have is the online account. Imagine this would be removed and then the account would be re-activated? That should not happen, but the way you see it, you must be afraid of that as well. What I mean to say: See these two things as completely separate.


I actually like bdubs... the wings. and fried pickles at least. The rest of the menu blows, but if they did some beer specials and brought back wing Wednesday at a reasonable price, they'd be fine. Everyone I know that used to frequent there went when it was 30 cent wings. This wasnt too long ago and I'm pretty sure they've doubled in price since


You're talking about NQO - non-qualified stock options. Even assuming the whole scheme is going to work, the way NQO are taxed is that the difference between the fair market value and the strike price is considered income to you and is taxed as salary. You'll save nothing, and will add a huge headache and additional costs of IPO and SEC regulations.


"It's a risky ""investment"" given how capricious the government can be, and like another poster said... if you don't understand it and can't explain proof of work, cryptographic hashes, and how and why there's a limit to total BTC ever, as well as changing difficulty to PoW, and what implications that those things *might* have..."


"fennec has a very good answer but i feel it provides too much information. So i'll just try to explain what that sentence says. Put option is the right to sell a stock. ""16 puts on Cisco at 71 cents"", means John comes to Jim and says, i'll give you 71 cent now, if you allow me to sell one share of Cisco to you at $16 at some point in the future ( on expiration date).  NYT quote says 1000 puts that means 1000 contracts - he bought a right to sell 100,000 shares of Cisco on some day at $16/share. Call option - same idea: right to buy a stock."


The market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent -John Maynard Keynes The stocks could stagnate and trade in a thin range, or decline in value. You assume that your stocks will offer you ANY positive return for every month over 24 months. Just one month of negative returns puts you underwater. Thats whats wrong with it.  Even if you identified any stock that has been up every month for a consecutive 24 months in the past, there is nothing that says it will be so in the future, and a broad market selloff will effect both indexes as well as individual stocks.  Literally any adverse macroeconomic event in the next two years will put you underwater on your loan, no matter how much research you do on individual stocks.


I think part of it is because we put our information on LinkedIn with intent that LinkedIn use it for a single purpose that is beneficial to us. And then LinkedIn - this is going to be shocking, brace yourself - uses it for that purpose, and both us and LinkedIn benefit.  I mean, call me nuts, but if LinkedIn uses my information to get me a new job that pays 20% more, and they make a few thousand bucks in the process, I'm not exactly going to begrudge it to them.  Meanwhile, Facebook sells my personal information to advertisers and tries to get me to spam my friends.


I disagree that it is a silly way to do business. I think many industries are actually moving in the direction of MLM. The whole idea with a successful MLM like amway is that they spend no money on advertising. Did you know most companies spend about a third of their revenue back into advertising? Amway instead pays back that money as a bonus to their distributors. I can't remember which year off the top of my head but a couple years ago amway paid back over 4 billion dollars in bonus to their people. Now look at Uber, they are kind of cutting out the middle man also. Interesting right?


"This is really two questions about yield and contents. Content As others have noted, an annuity is a contractual obligation, not a portfolio contained within an investment product per se. The primary difference between whether an annuity is fixed or variable is what the issuer is guaranteeing and how much risk/reward you are sharing in. Generally speaking, the holdings of an issuer are influenced by the average ""duration"" of the payments. However, you can ascertain the assets that ""back"" that promise by looking at, for example, the holdings of a large insurance or securities firm. That is why issuers are generally rated as to their financial strength and ability to meet their obligations. A number of the market failures you mentioned were in part caused by the failure of these ratings to represent the true financial strength of the firm. Yield As to the second question of how they can offer a competitive rate, there are at least several reasons (I am assuming an immediate annuity) : 1) Return/Depletion of Principal The 7% you are being quoted is the percent of your principal that will be returned to you each year, not the rate of return being earned by the issuer. If you invest $100 in the market personally and get a 5% return, you have $105.  However, the annuity's issuer is also returning part of your principal to you each year in your payment, as they don't return your principal when you eventually die. Because of this, they can offer you more each year than they really make in the market. What makes a Ponzi scheme different is that they are also paying out your principal (usually to others), but lie to you by telling you it's still in your account. :) 2) The Time Value of Money A promise to pay you $500 tomorrow costs less than $500 today A fixed annuity promises to pay you a certain amount of money each year. This can be represented as a rate of return calculated based on how much you have to pay to get that annual payment, but it is important to remember that the first payment will be worth substantially more in real purchasing power than the last payment you get. The longer you live, the less your fixed payment is worth in real terms due to inflation! In short, the rate of return has to be discounted for inflation, it is not a ""real"" rate of return. In other words, if you give me $500 today and I promise to pay you $100 for the next 5 years, I am making money not only because I can invest the money between now and then, but also because $100 will be worth less five years from now than it is today. With annuities, if you want your payment to rise in step with inflation, you have to pay more for that (a LOT more!). These are the two main reasons - here are a few smaller ones: 3) A very long Time Horizon If the stock market or another asset class is performing well/poorly, the issuer can often afford to wait much longer to buy or sell than an individual, and can take better advantage of historical highs and lows over the long term. 4) ""Big Boy"" investing A large, financially sound issuer can afford to take risks that an individual cannot, such as in very large or illiquid assets, such as a private company (a la Warren Buffet). 5) Efficiencies of scale Institutional investors have a number of legal advantages over individuals, which I won't discuss in detail here. However, they exist. Large issuers are also often in related business (insurance, mutual funds) such that they can deal in large volumes and form an internal clearinghouse (i.e. if I want to buy Facebook and you want to sell it, they can just move the stock around without doing any trading), with the result that their costs of trading are lower than those of an individual. Hope that helps!"


Fees mostly.  BOA, for example, just announced $5/month for for all debit cards.  Chase has foreign transaction fees, mostly hidden. BOA once famously raised interest rates on credit card holders to 28%, legally.  Also, some people do not like patronizing a bank with CEOs that bankrupt the company and then get multi-million dollar golden parachutes. Finally some people have a problem with banks or institutions that suspend accounts based on political or unproven legal proceedings (ala Wikileaks and BOA).  Credit unions are less like to be involved in this sort of activity since they are not privately traded, and as such they are not ruled by shareholders who demand bottom line results at all costs.


"In what sense do you think that RBC contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis? You seem to take that as a given without providing any evidence. Through their ownership, at the time, of RBC Bank in Raleigh? RBC came out of the 2008 crisis as one of the strongest banks in the world.  And I explained the nature of the temporary government cash infusion that happened while the world's credit markets were seized up. Calling it ""a bailout"" is just nothing less than misrepresentation. A ""bailout"" implies that mistakes were made by management. But that is not what happened.  And the bubbly property markets in Vancouver and Toronto is irrelevant to your point of supposedly ""fact-checking"" Flashboys."


Here's what you can do: roll up your sleeves and get to work.  Work 2 or 3 jobs while you take 12 credit hours.  Live in the cheapest available housing (that is reasonably safe).  Have no social life.  Wake up, work, class, eat, work, study, sleep. Every day.  Don't eat at restaurants.  Eat only simple meals at home.   Every meal.  Have a car payment?  Get rid of your car and use public transit or get the cheapest running car possible.   One year of nothing but focused effort on paying for and finishing school.  If you can't earn enough to cover 14K on top of your basic living expenses, then you aren't working hard enough, or you have extenuating circumstances that make finishing your degree at this time infeasible.


Once you start going down the bitcoin rabbit hole (I've tried not to go too far myself), two things become abundantly clear:  * It is the perfect vehicle to hide theft (including graft); * It is the perfect vehicle to circumvent currency controls (China).  For those two reasons alone you're likely to see *severe* controls - and if not controls, outright bans.  It would be nearly impossible to ban/eliminate bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies), but the ecosystem necessary to sustain it could be crippled by such efforts.


"If the free market can fix a particular problem it's this one.  For years the baby boomers have been extolling the virtues of the free market to solve any problem.  After all the free market is the most efficient way of meeting infinite demand with scarce resources...or so I'm told - supply and demand...etc.  The problem the C suite is now realizing is this:  Once the baby boomers leave, that ""shortage"" will drive up prices/wages for those with the necessary skills.  It always happens when there is a labor shortage (revisit the .com boom of the late 90's).  Mahogany row will try like hell to avoid this, but it will happen.  Look for the business executives to pressure government to increase H-1B visas claiming that there are no workers with the necessary skills to be found here, so we must import workers.  Educating and training people takes time, and when your timeline based in quarterly earnings reports, you simply don't have time to educate and retrain.  So long as unemployment is high we should not be importing workers for ANY reason.  If executives see their talent pool retiring they need to open their wallets and pay market price for their replacements."


Going the same route. Signing up with a prop shop with a 5k deposit, levered 20x, 100% commission, .003 (I think) fee per share. Studying for my S7 now. Basically, I'm using this as a proving ground and look to leverage this position for a more prestigious one at a prop shop that salaries/provides capital


People need to start going to prison for this.  That's the only way I'll go back to the market.  Earlier this year, I dumped all my securities and rolled it into real property.  I don't care if its value fluctuates.  It's tangible and has actual use.  The market is just a bunch of numbers, dripping with fraud, lies and bullshit.


Not harsh enough in my book. I don't feel like going on a long diatribe but the money is spent poorly and few do anything of value. Society would be better off if the money was spent on infrastructure. But it's taboo to criticise because people mean well.


You've still missed the point.  I said IQ has cultural bias. Based on your own sources you either believe that or you believe African Americans are stupider than whites.  Those are your choices.  Either the test has issues across cultures and races or black people are stupider than white people. Pick one and stick with it. There's no third option. Either blacks ate stupid or the test is broken. Stop pussyfooting around and say it.


Whatsapp Application is either free or a paid application for iOS users, depending on the region. In India they charge $1 at the time of downloading the application. In the US, it's free for the first year, and then a $1 per year subscription (though the initial app download is free). This is one of their revenue sources which I know of.


"As indicated in comments, this is common practice in the US as well as EU.  For example, in this Fox Business article, a user had basically the same experience: their card was replaced but without the specific merchant being disclosed.  When the reporter contacted Visa, they were told: ""We also believe that the public interest is best served by quickly notifying financial institutions with the information necessary to protect themselves and their cardholders from fraud losses. Even a slight delay in notification to financial institutions could be costly,” the spokesperson said in an e-mail statement. “Visa works with the breached entity to collect the necessary information and provides payment card issuers with the affected account numbers so they can take steps to protect consumers through independent fraud monitoring, and if needed, reissuing cards. The most critical information needed is the affected accounts, which Visa works to provide as quickly as possible.” What they're not saying, of course, is that it's in Visa's best interests that merchants let Visa know right away when a leak occurs, without having to think about whether it's going to screw that merchant over in the press.  If the merchant has to consider PR, they may not let the networks know in as timely of a fashion - they may at least wait until they've verified the issue in more detail, or even wait until they've found who to pin it on so they don't get blamed. But beyond that, the point is that it's easier for the network (Visa/Mastercard/etc.) to have a system that's just a list of card numbers to submit to the bank for re-issuing; nobody there really cares which merchant was at fault, they just want to re-issue the cards quickly.  Letting you know who's at fault is separate.  There's little reason for the issuing bank to ever know; you should find out from the merchant themselves or from the network (and in my experience, usually the former). Eventually you may well find out - the article suggest that: [T]he situation is common, but there is some good news: consumers do in many cases find out the source of the breach. But of course doesn't go into detail about numbers."


Buy puts on stock holdings buy puts on indexes  look at volatility etfs and silver/gold etf s. Calling a market top is hard people hVe tried for 8 years now.  90 of protection via options expires worthless.  Who knows if we have another crash. I don't call tops or bottoms if we start falling then I'll look at protection and play the downside


"You're in good shape as long as your income stays. Your only variable-rate debt now is your private student loan.  I think you'd be wise to pay that down first, and you sense that already. Worst-case, in the event of a bankruptcy, student loans usually cannot be discharged, so that isn't a way out. Once that loan is gone, apply what you were paying to your other student loan to knock that out. You might investigate refinancing your home (to another 30-year fixed).  You may be able to shave a half-percent off if your credit is stellar.  Given the size of the mortgage, this could be several thousand out of pocket, so consider that when figuring out potential payback time. Consider using any ""free time"" to starting up a side business (I'm assuming you both have day jobs but that may not be a correct assumption).  Start with what you know well.  You and your wife are experts in something, and have passion about something.  Go with that.  Use the extra income from that to either pay down your debts faster, or just reinvest in the business so that you can offset the income on your taxes. Again, you're in good shape.  Just do what you can to protect and grow your income streams."


You should be recording the reimbursement as a negative expense on the original account the expense was recorded. Let's assume you have a $100 expense and $100 salary. Total $200 paycheck. You will have something like this In the reports, it will show that the expense account will have $0 ($100 + ($100)), while income account will have $100 (salary).


"You are ""pool[ing] the sales from both houses as downpayment on the new house."" But they are going to pay you rent.  Your question as it stands, just opens more questions. What, exactly is the ownership of the new house? If your's (and your wife's) was the money a gift?  Ignoring the gift, if that's what it is, and if the in-law suite is 25% of the house value, you have a rental. You claim 25% of the expenses, including property tax and mortgage interest, along with 25% of the utilities, unless their part has its own meters.  That's a start, if you add details, I may edit my answer. (Not to be pedantic, but whose parents are they. They can't be ""our in-laws,"" can they?)"


"(Disclosure - PeerStreet was at FinCon, a financial blogger conference I attended last month. I had the chance to briefly meet a couple people from this company. Also, I recognize a number of the names of their financial backers. This doesn't guarantee anything, of course, except the people behind the scenes are no slackers.) The same way Prosper and Lending Club have created a market for personal loans, this is a company that offers real estate loans.  The ""too good to be true"" aspect is what I'll try to address. I've disclosed in other answers that I have my Real Estate license. Earlier this year, I sold a house that was financed with a ""Hard Money"" loan. Not a bank, but a group of investors. They charged the buyer 10%. Let me state - I represented the seller, and when I found out the terms of the loan, it would have been a breach of my own moral and legal responsibility to her to do anything to kill the deal. I felt sick for days after that sale.  There are many people with little credit history who are hard workers and have saved their 20% down. For PeerStreet, 25%. The same way there's a business, local to my area, that offered a 10% loan, PeerStreet is doing something similar but in a 'crowd sourced' way. It seems to me that since they show the duration as only 6-24 months, the buyer typically manages to refinance during that time. I'm guessing that these may be people who are selling their house, but have bad timing, i.e. they need to first close on the sale to qualify to buy the new home. Or simply need the time to get their regular loan approved.  (As a final side note - I recalled the 10% story in a social setting, and more than one person responded they'd have been happy to invest their money at 6%. I could have saved the buyer 4% and gotten someone else nearly 6% more than they get on their cash.)"


"The time value of money is very important in understanding this issue.  Money today is worth more than money next year, two years from now, etc. It's a well understood economics concept, and well worth reading about if you have some, well, time. Not only is money literally worth more now than later due to inflation, but there is the simple fact that, assuming you have money for the purpose of doing something, being able to do that thing today is better than doing that same thing tomorrow.  ""A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"" gets to this rather directly; having it now is better than probably having it later.  Would you rather have a nice meal tonight, or eat beans and rice tonight and then have the same nice meal next year? That's why interest exists, in part: you're offered some money now, for more money later; or in the case of buying a bond, you're offered more money later for some money now.  The fact that people have different discount rates for money later is why the loan market can exist: people with more money than they can use now have a lower discount for future money than people who really need money right now (to buy a house, to pay their rent, whatever).   So when choosing to buy a bond, you look at the money you're going to get, both over the short term (the coupon rate) and the long term (the face value), and you consider whether $80 now is worth $100 in 20 years, plus $2 per year.  For some people it is - for some people it isn't, and that's why the price is as it is ($80).  Odds are if you have a few thousand USD, you're probably not going to be interested in this - or if you have a very long term outlook; there are better ways to make money over that long term.  But, if you're a bank needing a secure investment that won't lose value, or a trust that needs high stability, you might be willing to take that deal."


I'm talking about day trading here. Automated day trading never worked for me. But I will also admit I am terrible at automated day trading. I'm sorry if the premise of my post sounds off. I know it sounds like I'm being an idiot by not going the automated route, but it works for me and that's why I'm going to stick with my own techniques. Why change it if it's working?


How do I get into Harvard Business School? I'm starting my first year in college next year and had to pass up Harvard (dream school) and two other ivies to go to my state school for financial reasons.   I don't have to decide my major for two years. What should I do (classes, internships/work experience, major, etc.) to get into HBS? What tests do I need and what are the important parts of MBA application?    Also, what jobs open up to someone with an MBA. I understand that this is a good way to get into Investment Banking? What level/salary would I start at and what other jobs/fields/companies do MBAs get hired for.   What are other good business schools? How good is UVAs Darden?


"You've asked a number of questions. I can answer a few. I've quoted your question before each answer.   What are the ins and outs of a foreigner like myself buying rental   property in Canada? This is a pretty broad question which can address location, finances, basic suggestions etc.  Here's some things to consider: Provincial considerations:  Some ins and outs will depend on what province you are considering and what area in that Province. If you plan on owning in Montreal, for example, that's in the province of Quebec and that means you (or someone) will need to be able to operate in the French language. There are other things that might be different from province to province. See stat info below. Canadian vs. US Dollar:  Now might be a great time to buy property in Canada since the Canada dollar is weak right now. To give you an idea, at a non-cash rate of 1.2846, a little over $76,000 US will get you over $100k Canadian. That's using the currency converter at rbcroyalbank.com.  Taxes for non-resident rental property owners:  According to the T4144 Income Tax Guide for Electing Under Section 216 – 2015: ""When you receive rental income from real or immovable property in Canada, the payer, such as the tenant or a property manager, has to withhold non-resident tax at the rate of 25% on the gross rental income paid or credited to you. The payer has to pay us the tax on or before the 15th day of the month following the month the rental income is paid or credited to you."" If you prefer to send a separate Canadian tax return, you can choose to elect under section 216 of the Income Tax Act. A benefit of this way is that ""electing under section 216 allows you to pay tax on your net Canadian-source rental income instead of on the gross amount. If the non-resident tax withheld by the payer is more than the amount of tax payable calculated on your section 216 return, [they] will refund the excess to you.""  You can find this guide at Canada Revenue's site: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4144/README.html Stats: A good place for stats is the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).  So, if you are interesting in vacancy rates for example, you can see a table that will show you that the vacancy rate in Ontario is 2.3% and in British Columbia it's 1.5%.  However, in New Brunswick it's 8%. The rate for metropolitan areas across Canada is 2.8%.  If you want to see or download this table showing the vacancy rates by province and also by metropolitan areas, go to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation site http://www.cmhc.ca/housingmarketinformation/.  You can get all sorts of housing information, reports and market information there.  I've done well with Condos/Town-homes and would be interested in the   same thing over there. Is it pretty much all the same? See the stat site mentioned above to get market info about condos, etc. What are the down payment requirements? For non-owner occupied properties, the down payment is at least 20%. Update in response to comments about being double taxed: Regarding being taxed on income received from the property, if you claim the foreign tax credit you will not be double taxed. According to the IRS, ""The foreign tax credit intends to reduce the double tax burden that would otherwise arise when foreign source income is taxed by both the United States and the foreign country from which the income is derived.""  (from IRS Topic 856 - Foreign Tax Credit)   About property taxes: From my understanding, these would not be claimed for the foreign tax credit but can be deducted as business expenses. There are various exceptions and stipulations based on your circumstance, so you need to read Publication 856 - Foreign Tax Credit for Individuals.  Here's an excerpt: ""In most  cases,  only  foreign  income  taxes  qualify for the foreign tax credit. Other taxes, such as foreign real and personal property taxes, do not qualify.  But  you  may  be  able  to  deduct  these other  taxes  even  if  you  claim  the  foreign  tax credit for foreign income taxes. In most cases, you can deduct these other taxes  only  if  they  are  expenses incurred  in  a trade  or  business  or  in  the  production  of  income.  However,  you  can  deduct  foreign  real property taxes that are not trade or business expenses  as  an  itemized  deduction  on  Schedule A (Form 1040)."" Disclaimers:  Sources: IRS Topic 514 Foreign Tax Credit and Publication 856 Foreign Tax Credit for Individuals"


"You'll generally get a number close to market cap of a mature company if you divide profits (or more accurately its free cash flow to equity) by the cost of equity which is usually something like ~7%.    The value is meant to represent the amount of cash you'd need to generate investment income off it matching the company you're looking at. Imagine it as asking ""How much money do I need to put into the bank so that my interest income would match the profits of the company I'm looking at"". Except replace the bank with the market and other forms of investments that generate higher returns of course and that value would be lower."


I think the primary reason you're being down voted is because of the way you address people who align themselves with left wing ideology.  Let's either call them all foolish, or none of them.  I prefer calling them all foolish, one stream lined school of thought is rather repugnant.    Anyway, Your points on equality are spot on (theoretically), handicapping applicants based on values that should already be overlooked is introducing a bias to correct another bias, it's a short term strategy and for what it's worth I agree with you.  That is, I would if racism/classism/genderism didn't exist in practice.  The problem is what is actually observed in the real world, all too often better candidates for a job are excluded in favor for those who are of similar religion or race as the employer, when the cast offs would perform better at the job.  It is virtually never the other way around, where someone of a weaker skill set is forced on the job to fill a government implemented quota, and if it is the case, it is also usually done deliberately, choosing a very weak candidate to appeal to the government in attempts to exonerate themselves from those particular laws.    My focus point:  And sure it's your choice as an employer to bring on whoever you want, that's piece of mind for you, the employer, you've created the company that you wanted, but it's not the BEST IT COULD BE in terms of production purposes for society because the employer hasn't assembled the best possible work force with it's available applicants.  It is here that we see there are negative externalities on the public, as inefficiency rises due to class/race/gender favoritism being chosen over ability.  Employing people to help create your master vision fundamentally incorporates compromise, for the betterment of society.


I like precious metals and real estate. For the OP's stated timeframe and the effects QE is having on precious metals, physical silver is not a recommended short term play. If you believe that silver prices will fall as QE is reduced, you may want to consider an ETF that shorts silver.  As for real estate, there are a number of ways to generate profit within your time frame. These include: Purchase a rental property. If you can find something in the $120,000 range you can take a 20% mortgage, then refinance in 3 - 7 years and pull out the equity.  If you truly do not need the cash to purchase your dream home, look for a rental property that pays all the bills plus a little bit for you and arrange a mortgage of 80%. Let your money earn money. When you are ready you can either keep the property as-is and let it generate income for you, or sell and put more than $100,000 into your dream home. Visit your local mortgage broker and ask if he does third-party or private lending. Ask about the process and if you feel comfortable with him, let him know you'd like to be a lender. He will then find deals and present them to you. You decide if you want to participate or not. Private lenders are sometimes used for bridge financing and the loan amortizations can be short (6 months - 5 years) and the rates can be significantly higher than regular bank mortgages. The caveat is that as a second-position mortgage, if the borrower goes bankrupt, you're not likely to get your principal back.


S & P's site has a methodology link that contains the following which may be of use: Market Capitalization. Unadjusted market capitalization of US$ 4.6   billion or more for  the S&P 500, US$ 1.2 billion to US$ 5.1 billion   for the S&P MidCap 400, and US$ 350  million to US$ 1.6 billion for   the S&P SmallCap 600. The market cap of a potential  addition to an   index is looked at in the context of its short- and medium-term   historical  trends, as well as those of its industry. These ranges are   reviewed from time to time to  assure consistency with market   conditions.  Liquidity. Adequate liquidity and reasonable price – the   ratio of annual dollar value  traded to float adjusted market   capitalization should be 1.00 or greater, and the company  should   trade a minimum of 250,000 shares in each of the six months leading up   to the  evaluation date.  Domicile. U.S. companies. For index purposes,   a U.S. company has the following  characteristics:  The final determination of domicile eligibility is made by the U.S.   Index Committee.


"Well you're clearly misinformed. Read ""When the music stopped"" - so many factors went into the crisis. JPM did NOT need the bailout money. Regarding all banks failing, I think the financial system as a whole would've taken a massive hit with letting Lehman fail and not stepping in but to say that ""all banks"" would've failed is inaccurate. No one really knows how extreme the fallout would've been without the cash surge."


In this case, trust the real estate agent; negotiating experience is one of the things you selected them for. Especially if they're suggesting a lower number than you expected, since they get paid on commission and so may be biased the other way.  Part of their job is to look for hints about how motivated this seller is and what price they might accept, as opposed to what price they hope to get.  And remember that the default assumption is that the two parties will meet in the middle somewhere, which means it's customary to offer 10% less to signal that you could probably be talked into it if they drop the price about 5%. This is like bridge-hand bidding: it's a semi-formalized system of hints about levels of interest, except with fewer conventions and less rationality. As far as the seller paying the closing costs: that's really part of the same negotiation, and doing it that way makes the discussion more complicated for the seller since they need to figure out how much more to charge you to cover this cost. If they offer, great, factor that into what you are willing to pay... but I wouldn't assume it or ask for it. Edit: Yes, unless you have engaged a Buyer's Agent (which I recommend for first-time buyers and maybe all huyers), their fiduciary duty is to the seller. But part of that duty is to make the sale happen. If the price goes too high and you walk away, neither the agent nor the seller make money. A bad agent can be as bad as a bad car salesman, sure. But if you don't like and mostly trust your agent, you are working with the wrong agent. That doesn't mean you give them every bit of information the seller might want, but it does mean you probably want to listen to their input and understand their rationalle before deciding what your own strategy will be.


"Let's not trade insults. I understand defined benefit plans better than you think. Of course offering a lump-sum payout NOW is better for the company. If you think of the lifetime value of the pension, then yeah, it's ""worse"" for the recipient... but exactly like lottery winners, this is just a question of my personal discount rate. Maybe I want/need that money now, and value it more now than I would in 10/20/30 years. So it's a question for each individual to decide."


"I don't think that there is a generic answer that will apply to this question across all goods.  The answer depends on how the related businesses work, how much insight you have into the true value of the goods, and probably other things.  Your car example is a good one that shows multiple options - There are dealers who will buy as a single transaction, sell as a single transaction, or do a simultaneous sell with trade-in.  I had a hot tub once, on the other hand, where I could find people who would do a trade-in, but there was no dealer who would just buy my used tub.  There's not much parallel between the car and the tub because the options available are very different. To the extent that there is a generic answer, I generally agree with the point in @keshlam's answer about trying to avoid entrapment, but I take a slightly different view.  If you want to get your best deal, you need to have an idea going into the process of what you want in net and keep focused on meeting your goal. If for some reason, it's convenient for the dealer to ""move money around"" between the new car and the trade-in, I'm ok with that as long as I'm getting what I want out of the deal.  If possible, I prefer to deal with both transactions at once because it's simpler.  At the same time, I'm willing to remove the trade-in from the deal if I'm not getting what I want. (Threatening to do so can also give you some information about where the dealer really puts the value between the new car and trade-in since, if you threaten to pull the trade-in, the price on the car will probably change in response.)"


The price action is... untradeable. You have money flying in and out of trades without reason. Apple down? Then amzn goes up as tech trader cash tries to find a new trend. But trends are not materializing.  There is no consensus between the news, trends the technical indicators, money managers... Just stay clear till the dust settles. Us dollars should be ok. Gold isnt even that reliable as qe3 is not certain.  I think everything is heafing down en mass in the market but there is residual lunatic optimisim out there making shorts dangerous. I guess you could sell the highs.


According to the answers to this question, you generally aren't taxed on gains until you sell the asset in question. None of those answered specifically for the U.K., so perhaps someone else will be able to weigh in on that. To apply those ideas to your question, yes your gains and losses are taxable. If you originally traded something worth $100 for the bitcoins, then when you converted back to dollars you received $200, you would have a $100 gain, simply on the foreign exchange trade. That is, this $100 of income is in addition to any income you made from your business (selling goods).


Lending is not a charitable contribution. Its an investment. If the loan becomes a bad debt - you'll have to show that it had become a bad debt. For example - bankruptcy declaration. You'll have to show an arm's length transaction, for example - real intention to repay (evidenced by payments of principal and interest made). Otherwise if you have an intention for the loan to never be repaid, it is in fact a gift, which is not only not deductible - its taxable. Bottom line - be careful and talk to a EA/CPA to get a proper advice with regards to a specific transaction. Edit to answer your revised question: you're not going to pay taxes if you're not going to have gains. However, if you lose the principal, in addition to the said above you would incur the loss as a personal bad debt, and not business. This is because it is not investment. The difference is in tax treatment: personal bad debt is a short-term capital loss (limited deduction), business is an ordinary loss.


Zero. Zero is reasonable. That's what Schwab offers with a low minimum to open the IRA.  The fact is, you'll have expenses for the investments, whether a commission on stock purchase or ongoing expense of a fund or ETF. But, in my opinion, .25% is criminal. An S&P fund or ETF will have a sub-.10% expense. To spend .25% before any other fees are added is just wrong.


"The emphasis of ""stop loss"" is ""stop"", not ""loss"". Stop and long term are contradictory. After you stop, what are you going to do with your cash? Since it's long term, you still have 5+ years to before you use the money, do you simply park everything in 0.5% savings account? On the other hand, if your investment holds N stocks and one has dropped a lot, you are free to switch to another one. This is just an investment strategy and you are still in the market."


You don't have to think it is going down, it is currently trending down as on a weekly chart there are lower lows and lower highs. Until there is a higher low with confirmation of a higher high, the downtrend will continue.  The instrument you use to profit from a market drop depends on your risk profile, the time frame you are looking at, and your trading plan and risk management. With a put option your loss is limited to your initial premium and your potential profits can be quite large compared to the premium paid, however your timeframe is limited to the expiry of the option. You could buy a longer dated option but this will cost more in the premium you pay. With inverse ETF you are not restricted by an expiry date, but if you don't have appropriate risk management in place your potential losses can be large. With a leveraged inverse ETF again you are not restricted by an expiry date, you can potentially make higher percentage profits than with an standard ETF. but once again your losses can be very large (larger than you initial investment) if you don't have appropriate risk management in place.


Maybe someone can ELI5 for me: If Obama does happen to raise taxes on businesses, those increased taxes are only on profits, as the taxes were only on profit before. So if a small business loses a little more of its profit, why should it have to lay off people? It still meets its overhead and makes some profit right? Is some % of profit required for a company to keep it's current level of staff?


I'm fine with taking care of me and mine. If I have the opportunity. The more that opportunity is squeezed, the more I'll go looking for the people squeezing it and capturing most of the income. Upper classes who don't realize this tend to see pitchforks out their windows.


Local currency (United States Dollar-USD) and foreign currencies: no restrictions, provided that arriving and departing passengers must report to US customs any money or other monetary instruments exceeding USD 10,000.-. Gold: Importation of gold coins or small, non-commercial quantities of gold must be declared upon arrival. If you are looking for some specific asstes and not just cash, elabotare on details like


"What benefit do I get from buying a share The value of any financial asset is its ability to generate cash in the future, and thus the ""value"" of a share is heavily influenced by the dividends it pays and the equity value.  The equity value can be calculated different ways. Two common ways are to just take ""book"" value, meaning assets - liabilities, or you can look at the projected free cash flows of the company discounted back to the present time. Voting rights don't typically influence a share price except in hostile takeover scenarios (meaning someone buys up a lot of shares to have more influence in company decisions)"


1)  It sounds like you don't have a credit card, good.  Take our ATM card and freeze it in a block of ice.  Leave it in the freezer. 2)  Get on a budget.  A budget is a plan to spend your money.  The best plans are those that are made ahead of time.  For the record, budgeting is a skill and you will probably be bad at it for the first few times. 3)  Withdraw cash from the bank account that you will need for the week.  Once that money is gone, you are done spending until the next week.  If you are still having trouble with this do it daily.  Let's say you budget 300 for the month's spending.  Go to the bank, take out 10 each day.  You can carry money over from day-to-day, but never take out more.  You can never spend more than you have because your ATM is in ice. 4)  Find a friend who is good with money.  Ask them to help you by giving guidance and oversight.


AI will take much more jobs than it creates. **The whole idea of AI is to take jobs away from humans.**  The government can control this by regulations.  For example, make a law that all customer service, specifically talking to people when doing work for them, must be done by humans.  Then, AI is just a tool at the hands of humans.  Chances the government make such laws: very very small. They care more about saving money for corporations than the well being of people.


I know this will probably be met with derision but...  Get a job and save up the money for school.  This has the benefit of not having a debt accrue that you will have to pay off after you get out of school.  Take an entry level position in a field related to your study.  Sacrifice your desires but take care of your needs.  Anything left over pay off your old tuition and then save for future tuition. Also when you feel the money you are spending for college because you remember the hard work that went into earning it, you respect it more.  If you get a position in the field you want to study you can look at how to apply those lessons you are learning.  It will make your education more meaningful as well.  If you do well you may have a good job to start out right out of college.


Your cost of platform is built into your commission rates...SC is free if I sign up to a broker that charges more commissions. Right now I am with IB as my broker. With the cost of my charting, if I were to make 10 round turns per month, I would pay $4.50 per side commission on FOREX, $3.25 per side on EQUITIES. Still a better deal than ToS.


I dread dealing with bloomberg support about any API issues because if you're not using excel they have absolutely no idea what to do; but it takes about a day of back and forth e-mails because they can connect you with someone who does.


I don't get it. Are you saying they did commit fraud but it's hard to pin on any one person? You say there is little evidence there was fraud but that it's too hard to prove there was fraud. So what did they do if it wasn't fraud? This is what wikipedia says happened:   >The subprime mortgage crisis arose from 'bundling' American subprime and American regular mortgages into MBSs which were traditionally isolated from, and sold in a separate market from prime loans. These 'bundles' of mixed (prime and subprime) mortgages were the basis asset-backed securities so the 'probable' rate of return looked superb (since subprime lenders pay higher premiums, and the loans were anyway secured against saleable real-estate, and so, theoretically 'could not fail').  If selling shit you know is bad but looks good to investors isn't fraud I don't know what is.   >Fraud is deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.


$70k (plus 5-10% annual bonuses and medical/dental/vision 100% employer-paid) compared to $55k at my last gig (for a 28-year-old with a philosophy degree, I'm not complaining).  It's in San Diego, so CoL is pretty high.  I'm just happy that I'll be able to pay off my student loans.


Yes, as long as you write a call against your stock with a strike price greater than or equal to the previous day's closing price, with 30 or more days till experation there will be no effect on the holding period of your stock. Like you mentioned, unqualified covered calls suspend the holding period of your stock.  For example you sell a deep in the money call (sometimes called the last write) on a stock you have held for 5 years, the covered call is classified as unqualified, the holding period is suspened and the gain or loss on the stock will be treated as short-term. Selling out of the money calls or trading in an IRA account keeps things simple. The details below have been summarized from an article I found at investorsguide.com.  The article also talks about the implications of rolling a call forward and tax situations where it may be advantageous to write unqualified covered calls (basically when you have a large deferred long term loss). http://www.investorguide.com/article/12618/qualified-covered-calls-special-rules-wo/ Two criterion must be met for a covered call to be considered a qualified covered call (QCC). 1) days to expiration must be greater than 30 2) strike price must be greater than or equal to the first available in the money strike price below the previous day's closing price for a particular stock.  Additionally, if the previous day's closing price is $25 or less, the strike price of the call being sold must be greater than 85% of yesterday's closing price. 2a) If the previous day's closing price is greater than 60.01 and less than or equal to $150, days to experation is between 60-90, as long as the strike price of the call is greater than 85% of the previous days close and less than 10 points in the money, you can write a covered call two strikes in the money 2c) If the previous day's closing price is greater than $150 and days till expiration is greater than 90, you can write a covered call two strikes in the money.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.philly.com/philly/business/vanguard-got-everything-it-ever-wanted-now-what-20170717.html) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot) ***** > I think it&#039;s safe to say that 40 years after Vanguard founder John Bogle set out to convince investors that low-cost indexing is better, Vanguard has won the argument.  > As Bloomberg News reported last week, Vanguard is facing &quot;a rise in customer complaints such as accounting errors and longer wait times on phone calls.&quot; No one should take for granted that Vanguard will be able to handle its surging popularity.  > Vanguard is the best thing that ever happened to investors.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6o5kzr/vanguard_got_everything_it_ever_wanted_now_what/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~170145 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Vanguard**^#1 **investors**^#2 **year**^#3 **During**^#4 **fund**^#5"


"It was so awesome (like a really good bowel movement) to hear the congresscritters start to say ""fortress balance sheet"" in a sarcastic and slightly taunting way.  Well deserved given that most of the fortress is due to the government TBTF backstop."


The point of what you heard is likely that gold is thought by some to hold its value well, when the money market would provide negative interest rates. These negative interest rates are a sign of deflation, where cash money is worth more in the future than it is today.  Normally, under inflation, cash money is worth less in the future than it is today. Under 'normal' circumstances where inflation exists, interest paid by the bank on money held there generally keeps up with inflation + a little bit extra. Now, we are seeing many banks offering interest rates in the negatives, which is an acknowledgement of the fact that money will be worth more in the future than it is today. So in that sense, holding physical gold 'fights' deflation [or, negative interest rates], in the same way that holding physical cash does [because if you hold onto a $10k bundle of bills, in 10 years you can walk into a bank and it will be worth $10k in future dollars - which in a deflationary market would be more than it is worth today]. Some view gold as being better at doing this than just holding cash, but that discussion gets into an analysis of the value of paper money as a currency, which is outside the scope of this answer.  Suffice to say, I do not personally like the idea of buying gold as an investment, but some do, and partly for this reason.


"They are called ""financial products"" because they are contracts that are ""produced"" by the financial industry. For example, you could also say that a car manufacturer does not sell you a car, but a contract that will gives you ownership of a car. And, if a contract is a service and not product, in that case a car manufacturer is only selling services. It seems like it is more about the definition of ""product"" than ""financial product"". I think that as long as something is produced by the effort of labor, it could be called a product, and since financial contracts are produced by the people working in the finance industry, they can be qualified as products too. Maybe this page of wikipedia could explain things better than I just did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_%28business%29"


"College is an institution that's modern purpose is obscured and obstructed by outdated ideas about what it used to be.      College nowadays is de facto vocational training for white collar professions. But college used to be a place of learning, knowledge, discovery, and inquiry for pure academics, intellectuals, and wealthy scions.       People go to college as a prerequisite for a career, but instead encounter a culture of learning for learning's sake, a system originally designed to turn independently wealthy gentlemen into erudite gentlemen.        As they are today, the majority of colleges are traps for unwitting, would-be workers. For all the high school graduates that go to college for the hope of a better life, a high percentage are lured and deceived into learning that amounts to the theft of four years and their tuition, including majors like archaeology or history.      Whatever the value of such horizon broadening is to society, it is wrong to ask students to pay the bill for irrelevant learning.    It is unconscionable that today's employers expect employees to have financed the cost of a small house to be qualified to sit at a desk, answer phone calls, and fill out a spreadsheet for less than $40,000 per year.   Meanwhile, colleges cling to their delusional self-image as academic institutions. How many majors actually prepare students to get a career? A handful of majors have obvious specific outcomes, like dentistry or computer science, though even the most basic programming job is more specialized than ""CS graduate."" How many people major in front-end web development? What job does Business Administration prepare students for? ""Business."" Learn the same thing from a degree called project management and that student goes from unemployed to earning six figures.   Academic colleges have their place, but we should have a system that provides credentials and focused, relevant instruction in less than two years with job specific training, marketable skills, and job placement for much, much less money.   I propose that colleges be separated out into academic institutions and white collar vocational schools, and that they be given equal prestige, academic rigorousness, and consideration for entry level white collar work."


Answering for US tax only: The bank account makes absolutely zero difference.  If you are not a US national and not resident in the US, but earn income from a US employer/client/customer, generally that income is not subject to US tax (no matter where it is banked). However there are (complicated) exceptions, particularly if you are considered to be operating a 'trade or business' in the US or US real estate is involved. Start at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonresident-aliens and proceed through pub 519 if you have time to spend. I do not know (or answer) about Argentinian taxes. Whether you can find a US bank that wants to open and maintain an account for a foreigner (which is extra paperwork and regulation for them) is a different Q, that is already asked and answered: B1/B2 visas do not allow you to work, but that isn't really in scope of money.SX and belongs over on travel.SX (or expatriates.SX for longer stay);  https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/25416/work-as-freelancer-while-tourist-in-us-for-an-already-existing-us-client seems to cover it.


"Ah, I see what you mean, then.  But if you die at 57, being hit by a bus, those self-invested funds won't help the general social welfare of the union. Instead 1/3 would go to some estate tax, and the rest are left to the designated appointee of your choosing.   This soulless system helps the general populace a bit more directly.  That is the theory, anyways.  *edit: what I mean to say is, you still perceive that money as your own, like some compulsory retirement savings plan. I see it more as tax revenue,math little to no guarantee I will personally benefit from it directly any more than the general benefit it provides to This Great Union."""


It's not necessarily the case that HFT acts as a tax on small traders. I haven't seen any studies demonstrating that HFT increases the average cost of shares; if anything small investors will be largely unaffected by HFT as it will be random noise to them, sometimes creating a slight increase, sometimes a slight decrease. The people most affected by HFT are institutional investors, whom HFT desks are pretty good at predicting the order pattern of and hence exploiting. They have no interest or capacity to exploit the small guys.


I'm not familiar with US tax law in particular, but the general principle around the world tends to be that interest-free or low-interest loans are taxed as gifts of the difference between a commercial interest charge and the actual interest charged. You could also forgive ($13,000 - waived interest) of the loan each year. Also, remember that there's a lifetime exemption (covering inheritance as well) of $1,000,000 which can be used for any amounts over the $13,000.


From my understanding by paying your bills more than 5 days late will not lead you into bankruptcy or stop you from getting a new loan in the future, however it may mean that lenders offer you credit at a higher interest rate. This of course would not help you as you are already struggling with your finances. However, no matter how bad you think things might be for you financially, there are always things you can do to improve your situation. Set a Budget The first thing you must do is to set a budget. List down all sources of income you receive each month, including any allowances. Then list all your sources of expenses and spending. List all your bills such as rent, telephone, electricity, car maintenance, credit card and other loans. Keep a diary for a month for all your discretionary spending - including coffees, lunches, and other odd bits and ends. You can also talk with your existing lenders and come to some agreement on reducing you interest rates on your debts and the repayments. But remember any reduction in repayments may increase your repayment period and the total interest you have to pay in the long term. If you need help setting up your budget here are some links to resources you can download to help you get started: Once you set up your budget you want your total income to be more than your total expenses. If it isn't you will be getting further and further behind each month. Some things you can do are to increase your income - get a job/second job, sell some unwanted items, or start a small home business. Some things you can do to reduce your expenses - make coffees and lunches at home before going out and buying these, pay off higher interest debts first, consolidate all your debts into a lower interest rate loan, reduce discretionary spending to an absolute minimum, cancel all unnecessary services, etc. Debt Consolidation In regards to a Debt Consolidation for your existing personal loans and credit cards into a single lower interest rate loan can be a good idea, but there are some pitfalls you should consider. Manly, if you are taking out a loan with a lower interest rate but a longer term to pay it off, you may end up paying less in monthly repayments but will end up paying more interest in the long run. If you do take this course of action try to keep your term to no longer than your current debt's terms, and try to keep your repayments as high as possible to pay the debt off as soon as possible and reduce any interest you have to pay. Again be wary of the fine print and read the PDS of any products you are thinking of getting. Refer to ASIC - Money Smart website for more valuable information you should consider before taking out any debt consolidation. Assistance improving your skills and getting a higher paid job If you are finding it hard to get a job, especially one that pays a bit more, look into your options of doing a course and improving your skills. There is plenty of assistance available for those wanting to improve their skills in order to improve their chances of getting a better job. Check out Centrelink's website for more information on Payments for students and trainees. Other Action You Can Take If you are finding that the repayments are really getting out of hand and no one will help you with any debt consolidation or reducing your interest rates on your debts, as a last resort you can apply for a Part 9 debt agreement. But be very careful as this is an alternative to bankruptcy, and like bankruptcy a debt agreement will appear on your credit file for seven years and your name will be listed on the National Personal Insolvency Index forever. Further Assistance and Help If you have trouble reading any PDS, or want further information or help regarding any issues I have raised or any other part of your financial situation you can contact Centrelink's Financial Information Service. They provide a free and confidential service that provides education and information on financial and lifestyle issues to all Australians. Learn how to manage your money so you can get out of your debt and can lead a much more comfortable and less stressful life into the future.


The liquidity primarily depends on the specific equity type / position you are looking at. You want to look for stocks or ETFs that have significant volume themselves before trying to jump into an option contract. The most important things you should look at are Volume and Open Interest for the specific contracts, strikes, and expiration. Near the money / in the money contracts from near term expiration tend to have the highest liquidity and the smallest (relative) spreads.


Given some of the first few comments [like this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/6hmdwf/amazon_is_buying_whole_foods/dizdu6b/), no it was not.  But I really wish you the best of luck in your future snarky replies, and dramatic de-douchifying edits of them to help you save face. I hope you make lots of karma, okay?


As Americans we seem to have lost the ability to see the simple truth right in front of us. Its not just RT, its what the world is telling us, take your pick, yet we get our marching orders from Tel Aviv  I will fucking move to Timbuktu before Zuckerberg becomes the US president and all our children wear gender neutral uniforms to school


Huh. It appears it's only currencies in sterling that are fully exempt. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg12602   Government manuals are more detailed than .gov but still not perfect as it's HMRCs interpretation of legislation and has been overturned in the past.  There is also another (old) article here about foreign currency transactions. https://www.taxation.co.uk/articles/2010/10/27/21191/currency-gains  I have never come across forex capital gains in practice but I've learnt something today! Something to look out for in the UK as well I guess.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/7/15933674/video-games-job-supply) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot) ***** > New research shows that the lure of computers - and video games in particular - has played a role in keeping young men from working.  > What the group of researchers discovered was fascinating: The value of young men&#039;s leisure time was increasing, and the allure of video games played a small but significant role in why they were working less.  > Hurst&#039;s research suggests that jobs need to pay a lot more to make work seem more appealing to young men - which would, in theory, make work seem more worthwhile than playing video games.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6m3fs9/the_unexpected_economic_consequences_of_video/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~162548 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **work**^#1 **men**^#2 **Job**^#3 **more**^#4 **young**^#5"


Many people think that there is no solution for hair loss. They believe that once hair is gone, it is forever. Thanks to progressive hair care technology, this belief has been proved wrong. One of the most reputable clinics conducts hair transplant in Noida. Those suffering from hair loss without any other reason can choose to undergo this procedure and regain their lush mane.


>I just wish people who hate on keynesian policies (which while not perfect, are not as terrible as people point them out to be) would at least acknowledge that Keynes advocated maintaining budget surpluses when the economy is doing fine/alright.  I do acknowledge that. However, the powers that be that implement Keynesian policies these days don't see that. Nor do they recognize that Keynes advocated strategic spending to stimulate the economy. I support what he called for, but he would probably be rolling in his grave if he saw the shit our politicians were doing in his name.  I assume we agree with each other on this? We are in a major depression but after years of massive deficit spending we are almost powerless to use any real keynesian policies that could really help us.


They still have an estimated $2 trillion shadow economy? I'd say that's an epic fail at reducing non taxable transactions. And Probably the same level of bribing is going on, just not with cash. If the purpose was to reduce corruption it sounds like it barely did anything


Yes. Just like the supposed IT/programmer shortage in the 90s.  A fabrication propagated by vested interests to stimulate a policy response that artificially drives up sectoral labor supply to drive down wages to reduce labor cost.  Well worn trick.  There is a difference between a shortage and simply not wanting to pay what people and their skills cost at the market rate and so impinging on government to influence the market in one's favor. Classic rent seeking, aka normal and expected behavior for profit maximizing actors.


How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score? might answer your question if US based.  In the US, what counts is what shows on the bill. I've run $20K through a card with a $10K limit, but still ended the month under $2K by making extra payments. As long as you stay ahead of the limit by making mid-cycle payments, I see no issue with this strategy. If you keep running $30K/mo through a card with a $10K limit, the bank will eventually catch this and raise your limit as you will have proven you are more credit worthy.


That's why I said, I'm sure the devices I use now aren't much better (hell, I have an app that collects location data and sends me Amazon gift cards and such in exchange, but I agreed to it), but I don't really see any purpose of Alexa besides additional data collection. The only think I could see it useful for is elderly or disabled people with poor motor function that may have trouble operating other devices.


The biggest challenge with owning any individual stock is price fluctuation, which is called risk. The scenarios you describe assume that the stock behaves exactly as you predict (price/portfolio doubles) and you need to consider risk. One way to measure risk in a stock or in a portfolio is Sharpe Ratio (risk adjusted return), or the related Sortino ratio. One piece of advice that is often offered to individual investors is to diversify, and the stated reason for diversification is to reduce risk. But that is not telling the whole story. When you are able to identify stocks that are not price correlated, you can construct a portfolio that reduces risk. You are trying to avoid 10% tax on the stock grant (25%-15%), but need to accept significant risk to avoid the 10% differential tax ($1000). An alternative to a single stock is to invest in an ETF (much lower risk), which you can buy and hold for a long time, and the price/growth of an ETF (ex. SPY) can be charted versus your stock to visualize the difference in growth/fluctuation. Look up the beta (volatility) of your stock compared to SPY (for example, IBM). Compare the beta of IBM and TSLA and note that you may accept higher volatility when you invest in a stock like Tesla over IBM. What is the beta of your stock? And how willing are you to accept that risk? When you can identify stocks that move in opposite directions, and mix your portfolio (look up beta balanced portolio), you can smooth out the variability (reduce the risk), although you may reduce your absolute return. This cannot be done with a single stock, but if you have more money to invest you could compose the rest of your portfolio to balance the risk for this stock grant, keep the grant shares, and still effectively manage risk. Some years ago I had accumulated over 10,000 shares (grants, options) in a company where I worked. During the time I worked there, their price varied between $30/share and < $1/share. I was able to liquidate at $3/share.


come on. they're interns. do you really expect, or need, them to be qualified? Interns are there to do scut work and canned development training, and to audition for the graduate analyst position they want to apply for next year. Or to get do disillusioned by the experience that they self-select out after they graduate.


I think you are making this more complicated that it has to be.  In the end you will end up with a car that you paid X, and is worth Y. Your numbers are a bit hard to follow.  Hopefully I got this right. I am no accountant, this is how I would figure the deal: The payments made are irrelevant.  The downpayment is irrelevant as it is still a reduction in net worth.   Your current car has a asset value of <29,500>.  That should make anyone pause a bit.   In order to get into this new car you will have to finance the shortfall on the current car (29,500), the price of the vehicle (45,300), the immediate depreciation (say 7,000).  In the end you will have a car worth 38K and owe 82K.  So you will have a asset value of <44,000>.  Obviously a much worse situation.  To do this car deal it would cost the person 14,500 of net worth the day the deal was done.  As time marched on, it would be more as the reduction in debt is unlikely to keep up with the depreciation. Additionally the new car purchase screen shows a payment of $609/month if you bought the car with zero down.  Except you don't have zero down, you have -29,500 down.  Making the car payment higher, I estamate 1005/month with 3.5%@84 months.  So rather than having a hit to your cash flow of $567 for 69 more months, you would have a payment of about $1000 for 84 months if you could obtain the interest rate of 3.5%. Those are the two things I would focus on is the reduction in net worth and the cash flow liability.   I understand you are trying to get a feel for things, but there are two things that make this very unrealistic.  The first is financing.  It is unlikely that financing could be obtained with this deal and if it could this would be considered a sub-prime loan.  However, perhaps a relative could finance the deal. Secondly, there is no way even a moderately financially responsible spouse would approve this deal.  That is provided there were not sigificant assets, like a few million. If that is the case why not just write a check?


"The future of the internet is Ad-free. Ad blockers are increasing in usage every day and there is _nothing_ that anyone can do to stop that. Companies like Facebook and Google who make most of their money selling advertising are shitting themselves over this.  Facebook is _THE ONLY_ profitable ""social media"" company. There's like 5,00000000000 social media companies and NONE of them make money except facebook.  That's not because facebook is great, it's because facebook is diversified.  Don't listen to me, be fools."


"I think your analysis is very clear, it's a sensible approach, and the numbers sound about right to me. A few other things you might want to think about: Tax In some jurisdictions you can deduct mortgage interest against your income tax. I see from your profile that you're in Texas, but I don't know the exact situation there and I think it's better to keep this answer general anyway. If that's the case for you, then you should re-run your numbers taking that into account. You may also be able to make your investments tax-advantaged, for example if you save them in a retirement account. You'll need to apply the appropriate limits for your specific situation and take an educated guess as to how that might change over the next 30 years. Liquidity The money you're not spending on your mortgage is money that's available to you for other spending or emergencies - i.e. even though your default assumption is to invest it and that's a sensible way to compare with the mortgage, you might still place some extra value on having more free access to it. Overpayments Would you have the option to pay extra on the mortgage? That's another way of ""investing"" your money that gets you a guaranteed return of the mortgage rate. You might want to consider if you'd want to send some of your excess money that way."


First of all, make sure you have all your credit cards paid in full -the compounding interests on those can zero out returns on any of your private investments. Fundamentally, there are 2 major parts of personal finance: optimizing the savings output (see frugal blogs for getting costs down, and entrepreneur sites for upping revenues), and matching investment vehicles to your particular taste of risk/reward. For the later, Fool's 13 steps to invest provides a sound foundation, by explaining the basics of stocks, indexes, long-holding strategy, etc.   A full list Financial instruments can be found on Wikipedia; however, you will find most of these to be irrelevant to your goals listed above. For a more detailed guide to long-term strategies on portfolio composition, I'd recommend A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-tested Strategy for Successful Investing. One of the most handy charts can be found in the second half of this book, which basically outlines for a given age a recommended asset allocation for wealth creation. Good luck!


"It's called an argument from the extreme. Although, I think North Korea is a not as good of an example. Perhaps a better argument would have been ""if you like taxes so much why don't you give all your money to the IRS?""  So far the only points I have gotten from you is taxes are bad, freedom is good. Did you want to speak about a specific point?"


They are experts in personal debt management, and are the only individuals licenced to administer a consumer proposal in Canada. Your administrator will use his or her   experience and training to assess what you can afford, and what should be offered to your creditors.  They prepare the necessary forms for you to sign, and then file   the proposal with the government which makes it a legal document.


"So...if the stock market tanks, the value of these portfolios tank...but faster.  The difference time around being that the customers will be holding all of the toxic assets?  I also gotta say that it feels like there's a lot of, ""hey let's sell insurance and hope that nothing bad ever happens but if it does we go bankrupt and the customer's fucked too!"""


I am probably not the most qualified person, but I have taken some managerial finance courses.  If company B is still in tact, has its own documentation saying it's a company and all that, the only income company A would need to claim from B is that which B profited and the profits were given to A.  I see the above scenario similar to owning an asset, like a bond, which pays you interest.  If the companies are merged, most definitely but that probably wasn't your question.


"First, I'd like to congratulate you on your financial discipline in paying off your loans and living well within your means.  I have friends who make more than twice your salary with similar debt obligations, and they barely scrape by month to month. If we combine your student loan debt and unallocated income each month, we get about $1,350.  You say that $378 per month is the minimum payment for your loans, which have an average interest rate of about 3.5%.  Thus, you have about $1,350 a month to ""invest."" Making your loan payments is basically the same as investing with the same return as the loan interest rate, when it comes down to it.  An interest rate of 3.5% is...not great, all things considered, and barely above inflation.    However, that's a guaranteed return of 3.5%, more or less like a bond.  As noted previously, the stock market historically averages 10% before inflation over the long run. The US stock market is right around its historic high at this point (DJIA is at 20,700 today, April 6th, 2017 - historic high hit just over 21,000 on March 1, 2017).  Obviously, no one can predict the future, but I get the feeling that a market correction may be in order, especially depending on how things go in Washington in the next weeks or months.  If that's the case (again, we have no way of knowing if it is), you'd be foolish to invest heavily in any stocks at this point. What I would do, given your situation, is invest the $1,350/month in a ""portfolio"" that's 50/50 stocks and ""bonds,"" where the bonds here are your student loans.  Here, you have a guaranteed return of ~3.5% on the bond portion, and you can still hedge the other 50% on stocks continuing their run (and also benefiting from dividends, capital gains, etc. over time).  I would apply the extra loan payments to the highest-interest loan first, paying only the minimum to the others.  Once the highest-interest loan is paid off, move onto the next one. Once you have all your loans paid off, your portfolio will be pretty much 100% stocks, at which point you may want to add in some actual bonds (say a 90/10 or 80/20 split, depending on what you want).  I'm assuming you're pretty young, so you still have plenty of time to let the magic of compounding interest do its work, even if you happen to get into the market right before it drops (well, that, and the fact that you won't really have much invested anyway). Again, let me stress that neither I nor anyone else has any way of knowing what will happen with the market - I'm just stating my opinion and what my course of action would be if I were in your shoes."


Withdrawals from a traditional 401(k) plan are always treated as cash income and the taxable portion is taxed at ordinary income tax rates, even if the money was held in stocks within the 401(k) plan and the amount withdrawn is equal to whatever capital gains you made by selling the stock within the 401(k) plan. If your plan permits you to take the distribution as stock shares (transferred to your taxable brokerage account), then, for tax purposes, it is treated as if you took a distribution of cash equal to the market price of the shares as of the day of the distribution and promptly bought the same number of shares in your brokerage account.  And yes, if the 401(k) plan assets in your ex-employer's plan consists solely of pretax contributions and the earnings thereon, then the entire distribution is ordinary taxable income regardless of whether you sold the stock within the 401(k) plan or took a distribution of stock from the plan and promptly (or after a few days) sold it. The capital gains or losses (if any) from such a sale are, of course, outside the 401(k) plan and taxable accordingly. Finally, the 10% penalty for premature withdrawal from a traditional 401(k) will also apply if you are not 59.5 years of age or older (or maybe 55 since you are separated from service), and it will be computed on the entire distribution.


"It's probably important to understand what a credit score is.   A credit score is your history of accruing debt and paying it back.  It is supplemented by your age, time at current residence, time at previous residences, time at your job, etc. A person with zero debt history can still have a decent score - provided they are well established, a little older and have a good job.  The top scores are reserved for those that manage what creditors consider an ""appropriate"" amount of debt and are well established.  In other words, you're good with money and likely have long term roots in the community.  After all, creditors don't normally like being the first one you try out... Being young and having recently moved you are basically a ""flight risk"".  Meaning someone who is more likely to just pick up and move when the debt becomes too much. So, you have a couple options.  The first is to simply wait.  Keep going to work, keep living where you are, etc.  As you establish yourself you become less of a risk.   The second is to start incurring debt.  Personally, I am not a fan of this one.  Some people do well by getting a small credit card, using some portion of it each month and paying it off immediately.  Others don't know how to control that very well and end up having a few months where they roll balances over etc which becomes a trap that costs them far more than before. If I were in your position, I'd likely do one of two things.  Either buy the phone outright and sign up for a regular mobile plan OR take the cheaper phone for a couple years."


Here are my conditions for an emergency account: A compromise would be to have 1,000-2,000 in a very liquid account and the rest in something a little less liquid that maybe has a minimum balance (but no transaction requirements).  The behavioral risk is when you do have an emergency and you don't want to cash out or go through any hassle to get it out, so you just charge the emergency instead of paying cash.


"No, I do not.  The advice is to take advice :-) but it is not required.  Several ""low cost"" SIPPs allow an ""Execution Only"" transfer from some pensions (generally not occupational or defined benefits schemes [where transfers are generally a bad idea anyway] but FAVCs such as mine are ok). Best Invest is one such, and the fees are indeed relatively low. As far as anyone knows, the government's plans for changes to rules on using pension funds would still apply even once I've transferred my pension pot and begun to withdraw funds (provided I don't commit myself to an annuity or other irrevocable investment). I am not a financial adviser, nor employed or otherwise connected with Best Invest, and I'm not endorsing their SIPP schemes, just giving them as an example of what can be done. [Added after I carried out my plan] I found the process very straightforward; I needed to apply for a pension fund with my new provider and fill in a transfer form, which set up the scheme and transferred the funds with no expense required.  Once the money arrived in my pension account I filled in another form to take the lump sum and set up regular withdrawals from the fund. I had my lump sum within a couple of months of initiating the transfer.  I'm very happy I did not take independent advice because it would have been very poor value for money.  During my researches I was approached eagerly by one firm promising to get me my money quick and claiming to be an independent financial advisor.  Luckily I mistrusted the service they offered."


This is a case of money-laundering, not forgery.  Many laundry detergents include a dye that glows under ultra-violet light.


"he is saying that ""QE"" meaning ""quantitative easing"" meaning ""the theory that the government flooded the markets with money, artificially driving up the price of stocks"" meant that hedge funds, which HEDGE, and benefit from an up-and-down market, couldn't win in a market where it just kept going up.  It's basically a conspiracy theory bears have been pushing for years ""QE artificially inflated the market, it's gonna crash!"""


"Disclosure: I don't have an iPhone, so I don't use RobinHood.  That being said, I have a less ""they're-out-to-get-ya"" view of what they're doing. As a small business owner (2 businesses), employees cost the most.  If you can create a solid business with few (or no) employees and let robots run it, you will drastically reduce your costs.  Joe Polish said it similarly with sales letters, something along the lines of they never complain about a headache, need to take a year off to discover themself, or just need a personal day.  Robots are the same; they do not have human limits.  Most simple trading can be done and maintained by well written code and AI, there's very little need for humans to do anything other than build it.  Think about the efficiency of bitcoin versus all the central banks combined; how many people are employed by central banks? Robinhood states that they are using technology in these ways to minimize costs and they're using a system that doesn't need physical branches (this doesn't mean they will never have them, just that they don't need them).  Robinhood does not indicate that they allow everything to happen for free; only stock trading.  I worked for a large trading firm once and observed that stock trading wasn't the bulk of where they made their money anyway; trading options, futures, index funds, etc are where the big money was and Robinhood says nothing about those being free.  Like the CQM mentioned too, they'll be charging for margin as well. In a way, the individual stock trader is dead; many people - including this forum - prefer index funds, so more than likely, Robinhood will strike up a deal with an index fund company or create their own (this is just easy, passive income with an expense ratio).  In this category, the markets are their playground, but they do need to attract enough people to their platform, thus free stock trading is a good way to do it. As for selling your information for advertising, that is always a possibility, but they have quite a few other options that would be good for most investors (index funds, affiliating with financial fund companies, etc) where they can start before ever needing to dip their toe in selling information.  This isn't to say they won't do it, but that there are few other options they have. The major concern I have for Robinhood is ongoing security.  Just building it and letting it run kind of assumes that there won't be major compromises in the future and as AI evolves, superior AI might be able to crush older AI."


trader. It's easy to learn how to develop, you can teach yourself how to develop, but gaining knowledge on how a traders day-to-day world is like is not as easy to come by. If you go dev first, it may be harder to get that business knowledge further down the track


Yes, the net effect is zero. If you own zero shares by Nov 30, for example, and don't buy any more shares by 12/31, the year is done, and nothing left to account for.


There are no legal restrictions on doing this. If you're living in the UK, just open an account like any other resident of the UK would.


What you are seeing is the effects of inflation. As money becomes less valuable it takes more of it to buy physical things, be they commodities, shares in a company's stock, and peoples time (salaries).  Just about the only thing that doesn't track inflation to some degree is cash itself or money in an account since that is itself what is being devalued.  So the point of all this is, buying anything (a house, gold, stocks) that doesn't depreciate (a car) is something of a hedge against inflation. However, don't be tricked (as many are) into thinking that house just made you a tidy sum just because it went up in value so much over x years. Remember 1) All the other houses and things you'd spend the money on are a lot more expensive now too; and 2) You put a lot more money into a house than the mortgage payment (taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc.) I'm with the others though. Don't get caught up in the gold bubble. Doing so now is just speculation and has a lot of risk associated with it.


Fairly straightforward to match the result from the calculator soup link.  There is a formula to calculate n from the future value s (using natural logs) In Excel This was derived as shown  To calculate n from the inflation-adjusted future value si requires using a solver since an algebraic formula cannot be formulated.  As demonstrated  Calculations done using Mathematica 7.