Why would it get better? The point of an IPO for companies like Snap is to provide liquidity to private equity and founders because they couldn't sell the company to somebody else.  They'd prefer you own the stock rather than them.


Technical Analysis in general is something to be cognizant of, I don't use a majority of studies and consider them a waste of time.  I also use quantitative analysis more so than technical analysis, and prefer the insight it gives into the market. The markets are more about predicting other people's behavior, psychology. So if you are trading an equity that you know retail traders love, retail traders use technical analysis and you can use their fabled channel reversals and support levels against them, as examples. Technical analysis is an extremely broad subject. So I suggest getting familiar, but if your historical pricing charts are covered in various studies, I would say you are doing it wrong. A more objective criticism of technical analysis is that many of the studies were created in the 1980s or earlier. Edges in the market do not typically last more than a few weeks. On the other side of that realization, some technical analysis works if everyone also thinks it will work, if everyone's charts say buy when the stock reaches the $90 price level and everyone does, the then stock will go higher. But the market makers and the actions of the futures markets and the actions of options traders, can undermine the collective decisions of retail traders using technical analysis.


"Try to appear interesting to the guy.  Don't try and discuss finance, your views on current finance events, or anything of that nature.  Listen a lot to what s/he has to say and - when you hear something that you know a lot about - talk about that, in your most articulate and interesting tone.  The reason I say ""don't talk about finance"" is that - given your level of education and work experience - there's likely nothing you know that s/he doesn't, and it's even more likely that you're going to talk about something that you don't truly understand on a functional level.  What's likely to happen in this case is that you're probably going to be forgotten as just another person who talks about entry-level finance.  To reiterate: Just make sure you come off as interesting (""memorable""), and relaxed/easy going.  It might help if you network over a drink or two..."


There isn't really a correct answer. The 1 year beta will capture any recent changes in the firm's business, but it is estimated less accurately due to fewer data points. But a beta of 0.22 for a distressed firm is very suspicious, since we would expect the stock to be more risky, not less.


it is legal. In fact part of the service is provided by Google that displays the notifications. It's only available on Android which is approx 85% of the market share. It's not targeted advertising using an email address, telephone number, etc. The users smartphone scans for the signal. The user can dismiss a notification and turn the feature off and they opt in to the service during install/update of their OS


"Sounds like a different ""right-sizing"" project. The one I mentioned was when they took CEs (now called SSRs = computer hardware techs) from the FE division (think it had another name by then) who used to work on AS400s, cash registers and other equipment and shuffled them off into a poorer paying job doing primarily cash registers (I think - it has been a lot years since I thought about that). It would have been in the late 1990s because I left in 2000 and it was a year or three before I left. One co-worker actually died in training - probably from the stress. His heart burst while he was away from home. Most of us went to his funeral so I guess they flew him back to Texas.   They also announced they were taking away some of the AS400 guy's work and handing it to VARs so I asked in the announcement meeting if we could become VARs. Management was not too happy with my question. It didn't really affect me because I managed accounts with all four types of mainframe accounts (air-cooled, water-cooled, refrigerated and RISC) and only backed up the AS400 guys."


> At what price is the slow customer sending the order? Or are they sending a market order?  So if the high frequency fund sees someone wants to meet the ask at 1.01 they'll push that person back in favor of executing their trade first. They'll then raise the price to 1.02 (that's high though) and make the other person pay that. This happens literally in microseconds.


You won't be taxed for putting it in a savings account (except on any interest that is subsequently paid). If the money is from a taxable source, then you're liable to pay tax on its receipt whether you then put it in a savings account, stuff it under your mattress or burn it. If you're planning on the basis that you might (by not putting it in a bank) be able conceal its existence from the tax authorities so that you don't have to pay the tax that's due then you're asking for advice on breaking the law, which is out of scope for this forum.


>Is it illegal to support the president of the United States? You act like people aren't allowed to have differing opinions from you.  A whole heap of people who think we should let bygones be bygones and unite behind our Orange Overlord seem to be the same people who wouldn't be caught dead supporting the president during Obama's terms. Basically every GOP member of Congress and their entire voting base. So where was the call for unity and civility from 2008-2016.


Let's not forget, the context is here is money.  Whatever the reason someone might have for being an employee instead of an employer, the fact remains that they don't owe anyone anything for their job: they are earning that paycheck, or they'd have been fired.  This idea that their paychecks are in any degree largess from the company is hooey.


"Modern airlines are one of the most amazing technological achievements in human history. Think about it-- you can travel across the country or even across the world, in a matter of hours, more safely than driving across town, for less money than any time in history. It's not a great experience but it sure beats a wagon train, a 3 masted ship, or walking. But the airlines can't figure out how to make money doing it.  Whenever ""fees"" and other non-core revenue starts accounting for your profit, your business is in trouble. Think of the GM's financing arm, that made more money for GM than making cars. Or Blockbuster with late fees. (Btw, I have no problem in principle with baggage fees-- transporting stuff seems to be part of the core business of an airline. Encouraging everyone to stuff the cabin full of carry-ons is another matter.)"


I don't like keeping my tax information online.  Personally, I buy TaxCut from Amazon for $25-30. I store my info securely on resources under my control. Call me a luddite or a weirdo, but I also file using paper, because I don't see the advantage of paying for the privilege of saving the government time and money.


"In essence the problem that the OP identified is not that the FX market itself has poor liquidity but that retail FX brokerage sometimes have poor counterparty risk management. The problem is the actual business model that many FX brokerages have. Most FX brokerages are themselves customers of much larger money center banks that are very well capitalized and provide ample liquidity. By liquidity I mean  the ability to put on a position of relatively decent size (long EURUSD say) at any particular time with a small price impact relative to where it is trading. For spot FX, intraday bid/ask spreads are extremely small, on the order of fractions of pips for majors (EUR/USD/GBP/JPY/CHF). Even in extremely volatile situations it rarely becomes much larger than a few pips for positions of 1 to 10 Million USD equivalent notional value in the institutional market. Given that retail traders rarely trade that large a position, the FX spot market is essentially very liquid in that respect. The problem is that there are retail brokerages whose business model is to encourage excessive trading in the hopes of capturing that spread, but not guaranteeing that it has enough capital to always meet all client obligations. What does get retail traders in trouble is that most are unaware that they are not actually trading on an exchange like with stocks. Every bid and ask they see on the screen the moment they execute a trade is done against that FX brokerage, and not some other trader in a transparent central limit order book. This has some deep implications. One is the nifty attribute that you rarely pay ""commission"" to do FX trades unlike in stock trading. Why? Because they build that cost into the quotes they give you. In sleepy markets, buyers and sellers cancel out, they just ""capture"" that spread which is the desired outcome when that business model functions well.  There are two situations where the brokerage's might lose money and capital becomes very important. In extremely volatile markets, every one of their clients may want to sell for some reason, this forces the FX brokers to accumulate a large position in the opposite side that they have to offload. They will trade in the institutional market with other brokerages to net out their positions so that they are as close to flat as possible. In the process, since bid/ask spreads in the institutional market is tighter than within their own brokerage by design, they should still make money while not taking much risk. However, if they are not fast enough, or if they do not have enough capital, the brokerage's position might move against them too quickly which may cause them lose all their capital and go belly up. The brokerage is net flat, but there are huge offsetting positions amongst its clients. In the example of the Swiss Franc revaluation in early 2015, a sudden pop of 10-20% would have effectively meant that money in client accounts that were on the wrong side of the trade could not cover those on the other side. When this happens, it is theoretically the brokerage's job to close out these positions before it wipes out the value of the client accounts, however it would have been impossible to do so since there were no prices in between the instantaneous pop in which the brokerage could have terminated their client's losing positions, and offload the risk in the institutional market. Since it's extremely hard to ask for more money than exist in the client accounts, those with strong capital positions simply ate the loss (such as Oanda), those that fared worse went belly up. The irony here is that the more leverage the brokerage gave to their clients, the less money would have been available to cover losses in such an event. Using an example to illustrate: say client A is long 1 contract at $100 and client B is short 1 contract at $100. The brokerage is thus net flat. If the brokerage had given 10:1 leverage, then there would be $10 in each client's account. Now instantaneously market moves down $10. Client A loses $10 and client B is up $10. Brokerage simply closes client A's position, gives $10 to client B. The brokerage is still long against client B however, so now it has to go into the institutional market to be short 1 contract at $90. The brokerage again is net flat, and no money actually goes in or out of the firm. Had the brokerage given 50:1 leverage however, client A only has $2 in the account. This would cause the brokerage close client A's position. The brokerage is still long against client B, but has only $2 and would have to ""eat the loss"" for $8 to honor client B's position, and if it could not do that, then it technically became insolvent since it owes more money to its clients than it has in assets. This is exactly the reason there have been regulations in the US to limit the amount of leverage FX brokerages are allowed to offer to clients, to assure the brokerage has enough capital to pay what is owed to clients."


Not everything is about marginal utility and trying to define people by their marginal utility is almost sociopathic.    Guess what? Labor isn't that interchangeable and markets are far from perfect.  What is the other option other than government help?  Let these people starve and live on the street because they can't afford anything else?  That is a great way to ruin a society.


My take was that as a reactionary controller, Ballmer is shifting the company to an eventual dead-end. A new leader is needed, someone who takes action instead of reacting, and is open to creative ideas more than simply staying the course.  Of course, Forbes had to write the article practically as a eulogy, rather than being straightforward with it.


Have you ever considered how much faith and confidence play a role in the financial sector?  The calling in of swaps could cause issues similar to a Bank Run, which may or may not involve others coming into play.  While this is cleaning up the mess from a few years ago, there is something to be said for how complicated are various financial instruments in this situation. If you want something similar to ponder, what would make any institution be considered major and would this be agreed by various countries given how connected things are within the world?  What makes an institution major in the United States may not be quite the same standards in Brazil and this where one has to consider how to maintain faith in the system that could unravel rather badly if everyone tries to cash out at the same time.  The Bank Run link above is something to consider that could cause a bank that appears fine to suddenly have speculators cause more disruptions which isn't likely to help.  The global credit markets aren't likely to freeze overnight and thus there can be the question how does this get handled if another mess could arise. The idea here is to set up the framework to prevent the panic that could lead to a global depression.  The idea is to create for derivatives something similar to the stock market's trading curbs that exist to contain panic on a macro level.  The psychology is quite important in figuring out how to handle the obligations of a company that was perceived to be infallible as well as making sure what is agreed works across various cultures and currencies.


"The result would be catastrophic. The almost-reserve currency would collapse which would produce a medium sized depression, perhaps same with with 2008-now, or even larger, since don't forget, that one was produced from a housing bubble existing in only a part of the american economy; imagine what would happen if almost the full size of the economy (Europe) would collapse, even if Europe isn't as much ""connected"". But reality here is, there's no chance to that. The real reason you hear those rumors is that America (along with minor partners like the British Sterling) want to bring down the Euro for medium-term benefit. e.g. Several economists get on Bloomberg announcing they are short selling the Euro. Irony is, all this is helping the Euro since selling and short-selling and selling and short-selling helps massively its liquidity. It's like several nay sayers actually making a politician famous with their spite."


Which banks? What about those that don't have the same products/rates/services? There's only a handful of institues that could match, even just closely, to what WF provides.  Customers wouldn't have much real choice, and it'd look like the gov't stepping in and taking one business' money and giving it to another.   For the receiving bank, they would take a hit too likely, as the term for which they'd have the new funds wouldn't be long enough to see returns on anything before they had to turn the money back over. Meaning they'd be eating all the normal cost of their services without getting the normal return.  Fines work well because they hit companies where it impacts only them-net income. You want better compliance, create bigger and more persistent fines. You don't like WF, move your money somewhere else.


Are you actually supporting both your mother and father? Is the account joint? Is your mother aware of the gift and has control over the money same as your father? If you cannot answer (and provide support) yes to all these questions, then I doubt you could make such a claim. If the fact that the bank account is only in your father's name is a mere technicality for whatever reason, and the money is in fact intended, controlled by and benefits both of your parents, then I believe you can. See more details about gift tax in the IRS publication 950.


If you buy US stocks when the CAD is high and sell them when the CAD is lower you will make a currency gain on top of any profit or loss from the stock investments. If you buy US stocks when the CAD is low and sell when the CAD is higher any profits from gains from the stock investment will be reduced and any losses will be increased. If you are just starting out you may be better off investing in your own country to avoid any currency risk adding to your stock market risk.


I think a company can more easily crunch the numbers in figuring out how much revenue additional sales would mean to the bottom line. Top Brass also understands how tough selling is because they had to do it.  BTW- not saying you don't work harder.


The reason is in your own question. The answer is simple. They use that code to tax the product otherwise it would just be out of pocket expenses.


"As I understand it the basic premiss of a HOA is to ease communication between neighbors and help work towards common community goals.  As I understand it the reality is that the HOA works to keep the community homogenous so there are no ""sore thumb"" neighbors.   As to why look for one or avoid one.  If you would want a uniform image out of your neighbors and don't mind towing the party line, then they are for you.  If you don't care about what your neighbors do with their property (within civic ordinance) and would like freedom to do things different from your neighbors (paint your house blue, hang a clothes line, increase the size of your flower beds), then they are to be avoided."


I think it has more to do with a sizable amount of students have no interest in learning. The best most funded system in the world would fail if the students resist being taught and sabotage those that do want to learn


Elance, UpWork, Fivver  Who would've thought taking skilled labor and watering down the price to mere pennies would be bad for everybody involved?  That's why, even though I operate just like a freelancer, I incorporated. Legally, I'm a sole proprietor, not a freelancer...aside the few tax differences, it just saves me a ton of headaches.


Yeah but some of the managers are complete dicks with your scheduled hours.  Both my neighbors work there and he says that some night, he'll get a phone call at 1 am telling him to be at work in 2 hours instead of his typical shift.  they also apparently fire people for the most trivial reasons.  Very few of my friends who work there actually like the place but it's a job and in this city, it's pretty much take it or leave it. :(


IMO student loans are junk debt that should be dealt with as soon as possible.  Buying a house comes with risks and expenses (repairs, maintenance, etc) and dealing with a student loan at the same time just makes it tougher. Personally, I would try to pay off at least a few of the loans first.


As far as I have read, yes binary option is a part of trading. I saw tutorials on many sites like investopedia.com , verifyproducts.com etc. which clearly shows that in binary options, trader has to take a yes or no position on the price of any underlying asset and the resulting payoff will be either all or nothing. Due to such characteristic, it has become the easier way for beginners to enter in financial trading market.


i'm not talking about giving money to the gov't to have them help with it (i agree, our gov't should care only about us), but doing it yourself. or maybe flying over there to help yourself with your own money. my point is: a direct approach isnt best in the long run. the best help is having a booming economy. the poor are much better in a booming economy than in a shitty one. and govt redistribution will make a shitty economy. of course a bigger problem is the gov't manipulation of interest rates and over-regulation, but a better economy pulls people out of poverty. that's why everyone was financially equal, yet extremely poor in the USSR. nice and moral are always a good thing, but not by force. libertarians DO believe their policies are best for the poor, despite a lack of redistribution of money.


The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn Stanley providers for many case studies about what kind of opportunities to look for from a fundamental analysis perspective. Typically things you can look for are financing terms that are not very favorable (expensive interest payments) as well as other constrictions on cash flow, arbitrary decisions by management (poor management), and dilution that doesn't make sense (usually another product of poor management). From a quantitative analysis perspective, you can gain insight by looking at the credit default swap rate history, if the company is listed in that market. The things that affect a CDS spread are different than what immediately affects share prices. Some market participants trade DOOMs over Credit Default Swaps, when they are betting on a company's insolvency. But looking at large trades in the options market isn't indicative of anything on its own, but you can use that information to help confirm your opinion. You can certainly jump on a trend using bad headlines, but typically by the time it is headline news, the majority of the downward move in the share price has already happened, or the stock opened lower because the news came outside of market hours. You have to factor in the short interest of the company, if the short interest is high then it will be very easy to squeeze the shorts resulting in a rally of share prices, the opposite of what you want. A short squeeze doesn't change the fundamental or quantitative reasons you wanted to short. The technical analysis should only be used to help you decide your entry and exit price ranges amongst an otherwise random walk. The technical rules you created sound like something a very basic program or stock screener might be able to follow, but it doesn't tell you anything, you will have to do research in the company's public filings yourself.


you should pay cash. always pay cash or debit card. never use credits unless absolutely required. if you so poor that you need credit card you must reduce your costs! don't buy anything except food, start making money, then you will buy everything! and you should buy cheapest food now


I think about as close as you're going to get is to use a personal PayPal account, and set up a reminder to yourself to log in and send the money.  (Because, as you said, setting up a recurring payment is a business account thing.) From PayPal's website: Sending money – Personal payments: It's free within the U.S. to send money to family and friends when you   use only your PayPal balance or bank account, or a combination of   their PayPal balance and bank account. ... Receiving money – Personal payments: It's free to receive money from friends or family in the U.S. when   they send the money from the PayPal website using only their PayPal   balance or their bank account, or a combination of their PayPal   balance and bank account. You can automate the reminder to yourself with any of the gazillion task managers out there:  Google Calendar, MS Outlook, Todoist, Remember the Milk, etc.


"So here are some of the risks of renting a property: Plus the ""normal"" risk of losing your job, health, etc., but those are going to be bad whether you had the rental or not, so those aren't really a factor. Can you beat the average gain of the S&P 500 over 10 years?  Probably, but there's significant risk that something bad will happen that could cause the whole thing to come crashing down. How many months can you go without the rental income before you can't pay all three mortgages? Is that a risk you're willing to take for $5,000 per year or less?   If the second home was paid for with cash, AND you could pay the first mortgage with your income, then you'd be in a much better situation to have a rental property.  The fact that the property is significantly leveraged means that any unfortunate event could put you in a serious financial bind, and makes me say that you should sell the rental, get your first mortgage paid down as soon as possible, and start saving cash to buy rental property if that's what you want to invest in. I think we could go at least 24 months with no rental income Well that means that you have about $36k in an emergency fund, which makes me a little more comfortable with a rental, but that's still a LOT of debt spread across two houses.   Another way to think about it:  If you just had your main house with a $600k mortgage (and no HELOC), would you take out a $76k HELOC and buy the second house with a $200k mortgage?"


Have you considered investing in real estate? Property is cheap now and you have enough money for several properties. The income from tenants could be very helpful. If you find it's not for you, you can also sell your property and recover your initial investment, assuming house prices go up in the next few years.


The average of a dozen good answers is close to what would be right, the wisdom of crowds. But any one answer will be skewed by one's own opinions.  The question is missing too much detail. I look at $400K as $16K/yr of ongoing withdrawals. How much do you make now? When the kids are all in school full time, can your wife work? $400K seems on the low side to me, especially with 3 kids. How much have you saved for college?  The $150K for your wife is also a bit low. Without a long tangent on the monetary value of the stay at home spouse, what will you spent on childcare if she passes?  Term life also has a expiration date. When my daughter was born, my wife and I got 20 year term. She is now 16, her college account fully funded, and we are semi-retired. The need for insurance is over. If one of us dies, the survivor doesn't need this big of a house, and will have more than they need to be comfortable in a downsized one. My belief is that the term value should bridge the gap to the kids getting through college and the spouse getting resettled. Too much less, I'd have left my wife at risk. Too much more, she'd be better off if I were dead. (I say that half joking, the insurance company will often limit the size policy to something reasonable.)


Just don't buy any kind of paper and you will be fine :-) And don't forget most of these 'blue-chip companies' sell marketing garbage which have no real market.  Finally, make all decissions slooooowly and after extensive research.


> whatever is happening in the tax code that makes these inversions possible needs to be fixed.  The best way to prevent this from happening is to lower the federal corporate tax rate to zero.  Having the business, a few more jobs, inflows of cash etc. are worth more than the <10% that corporate tax provides to the government budget.


"Your heart is in the right place. Especially since they've got a kid. If you really want to help them, have the uncomfortable conversation with them that they need to have about money. Specifically, how to develop and stick to a budget. It is a painful, but valuable lesson for life.  Depending on what type of relationship you have with them, you can approach it in different ways... just giving them friendly advice is perhaps the lightest ""touch"" you could have... but might not make the impression you need.  If they are asking you for money, I would personally make it a condition that they work through their personal budget with you, and then start living within that budget. If you're lending money, it's not too much to ask to follow their accounts or finances so that you can see that they're on the right track. If you're a close enough friend, you could really walk them through it and help them to develop the habits of: estimating how much they will earn in a month estimating how much they should spend in a month,  tracking how much they are actually spending, and  comparing how much they actually earn with how much they actually spend.  Doing this every month until they get out of the weeds. They should at least do it every 3 months when they're in good financial shape, but even then each month doesn't hurt. Setting them up with something like Mint.com (if they're in the US) would be a handy place to start. You can share the login information with them if they trust you... and then they can change it once whatever agreed-upon terms come around.  It sounds weird, I know, but I have helped two friends out of credit-card debt this way. The hardest part is getting around the discomfort/taboo/shame of them knowing they need help and not wanting to accept it."


"A few years ago I had a US bank credit card that was serviced (all support, website, transaction issues) handled by FIA Card Services (part of Bank of America). I could create one-use credit card numbers, or time-limited (for example, 3 months) numbers.  I could also create (""permanent)) extra card numbers.  All of these could have a max charge value (IIRC, even a fixed value), so you could have a separate card number, with a limit, just for a subscription service or gym membership. The Bank issuing the card cancelled the entire card offering, so I lost these features. Maybe FIA still provides these features on cards they service. As a note to pjc50 (can't comment in this SE yet), Japan has had contactless cards for >10 years, but during use they tend to place them in a special tray (with the sensor underneath) during the transaction."


I see a false assumption that you are making.  (Almost always) When you buy stock the cash you spend does not go to the company. Instead it goes to someone else who is selling their shares.  The exception to this is when you buy shares in an IPO.  Those of us who have saved all our lives for retirement want income producing investments once we retire. (Hopefully) We have saved up quite a bit of money. To have us purchase their stock companies have to offer us dividends.


"The ex indicator is meant to be a help for market participants.  On the ex-day orders will go into a different order book, the ex order book, which at the start of the ex day will be totally empty, i.e. no orders from the non-ex day book have been copied over. Why does this help?  Well imagine you had a long-standing buy order in the book, well below the current price, and now the share price halves due to a 2-for-1 split, would you want to see your order executed? If so, your order should have gone into the ex-book which is only active on the ex-day (and orders in the ex book are usually copied over to the normal book on the day after the ex-day but this is exchange-specific). Think of it as an additional safety net to tell the exchange: ""I know what I'm doing: I want to buy this stock totally overpriced after the 2-for-1 split"". Now some exchanges and/or some securities (mostly derivatives) linked with the security in question don't have this notion of ex or the ex-book, and they will tell you by ""will not be quoted ex"" or ""the ex indicator is missing"". In your case (SNE) it is a sponsored ADR, the ex-date was Mar 28 2016, one day before the ex date of the Japanese original.  According to my understanding of NYSE rules, there is no specific rule for or against omitting the ex-indicator.  It seems to be a decision on a case by case basis.  Looking through the dividends of other Japanese ADRs I drew the conclusion none of them have an ex-book and so all of them are announced as: ""Will not be quoted ex by the exchange"".  Again, this is based on my observations."


First priority is to set up an emergency fund of 6 months expenses. If you're going to be making ~30k a year, then that means you'll probably want to put away about 10k of it in a savings account or something else similarly liquid.  After that, paying off your student loans probably makes the most sense depending on the rate. My general rule of thumb (and I'm sure others will disagree with me) is to pay off debts that are >=6.0% first before investing. Paying off debt is a risk-free return on your money, which makes it pretty valuable. It'll let you direct more of your monthly income into retirement savings, too. After that, open up a Roth IRA.  You can put a maximum of $5500 in it for this year.  I like Betterment, but Wealthfront has a similar service.


Venezuela is a command economy, and one that isn't doing terribly well right now, with rampant inflation in the several hundred percent range.  As such, they've tried to limit or eliminate exchanges between their currency and foreign currencies. Currently, they allow a limited amount of exchange at fixed rates (according to a Bloomberg article, those vary between 6.3, 13.5, and 200) for certain purchases, and then otherwise disallow exchange between the currencies.  However, there is a black market (illegal in Venezuela, but legal in the US) which allows the price to float, and is much higher - 800 or so according to that article from last year.  A recent Valuewalk article lists the black market rate at closer to 900, and slightly different official rates.  It's worth a read as it explains the different official rates in detail: Currently there are four exchange rates: First is the official one,   called CENCOEX, and which charges 6.30 bolivars to the dollar. It is   only intended for the importation of food and medicine. The next two exchange rates are SICAD I (12 bolivars per dollar) and   SICAD 2 (50 bolivars per dollar); they assign dollars to enterprises   that import all other types of goods. Because of the fact that US   dollars are limited, coupons are auctioned only sporadically; usually   weekly in the case of SICAD 1 and daily for SICAD 2. However, due to   the economic crisis, no dollars have been allocated for these foreign   exchange transactions and there hasn’t been an auction since August   18, 2015. As of November 2015, the Venezuelan government held only $16   billion in foreign exchange reserves, the lowest level in over ten   years, and an amount that will dry up completely in four years time at   the current rate of depletion. The last and newest exchange rate is the SIMADI, currently at 200   bolivars per dollar. This rate is reserved for the purchase and sale   of foreign currency to individuals and businesses.


If you are talking straight dollars then leasing is always a losing proposition when compared with purchasing. The financial workings of leasing are so confusing that people don’t realize that leasing invariably costs more than an equivalent   loan. And even if they did, the extra cost is difficult to calculate.   Still, many people can’t afford the higher payments of a typical loan,   at least not without putting a substantial amount down. If payments   are an issue, consider buying a lower-cost vehicle or a reliable used   car. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/12/buying-vs-leasing-basics/index.htm If you are talking about convenience, lifestyle, ability to purchase a car you could not pay for outright, then you will have to evaluate that.


Okays, so the prices we pay for goods and services aren't set by our income levels. Why should taxes be any different?  Surely they should be set by the benefits we receive from the community as measured by the market? That's what LVT is and does.


Car Loan is a personal loan which helps you take loan for the car which allows the buyer to pay in monthly payments instead of paying the full price all at once. HDFC Bank provides Flexible, Quick, and Cost-Effective ways to get Car Loans in India.


"Your only real alternative is something like T-Bills via your broker or TreasuryDirect or short-term bond funds like the Vanguard Short-Term Investment-Grade Fund.  The problem with this strategy is that these options are different animals than a money market. You're either going to subject yourself to principal risk or lose the flexibility of withdrawing the money. A better strategy IMO is to look at your overall portfolio and what you actually want. If you have $100k in a money market, and you are not going to need $100k in cash for the forseeable future -- you are ""paying"" (via the low yield) for flexibility that you don't need. If get your money into an appropriately diversified portfolio, you'll end up with a more optimal return. If the money involved is relatively small, doing nothing is a real option as well. $5,000 at 0.5% yields $25, and a 5% return yields only $250. If you need that money soon to pay tuition, use for living expenses, etc, it's not worth the trouble."


He is the President because people know he is rich and famous, which makes them think he is successful and therefore they voted for him.  Gates, Branson, Jobs, Musk, people actually working hard and being successful don't have the time to convince the dumbest part of voters to support them. Only an attentionwhore would do that.


"Certainly, there aren't algorithms lying in wait for me to enter a buy order for a couple thousand dollars worth of APPL. However, anybody that has a pension plan or a 401k gets shaved by predatory HFT. This is the majority of *ordinary investors*. Most of the population doesn't trade in individual stocks. The ones that have their investments managed by large funds are most certainly affected. Katsayuma's dissection of the underlying mechanisms makes that abundantly clear. I can understand why those with a financial stake attempt to discredit Katsuyama, but it's fairly transparent bullshit. Bullshit that ""you seem to have been suckered in"" by."


I used to be bullish on India, too.  Then I went to India.    It really is a structural problem.  The only way I see things changing is if more Indian expats go back to India and really move the country in a good direction.   The only saving grace is prevalence of English but that is not going to be enough going forward.


I don't know how much you travel but I travel to Europe, SE Asia and the Middle East frequently...  Security is a breeze compared to the US TSA thugs.  Even Israel is easier to do an airport transit than any US hub...


Almost, its not about lower wages. People who pick fruit get paid well above minimum wage, even double. It's about the fact no one is going to quit their job for $8 an hour to drive 60 minutes to go pick fruit for $14 a hour for harvest season and then be unemployed.


You can receive all the Money in your Bank. By Problem if you mean whether it will raise any alarms at the Bank. Most likely yes, such kind of activity would trigger AML. Bank would flag this off to regulators and questions would be asked. If you are doing a Legitimate business, its not an issue. Maintain a proper record of the transaction and pay your taxes. As funds are large 80 K a month, it makes sense to seek to advice of a Laywer and CA to help you keep thing in order.


Thanks. It has taken me some time to understand how all this works, and there are still many gray areas I want to understand further.  The Fed interest rate is the rate charged by banks to loan to each other to balance overnight reserves but only using the reserves they hold at the Fed. That adds no new money to the system, but increases the money multiplier a little since perhaps more loans can be made.   Basically one bank with excess reserves can loan to another bank that needs reserves. The Fed injects no money here, only sets the rate for banks to do this with each other.  When the Fed buys securities that effectively adds that many more dollars into circulation, which then gets hit by the money multiplier, adding a lot of new liquidity.  I think historically the latter tracks increases in the money supply much better than the former. I think the St. Louis Fed has records online for all this dating back to the 1940's or so.


Also, almost by definition rebalancing involves making more trades   than you would have otherwise; wouldn't the additional trading fees   you incurred in doing so reduce the benefits of this strategy? You forgot to mention taxes. Rebalancing does or rather can incur costs. One way to minimize the costs is to use the parts of the portfolio that have essentially zero cost of moving. These generally are the funds in your retirement accounts. In the United States they can be in IRAs or 401Ks; they can be regular or Roth. Selling winners withing the structure of the plan doesn't trigger capital gains taxes, and many have funds within them that have zero loads.  Another way to reduce trading fees is to only rebalance once a year or once every two years; or by setting a limit on how far out of balance. For example don't rebalance at 61/39 to get back to 60/40 even if it has been two years.  Given that the ratio of investments is often rather arbitrary to begin   with, how do I know whether I'm selling high and buying low or just   obstinately sticking with a losing asset ratio? The ratio used in an example or in an article may be arbitrary, but your desired ratio isn't arbitrary. You selected the ratio of your investments based on several criteria: your age, your time horizon, your goals for the money, how comfortable you are with risk. As these change during your investing career those ratios would also morph. But they aren't arbitrary.  These decisions to rebalance are separate from the ones to sell a particular investment. You could sell Computer Company X because of how it is performing, and buy stock in Technology Company Y because you think it has a better chance of growing. That transaction would not be a re-balancing. Selling part of your stock in Domestic Company A to buy stock in international Company B would be part of a re-balancing.


The benefits of pooling your money with others: The drawbacks of pooling your money with others: Practically Speaking - I say go for it. You stand to gain a lot of knowledge about how money works without having too much on the line. Good luck!


"I think you're projecting a little bit there when you say it's in my head.  From the Wikipedia article on [Nazism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism), it says that they ""sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the 'common good' and accept political interests as the main priority of economic organization.""  That sounds pretty well like socialism to me. I'm sorry that the bad men you don't like pointed it out, but that doesn't make it not true."


"Sadly, most jurisdictions don't think this way when they assign property taxes.  ""You have X acres, our standard for this county is $Y per acre, so you owe $XY property taxes.""    And if you tax by dwelling size and features, you are saying a poor person cannot live in a nice house.  Lets say Joe Millionaire buys a fancy $2M house with a fancy pool and all the trimmings.  Sure, Joe Millionaire can afford the high taxes of, say, $20K/year.  But what if Jim Garbageman, who makes only $35K/year spends 10 years and about $100k building a similar nice house out of scrap materials he finds, purchases on sale or on craigslist, etc.  He rents a backhoe and  a gunite gun and builds himself a fancy pool, landscapes it really nice...and the county comes in and says ""Well Jim, that's a $2M house, you owe us $20K/year in taxes for it.""  Jim can't afford it, and the county takes his house for unpaid taxes.  Screw you and your efforts, poor person!  And before you say ""he can just sell it for $2M"" Well, what if he made it unique to his tastes, and no one wants to buy it?  Or the market is bad right now?    And yes, this has happened to someone I know, though the house was valued at $500K, he still couldn't afford the taxes.  And since it was not yet fully finished, he had to sell it for only about $100k, after working on it for several years.  So yes, as long as you want to make sure poor people cannot live in nice places, property tax is the way to go."


"duffbeer's answers are reasonable for the specific question asked, but it seems to me the questioner is really wanting to know what stocks should I buy, by asking ""do you simply listen to 'experts' and hope they are right?"" Basic fundamental analysis techniques like picking stocks with a low PE or high dividend yield are probably unlikely to give returns much above the average market because many other people are applying the same well-known techniques."


"The $10,400 is in the question, in two pieces.  His employer withheld $8000, and her employer withheld $2400.  Thus they paid together $10,400 in income taxes, which are deductible if you itemize deductions and choose income taxes over sales taxes (you can deduct one or the other).  There's nothing ""standard"" about the amount, though it is standard to take the income tax deduction (almost always higher than sales tax)."


"Funds which track the same index may have different nominal prices.  From an investors point of view, this is not important.  What is important is that when the underlying index moves by a given percentage, the price of the tracking funds also move by an equal percentage.  In other words, if the S&P500 rises by 5%, then the price of those funds tracking the S&P500 will also rise by 5%.  Therefore, investing a given amount in any of the tracking funds will produce the same profit or loss, regardless of the nominal prices at which the individual funds are trading. To see this, use the ""compare"" function available on the popular online charting services. For example, in Google finance call up a chart of the S&P500 index, then use the compare textbox to enter the codes for the various ETFs tracking the S&P500.  You will see that they all track the S&P500 equally so that your relative returns will be equal from each of the tracking funds.  Any small difference in total returns will be attributable to management fees and expenses, which is why low fees are so important in passive investing."


"Assuming these are standardized and regulated contracts, the short answer is yes.  In your example, Trader A is short while Trader B is long.  If Trader B wants to exit his long position, he merely enters a ""sell to close"" order with his broker. Trader B never goes short as you state.  He was long while he held the contract, then he ""sold to close"". As to who finds the buyer of Trader B's contract, I believe that would be the exchange or a market maker.  Therefore, Trader C ends up the counterparty to Trader A's short position after buying from Trader B.  Assuming the contract is held until expiration, Trader A is responsible for delivering contracted product to Trader C for contracted price.  In reality this is generally settled up in cash, and Trader A and Trader C never even know each other's identity."


Edgy, yeah, but don't drink the Kool-aid just yet, we're trying to raise the bar here and if you're not careful you'll get thrown under the bus. Between you and me, though, that's the kind of outside the box thinking we need if we hope to be at the tip of the spear.


"All of these answers are great but I wanted to add one piece of advice from someone who has been married 8 years and been in various financial ""situations."" Have one of you (whoever the two of you feel is more organized and more financially responsible) be solely in charge of paying the monthly bills, but keep a spreadsheet or some other tracking mechanism so that the other can monitor this as well. That way if you guys ever decide to switch roles there won't be much of a learning curve. Also, don't do three bank accounts. One or two is enough, more than that starts becoming more difficult to keep track of and if you have any sort of monthly fees on the accounts it also wastes money. My wife and I each have our own account and we get money for each other if necessary. She handles paying the bills but keeps a monthly spreadsheet that has all pertinent info. We have a number and color coding system to determine which paycheck (1st or 2nd of the month) the bill is paid in and whether it has been paid, not paid, or past due (green, yellow, red). Hopefully you don't ever have to see the red color :P"


"I'm answering my own question because in some sense, I alone know the answer. After the review, HMRC decided to waive all penalties (including the initial £100 penalty for late filing, which I had not appealed against) because ""HMRC may not have informed me"" about the mounting penalties. I had pretty good evidence that they hadn't informed me as there was a software change and immediately after that I got an initial penalty notice followed a day or so later by the further penalty notice.  But I am happy with the outcome, I wasn't going to argue any further!"


Walmart isn't going anywhere anytime soon. There will always be a need for a place to grab a large variety of merchandise then and now. Some others like Target though, are starting to struggle and are trying out a smaller store format and moving away from the suburbs in a last ditch effort to stay relevant. And even mainstream grocers like Kroger have seen their sales dwindle (Aldi, Lidl and such are an enormous threat).


"Once again the egg heads at the NYTs get it wrong.  Health care policy is ""hard"" because insurance industry float is a significant driver in capital markets.  The message to politicians is clear:  imperil premium capital in-flow at your own risk."


Think it from the womens perspective: interactions with men are not meant to be fun or thrilling and you're not supposed to enjoy sex. You are giving something to the man, and you should be paid. Having a family means giving up your career at marriage, while getting full control of the guy's paycheck.   The interaction between men and women in Japan is the most dysfunctional I know of, forcing career women to stay single and men to abandon interactions with women altogether or only seek out those that are paid to provide a service.


Minimum wage has only went up $2 in twenty years while housing, gas and education has tripled. Also, the US is the only developed country where people go bankrupt trying to pay medical bills - I know, I am Portuguese finishing my studies here. I never paid more than $100 in anything relating to healthcare. Anything. My first month here, I got sick and stayed at the hospital for about a week. $50k in medical bills.  The fact that we have people defending this greedy and vile society in which people work their entire lives to afford so little, be so miserable, fat and depressed is troubling. I would pick twenty other countries before I picked the US to live in. I had no idea you were so backward thinking, so mean and cynical to each other. Like that one Icelandic woman on Michael Moore's documentary said, you have serious problems of compassion. You don't care if your neighbor succeeds or not. That's a sick society in decline. You're just not aware of it.   If you work full time, I don't care what the job is, you should be able to live a life with dignity.


Obama got bad press too - and I actively sought out news that wasn't hypercritical. Imagine my surprise when CNN became Fox and Fox became... well its still Fox, but it's less bitchy   The knee jerk assault on his policies actually made me research more of his policies and other conservative view points... dems negativity backfired and they lost me as a voter for a long long time


By definition, a monopoly cannot have three separate participants. Don’t misunderstand: there may be work to be done here. I’m saying let’s at least get the words right or nobody is going to listen who isn’t already convinced.


It ought to be possible to buy a foreign exchange future (aka forex future / FX future). Businesses use these futures to make sure their exchange rate is predictable: if they put a bunch of money into manufacturing things that'll be ready a year later, it helps to know that the currency exchange rate shifts won't wipe out all their profits. If you're willing to take on some of that risk, and if things go your way, you can make money. They are essentially contracts between two private parties to pay each other a certain amount of money based on the movement of the currencies, so the Chinese government doesn't actually need to be involved and no renminbi need to change hands, you can just trade the contracts. Note that the exchange rate is currently fixed by the Chinese government, so you're going to be subject to enhanced levels of political risk, and they may not be as widely available or readily tradable as other foreign exchange futures, so check with a broker before opening your account. I couldn't find them on my personal Etrade account, but a quick Google search reveals CME Group offering some. There are probably others.  Foreign exchange futures are an advanced investing tool and carry risk. Be sure you understand the risk, in particular how much money you can end up on the hook for if things don't go your way. Also remember, futures expire: you're not just betting on the rate changing, but you're betting on it changing within a certain amount of time.


Scenario A: Scenario B: Scenario C: I have been in both scenario A and scenario B. The new companies had no problem with me opening an FSA under their program.


I think JohnFx's answer is pretty much the right thing to do. I'd just like to suggest that the budget doesn't have to be fixed. It sounds like you aren't completely sure what an acceptable lifestyle costs for you, and it might feel like a budget locks you into a spending pattern that could end up being unfulfilling, or keep you in debt longer than necessary. To reduce that risk, you could start with a very easy level of contributions, then every month see if you can spend $10-$50 less without sacrificing in the lifestyle department. And eventually if you feel like you're missing out, you can stick with the previous month's budget. You might avoid depriving yourself by starting with something easy, but I think if you make an effort to save money, you'll more likely be surprised how much you can improve your lifestyle while spending less. I like a lot of the advice on Mr. Money Mustache and Early Retirement Extreme, and I'd recommend the introductory sections of both blogs if you ever hit a block at some level of contribution. And one minor (highly situational) comment: You mentioned having less to save if you contribute more, but if you have high interest loans, paying them down early can be (pretty much) a guaranteed very high ROI. So while you might want to prioritize an emergency fund and maybe an employer match first, most saving will probably be less useful than extra contributions.


Skiffbug is not English... rather,  just another guy that realizes he had achieved nothing of value,  therefore finds it completely acceptable to demand changes that will in no way affect him or his pocket book,  ie...a douchebag.


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Ok I read the article and yeah I'm completely off topic. It's opening up the possibly for people to create apps etc or retrieve information from it. I guess an example would be a booking site linked to airbnb availability. Maybe we'll see a combo site including hotel space availability as well as airbnb availability. I've also heard of VRBO if that's a real thing.


You should try to take out other loans sufficient to pay off your 401(k) loan if you can.   Maybe you can take out a home equity loan?  You can also ask your bank about unsecured loans.  You should also check the rules for your new employer's 401(k), if you're rolling over your 401(k).  There's a small possibility that you could take out another loan right now and apply it to the previous loan balance. Or if you need to wait, you could use it to help pay off any temporary loans that were needed to avoid the distribution penalty.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-05-31/coal-solar-stocks-fall-as-us-set-to-ditch-paris-climate-deal) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot) ***** > NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES - U.S. coal company shares dipped alongside renewable energy stocks on Wednesday after reports that President Donald Trump plans to pull the United States from a global accord on fighting climate change.  > The market reaction reflects concerns, raised by some coal companies in recent months, that a U.S. exit from the Paris Climate Agreement could unleash a global backlash against coal interests outside the United States.  > Peabody was among a handful of big coal companies that had argued that Trump should stay in the deal to help protect coal industry interests overseas, including by ensuring funding for coal-fired power plants and so-called &quot;Clean coal&quot; technology.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6en5c4/coal_stocks_fall/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~134065 tl;drs so far."") | [Theory](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31bfht/theory_autotldr_concept/) | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **coal**^#1 **percent**^#2 **Trump**^#3 **us**^#4 **Paris**^#5"


Once you declare the amount, the CBP officials will ask you the source and purpose of funds. You must be able to demonstrate that the source of funds is legitimate and not the proceeds of crime and it is not for the purposes of financing terrorism. Once they have determined that the source and purpose is legitimate, they will take you to a private room where two officers will count and validate the amount (as it is a large amount); and then return the currency to you. For nominal amounts they count it at the CBP officer's inspection desk. Once they have done that, you are free to go on your way. The rule (for the US) is any currency or monetary instrument that is above the equivalent of 10,000 USD. So this will also apply if you are carrying a combination of GBP, EUR and USD that totals to more than $10,000.


It depends on your bank and your terms of service, but using the card one way or the other may affect things such as how long it takes to process, what buyer protections you have, etc.  It also affects the store as I believe they are charged differently for debit vs credit transactions.


The issue is that no one wants to be paid in Yuan.... so that leaves only those who don't want to be paid in dollars.   Will gold increase -- maybe marginally because of this. But world financial markets are doing slightly better which means that the price of gold will remain low for a bit a longer.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/30/16220134/universal-basic-income-roosevelt-institute-economic-growth) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) ***** > A full universal basic income, in which every adult gets $1,000 a month A partial basic income, in which every adult gets $500 a month A child allowance, in which every child gets $250 a month They find that enacting any of these policies by growing the federal debt - that is, without raising taxes to pay for it - would substantially grow the economy.  > Thus, they find that a full $12,000 a year per adult basic income, paid for with progressive income taxes, would grow the economy by about 2.62 percent and expand the labor force by about 1.1 million people.  > Correspondingly, enacting big tax increases to pay for a basic income would be predicted to hurt the economy.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6x0avf/study_a_universal_basic_income_would_grow_the/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~201279 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*: **tax**^#1 **income**^#2 **percent**^#3 **economy**^#4 **taxes**^#5"


Yeah,  but the direct flight to Seattle is too long from the east coast. Southern California has Hollywood, Amazon video studio +1, 3 major ports of America because they are on the top 20 ports of America  (( LA, long Beach and san Diego) (LA is number 1, long Beach is 2, 3 is new York and New Jersey Port authority means MULTIPLE PORTS and 4 is the Seattle and Tacoma authority which also means the same shit.)) Good universities, California tech, ucla and usc to name a few. They are close to companies like boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed,(all withing 50 miles of each other from some reason)East coast is good for finance but is good a headquarters have to mean its close to their other branches? East coast is good only known for their investment banking. I don't know I'm just some drunk guy on the internet. But in my opinion California is the 6th? largest economy in the world and yes, if a yuppie city is willing to give you 5 billion to go there massive amount of resources compared to Memphis, New Jersey and what not just because a hq has to close to what😵? Think farther, go south, Mexico and south America. Hq1 USA and Canada and hq2 south America...


>The people that are successful are the ones who had the wisdom, intelligence, and/or drive to capitalize on that moment.   And were lucky enough to have had parents who gave them the genetic predisposition to act that way. You could have just been born an idiot, or in a location where you would not be given that moment, and there is nothing you can do to stop that.


Not sure if it's 100% perceived. If shipping by boat takes 2 weeks and plane takes 2 days you can roughly calculate the worth of the mining that would be derived from those 12 days of mining. If it is more then the cost to rent a plane then you are really only speculating a short time into the future.


Investments earn income relative to the principal amounts invested. If you do not have much to invest, then the only way to 'get rich' by investing is to take gambles. And those gambles are more likely to fail than succeed. The simplest way for someone without a high amount of 'capital' [funds available to invest] to build wealth, is to work more, and invest in yourself. Go to school, but only for proven career paths. Take self-study courses. Learn and expand your career opportunities.  Only once you are stable financially, have minimal debt [or, understand and respect the debt you plan to pay down slowly, which some people choose to do with school and house debt], and are able to begin contributing regularly to investment plans, can you put your financial focus on investing. Until then, any investment gains would pale in comparison to gains from building your career.


This was exactly the right move. America's cities are run by democrats, but uber is one of the most free-market, capitalistic companies out there. Plouffe is a respected figure in liberal circles with the right connections to get inside these city councils and mayor's offices.


I think it's because there are people who build entire wealth-gain strategies around certain conditions.  When those conditions change, their mechanism of gaining wealth is threatened and they may take a short term loss as they transform their holdings to a new strategy.


Tampa Technology Co., LTD is a leading supplier of small engine parts from China. We always provide our customers with the highest quality products and the best service. Over the years, our products have been highly appreciated in the world, especially by the customers from the United States and Europe.


"Probably people like me who thought they'd turned it all off.   For the iphone:   Settings -- Privacy -- Location Services -- System Services   There you'll see a bunch of system services you probably don't need but (if my phone is any indication) are used pretty regularly to get location data on you. Some may be okay with you, but worth checking out.     A few things I looked up:   **Cell Network Search** - it's monitoring for Apple's benefit, having this on doesn't do anything for you; turning it off won't affect using your phone   **Compass Calibration** - your maps will work fine without this, and you can still calibrate the compass while using it; having it on just lets them ... check location to calibrate a compass you're not using?   **Motion Calibration & Distance** - for fitness stuff like tracking steps   **Setting Time Zone** - if you don't travel between time zones often, you probably don't need Apple checking your location every day to constantly ""set time zone"""


Assuming that partial payments are held (without interest) until enough money has accumulated to make at least a full payment, and assuming that overpayments are applied toward principal, a strategy of making three $ 96.00 payments per month will shorten your amortization period by less than one month.  These calculations assume that the interest rate is 12.5 percent APR, compounded monthly (with an APY of 13.2416 percent). Instead of 71 payments of $ 285.56 plus a final payment of $ 285.38, you would make the equivalent of 71 payments of $ 288.00 plus a final payment of $ 28.10. If you make one $ 96.00 payment every ten days, you will make an average of 36.5… partial payments per year, instead of 36 partial payments per year.  This will speed up your loan amortization by about another month-and-a-half over the course of the 72 month loan.  One month of shortening is due to the extra principal payments, and the other half-month is due to interest savings.   To a second approximation, this strategy is similar to paying $ 292.00 per month for 69 months plus a final payment of $ 195.38.  In other words, this strategy will probably involve about 212 payments of $ 96.00 each, possibly with a small 213th payment.


Speaking as a liberal arts graduate working in a big financial firm: liberal arts graduates tend to have a generalist's perspective that lends itself well to picking up skills on the job, and are often very good at communicating very complex information in a digestible format.  For instance, one of the MAJOR complaints where I work is that there is a higher tendency among employees with STEM backgrounds to be very anti-social when interacting with clients. They are very good at the specific tasks they are trained to do, but absolutely abysmal when it comes to building business relationships, internally and externally.  To put the above in perspective, I consider myself to be a reserved person, but at work I feel like a social butterfly compared to a good chunk of my colleagues. It's very odd.


> Queuing for service also occurs in the US...   Agreed, we have that in addition to cost inflation. When I refered to countries with massive government involvement, I was not excluding us. Really our system is little different that that of the Netherlands.  Nothing more on the boomers? I didn't see you mention them again...


In most markets, there are fixed fees known as commissions. For instance, with a retail broker in the stock market, you can expect every trade to cost you $7.00 as an example, it is $7.00 regardless of if you place a trade for $25 or $25,000. You will see that just opening the trade, with a smaller amount, will eat up all of your profits and a majority of your capital, but if you opened the trade with more capital through the investment group, then the $7.00 commission will be much less of a tax on your trade. Basically, the only advantage is that the tax of commissions will be less if you have a larger account, if the commission is a fixed dollar value, which is not always true either. regardless, at $25 per month, not many markets will be accessible. There is also the possible educational aspect of investing with a group of people, or it can simply be clashing ideals.


> The report I linked to appears to disagree with you about the numbers.  I can't remember the report you linked anymore but prior to 2010/2011 (drawdown) there was only a single point (2007/2008) where contractors outnumbered troops, and it was by (iirc from the chart) 30-40k. USAID had 53k contractors under them at that time. The math there means that, at no point prior to the drawdown, did DoD contractors outnumber DoD personnel.  >I wonder how it works out from a budgetary perspective for the professional mercenary companies, who I've read get paid massive amounts, which, I imagine, must irritate those doing similar work for government pay. People like Blackwater and their ilk.  That was the contracting work that I did. The military guys are just envious (but in a pretty positive way - certainly not hatin') and the government civilians can be annoyed but largely don't care. Everyone is in the same boat, pretty much - you're all there together. The military guys know that if they want to do contracting they need to follow a certain career path which they either choose not to pursue or can not.   State Department employees had the biggest problem with it because a) contractors fuck all of their women and b) they make more than the Staties without having a degree. It's very much a classist thing, and they are on the losing end of it. Kids educated at Cornell and now playing diplomat don't appreciate that.  Pay (for me) was $675 a day for some of the time, $1125 a day for the other part. It was decent pay, I worked 4 hours a day on average, and I got to work out a lot, but the food sucked and there were too few girls. And the ones that were there... you didn't want them. Or at least I didn't. But I've seen some of the best looking guys I've ever met dick down some ugly girls in country, and there was no way that I was about to fight with them over the (stretch marked or busted looking) scraps.


"That's just his base salary for last year.  Keep reading in the article: He also received $1.6 million worth of securit[ies]. Plus, he's probably earned plenty in salary, bonuses, and other compensation in previous years to more than keep up his lifestyle.  He can also sell (relatively) small amounts of the stock he already owns to get millions in cash without raising an eyebrow. how are people able to spend more than what they make, without going into debt? Well, people can't spend more than they have without going into debt. Certainly money can be saved, won, inherited, whatever without being ""earned"".  Other than that, debt is the only option. That said, MANY ""wealthy"" people will spend WAY more than they have by going into debt.  This can be done through huge mortgages, personal loans using stock, real estate, or other assets as collateral, etc.  I don't know about Bezos specifically, but it's not uncommon for ""wealthy"" people to live beyond their means - they just have more assets behind them to secure personal loans, or bankers are more willing to lend them unsecured money because of the large interest rates they can charge.  Their assumption is presumably that the interest they'll pay on these loans is less than the earnings they'll get from the asset (e.g. stock, real estate).  While it may be true in some cases, it can also go bad and cause you to lose everything."


Most bank robbers do it to support drug habits.  Given already poor decision making skills (i.e. getting hooked, robbing a bank once) and combining it with chemical cravings means you'll see idiotic repeat bank robberies like that as long as we have banks to rob.


That's a serious thing.  After Orlando, wasn't there a thing about a rise in gun sales to LGBT customers?  A lot of people really fear Trump / Republicans / Religious Right / Gasoline / Beef, so they might want to arm up a little more than they did under Obama.  (I've been to enough gun ranges to know that they are bi-partisan.)


To answer your question directly, this is a taxable benefit that they are providing for you in lieu of higher wages. It is taxable to the employee as income and through payroll taxes. It is taxable to the employer for their half of the payroll taxes.


For a complete example, do a little research on Monticello MN FiberNet. The project took 7 years to get going, including a court battle. The incumbent ISP fought tooth and nail to stop competition.  Now you can get 30 mb up/down fiber for $50/month. Probably one of the best prices you'll find anywhere in the state. And that scares every shitty dsl provider around.  Source: Minnesotan, not from Monticello and currently paying $30/mo for 3/1.5 mb dsl and getting shitty fucking customer service.  edit: Android thinks I shouldn't curse.


If you are the only contributor to the premiums, you will not owe income taxes on the benefits. Only the portion of the benefits you receive which were paid by your employer are taxable. Source: IRS 'Life Insurance & Disability Insurance Proceeds' Question: I am receiving long-term disability. Is it considered taxable? If you pay the entire cost of a health or accident insurance plan, do not include any amounts you receive for your disability as income on your tax return EDIT: In regards to @NateEldredge's comment: If you are inquiring about the premiums, then yes, you have to pay income tax on the portion of income that pays the premiums (it's a post-tax expense and is not tax-deductible)


Stock price = Earning per share * P/E Ratio. Most of the time you will see in a listing the Stock price and the P/E ration. The calculation of the EPS is left as an exercise for the student Investor.


Both of my primary home purchases were either at, or close to asking price. My first house was during the local seller's market in 2001-2002. There were waiting lines for open houses. In hindsight we bought more home than we needed at the time but that had nothing to do with offering asking price. It was the market for the type of property (location and features) at that time. My second house was a little after the peak in 2008. The value had come down quite a bit and the property was priced on the low side versus the comps. To this day my second house still appraises higher than what we paid for it even though it was at asking price. As a third example, my brother-in-law got into a bidding war on his first home purchase and ended up buying it for above asking price. This was normal for the houses in the area he was looking at. With real estate, like other people have said, it really is important to either know the area you are looking at or to get an agent you trust and have them explain their reasons for their offer strategy through the comps. Yes agents need to make money but the good ones have been in the business a while and also live off of repeat business when you sell your house or refer friends and family to them. Agents do a lot less work when it comes to selling by the way so they would love for you to come back to them when it's time to sell. If I'm not happy with the way things are going with my agent I would have a heart to heart with them and give them a chance to correct the relationship. I've spoken to a realtor friend in the past about getting out of buyer's contracts and he told me it's a lot easier as a buyer than a seller. The buyer has most of the power during the process. The seller just has what the buyer wants.


This whole article is about politics, not about business. Just because the douche who is trying to make a statement about partisan politics makes a front page of a business section; just because he happens to do business, doesn't make the topic business. It's the ensuing pedantic arguments and quibbles about this and that which really make it about politics. if it were about about business it would be a question of profitability, efficiency or markets, not about some jerk who says he is going to try to ruin the lives of many people because of something that might effect his companies bottom line after ancillary effects make their way down the road to him.


To answer the specific question of whether you can get the bill reduced without hurting your credit, yes, as long as the bill never goes to collections, there's no reason it should ever show up on your credit report. Will they reduce your bill without sending it to collections first? Maybe. All you can do is ask.


Naïve?  I imagine I'm a few decades older than you are.  And I'm pretty sure you've never lost your job with a family to feed or you wouldn't be so cocksure that the loss of thousands of jobs was an unalloyed good thing.  I also addressed his point perfectly well in my last sentence.  To clarify it for you, yes, I believe that bad businesses will have to go, and since most of them today are bad, there will be a collapse and millions of people will suffer tremendously.    It's inevitable but it's really hard not to feel for the people who are suffering now and the millions more who will suffer in the future.  My only hope is that some sort of better system will come out of the ruins...


I would have been tempted to dismiss your claim, but the data I found shows that you're correct. On the plus side, the growth rate in credit union market share is higher in New York than it is in California. While there is no question that bankers hate credit unions, I can't tell you why credit unions have a smaller market share in NY. Maybe the regulatory environment is part of it. Banks have a big lobby, and they pay a lot of taxes in NYC.


Personally, I started renting out because I couldn't afford to buy a place but now I'm quite comfortably past that point.  My three main issues are: These views aren't for everyone but I find it hard to seriously contemplate dealing with 2 while 1 and 3 are issues.   To be honest, I found that I learned a lot sharing a place for the first few years and still enjoying it now.  I don't really think you should bring it down to a financial issue unless your decision is already made.


The Laffer curve is taught in like the first week of a macro Econ class. You could raise the tax rates to 99% and still collect less tax revenue than if they are at a reasonable rate. But of course there's no mention of that. So I'm gonna go out on a limb and call it what it really is: ideologues championing their agendas.


Depends on the type and scope of your business. I am very strongly considering starting my own mobile app business while unemployed to fill the employment gap. The odds of turning a decent profit are probably low, but my overhead is so low that my risk is virtually zero. Just as long as it helps me get work later on, I will have accomplished my goals.


I think it all boils down to choosing the right people to work for you whether they might be a local or from the other side of the world (outsourced).  What matters is they are able to do the work well. Saving on costs is just an added benefit.


I have a few recommendations/comments: The trick here is to make it clear to the dealer that you will not be getting a new car from them and their only hope of making some money is to sell you your own car. You need to be prepared to walk away and follow through. DON'T buy a new car from them even if you end up turning it in! They could still come back a day later and offer a deal. Leasing a new car every 3 years is not the best use of money. You have to really, really like that new car feeling every three years and be willing to pay a premium for it. If you're a car nut (like me) and want to spend money on a luxury car, it's far wiser to purchase a slightly used luxury vehicle, keep it for 8+ years, and that way you won't have a car payment half the time!


"Appreciation of a Capital Asset is a Capital Gain.   In the United States, Capital Gains get favorable tax treatment after being held for 12 months. From the IRS newsroom: Capital gains and losses are   classified as long-term or short-term,   depending on how long you hold the   property before you sell it. If you   hold it more than one year, your   capital gain or loss is long-term. If   you hold it one year or less, your   capital gain or loss is short-term. The tax rates that apply to net   capital gain are generally lower than   the tax rates that apply to other   income. For 2009, the maximum capital   gains rate for most people is15%. For   lower-income individuals, the rate may   be 0% on some or all of the net   capital gain. Special types of net   capital gain can be taxed at 25% or   28%. The IRS defines a Capital Asset as ""most property you own"" with a list of exclusions found in Schedule D Instructions.  None of the exclusions listed relate to Bond ETFs."


This is allowed somewhat infrequently.  You can often purchase stocks through DRIPs which might have little or no commission.  For example Duke Energy (DUK) runs their plan internally, so you are buying from them directly.  There is no setup fee, or reinvestment fee.  There is a fee to sell. Other companies might have someone else manage the DRIP but might subsidize some transaction costs giving you low cost to invest.  Often DRIPs charge relatively large amounts to sell and they are not very nimble if trading is what you are after. You can also go to work for a company, and often they allow you to buy stock from them at a discount (around 15% discount is common). You can use a discount broker as well.  TradeKing, which is not the lowest cost broker, allows buys and sells at 4.95 per trade.  If trading 100 shares that is similar in cost to the DUK DRIP.


Perhaps you haven't been following the news, but much of the protesting coming from young people around the world is in response to increasing tution costs. Montreal had a 30,000 person march just last week made up mostly of college students. I'd really love to know what countries you're referring to.


>Some argue shareholder capitalism has proven more efficient. It has moved economic resources to where they're most productive, and thereby enabled the economy to grow faster.  Sure, but there isn't much in this growth for the regular Joe. I am saying this because of the growing wealth disparity on one hand, and the very-slowly-changing face of the Third World.


I think this is really two questions: Dumbcoder has already answered part 1 in a comment - either just wire the money from the Japanese bank account to the UK bank account (either bank should be able to help you with the details of this) or if your Japanse bank also has a UK operation you may be able to do it within the same bank.  As for part 2 - if you are looking for a mortgage then many high street mortgage providers (banks) will want proof of your savings up front. They may or may not accept Japanese bank statements; all you can do is ask the question. You would probably also need to ask your Japanese bank if they can provide statements in English.  If you find that most or all of the high street banks will not accept this as proof of assets, or that they demand that the money is in the UK for a period of time first, then you might have more luck with a mortgage broker who can deal with the specialist requirement. If you do find a mortgage provider who is happy to accept Japanese bank statements as proof of assets then you would simply need to wire the money direct from your bank in Japan to the UK bank of your solicitor at or shortly before the point when the deposit becomes due (usually at exchange of contracts).


"I'd recommend an online FX broker like XE Trade at xe.com.  There are no fees charged by XE other than the spread on the FX conversion itself (which you'll pay anywhere). They have payment clearing facilities in several countries (including UK BACS) so provided you're dealing with a major currency it should be possible to transfer money ""free"" (of wire charges at least).  The FX spread will be much better than you would get from a bank (since FX is their primary business). The additional risk you take on is settlement risk.  XE will not pay the sterling amount to your UK bank account until they have received the Euro payment into their account.  If XE went bankrupt before crediting your UK account, but after you've paid them your Euros - you could lose your money. XE is backed by Custom House, which is a large and established Canadian firm - so this risk is very small indeed. There are other choices out there too, UKForex is another that comes to mind - although XE's rates have been the best of those I've tried."


In reading the Moody's report I found it funny that 2 notches worth of Morgan Stanley's rating id due to the benefit from implied TBTF protection.  So here we are 4 years after the crisis and Morgan Stanley still has 2 notches of creditworthiness due to still being TBTF.  So without that MS would be one notch above junk.


I'm okay if the union sticks up for those only in the Union. If I get a pay raise because of my union affiliation, you don't deserve the same benefits. For what it's worth, in many other countries they've always sided with the Union.   To me this is a a direct attack on the middle class. If it hasn't already eroded enough it's only going to get worse.


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


There are quite a few advantages to credit cards in the uk. But don't borrow on them past the grace period. Set up a direct debit to pay amount in full.


"If you have wage income that is reported on a W2 form, you can contribute the maximum of your wages, what you can afford, or $5500 in a Roth IRA.   One advantage of this is that the nominal amounts you contribute can always be removed without tax consequences, so a Roth IRA can be a deep emergency fund (i.e., if the choice is $2000 in cash as emergency fund or $2000 in cash in a 2015 Roth IRA contribution, choice 2 gives you more flexibility and optimistic upside at the risk of not being able to draw on interest/gains until you retire or claim losses on your tax return).  If you let April 15 2016 pass by without making a Roth IRA contribution, you lose the 2015 limit forever.  If you are presently a student and partially employed, you are most likely in the lowest marginal tax rate you will be in for decades, which utilizes the Roth tax game effectively.   If you're estimating ""a few hundred"", then what you pick as an investment is going to be less important than making the contributions.  That is, you can pick any mutual fund that strikes your fancy and be prepared to gain or lose, call it $50/year (or pick a single stock and be prepared to lose it all).  At some point, you need to understand your emotions around volatility, and the only tuition for this school is taking a loss and having the presence of mind to examine any panic responses you may have.  No reason not to learn this on ""a few hundred"".  While it's not ideal to have losses in a Roth, ""a few hundred"" is not consequential in the long run.   If you're not prepared at this time in your life for the possibility of losing it all (or will need the money within a year or few, as your edit suggests), keep it in cash and try to reduce your expenses to contribute more.  Can you contribute another $100?  You will have more money at the end of the year than investment choice will likely return."


Would you consider the owner of a company to be supporting the company? If you buy stock in the company you own a small part of that company. Your purchase also increases the share price, and thus the value of the company. Increased value allows the company to borrow more money to say expand operations. The affect that most individuals might have on share price is very very small. That doesn't mean it isn't the right thing for you to do if it is something you believe in. After all if enough people followed those same convictions it could have an impact on the company.


Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovan, Belorussian??? Sorry, still not treated the same as French/German women...  Look at student visa, Some Unis have a summer school program where you can get a student visa for three months... (like full time year studying.) Good luck!


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.lse.edu/internationalDevelopment/publications/Working-Papers/WP176-TeddyBrett.aspx) reduced by 60%. (I'm a bot) ***** > It creates asym-metrical relationships between donors and recipients that succeed when their interests can be can harmo-nised but not when they conflict.  > These relationships and strategies have changed radically since the war in response to changes in the global system, policy paradigms, and crises.  > We review these processes, treat-ing aid relationships as a structural component of the global system; review the different strategies adopted by donors since the war that culminated in the recent Paris Declaration and Sustainable Development Goals calling for poverty reduction and good governance.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6skcpg/explaining_aid_ineffectiveness_the_political/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~186761 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*: **donors**^#1 **relationships**^#2 **system**^#3 **global**^#4 **aid**^#5"


The shift to trading at the close began in 2008. Traders did not want to be caught off guard by surprise news and there was a lot of volatility during the financial crisis, so they would close their position in the evening. Thats how it began. There are two reasons why it sticks around. First, there has been an increase usage of index funds or passive funds. These funds tend to update their positions at the end of the day. From the WSJ: Another factor behind the shift has been the proliferation of passively managed investments, such as index funds. These funds aim to mimic an index, like the S&P 500, by owning the shares that comprise it. Index funds don’t trade as often as active investors, but when they do, it is typically near the market close, traders say. That is because buying or selling a stock at its closing price better aligns their performance with the index they are trying to emulate. The second reason is simply that volume attracts volume. As a result of whats mentioned above, you have a shift to end of day trading, and the corrolary to that is that there is a liquidity shortage from 10am to 3pm. Thus, if you want to buy or sell a stock, but there are few buyers or sellers around, you will significant move the price when you enter your order. Obviously this does not affect retail traders, but imagine hedge funds entering or closing a billion dollar position. It can make a huge impact on price. And one way to mitigate that is to wait until there are more market participants to take the other end of your trade, just as at the end of the day. So this is a self-reinforcing trend that has begun in the markets and will likely stick around. http://www.wsj.com/articles/traders-pile-in-at-the-close-1432768080


how safe is my money As safe as it can get. Most Banks would be registered under FDIC. See the list here if a specific bank is covered or not. Bank of America is covered. How does this work, and is there something I need to do so I am covered by it? Should I be getting a certificate or something?Is BOA under the scope of this Deposit insurance? It only covers if the bank fails, i.e. goes bankrupt. The FDIC steps in and either oversees a merger of the failed bank with another bank, or in the worst case, pays the depositors upto $250,000.  Does it cover me if someone steals my money? The FDIC does not cover if someone steals your money. if someone hacks my computer and transfers all my money? This will be determined on a case to case basis. If the loss of money is because of your negligence, i.e. you gave your password etc to someone else or did not take enough precautions to safegaurd ... including allowing someone to hack you computer ... in such cases it is a crime and you would need to file police complaint and the bank will on best effort basis try and reverse the transfer. If this was due to the bank's error; i.e. Bank did not ensure right controls/security was in place resulting in loss of your money, the bank is liable and will pay you back. So cases like someone forged your signature on a check etc. are the bank's responsibility.


"Just one further point to add to what everyone else has said. There are no oil rigs or platforms ""off the shores of Liverpool"". Liverpool is on the west coast of England, on the oil-free Irish Sea. The UK's oil industry is in the North Sea, to the north-east. Aberdeen would be the correct city."


I'm working on some banking-related research, and have run into a problem: financial data switches between using RSSDIDs and FDIC certs to identify individual banks. I'm looking for an efficient way to convert between ID types or include both, as I am merging large financial data sets that each use different ID types. I have found [this](https://www.ffiec.gov/nicpubweb/nicweb/searchform.aspx), which allows for conversion one-by-one. However, I'm working with a very large set of bank data, and would really appreciate a more efficient way to do this. Does anyone know of a data set that matches certs to RSSDIDs?  edit: just in case someone else needs it, the call report bulk downloads on the ffiec site have both the CERTs and RSSDIDs, so you can use those.


They don’t grind down profits because they don’t want to pay taxes. They have no need to turn a profit because the premium people are willing to pay to amazon for their stock is so high that their cost of capital is essentially negative. In amazon’s world, any retained profits reflect a lack of investment in growth or willingness to take risk, and because their capital is so cheap, this essentially means that turning a profit is a lack of investment in growth.  You could make an argument that tax law has not kept pace with the reality of the technological revolution, but to argue amazon’s primary driving motive is to avoid taxes is just silly.