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<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> IRA contributions in a bear (bad) market: Should I build up cash savings instead? [/INST] You should consider dollar cost averaging your investments. Retirement account is perfect for that - it's long term with periodic deposits. Overall, by investing in stocks now for a long term, you'll benefit more because the stocks are at their low(er) point. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> IRA contributions in a bear (bad) market: Should I build up cash savings instead? [/INST] The first two answers to this are very good, but I feel like there are a couple of points they left out that were a little too long for comments. First off take a look at the expense percentage,the load fees, and the average turnover ratio for the funds in your retirement account (assuming they are mutual funds). Having low expense fees <1% preferably and turnover ratios will help tremendously because those eat into returns whether the value of the fund goes up or down. The load fees (either incoming or outgoing) will lower the amount of money you actually put in and get out of the fund. There are thousands of no-load funds and most that have a backend load for taking the money out have clauses that lower that percentage to zero over several years. It is mostly there to keep people from trying to swing trade with mutual funds and pull their money out too quickly. The last thing I would suggest is to look at diversifying the holdings in your account. Bond funds have been up this year even though the stock market has done poorly. And they provide interest income that can increase the amount of shares you own even when the value of the bonds might have gone down. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Anonymous CC: Does “Entropay” really not hand my personal data over to a company - are there alternatives? [/INST] Do you guys know any options that are accessible to any global citizen? Prepaid and stored value cards are anonymous. For an arbitrary reason, the really anonymous ones only allow you to load $500 but there is no regulation that dictates this amount. In the USA, these cards are exempt from being declared at border crossings. Not because they look like credit cards, but because they are exempt by the US Treasury and Customs. The cons is that there are generally fees to use them. US DOJ has done research showing that some groups take advantage of the exemption moving upwards of $50,000 a day between borders, but Congress is fine with this exemption and the burden is always on the government to determine "illicit origin". Stigmatizing how money is moved is only a 30 year old phenomenon, but many free nations do not really have capital controls, they only care that you pay taxes and that the integrity of their stock markets are upheld. Aside from that there are no qualms about anonymity, except from your neighbors but they dont matter for a global citizen. In theory, the UK should have more flexibility in anonymity options, such as stored value cards with higher limits. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Why IV and stock price are inversely related [/INST] people are willing to pay higher premiums for options when stocks go down. Obviously the time value and intrinsic value and interests rates of the option doesn't change because of this so the miscalculation remainder is priced into the implied volatility part of the formula. Basically, anything that suggests the stock price will get volatile (sharp moves in either direction) will increase the implied volatility of the option. For instance, around earnings reports, the IV in both calls and puts in the nearest expiration dates are very high. When stocks go down sharply, the volatility is high because some people are buying puts for protection and others are buying calls because they think there will be a rebound move in the other direction. People (the "sleep-at-night" investors, not the derivatives traders ;) ) tend to be calm when stocks are going up, and fearful when they are going down. The psychology is important to understand and observe and profit from, not to quantitatively prove. The first paragraph should be your qualitative answer </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> How does the Pension system work in Poland? [/INST] Pretty simple actually. This is a state-run defined benefit plan, where the benefit is calculated based on the length of the employment and the contributed amounts. This is what in the US is known as the Social Security. This is a defined contribution plan, where the employee can chose the level of risk based on certain pre-defined investment guidelines (more conservative or more aggressive). In Poland, it appears that there's a certain amount of the state-mandated SS tax is transferred to these plans. Nothing in the US is like that, but you can see it as a mandatory IRA with a preset limited choice of mutual funds to invest into, as an analogy. The recent change was to reduce the portion of the madatory contribution that is diverted to this plan from 7+% to 2.3% (on account of expanding the contribution to (1)). Probably the recent crashes of the stock markets that affected these accounts lead to this decision. This is voluntary defined contribution plan, similar to the US 401Ks. This division is actually pretty common, not unique to Poland. I'd say its the "standard" pension scheme, as opposed to what we're used to in the US. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> How does the Pension system work in Poland? [/INST] littleadv's answer gives a concise summary of the system as it stands now, but much more changed than just the portion of the mandatory contribution that was diverted to the private plan. In broad terms, the balances of your accounts and your future benefit won't change. It's only the source of these benefits that's changing. The Bloomberg article describes the changes this way: The state will take over the amount of bonds that pension funds held as of end of Sept. 3 and turn them into pension liabilities in the state-run social security system... The state will assume control of 51.5 percent of pension-fund assets, including bonds guaranteed by the government and “other non-stock assets” After the change, Polish workers that held bonds in the private portion of their retirement portfolios will instead have more payments from the state-run pension system. The balances of your retirement portfolio and your future benefits shouldn't change, but the reality may depend on how the state pension system is managed and any future changes the government implements. The effect this change will have on future benefits isn't clear, because the change may simply delay the problem of high levels of outstanding sovereign debt, not solve it. The government stated that because increasing numbers of workers invested their money in private pension funds, less money went into the government's fund, which forced them to issue sovereign debt in order to cover the shortfall in their current pension liabilities. The government's recent cancellation of government bonds in the hands of private pensions will decrease their overall outstanding debt, but in exchange, the government is increasing its future pension liabilities. Years down the road, the government may find that they need to issue more sovereign debt to cover the increased pension liabilities they're taking on today. In other words, they may find themselves back in the same situation years down the road, and it's difficult to predict what changes they might make at that time. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> How to manage $50k in Savings? [/INST] In today's market being paid 1% for risk and free access money is pretty darn good. If 50k is what you feel comfortable with an emergency fund, then you are doing a fine enough job. To me that is a lot to keep in an emergency fund, however several factors play into this: We both drive older cars, so I also keep enough money around to replace one of them. Considering all that I keep a specific amount in savings that for me earns .89%. Some of that is kept in our checking accounts which earns nothing. You have to go through some analysis of your own situation and keep that amount where it is. If that amount is less than 50K, you have some money to play with. Here are some options: </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Should we invest some of our savings to protect against inflation? [/INST] Are there still people who keep significant amounts of money in a bank savings account? You could get ~1% by just choosing the right bank. ING Direct, for example, gives 0.8%, 4 times more than your credit union, with the same FDIC insurance! If you do want to invest in something slightly more long-term, you can get a CD. At the same ING Direct, you can get a 5-year CD with 1% APR. Comes with the same FDIC insurance. Note that I mention ING Direct just because I accidentally had their site open right in front of me, their rates are definitely not the highest right now. If you want to give up the FDIC insurance and take some more risks, you can invest your money in municipal bonds or various kinds of "low risk" mutual funds, which may yield 3-5% a year. If you want to take even more risks - there's a whole stock market available for you, with ETF's, mutual funds and individual stocks. Whether you should - that only you can tell. But you can have a NO-RISK investment yielding 4-5 times more than what you have right now, just saying. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Should we invest some of our savings to protect against inflation? [/INST] Okay. Savings-in-a-nutshell. So, take at least year's worth of rent - $30k or so, maybe more for additional expenses. That's your core emergency fund for when you lose your job or total a few cars or something. Keep it in a good savings account, maybe a CD ladder - but the point is it's liquid, and you can get it when you need it in case of emergency. Replenish it immediately after using it. You may lose a little cash to inflation, but you need liquidity to protect you from risk. It is worth it. The rest is long-term savings, probably for retirement, or possibly for a down payment on a home. A blended set of stocks and bonds is appropriate, with stocks storing most of it. If saving for retirement, you may want to put the stocks in a tax-deferred account (if only for the reduced paperwork! egads, stocks generate so much!). Having some money (especially bonds) in something like a Roth IRA or a non-tax-advantaged account is also useful as a backup emergency fund, because you can withdraw it without penalties. Take the money out of stocks gradually when you are approaching the time when you use the money. If it's closer than five years, don't use stocks; your money should be mostly-bonds when you're about to use it. (And not 30-year bonds or anything like that either. Those are sensitive to interest rates in the short term. You should have bonds that mature approximately the same time you're going to use them. Keep an eye on that if you're using bond funds, which continually roll over.) That's basically how any savings goal should work. Retirement is a little special because it's sort of like 20 years' worth of savings goals (so you don't want all your savings in bonds at the beginning), and because you can get fancy tax-deferred accounts, but otherwise it's about the same thing. College savings? Likewise. There are tools available to help you with this. An asset allocation calculator can be found from a variety of sources, including most investment firms. You can use a target-date fund for something this if you'd like automation. There are also a couple things like, say, "Vanguard LifeStrategy funds" (from Vanguard) which target other savings goals. You may be able to understand the way these sorts of instruments function more easily than you could other investments. You could do a decent job for yourself by just opening up an account at Vanguard, using their online tool, and pouring your money into the stuff they recommend. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Should we invest some of our savings to protect against inflation? [/INST] If I were in your shoes (I would be extremely happy), here's what I would do: Get on a detailed budget, if you aren't doing one already. (I read the comments and you seemed unsure about certain things.) Once you know where your money is going, you can do a much better job of saving it. Retirement Savings: Contribute up to the employer match on the 401(k)s, if it's greater than the 5% you are already contributing. Open a Roth IRA account for each of you and make the max contribution (around $5k each). I would also suggest finding a financial adviser (w/ the heart of a teacher) to recommend/direct your mutual fund investing in those Roth IRAs and in your regular mutual fund investments. Emergency Fund With the $85k savings, take it down to a six month emergency fund. To calculate your emergency fund, look at what your necessary expenses are for a month, then multiply it by six. You could place that six month emergency fund in ING Direct as littleadv suggested. That's where we have our emergency funds and long term savings. This is a bare-minimum type budget, and is based on something like losing your job - in which case, you don't need to go to starbucks 5 times a week (I don't know if you do or not, but that is an easy example for me to use). You should have something left over, unless your basic expenses are above $7083/mo. Non-retirement Investing: Whatever is left over from the $85k, start investing with it. (I suggest you look into mutual funds) it. Some may say buy stocks, but individual stocks are very risky and you could lose your shirt if you don't know what you're doing. Mutual funds typically are comprised of many stocks, and you earn based on their collective performance. You have done very well, and I'm very excited for you. Child's College Savings: If you guys decide to expand your family with a child, you'll want to fund what's typically called a 529 plan to fund his or her college education. The money grows tax free and is only taxed when used for non-education expenses. You would fund this for the max contribution each year as well (currently $2k; but that could change depending on how the Bush Tax cuts are handled at the end of this year). Other resources to check out: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and the Dave Ramsey Show podcast. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Are there any other investing methods I should look into? [/INST] 401Ks and IRAs are types of retirement accounts. They have rules regarding maximum amount of investments per year; who can invest; destructibility; and the tax treatment of the growth. Stock, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs are all types of investments that can exist either inside or outside of the retirement account. Some 401Ks restrict the type of investments you can have, others allow you to own almost anything. Any investment is a risk, and there is no guarantee that it will grow. Look around the site for beginning investment advice. You should start with the 401K offered by your company especially if they have matching funds. That is free money. Many suggest you invest enough to get the match, then invest with an IRA. Look into IRAs because under US tax law you can still make a 2013 investment up until tax day 2014. Take the time before tax day to decide on Roth or Regular IRA. The more exotic investments take more time to understand and should not be a concern until you have laid out your basic retirement accounts. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Are there any other investing methods I should look into? [/INST] To expand on mhoran's answer - Once you mention the 401(k), we're compelled to ask (a) what is the match, if any, and (b) what are the expenses within the funds offered. Depositing to get the full match is going to get you the biggest return on your money. It's common to get a dollar for dollar match on the first 5 or 6% of your income. If the fees are high, you stop at the match, and move to an IRA for the next money you wish to save. At 22, I'd probably focus on the Roth. If you have access to a Roth 401(k), that's great, the match will be pre tax dollars and you'll get started with a decent tax status mix. These accounts can form the core of your investing. Most people have little left over once their retirement accounts are fully funded. And yes, reading to understand stocks is great, but also to understand why stock indexing is the best choice for most investors. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> When to liquidate mutual funds for a home downpayment [/INST] This question is calling for a somewhat subjective answer. What I would recommend is liquidate now, since it is a stock fund and stocks have performed very well this year, no need to be greedy and hope that they do as well in 2014. Since it is not an enormous amount of money, put it in an interest yielding savings account which unfortunately are all sub 1%. But the key here is since we cannot predict the markets, no investment is going to be "safer". You want the 18k to be there when you need it for the down payment. If you invest it in a fund now, you may not be able to get at least 18k at the time you are forcing yourself to liquidate. A good rule for investing is never to have to sell to make a purchase because there is a high probability that you will be selling at a sub-optimal price. Some savings accounts that have slightly higher yields. http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/01/pf/savings-account-yields/ </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Employee stock option plan with undefined vesting? [/INST] An option without the vesting period and the price at which one can exercise the option is of not much value. If vesting is determined by board, then at any given point in time they can change the vesting period to say 3, 5, 10 years any number. The other aspect is at what price you are allowed to exercise the option, ie if the stock is of value 10, you may be given an option to buy this at 10, 20 or 100. This has to be stated upfront for you to know the real value. On listing if the value is say 80, then if you have the option to exercise at 10, or 20 you would make money, else at 100 you loose money and hence choose not to exercise the option. However your having stuck around the company for "x" years in anticipation of making money would go waste. Without a vesting period or the price to exercise the option, they are pretty much meaningless and would depend on the goodwill of the founders </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> The board of directors in companies [/INST] Boards of Directors are required for corporations by nearly all jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions have almost self-defeating requirements however, such as in tax havens. Boards of Directors are compensated by the company for which they sit. Historically, they have set their own compensation almost always with tight qualitative legal bounds, but in the US, that has now changed, so investors now set Director compensation. Directors are typically not given wages or salary for work but compensation for expenses. For larger companies, this is semantics since compensation averages around one quarter of a million of USD. Regulations almost always proscribe agencies such as other corporations from sitting on boards and individuals convicted of serious crimes as well. Some jurisdictions will even restrict directories to other qualities such as solvency. While directors are elected by shareholders, their obligations are normally to the company, and each jurisdiction has its own set of rules for this. Almost always, directors are forbidden from selling access to their votes. Directors are almost always elected by holders of voting stock after a well-publicized announcement and extended time period. Investors are almost never restricted from sitting on a board so long as they meet the requirements described above. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Is the best ask price the ask at the “top” of the order book? What is the “top” of the book? [/INST] The best ask is the lowest ask, and the best bid is the highest bid. If the ask was lower than the bid then they crossed, and that would be a crossed market and quickly resolved. So the bid will almost always be cheaper than the ask. A heuristic is that a bid is the revenue of the stock at any given time while the ask is the cost, so the market will only ever offer a profit to itself not to the liquidity seeker. If examining the book vertically, all orders are usually sorted descending. Since the best ask is the lowest ask, it is on the bottom of the asks, and vice versa for the best bid. The best bid & best ask will be those closest since that's the narrowest spread and price-time priority will promise that a bid that crosses the asks will hit the lowest ask, the best possible price for the bidder and vice versa for an ask that crosses the best bid. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Is the best ask price the ask at the “top” of the order book? What is the “top” of the book? [/INST] You're confusing a specific visual representation of the top bid & ask orders selected from the order book with the actual "top of the book". "Top" in the sense of the "top of the book" is a ranking (by order of "best", different for bids vs. asks) and not meant to be strictly a visual positioning on a page or screen. The data in the visual representation comes from the top of the order book (the best bids, and the best asks), but that visual representation is choosing to present it in a specific way. Think of the "book" as the model, the abstract collection of outstanding bid and ask order data. When people talk about the "top of the book", they're talking about the best bids (higher being better), and the best asks (lower being better). The visual representation above is but one possible way to render a tip-of-the-iceberg view of the best orders in the "book". The advantage of that particular visual representation is that one can see the asks & bids converging towards the center. The spread is visible as the difference between the two middle elements – being the lowest row in the blue "Asks" area, and the highest row in the green "Bids" area. The up-arrow they had included in the "Asks" area was perhaps meant to provide a clue about how the data was sorted contrary to expectations of descending order of "bestness", and/or to imply there is further depth to the book data in the indicated direction. If the bids & asks had been oriented side-by-side instead, they might have chosen to represent it as below, re-arranging the rows in the "Asks" in the opposite order (i.e. in the order you had expected) so that the "bests" are both in the top row: </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Should I invest or repay my debts? [/INST] You didn't mention how much is the interest rate of your debts. It is a very simple rule. If you think you can make more money by investing (the best way you can) in spite of having debts then go ahead and invest. Else, if you donno what you're doing and can't make sure you earn more than what you're paying off for interest then may be you should focus on clearing up the debts first. You can read more about similar topic discussion here Now, that you've presented the interest rate of your loans i.e. 11% which is your average, then I suggest you to clear up the high interest rate loans first i.e. which are above 11% because it is very difficult to make an investment and get returns more than 11% of what you invest. What ever be it, now that you won't be having big events in the coming 5 years, I suggest you to clear up all your loans and stay debt free i.e. tr to become stable and tension free. You know, because you can't run away anywhere with all those loans up on your shoulders, you HAVE to clear them today or tomorrow. So, now that you're free (in the next 5 yrs) and burden less, so why not clear them up today? </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Should I invest or repay my debts? [/INST] Like azam pointed out, fundamentally you need to decide if the money invested elsewhere will grow faster than the Interest you are paying on the loan. In India, the safe returns from Fixed Deposits is around 8-9% currently. Factoring taxes, the real rate of return would be around 6-7%. This is less than what you are paying towards interest. The PPF gives around 9% with Tax break [if there are no other options] and tax free interest, the real return can be as high as 12-14%. There is a limit on how much you can invest in PPF. However this looks higher than your average interest. The stock markets in long term [7 Years] averages give you around 15% returns, but are not predictable year to year. So the suggest from azam is valid, you would need to see what are the high rate of interest loans and if they accept early repayment, you should complete it ASAP. If there are loans that are less than average, say in the range of 7-8%, you can keep it and pay as per schedule. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Home loan transferred to Freddie Mac — What does this mean? [/INST] Lenders may sell your mortgage to other lenders for a fee. For example, your lender might sell your mortgage to the highest bidder who may want to purchase your mortgage by making a one time payment. For your lender that's a quick profit, for the new owner of your mortgage, that's long term returns for a one time fee. For your lender, that is forgoing long term returns for short term gains (and transfer of risk in case you default). (Very similar to how bonds work in a stock exchange!) What does this mean to you? Nothing. You will still keep making payments to your original lender. What does 'transfer of ownership has not been publicly recorded mean'? It means, when you are asked about ownership details regarding your mortgage, and this could be in tax forms or refinancing etc., you would enter your original lender's information and not Freddit Mac's! Pro-tip There are lots of scams based on this. You might receive an official looking letter in mail claiming your loan has been sold and you should start making payments to the new owner. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS! Call your original lender (use the phone number from your loan papers, not mail you received) and verify this information. And if this were to happen, your original lender would always inform you first. And hey, congrats on your new home! :) </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Is my financial plan for buying a house logically sound [/INST] As a rental, this is not an ideal set of numbers. You manage to show a $255 'gain' but $275 is from payment to principal. So, from the start, you're out $20/wk. This ignores the $170K down payment, which has an opportunity cost, however you calculate it. You can assign the same rate as the mortgage, and it's nearly $10K/yr. Or the rate you feel your choice of stock market or alternate investment would rise. Either way, you can't ignore this money. Your mortgage rate isn't fixed. A 1% rise and it would jump to $1663 ($842/week) Ideally, a rental property is cash positive without counting principal paydown or even the tax refund. It's a risky proposition to buy and count on everything going right. I didn't mean to scare you off with "1%" but you should research the costs of repair and maintenance. Last year my Heat/AC system needed replacement. US$10K. This year, it's time to paint, and replace rotting trim, $7000. In the US we have property tax that can range from 1-2% of the house value. If you don't have this tax, that's great, just please confirm this. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Could capital gains from a stock sale impact my IRA eligibility? [/INST] Yes, eligibility for contributing to a Roth IRA is determined by your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) which is based on your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). Now, AGI includes the net capital gains from your transactions and MAGI adds back in things that were subtracted off (e.g. tuition deductions, foreign earned income exclusion) in arriving at the AGI. There is a worksheet in Publication 590 that has the details. You are always entitled to contribute to a Traditional IRA. The MAGI affects how much of your contribution is tax-deductible on that year's tax return, but not your eligibility to contribute. Both the above paragraphs assume that you have enough compensation (wages, salary, self-employment income) to contribute to an IRA: the contribution limit is $5500 or total compensation, whichever is smaller. (If you earned only $2K as wages, you can contribute all of it; not just your take-home pay which is what is left after Social Security and Medicare taxes, Federal taxes etc have been withheld from that $2K). If your entire income is from capital gains and stock dividends, you cannot contribute to any kind of IRA at all. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Could capital gains from a stock sale impact my IRA eligibility? [/INST] Yes. Look at form 1040 AGI is line 37, and it comes well after you report your schedule D cap gains. I read this question as meaning you wish to contribute to a traditional IRA pretax. There is no income limit to contribute to an IRA and not take the deduction. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> How to reach an apt going against inflation [/INST] Inflation of the type currently experienced in Argentina is particularly hard to deal with. Also, real estate prices in global cities such as Buenos Aires and even secondary cities have grown significantly. There are no full solutions to this problem, but there are a few things that can really help. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Accounting Entry for Selling a Covered Call [/INST] Option contracts typically each represent 100 shares. So the 1 call contract you sold to open (wrote) grants the buyer of that option the right to purchase your 100 shares for $80.00 per share any time before the option expiration date. You were paid a gross amount of $100 (100 shares times $1.00 premium per share) for taking on the obligation to deliver should the option holder choose to exercise. You received credit in your account of $89.22, which ought to be the $100 less any trading commission (~$10?) and miscellaneous fees (regulatory, exchange, etc.) per contract. You did capture premium. However, your covered call write represents an open short position that, until either (a) the option expires worthless, or (b) is exercised, or (c) is bought back to close the position, will continue to show on your account as a liability. Until the open position is somehow closed, the value of both the short option contract and long stock will continue to fluctuate. This is normal. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Is there an advantage to a traditional but non-deductable IRA over a taxable account? [duplicate] [/INST] The most common use of non-deductible Traditional IRA contributions these days, as JoeTaxpayer mentioned, is as an intermediate step in a "backdoor Roth IRA contribution" -- contribute to a Traditional IRA and then immediately convert it to a Roth IRA, which, if you had no previous pre-tax money in Traditional or other IRAs, is a tax-free process that achieves the same result as a regular Roth IRA contribution except that there are no income limits. (This is something you should consider since you are unable to directly contribute to a Roth IRA due to income limits.) Also, I want to note that your comparison is only true assuming you are holding tax-efficient assets, ones where you get taxed once at the end when you take it out. If you are holding tax-inefficient assets, like an interest-bearing CD or bond or a stock that regularly produces dividends, in a taxable account you would be taxed many times on that earnings, and that would be much worse than with the non-deductible Traditional IRA, where you would only be taxed once at the end when you take it out. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Is there an advantage to a traditional but non-deductable IRA over a taxable account? [duplicate] [/INST] The simplest answer is that you can convert the IRA to a Roth, and since it was already taxed, pay no tax on conversion. If, in your hypothetical situation, you happen to have an IRA already in place, you are subject to pro-rata rules on conversions, e.g. your balance is total $40K, $10K 'not deducted', a conversion is 75% taxed, convert $20K and the tax is on $15K of that money. But, there also might be a time when you are able to transfer IRA money into a 401(k), effectively removing the pretax deposits, and leaving just post tax money for a free conversion. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Is there an advantage to a traditional but non-deductable IRA over a taxable account? [duplicate] [/INST] This is ideal placement for your allocation to income investments or those with nonqualified dividends: bonds, REITS, MLPS, other partnerships, and so forth. These are all taxed at income rate, generally throw off more income than capital gains, so you get the deferment without losing the cap gains rate. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] [/INST] Can I pay $12,000 extra once a year or $1000 every month - which option is better? Depends when. If you mean 12K now vs 1K a month over the next 12 months, repeating this each year, now wins. If you mean saving 1K a month for 12 months then doing a lumpsum, the 1K a month wins. Basically, a sooner payment saves you more money than a later payment. The first option does sound better, but for a 30 year mortgage, is it that significant? Your number one issue is that you have a thirty year mortgage. The interest you pay on it is monstrous. For the 30 year term, you pay around 500K in interest. A 15-year mortgage is 300K cheaper (only 200K in interest will be paid). The monthly payment would be 1250 more. How much money and years on a mortgage can I save? When is the best time to pay? At the end of each year? You can knock off about a dozen years. Save I think ~250K. You can find mortgage calculators online or talk to your mortgage advisor to play around with the numbers. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] [/INST] When is the best time to pay? At the end of each year? If you save $1,000 each month at 1% so as to pay $12,000 at EOY on a 4.75% loan, you've lost "4.75% - 1% = 3.75%" over that year. (And that's presuming you put the money in a "high yield" online savings account.) Thus, the best time to pay is as soon as you have the money. EDIT: This all assumes that you have an emergency fund (more than the bare minimum $1K), zero other debt with a higher rate than 4.75% and that you are getting the full company match from 401(k). </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] [/INST] Paying $12,000 in lump sumps annually will mean a difference of about $250 in interest vs. paying $1,000 monthly. If front-load the big payment, that saves ~$250 over paying monthly over the year. If you planned to save that money each month and pay it at the end, then it would cost you ~$250 more in mortgage interest. So that's how much money you would have to make with that saved money to offset the cost. Over the life of the loan the choice between the two equates to less than $5,000. If you pay monthly it's easy to calculate that an extra $1,000/month would reduce the loan to 17 years, 3 months. That would give you a savings of ~$400,000 at the cost of paying $207,000 extra during those 17 years. Many people would suggest that you invest the money instead because the annual growth rates of the stock market are well in excess of your 4.375% mortgage. What you decide is up to you and how conservative your investing strategy is. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] [/INST] If you're truly ready to pay an extra $1000 every month, and are confident you'll likely always be able to, you should refinance to a 15 year mortgage. 15 year mortgages are typically sold at around a half a point lower interest rates, meaning that instead of your 4.375% APR, you'll get something like 3.875% APR. That's a lot of money over the course of the mortgage. You'll end up paying around a thousand a month more - so, exactly what you're thinking of doing - and not only save money from that earlier payment, but also have a lower interest rate. That 0.5% means something like $25k less over the life of the mortgage. It's also the difference in about $130 or so a month in your required payment. Now of course you'll be locked into making that larger payment - so the difference between what you're suggesting and this is that you're paying an extra $25k in exchange for the ability to pay it off more slowly (in which case you'd also pay more interest, obviously, but in the best case scenario). In the 15 year scenario you must make those ~$4000 payments. In the 30 year scenario you can pay ~$2900 for a while if you lose your job or want to go on vacation or ... whatever. Of course, the reverse is also true: you'll have to make the payments, so you will. Many people find enforced savings to be a good strategy (myself among them); I have a 15 year mortgage and am happy that I have to make the higher payment, because it means I can't spend that extra money frivolously. So what I'd do if I were you is shop around for a 15 year refi. It'll cost a few grand, so don't take one unless you can save at least half a point, but if you can, do. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] [/INST] How much can I save? Depends on inflation and what other investment opportunities you have. It could end up costing you millions. Can I pay $12,000 extra once a year or $1000 every month - which option is better? It depends on how risk adverse you are. The first option does sound better, but for a 30 year mortgage, is it that significant? How much of your time is it going to cost you to do it every month? What is keeping you from doing it every day? How much is your time worth to you. Giving the bank its money sooner is always better than giving it it's money from a saving interest perspective. When is the best time to pay? See above. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Should I cash out my Roth IRA to pay my mother's property tax debt, to avoid foreclosure on her home? [/INST] @foreverBroke - Ok, here are the questions - Is mom's house paid for in full? If there's any mortgage, is it current? If not, what are the numbers? Is it underwater, i.e. owe more that it's worth? Will the tax department talk to you and negotiate? Maybe let you make payments over time? If you have that kind of cash flow, the slower payment may keep you from killing your savings. We don't know your age. I do know that the early years savings, often around the first 8-12 years, are the funds that turn into half your final retirement savings due to compounding. Obviously, this a tough time emotionally, what I don't want is for you to make a financial move that is a temporary fix. Not knowing the rest of the story limits my answer. If my mom needed my help I'd want to understand the whole picture. Not that I'm a fan, but have you considered a reverse mortgage? It may be a way to keep the house but give up the equity, or some of it, on her moving out or passing. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Should I cash out my Roth IRA to pay my mother's property tax debt, to avoid foreclosure on her home? [/INST] You're crazy to cash out your Roth or take on 401k loan, as that is addressing a short-term problem without doing anything about the longer-term issue. Just don't do it. Through no fault of her own, your mom is insolvent. It happens to people all of the time, and the solution is chapter 7 bankruptcy. The only thing that I would do with my money in this situation is help her with bankruptcy attorney fees if needed, and maybe bid on it at auction, if the house in in good shape. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Should I cash out my Roth IRA to pay my mother's property tax debt, to avoid foreclosure on her home? [/INST] First, I'm really sorry to hear about your mother. My wife was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, so I know that there is a possibility that your mind is in "survival" mode, trying to preserve as much as you can in the way of things that you can effect (that's how I've been feeling recently). Having a loved one with cancer is really tough because there is absolutely, positively nothing tangible that you can do to change the fact that they have cancer. You will have to ask yourself some questions: How important is it that your mom can stay in her house? Moving could add some unneeded stress. How may years have you been contributing to your 401k? If you have 30 years left, you could have enough time to recover some of your losses from reducing the amount of money you have given up for your mom. Will your mom be able to pay you back for paying the taxes over time, or would this be a 'gift'? Have her doctors told her that she "... has N months left..."? What is the next step after you are able to pay her taxes and save the house? Someone close to me recently told me that "There is no point in trying to save for someone for the future, if you can't sustain them until they get to that future. What will happen to your mom if she loses her house? Will it make it easier or harder for her to recover if she can stay? To paraphrase someone famous, "you can't take a loan out for your retirement, but you could take a loan out for this event." At any rate, good luck. My thoughts are with you and your mother. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Should I cash out my Roth IRA to pay my mother's property tax debt, to avoid foreclosure on her home? [/INST] If it turns out that you do want to help pay the tax bill (after answering all the questions above), I say cash out those funds. You are apparently very young with a long work life ahead (lucky you). Step aside from the actual money part of it for a moment. What does your Mom want? What do you really want to do about this? Is it from love that you want to help but are afraid it's a bad financial decision? Or is it from a feeling of duty and you deep down don't really want to spend your savings on Mom's tax bill. - If you really do want to help and you have the wherewithall to do so, then do it. Otherwise don't. You can recover financially. - I myself have had my retirement savings go to nearly zero 3 times. The first time I recovered pretty easily. The second time, not so easily. I'm just starting on the recovery path for the 3rd time at age 58 and I highly doubt I ever will recover this time. I didn't cash out on purpose but the stock market was not friendly. - My main point is to figure out truly what you want. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> What is needed to be a “broker”? [/INST] You must understand that: So, if you -- the prospective buyer -- are in Waukegan, do you take the train all the way to New York City just to buy 100 shares of stock? No. That would be absurdly expensive. So, you hire an agent in NYC who will broker a deal for you in the exchange. Fast forward 100 years, to the time when instant communications is available. Why do we now still need brokerages, when the Exchanges could set up web sites and let you do the trading? The answer is that the Exchanges don't want to have to develop the accounting systems to manage the transactions of hundreds of thousands of small traders, when existing brokerage firms already have those computerized processes in place and are opening their own web sites. Thus, in 2017 we have brokerage firms because of history. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement? [/INST] You aren't in trouble yet, but you are certainly on a trajectory to be later. The longer you wait the more painful it will be because you won't have the benefit of time for your money to grow. You may think you will have more disposable income at some point later when things are paid off, but trust me you wont. When college tuition kicks in for that kid, you are going to LAUGH at those student loan amounts as paltry. The wording of your question was confusing because you say in one place that you have no savings, but in another you claim to be putting away around $5k/year. The important point is how much you have saved at this point and how much you are putting in going forward. Some rules of thumb from Fidelity: (Based on your scenario) Take a look at your retirement account. Are you on track for that? It doesn't sound like it. Can you get away with your current plan? Sure, lots of people do, but unless you die young, hit the jackpot in the stock market or lottery, you are probably going to have to live WELL below your current standard of living to make that happen. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement? [/INST] You are making close to 200 K a year which is great. The aggressive payments on loans takes out around 30K which is good. The fact that you are not able to save is bad. Rather than pushing off your savings to later, scale down the lifestyle and push the upgrade to lifestyle for later </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement? [/INST] Yes, you should be saving for retirement. There are a million ideas out there on how much is a reasonable amount, but I think most advisor would say at least 6 to 10% of your income, which in your case is around $15,000 per year. You give amounts in dollars. Are you in the U.S.? If so, there are at least two very good reasons to put money into a 401k or IRA rather than ordinary savings or investments: (a) Often your employer will make matching contributions. 50% up to 6% of your salary is pretty common, i.e. if you put in 6% they put in 3%. If either of your employers has such a plan, that's an instant 50% profit on your investment. (b) Any profits on money invested in an IRA or 401k are tax free. (Effectively, the mechanics differ depending on the type of account.) So if you put $100,000 into an IRA today and left it there until you retire 30 years later, it would likely earn something like $600,000 over that time (assuming 7% per year growth). So you'd pay takes on your initial $100,000 but none on the $600,000. With your income you are likely in a high tax bracket, that would make a huge difference. If you're saying that you just can't find a way to put money away for retirement, may I suggest that you cut back on your spending. I understand that the average American family makes about $45,000 per year and somehow manages to live on that. If you were to put 10% of your income toward retirement, then you would be living on the remaining $171,000, which is still almost 4 times what the average family has. Yeah, I make more than $45,000 a year too and there are times when I think, How could anyone possibly live on that? But then I think about what I spend my money on. Did I really need to buy two new computer printers the last couple of months? I certainly could do my own cleaning rather than hiring a cleaning lady to come in twice a month. Etc. A tough decision to make can be paying off debt versus putting money into an investment account. If the likely return on investment is less than the interest rate on the loan, you should certainly concentrate on paying off the loan. But if the reverse is true, then you need to decide between likely returns and risk. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement? [/INST] First, I would recommend getting rid of this ridiculous debt, or remember this day and this answer, "you will be living this way for many years to come and maybe worse, no/not enough retirement". Hold off on any retirement savings right now so that the money can be used to crush this debt. Without knowing all of your specifics (health insurance deductions, etc.) and without any retirement contribution, given $190,000 you should probably be taking home around $12,000 per month total. Assuming a $2,000 mortgage payment (30 year term), that is $10,000 left per month. If you were serious about paying this off, you could easily live off of $3,000 per month (probably less) and have $7,000 left to throw at the student loan debt. This assumes that you haven't financed automobiles, especially expensive ones or have other significant debt payments. That's around 3 years until the entire $300,000 is paid! I have personally used and endorse the snowball method (pay off smallest to largest regardless of interest rate), though I did adjust it slightly to pay off some debts first that had a very high monthly payment so that I would then have this large payment to throw at the next debt. After the debt is gone, you now have the extra $7,000 per month (probably more if you get raises, bonuses etc.) to enjoy and start saving for retirement and kid's college. You may have 20-25 years to save for retirement; at $4,000 per month that's $1 million in just savings, not including the growth (with moderate growth this could easily double or more). You'll also have about 14 years to save for college for this one kid; at $1,500 per month that's $250,000 (not including investment growth). This is probably overkill for one kid, so adjust accordingly. Then there's at least $1,500 per month left to pay off the mortgage in less than half the time of the original term! So in this scenario, conservatively you might have: Obviously I don't know your financials or circumstances, so build a good budget and play with the numbers. If you sacrifice for a short time you'll be way better off, trust me from experience. As a side note: Assuming the loan debt is 50/50 you and your husband, you made a good investment and he made a poor one. Unless he is a public defender or charity attorney, why is he making $60,000 when you are both attorneys and both have huge student loan debt? If it were me, I would consider a job change. At least until the debt was cleaned up. If he can make $100,000 to $130,000 or more, then your debt may be gone in under 2 years! Then he can go back to the charity gig. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement? [/INST] As a rule, one should have a retirement. HOWEVER, you also have over a half a million dollars of debt. Paying down debt is another way to prepare for retirement. I would say throwing your excess money at your debts is a fine strategy right now. Especially the student loan (the mortgage probably has a lower rate and brings tax savings, so paying it off is less urgent). If I were you I'd probably put SOMETHING into tax deferred retirement accounts because in your tax bracket, the savings from doing so are significant. The max you can put in tax deferred is $5,500 per year (each) in IRA's and up to $17,000 to your 401(k) each. The tax-saving contribution opportunities will not come up again...you can't make up for it later. Any retirement saving beyond the tax advantaged part makes no sense while you have outstanding debt. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement? [/INST] The question regarding your snapshot is fine, but the real question is what are you doing to improve your situation? As John offered, one bit of guidance suggests you have a full year's gross earnings as a saving target. In my opinion, that's on the low side, and 2X should be the goal by 35. I suggest you look back, and see if you can account for every dollar for the prior 6-12 months. This exercise isn't for the purpose of criticizing your restaurant spending, or cost of clothes, but to just bring it to light. Often, there's some low hanging fruit in this type of budgeting exercise, spending that you didn't realize was so high. I'd also look carefully at your debt. What rate is the mortgage and the student loans? By understanding the loans' rates, terms, and tax status (e.g. whether any is a deduction) you can best choose the way to pay it off. If the rates are low enough you might consider funding your 401(k) accounts a bit more and slow down the loan payments. It seems that in your 30's you have a negative net worth, but your true asset is your education and future earning potential. From a high level view, you make $180K. Taking $50K off the top (which after taxes gives you $30K) to pay your student loan, you are still earning $130K, putting you at or near top 10% of families in this country. This should be enough to afford that mortgage, and still live a nice life. In the end there are three paths, earn more (why does hubby earn half what you do, in the same field?), spend less, or reallocate current budget by changing how you are handling that debt. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> If I'm cash-flow negative, should I dollar-cost-average the money from my bonus over the entire year? [/INST] Essentially, your question is "lump sum vs DCA" and your tags reflect that. In the long run, lump sum, say a Jan 2 deposit each year, will beat DCA by about 1/2 the average annual market return. $12,000 will see a 10% return, vs, $1,000/month over the year seeing 6%. What hurts is when the market tanks in the first half of the year and you think DCA would have helped. This is a 'feeling' issue, not a math problem. But. By the time you have $100K invested, the difference of DCA vs lump sum with new money fades, as new deposits are small compared to the funds invested. By then, you need to know your target allocation and deposit to keep that allocation with new money. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> If I'm cash-flow negative, should I dollar-cost-average the money from my bonus over the entire year? [/INST] You will maximize your expected wealth by investing all the money you intend to invest, as soon as you have it available. Don't let the mythos of dollar cost averaging induce you to allocate more much money to a savings account than is optimal. If you want the positive expected return of the market, don't put your money in a savings account. That's especially true now, when you are certainly earning a negative real interest rate on your savings account. Dollar cost averaging and putting all your money in at the beginning would have the same expected return except that if you put all your money in earlier, it spends more time in the market, so your expected return is higher. Your volatility is also higher (because your savings account would have very low volatility) but your preference for investment tells me that you view the expected return and volatility tradeoff of the stock market as acceptable. If you need something to help you feel less stress about investing right away, think of it as dollar cost averaging on a yearly basis instead of monthly. Further, you take take comfort in knowing that you have allocated your wealth as you can instead of letting it fizzle away in real terms in a bank account. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> How to interpret a 1,372.55% dividend payout ratio (GSK)? [/INST] I don't think it makes sense to allow accounting numbers that you are not sure how to interpret as being a sell sign. If you know why the numbers are weird and you feel that the reason for it bodes ill about the future, and if you think there's a reason this has not been accounted for by the market, then you might think about selling. The stock's performance will depend on what happens in the future. Financials just document the past, and are subject to all kinds of lumpiness, seasonality, and manipulation. You might benefit from posting a link to where you got your financials. Whenever one computes something like a dividend payout ratio, one must select a time period over which to measure. If the company had a rough quarter in terms of earnings but chose not to reduce dividends because they don't expect the future to be rough, that would explain a crazy high dividend ratio. Or if they were changing their capital structure. Or one of many other potentially benign things. Accounting numbers summarize a ton of complex workings of the company and many ratios we look at could be defined in several different ways. I'm afraid that the answer to your question about how to interpret things is in the details, and we are not looking at the same details you are. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> When investing, is the risk/reward tradeoff linear? [/INST] The relationship is not linear, and depends on a lot of factors. The term you're looking for is efficient frontier, the optimal rate of return for a given level of risk. The goal is to be on the efficient frontier, meaning that for the given level of risk, you're receiving the greatest possible rate of return (reward). http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/efficientfrontier.asp </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> When investing, is the risk/reward tradeoff linear? [/INST] If a market is efficient then risk/reward should be linear. In simple markets like stocks and bonds, everyone thinks the same way and the risk/reward calculation is simple, so everyone can have an accurate idea of the risk/reward ratio, unless the company has serious undisclosed problems. But in other markets like derivatives and mortgage bonds, few people understand what they're buying so the risks remain hidden. Someone might think a company will do well, so they buy an derivative on that company. But no one understands risk/reward calculations on derivatives, so the risk/reward on the derivative could be way off the price on the derivative. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> When investing, is the risk/reward tradeoff linear? [/INST] The risk-reward relation depends on what you are changing. In the most cases people ask about, it is not linear but I will give examples of both. Nonlinear case 1: As you diversify your portfolio, the firm-specific risks of various stocks cancel each other out without necessarily affecting the expected return of the portfolio. Reduction in risk without any loss in returns--very nonlinear. Nonlinear case 2: If you are changing the weights in your portfolio to move along the efficient frontier, then you the risk-reward relation is a hyperbola, which is nonlinear. Nonlinear case 3: If you are changing the weights in your portfolio to move away from the efficient frontier, then you increase risk without adding a fully compensatory amount of return. There could be many paths along the risk-reward plane, but generally it will not be linear in the sense that it will not be on the same line as your initial, efficient, portfolio and your savings account. Linear case 1: The most common sense in which we think of the risk-reward relation being linear is when the thing you are changing is the size of your investment. If you take money out of savings to put in your fully diversified portfolio without changing the relative weights, your expected returns will increase linearly. Linear case 2: If you believe the CAPM, then the expected return of an asset stock is linearly proportional to the market risk of the firm. If you could change the market risk of a single asset without changing anything else, then you would linearly change its expected return. The general rule about the risk/reward relation is this: If you are changing the size of your investment, the relation is linear. If you are changing its composition, the relation is nonlinear </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> When investing, is the risk/reward tradeoff linear? [/INST] Ditto Bill and I upvoted his answer. But let me add a bit. If everyone knew exactly what the risk was for every investment, then prices would be bid up or down until every stock (or bond or derivative or whatever) was valued at exactly risk times potential profit. (Or more precisely, integral of risk times potential profit.) If company A was 100% guaranteed to make $1 million profit this year, while company B had 50% change to make a $2 million profit and 50% to make $0, and every investor in the world knew that, then I'd expect the total price of all shares of the two stocks to stabilize at the same value. The catch to that, though, is that no one really knows the risk. The risk isn't like, we're going to roll a die and if it comes up even the company makes $1 million and if it comes up odd the company makes $0, so we could calculate the exact probability. The risk comes from lack of information. Will consumers want to buy this new product? How many? What are they willing to pay? How capable is the new CEO? Etc. It's very hard to calculate probabilities on these things. How can you precisely calculate the probability that unforeseen events will occur? So in real life prices are muddled. The risk/reward ratio should be roughly sort of approximately linear, but that's about the most one can say. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Money market account for emergency savings [/INST] Depends on how urgent your need for the emergency savings might be. If the money market account allows you to get your money in the same amount of time as the savings account then there is no real downside, but if the account takes a few days for you to access and you need your money sooner then you probably shouldn't. Also money market accounts DO give more interest than most savings accounts, but the interest rates are generally still pretty low, so it might be an improvement, but probably not a huge one </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Money market account for emergency savings [/INST] So long as you have complete, virtually instant access to funds through checks, debit card, or ATM transaction, then yes it would be a better option than a "vanilla" savings account. If it's in a brokerage account that you would need to process a transfer and potentially wait a few days for everything to settle, then I would just keep it in savings. The amount earned in interest isn't worth the extra hassle. A compromise might be to keep a few thousand in a savings account and the rest in a money market. That way you earn some interest and still have instant access to enough funds to cover most emergencies. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Money market account for emergency savings [/INST] Most emergencies are less than 1,000 in nature. As such I would keep at least that amount in a checking/savings account at the bank from which you pay your bills or can get cash from. This amount may increase so you can avoid low balance fees, or because of the nature of your life style and income. Beyond that, you can search for yield. I personally like online savings accounts like Amex Personal Savings, Ally or others. Money market accounts will work equally well. There you can keep the bulk of your emergency savings and large purchase savings. Keep in mind you still won't earn much. A 40K emergency fund will only earn you $38/month at Ally. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Money market account for emergency savings [/INST] From a quick look at sources on the web, it looks to me like Money Market Accounts and savings accounts are both paying about the same rate today: around 1%, give or take maybe 0.4%. I suppose that's better than nothing, but it's not a whole lot better than nothing. (I saw several savings accounts advertising 0.1% interest. If they mailed you a check, the postage could be more than the returns.) Personally, I keep a modest amount of emergency cash in my checking account, and I put my "savings" in a very safe mutual fund. That generally gets somewhere from making maybe 3% a year to losing a small amount. Certainly nothing to sing about, but better than savings or money markets. Whether you are willing to tolerate the modest risk or the sales charges is a matter for your personal situation and feelings. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Money market account for emergency savings [/INST] I think it's only a choice of terminology. Typically with a money market account has check-writing privileges whereas a savings account does not. In terms of rates, this blog has a good list of high interest yield savings accounts. http://www.hustlermoneyblog.com/best-bank-rates/ Disclosure: I am not affiliated with this blog. I just think it is a good resource to compare the rates across different banks. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Money market account for emergency savings [/INST] I'm not a fan of using cash for "emergency" savings. Put it in a stable investment that you can liquidate fairly quickly if you have to. I'd rather use credit cards for a while and then pay them off with investment funds if I must. Meanwhile those investments earn a lot more than the 0.1 percent savings or money market accounts will. Investment grade bond funds, for example, should get you a yield of between 4-6% right now. If you want to take a longer term view put that money into a stock index fund like QQQ or DIA. There is the risk it will go down significantly in a recession but over time the return is 10%. (Currently a lot more than that!) In any event you can liquidate securities and get the money into your bank is less than a week. If you leave it in cash it basically earns nothing while you wait for that rainy day which many never come. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Long-term capital gain taxes on ETFs? [/INST] Generally speaking, each year, mutual funds distribute to their shareholders the dividends that are earned by the stocks that they hold and also the net capital gains that they make when they sell stocks that they hold. If they did not do so, the money would be income to the fund and the fund would have to pay taxes on the amount not distributed. (On the other hand, net capital losses are held by the fund and carried forward to later years to offset future capital gains). You pay taxes on the amounts of the distributions declared by the fund. Whether the fund sold a particular stock for a loss or a gain (and if so, how much) is not the issue; what the fund declares as its distribution is. This is why it is not a good idea to buy a mutual fund just before it makes a distribution; your share price drops by the per-share amount of the distribution, and you have to pay taxes on the distribution. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Long-term capital gain taxes on ETFs? [/INST] Generally, ETFs and mutual funds don't pay taxes (although there are some cases where they do, and some countries where it is a common case). What happens is, the fund reports the portion of the gain attributed to each investor, and the investor pays the tax. In the US, this is reported to you on 1099-DIV as capital gains distribution, and can be either short term (as in the scenario you described), long term, or a mix of both. It doesn't mean you actually get a distribution, though, but if you don't - it reduces your basis. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> gnucash share fractions [/INST] As BrenBarn stated, tracking fractional transactions beyond 8 decimal places makes no sense in the context of standard stock and mutual fund transactions. This is because even for the most expensive equities, those fractional shares would still not be worth whole cent amounts, even for account balances in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. One important thing to remember is that when dealing with equities the total cost, number of shares, and share price are all 3 components of the same value. Thus if you take 2 of those values, you can always calculate the third: (price * shares = cost, cost / price = shares, etc). What you're seeing in your account (9 decimal places) is probably the result of dividing uneven values (such as $9.37 invested in a commodity which trades for $235.11, results in 0.03985368550891072264046616477394 shares). Most brokerages will round this value off somewhere, yours just happens to include more decimal places than your financial software allows. Since your brokerage is the one who has the definitive total for your account balance, the only real solution is to round up or down, whichever keeps your total balance in the software in line with the balance shown online. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do? [/INST] In my opinion, the fee is criminal. There are ETFs available to the public that have expenses as low as .05%. The index fund VIIIX an institution level fund available to large 401(k) plans charges .02%. I'll pay a total of under 1% over the next 50 years, Consider that at retirement, the safe withdrawal rate has been thought to be 4%, and today this is considered risky, perhaps too high. Do you think it's fair, in any sense of the word to lose 30% of that withdrawal? Another angle for you - In my working years, I spent most of those years at either the 25% or 28% federal bracket taxable income. I should spend my retirement at 15% marginal rate. On average, the purpose of my 401(k) was to save me (and my wife) 10-13% in tax from deposit to withdrawal. How long does it take for an annual 1.1% excess fee to negate that 10% savings? If one spends their working life paying that rate, they will lose half their wealth to those managing their money. PBS aired a show in its Frontline series titled The Retirement Gamble, it offers a sobering look at how such fees are a killer to your wealth. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do? [/INST] I would even say 1% is not even reasonable in this age. The short answer is there probably isn't much you can do directly. However, there are a few things to consider: </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do? [/INST] When you look at managed funds the expense ratios are always high. They have the expense of analyzing the market, deciding where to invest, and then tracking the new investments. The lowest expenses are with the passive investments. What you have noticed is exactly what you expect. Now if you want to invest in active funds that throw off dividends and capital gains, the 401K is the perfect place to do it, because that income will not be immediately taxable. If the money is in a Roth 401K it is even better because that income will never be taxed. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do? [/INST] Would anything happen if you bring this issue to the attention of the HR department? Everyone in the company who participates in the 401(k) is affected, so you'd think they'd all be interested in switching to a another 401k provider that will make them more money. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do? [/INST] Your employer could consider procuring benefits via a third party administrator, which provides benefits to and bargains collectively on behalf of multiple small companies. I used to work for a small start-up that did exactly that to improve their benefits across the board, including the 401k. The fees were still higher than buying a Vanguard index or ETF directly, but much better than the 1% you're talking about. In the meantime, here's my non-professional advice from personal experience and hindsight: If you're in a low/medium tax bracket and your 401k sucks, you might be better off to pay the tax up front and invest in a taxable account for the flexibility (assuming you're disciplined enough that you don't need the 401k to protect you from yourself). If you max out a crappy 401k today, you might miss a better opportunity to contribute to a 401k in the future. Big expenses could pop up at exactly the same time you get better investment options. Side note: if not enough employees participate in the 401k, the principals won't be able to take full advantage of it themselves. I think it's called a "nondiscrimination test" to ensure that the plan benefits all employees, not just the owners and management. So voting with your feet might be the best way to spark improvement with your employer. Good luck! </s>

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

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> 401k vs. real estate for someone who is great at saving? [/INST] Apples and oranges. The stock market requires a tiny bit of your time. Perhaps a lot if you are interested in individual stocks, and pouring through company annual reports, but close to none if you have a mix of super low cost ETFs or index fund. The real estate investing you propose is, at some point, a serious time commitment. Unless you use a management company to handle incoming calls and to dispatch repair people. But that's a cost that will eat into your potential profits. If you plan to do this 'for real,' I suggest using the 401(k), but then having the option to take loans from it. The ability to write a check for $50K is pretty valuable when buying real estate. When you run the numbers, this will benefit you long term. Edit - on re-reading your question Rental Property: What is considered decent cash flow? (with example), I withdraw my answer above. You overestimated the return you will get, the actual return will likely be negative. It doesn't take too many years of your one per year strategy to wipe you out. Per your comment below, if bought right, rentals can be a great long term investment. Glad you didn't buy the loser. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> 401k vs. real estate for someone who is great at saving? [/INST] With an appropriate selection within a 401K and if operating expenses are low, you get tax deferred savings and possibly a lower tax bracket for now. The returns vary of course with market fluctuations but for almost 3 years it has been double digit growth on average. Some health care sector funds were up over 40% last year. YMMV. With stocks and mutual funds that hold them, you also are in a sense betting that people want their corporations to grow and succeed. Others do most of the work. Real estate should be part of your savings strategy but understand that they are not kidding when they talk about location. It can lose value. Tenants tend to have some problem part of the year such that some owners find it necessary to have a paid property manager to buffer from their complaints. Other owners get hauled into court and sued as slum lords for allegedly not doing basics. Tenants can ruin your property as well. There is maintenance, repair, replacement, insurance against injury not just property damage, and property taxes. While some of it might be deductible, not all is. You may want to consider that there are considerable ongoing costs and significant risks in time and money with real estate as an investment at a level that you do not incur with a 401K. If you buy mainly to flip, then be aware that if there are unforeseen issues with the house or the market sours as it can, you could be stuck with an immovable drain on your income. If you lose your job could you make payments? Many, many people sadly lost their homes or investment properties that way in 2008-2010. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> How does a delta signify the probability of expiring in the money [/INST] Just for clarification, delta and probability of expiring in the money are not the same thing. What the guy meant was that delta is usually a close enough approximation to the probability. One way to think about it is to look at the probabilities and deltas of In the Money, Out of the Money, and At the Money options. In these cases, the delta and probabilities are about the same. In fact if you look at an options chain with delta and probabilities, you can see that they are all about the same. In other words, there is a linear relationship between delta and probability. Here are a couple links to other answers around the web: Hope this answer helps! </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Rollover into bond fund to do dollar cost averaging [duplicate] [/INST] Many would recommend lump sum investing because of the interest gains, and general upward historical trend of the market. After introducing DCA in A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Malkiel says the following: But remember, because there is a long-term uptrend in common-stock prices, this technique is not necessarily appropriate if you need to invest a lump sum such as a bequest. If possible, keep a small reserve (in a money fund) to take advantage of market declines and buy a few extra shares if the market is down sharply. I’m not suggesting for a minute that you try to forecast the market. However, it’s usually a good time to buy after the market has fallen out of bed. Just as hope and greed can sometimes feed on themselves to produce speculative bubbles, so do pessimism and despair react to produce market panics. - A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Burton G. Malkiel He goes on from there to recommend a rebalancing strategy. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Differences in conditions on shares to private vs. public shareholders? [/INST] Shares sold to private investors are sold using private contracts and do not adhere to the same level of strict regulations as publicly traded shares. You may have different classes of shares in the company with different strings attached to them, depending on the deals made with the investors at the time. Since public cannot negotiate, the IPO prospectus is in fact the investment contract between the company and the public, and the requirements to what the company can put there are much stricter than private sales. Bob may not be able to sell his "special" stocks on the public exchange, as the IPO specifies which class of stock is being listed for trading, and Bob's is not the same class. He can sell it on the OTC market, which is less regulated, and then the buyer has to do his due diligence. Yes, OTC-sold stocks may have strings attached to them (for example a buy back option at a preset time and price). </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Where to start with finding good companies to invest? [/INST] There obviously is not such a list of companies, because if there were the whole world would immediately invest in them. Their price would rise like a rocket and they would not be undervalued anymore. Some people think company A should be worth x per share, some people think it should be worth y. If the share price is currently higher than what someone thinks it should be, they sell it, and if it is lower than they think it should be they buy it. The grand effect of this all is that the current market price of the share is more or less the average of what all investors together think it should currently be worth. If you buy a single stock, hoping that it's undervalued and will rise, you may be right but you may equally well be wrong. It's smarter to diversify over lots of stocks to reduce the impact of this risk, it evens out. There are "analysts" who try to make a guess of which stocks will do better, and they give paid advice or you can invest in their funds -- but they invariably do worse than the average of the market as a whole, over the long term. So the best advice for amateurs is to invest in index funds that cover a huge range of companies and try to keep their costs very low. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Unrealized Profit & Loss for Non-Stock Securities [/INST] Suddenly its not just comparing the current price to the price of the contract, or is it? Sure it is. Suppose you bought 100 option contracts (each for 100 shares) and paid a $1 per share premium ($10,000 total). Now those options are trading for $1.50 per share. You have an unrealized $0.50 gain per share, or $5,000. The $10,000 in options you bought are now worth $15,000. It holds whether they were bought to open or close a position, or whether they are puts or calls. The only difference is whether you bought or sold the options (the arithmetic is just reversed for selling an option). But lets say we have an Option, where the payoff is max(St-K, c0) where ct is the market price. What do you do then? Your current, unrealized P&L is different than the payoff. The payoff only happens at maturity. The current P&L is based on current market prices, just like stock. Option prices all have a "time premium" making them worth more than their payoff (intrinsic) value prior to maturity. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> I trade options in the U.S. using Schwab. How could my wife do the same in Canada? [/INST] Your wife could open a non-registered margin trading account with a Canadian full-service or discount broker. An account at one of the top Canadian brokers should provide access to trade U.S.-listed options. I've traded both Canadian and U.S.-listed options with my own broker. On the application, you'd need to indicate an interest in trading options, and more specifically, what kind of option trades; e.g. long puts and calls only, covered writing, combination trades, etc. And yes, part of the application approval process (at least when I went through it) is to answer a few questions to prove that the applicant is aware of the types of risks with trading options. Be sure to do some research on the fees and currency/fx aspects before you choose a broker. If you plan to exercise any options purchased or expect to be assigned for any you write, be aware that those fees are often different from the headline cost-per-trade advertised by brokers. For instance, I pay in excess of $40 when a call option I write gets assigned, vs. ~$10 that I'd pay if I just plain sold the stock. One other thing to investigate is what kind of online option trading research and order entry tools are available; not every broker has the same set of features with respect to options — especially if it isn't a big part of their business. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Difference between IRR and ROR [/INST] There may be differences in different contexts, but here's my general understanding: Rate of Return (or Return on Investment) is the total gain or loss of an investment divided by the initial investment amount. e.g. if you buy stock for $100 and later sell it for $120 you have a 20% Rate of Return. You would have a 20% ROR regardless of if you sell it tomorrow or in a year. Internal Rate of Return is effectively annualized. It is the annual rate at which each of a series of cashflows is discounted that would give you a net present value of 0. Meaning if you spent $100 today and in exactly one year you received $120 back, you would have an IRR of 20%. If you received the $120 back in 6 months, your IRR would be roughly 40%. An IRR calculation can include multiple cashflows at various times, while ROR is (in my mind) the total net gain or loss relative to the investment (irrespective of the time of the cash flows). IRR is more effective when comparing investments that have different time horizons. Spending $100 to get $120 tomorrow is much better (from an IRR perspective) than getting $120 two years from now, since you could take that $20 gain and invest it for the rest of the two years. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Is there legal reason for restricting someone under 59-1/2 from an in-service rollover from a 401K to an IRA? [/INST] Yes, this is restricted by law. In plain language, you can find it on the IRS website (under the heading "When Can a Retirement Plan Distribute Benefits?"): 401(k), profit-sharing, and stock bonus plans Employee elective deferrals (and earnings, except in a hardship distribution) -- the plan may permit a distribution when you: •terminate employment (by death, disability, retirement or other severance from employment); •reach age 59½; or •suffer a hardship. Employer profit-sharing or matching contributions -- the plan may permit a distribution of your vested accrued benefit when you: •terminate employment (by death, disability, retirement or other severance from employment); •reach the age specified in the plan (any age); or •suffer a hardship or experience another event specified in the plan. Form of benefit - the plan may pay benefits in a single lump-sum payment as well as offer other options, including payments over a set period of time (such as 5 or 10 years) or a purchased annuity with monthly lifetime payments. Source: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/when-can-a-retirement-plan-distribute-benefits If you want to actually see it in the law, check out 26 USC 401(k)(2)(B)(i), which lists the circumstances under which a distribution can be made. You can get the full text, for example, here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/401 I'm not sure what to say about the practice of the company that you mentioned in your question. Maybe the law was different then? </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Is there legal reason for restricting someone under 59-1/2 from an in-service rollover from a 401K to an IRA? [/INST] You're going to find a lot of conflicting or vague answers on the internet because there are a lot of plan design elements that are set by the plan sponsor (employer). There are laws that mandate certain elements and dictate certain requirements of plan sponsors, many of these laws are related to record keeping and fiduciary duty. There is a lot of latitude for plan sponsors to allow or restrict employee actions even if there is no law against that activity. There are different rules mandated for employee pre-tax contributions, employee post-tax contributions, and employer contributions. You have more flexibility with regard to the employer contributions and any post tax contributions you may have made; your plan may allow an in-service distribution of those two items before you reach age 59.5. While your HR department (like most -all- HR departments) is not staffed with ERISA attorneys and CPAs it is your HR department and applicable plan documents that will lay out what an employee is permitted to do under the plan. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Is there legal reason for restricting someone under 59-1/2 from an in-service rollover from a 401K to an IRA? [/INST] I don't think there's a rule -- (I can't comment) but Brick cited IRS rules...but IMO Brick missed one thing -- @ashur668 is not looking for a distribution, but is looking for a rollover. My best guess: that this part of the ruleset is not well defined, and your (and my) employer have chosen to interpret any withdrawl as a "distribution", even if better characterized a rollover. A few months ago, I went so far as to explore if I could use a loophole -- my company had just gone through a merger; I was hoping I could rollover some or maybe all of my 401k to my IRA (I remember now, it would have been everything before starting roth 401k contributions). My company asserted this was not permitted, and further asserted that the rumors I had heard were mistaken that when we went through a company spin-off a few years before, that nobody under 59 1/2 was permitted to roll over. I did a quick search and found IRS topic 413 As far as I can tell, this topic is silent on the matter at hand. Topic 413 referred me to IRS Publication 575, where I started looking at the section on rollovers. I read some of it then got bored. Note that we're one step removed -- we are reading IRS publications and interpretations of IRS rules. I don't know that anybody here has read the actual tax law. There may be something in there that prevents companies from rolling over before 59 1/2 that is not well codified in IRS publications. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Do ETF dividends make up for fees? [/INST] Any ETF has expenses, including fees, and those are taken out of the assets of the fund as spelled out in the prospectus. Typically a fund has dividend income from its holdings, and it deducts the expenses from the that income, and only the net dividend is passed through to the ETF holder. In the case of QQQ, it certainly will have dividend income as it approximates a large stock index. The prospectus shows that it will adjust daily the reported Net Asset Value (NAV) to reflect accrued expenses, and the cash to pay them will come from the dividend cash. (If the dividend does not cover the expenses, the NAV will decline away from the modeled index.) Note that the NAV is not the ETF price found on the exchange, but is the underlying value. The price tends to track the NAV fairly closely, both because investors don't want to overpay for an ETF or get less than it is worth, and also because large institutions may buy or redeem a large block of shares (to profit) when the price is out of line. This will bring the price closer to that of the underlying asset (e.g. the NASDAQ 100 for QQQ) which is reflected by the NAV. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Do ETF dividends make up for fees? [/INST] It depends. Dividends and fees are usually unrelated. If the ETF holds a lot of stocks which pay significant dividends (e.g. an S&P500 index fund) these will probably cover the cost of the fees pretty readily. If the ETF holds a lot of stocks which do not pay significant dividends (e.g. growth stocks) there may not be any dividends - though hopefully there will be capital appreciation. Some ETFs don't contain stocks at all, but rather some other instruments (e.g. commodity-trust ETFs which hold precious metals like gold and silver, or daily-leveraged ETFs which hold options). In those cases there will never be any dividends. And depending on the performance of the market, the capital appreciation may or may not cover the expenses of the fund, either. If you look up QQQ's financials, you'll find it most recently paid out a dividend at an annualized rate of 0.71%. Its expense ratio is 0.20%. So the dividends more than cover its expense ratio. You could also ask "why would I care?" because unless you're doing some pretty-darned-specific tax-related modeling, it doesn't matter much whether the ETF covers its expense ratio via dividends or whether it comes out of capital gains. You should probably be more concerned with overall returns (for QQQ in the most recent year, 8.50% - which easily eclipses the dividends.) </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> IRR vs. Interest Rates [/INST] Yes, if your IRR is 5% per annum after three years then the total return (I prefer total rather than your use of actual) over those three years is 15.76%. Note that if you have other cashflows in and out, it gets a bit more complicated (e.g. using the XIRR function in Excel), but the idea is to find an effective annual percentage return that you're getting for your money. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> IRR vs. Interest Rates [/INST] IRR is not subjective, this is a response to @Laythesmack, to his remark that IRR is subjective. Not that I feel a need to defend my position, but rather, I'm going to explain his. My company offered stock at a 15% discount. We would have money withheld from pay, and twice per year buy at that discount. Coworkers said it was a 15% gain. I offered some math. I started by saying that 100/85 was 17.6%, and that was in fact, the gain. But, the funds were held by the company for an average of 3 months, not 6, so that gain occurred in 3 months and I did the math 1.176^4 and resulted in 91.5% annual return. This is IRR. It's not that it's subjective, but it assumes the funds continue to be invested fully during the time. In our case the 91.5% was real in one sense, yet no one doubled their money in just over a year. Was the 91% useless? Not quite. It simply meant to me that coworkers who didn't participate were overlooking the fact that if they borrowed money at a reasonable rate, they'd exceed that rate, especially for the fact that credit lines are charged day to day. Even if they borrowed that money on a credit card, they'd come out ahead. IRR is a metric. It has no emotion, no personality, no goals. It's a number we can calculate. It's up to you to use it correctly. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> IRR vs. Interest Rates [/INST] Yes, assuming that your cash flow is constantly of size 5 and initial investment is 100, the following applies: IRR of 5% over 3 years: Value of CashFlows: 4.7619 + 4.5351 + 4.3192 = 13.6162 NPV: 100 - 13.6162 = 86.3838 Continuous compounding: 86.3838 * (1.05^3) = 100 </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> IRR vs. Interest Rates [/INST] IRR is subjective, if you could provide another metric instead of the IRR; then this would make sense. You can't spend IRR. For example, you purchase a property with a down payment; and the property provides cash-flow; you could show that your internal rate of return is 35%, but your actual rate of importance could be the RoR, or Cap Rate. I feel that IRR is very subjective. IRR is hardly looked at top MBA programs. It's studied, but other metrics are used, such as ROI, ROR, etc. IRR should be a tool that you visually compare to another metric. IRR can be very misleading, for example it's like the cash on cash return on an investment. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] Aside from the fear that you or a loved one will spend it frivolously, I'm hard pressed to come up with another reason. If you'll owe money in the next tax year, you have the rest of the year to adjust your withholdings and/or make quarterly payments. As both my fellow PFers state, you're better off getting your money back. Better still, use it to pay off a high interest debt. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] There actually are legitimate reasons, but they don't apply to most people. Here are a few that I know of: You're self-employed and have to pay quarterly estimated taxes. Rather than wait for the refund when you already have to pay 1/4 of next year's taxes at the same time, you just have the IRS apply to refund forward. (so you're not out the money you owe while waiting for your refund). You're filing an amended or late return, and so you're already into the next year, and have a similar situation as #1, where your next year's taxes have already come due. You're planning on declaring bankruptcy, and you're under the Tenth Circuit, those credits might be safe from creditors For almost any other situation, you're better off taking the money, and using it to pay down debt, or put it somewhere to make interest (although, at the current rates, that might not be very much). </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] It is a bad deal. It saves the government from processing your refund as a check or an ACH deposit, and lets them keep your money -- money that they overwithheld! -- interest-free for another year. Get it back. :) </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] If you expect your taxes to be higher next year, it saves you the trouble of sending estimates or changing the withholding levels. But yes, its basically a free loan you're giving to the government. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] If your refunds are subject to seizure because of certain debt arrears, it makes sense to let the IRS hold onto them until next year. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] If you have non-salary income, you might be required to file 1040ES estimated tax for the next year on a quarterly basis. You can instead pay some or all in advance from your previous year's refund. In theory, you lose the interest you might have made by holding that money for a few months. In practice it might be worth it to avoid needing to send forms and checks every quarter. For instance if you had a $1000 estimated tax requirement and the alternative was to get 1% taxable savings account interest for six months, you'd make about $3 from holding it for the year. I would choose to just pay in advance. If you had a very large estimation, or you could pay off a high-rate debt and get a different effective rate of return, the tradeoff may be different. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] The refund may offset your liability for the next year, especially if you are a Schedule "C" filer. By having your refund applied to the coming year's taxes you are building a 'protection' against a potentially high liability if you were planning to sell a building that was a commercial building and would have Capital Gains. Or you sold stock at a profit that would also put you in the Capital Gain area. You won a large sum in a lottery, the refund could cushion a bit of the tax. In short, if you think you will have a tax liability in the current year then on the tax return you are filing for the year that just past, it may be to your benefit to apply the refund. If you owe money from a prior year, the refund will not be sent to you so you will not be able to roll it forward. One specific example is you did qualify in the prior year for the ACA. If in the year you are currently in- before you file your taxes-- you realize that you will have to pay at the end of the current year, then assigning your refund will pay part or all of the liability. Keep in mind that the 'tax' imposed due to ACA is only collected from your refunds. If you keep having a liability to pay or have no refunds due to you, the liability is not collected from you. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] If your refund is so small (like $20 - $25), and it's not worth receiving, it can be put towards next years just to give you a slight edge. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] Not a financially sound decision in my humble opinion. Basically, you are prepaying your taxes and the only reason you want to do that is if you don't have the discipine to save that money for when it is time to pay next year (assuming you will have to). </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? [/INST] sometimes we advise very old or incapacitated people to apply the refund to the next year as check writing from time to time & mailing may be a hassle for them. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> How do I calculate the actual dividend amount for a monthly dividend payout mutual fund? [/INST] In the absence of a country designation where the mutual fund is registered, the question cannot be fully answered. For US mutual funds, the N.A.V per share is calculated each day after the close of the stock exchanges and all purchase and redemption requests received that day are transacted at this share price. So, the price of the mutual fund shares for April 2016 is not enough information: you need to specify the date more accurately. Your calculation of what you get from the mutual fund is incorrect because in the US, declared mutual fund dividends are net of the expense ratio. If the declared dividend is US$ 0.0451 per share, you get a cash payout of US$ 0.0451 for each share that you own: the expense ratio has already been subtracted before the declared dividend is calculated. The N.A.V. price of the mutual fund also falls by the amount of the per-share dividend (assuming that the price of all the fund assets (e.g. shares of stocks, bonds etc) does not change that day). Thus. if you have opted to re-invest your dividend in the same fund, your holding has the same value as before, but you own more shares of the mutual fund (which have a lower price per share). For exchange-traded funds, the rules are slightly different. In other jurisdictions, the rules might be different too. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. <</SYS>> How do I calculate the actual dividend amount for a monthly dividend payout mutual fund? [/INST] So if someone would invest 14000 credits on 1st April 2016, he'd get monthly dividend = ((14000 ÷ 14) × 0.0451) × (1 - 1.42 ÷ 100) = 44.459 credits, right? One would get ((14000 ÷ 14) × 0.0451) = 45.1 is what you would get. The expenses are not to be factored. Generally if a scheme has less expense ratio, the yield is more. i.e. this has already got factored in 0.0451. If the expense ratio was less, this would have been 0.05 if expense ration would have been more it would have been 0.040. Can I then consider the bank deposit earning a higher income per month than the mutual fund scheme? As the MIP as classified as Hybrid funds as they invest around 30% in equities, there is no tax on the income. More so if there is a lock-in of 3 years. In Bank FD, there would be tax applicable as per tax brackets. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering <</SYS>> How do government bond yields work? [/INST] Why does the rising price of a bond pushes it's yield down? The bond price and its yield are linked; if one goes up, the other must go down. This is because the cash flows from the bond are fixed, predetermined. The market price of the bond fluctuates. Now what if people are suddenly willing to pay more for the same fixed payments? It must mean that the return, i.e. the yield, will be lower. Here we see that risk associated with the bonds in question has skyrocketed, and thus bonds' returns has skyrocketed, too. Am I right? The default risk has increased, yes. Now, I assume that bonds' price is determined by the market (issued by a state, traded at the market). Is that correct? Correct, as long as you are talking about the market price. Then who determines bonds' yields? I mean, isn't it fixed? Or - in the FT quote above - they are talking about the yields for the new bonds issued that particular month? The yield is not fixed - the cash flows are. Yield is the internal rate of return. See my answer above to your first question. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. <</SYS>> How do government bond yields work? [/INST] Imagine a $1,000 face value bond paying 10% interest semi-annually. That means every 6 months there is $50 being paid. Now, if the price of that bond doubled to $2,000, what is the yield? It is still paying $50 every 6 months but now sports a 5% yield as the price went up a great deal. Similarly, if the price of the bond was cut in half to $500, now it is yielding 20% because it is still paying out the $50 every 6 months. The dollar figure is fixed. What percentage of the price it is can vary and that is why there is the inverse relationship between prices and yields. Note that the length of the bond isn't mentioned here where while usually longer bonds will have higher yields, there can be inverted yield curves as well as calls on some bonds. Also, inflation-indexed and convertible bonds could have different calculations used as principal adjustments or possible conversion to stock can change a perception on the overall return. </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. <</SYS>> Project future trend of a stock with high positive autocorrelation [/INST] Auto-correlation is a statistical concept for measuring repeating patterns in series. In stocks it is of particular interest as if future prices can be reliably guessed from past prices a lot of money could be made. Note, even in cases where auto-correlations are high and persistent (near 1) there is still some possibility that the next time period would be down even if the previous period was up. Now the important part here is that high and persistent auto-correlation also means once the price falls the next period the price is also more likely to fall! Once one period was down the next period is more likely to be down so the price does not need to go to infinity. Instead, it generally would display up and down trends. Now, the key word above for investing is persistence. For stocks, auto-correlations are, at best, weakly persistent at reasonable time scales. So, even if a stock was highly auto-correlated during a previous period it is tough to make consistent money off of trading on these past trending patterns. This does not mean some people don't try... </s>

<s>[INST] <<SYS>> Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. <</SYS>> Is it preferable to move emergency savings/retirement into offset mortgage? [/INST] Assuming no constraints on how much you can move (or how frequently) into and out of your offset mortgage account, the question becomes one of what rate of return you expect from your long-term savings/emergency cash fund. The rate you are getting from the offset mortgage account is known; since it reduces the principal amount owing and thus reduces interest charges, the return is the mortgage rate (though I would not be surprised if the offset mortgage account contract has bells and whistles reducing the effective rate, saying something like 3 pounds reduction of principal for every 5 pounds you put in). So, as a movie character once said, "Do you feel lucky today?" If so, move money from your offset mortgage account to savings, and earn more. If not, move money in the opposite direction. A "guaranteed" 2% return on the offset mortgage account might be better than taking a risk on the vagaries of the stock market, and even the possibility of loss in your long term savings account. </s>