Let's talk about money - The Finance Thread

General Discussion
81

Wow, I can’t believe I missed this thread. Hey, someone asked about financial books to read earlier. There is one I can definitely recommend, Benjamin Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor”. It shows you how to look for stocks that are undervalued, lowering your risk and at the same time increasing your overall returns. Warren Buffett was one of his students. I’ve read the book and it is the truth. If you purchase individual stocks you should read it.

This month the new edition of John Slatter’s “The 100 best stocks you can buy” also comes out. A really useful guide to finding value stocks, I always keep my copy nearby.

82

don’t know if this is the right thread to ask this. but my mechanic’s financial adviser said that in 2 months the value of the dollar is going to drop dramatically because of the election, and that he should convert a good portion of his money to euro.

any truth?

83

This thread is VERY informative and I’m taking notes. I got two questions I hope someone has the answer to…

  1. Lets say I got a little over ten thousand. I didnt earn this money, meaning I didnt get taxed. It came out of the sky lets say. I want to put this in a bank account for safe keeping. But at the moment im trying to get welfare(food stamps) and possibly go into disability. If I put the money in an account in my name will uncle sam find out and deny me welfare and or disability? (this question is strictly hypothetical)

  2. Whats the best place to do your taxes at?

Thanks in advance…

84

Great thread!

I’m curious about my current situation.

I’m 29 years old, married w/child, 2 cars paid off, house paid off, & currently no debt. We are only making about $4000-4500 a month. I want to know how much money should i have already saved. As of right now we have no retirement plan.

Also how safe is www.emigrantdirect.com What are the risk?

85

I’d say someone who is 29 and making about 50k a year should have about 30k saved for retirement, and six months worth of expenses in a savings account. But with no mortgage and no other debt, you’re pretty far ahead of most people your age. If I were you, I’d start putting money into some kind of retirement account. Do you have a 401k plan at work?

EmigrantDirect is 100% safe, since it is FDIC insured for up to $100,000 on an individual account and $200,000 for a joint account.

86

I want to get into canadian stocks. How would I go about this and what things should I look out for (tax implications, etc)?

87

Your location says Tampa Florida, so the tax implications aren’t anything different than if you invest in companies in the US. You’ll have to claim your gains/losses at the end of the year and it’ll be worked just like any other stock (I think.)

How do you want to go about it? If you know enough about how to invest, what type of company you are looking for, and are confident in your ability to valuate the stock, then all you need is an e-trade (or other online investing account) and can buy up your stocks that way. Otherwise, you could always pay a broker to ‘do the legwork’ for you and pick a stock, but he’ll charge you for it.

On another note, I opened an e-trade account recently … My wife and I both have good jobs and are pulling quite a bit of money annually, so im willing to take probably a little bit more risk than the average person. We are already putting away 12% into our 401Ks, so i think if we continue as-is, our retirement isn’t really an issue. So what I really want is some stocks that I can play around with.

What are some stocks out there that any of you are bullish on? I personally like APKT and CHK… APKT is cheap and is ripe for buyout by an IBM or Cisco… CHK is a national oil company and has been giving me some decent returns since I picked it up. Anyone have others to offer up that might be a worthy investment?

88

hmmm… I wonder where did you get your money from :lol: Anyway, if the money was gift then there well be no taxes. If the money was through some lotto or contest yes taxes. If the money was through a settlement dispute, the taxes should have been taken out already but im unsure in that one.

When it comes to taxes it is better that you do it yourself. Yes it’ll take time but as you thorughly read the book you’ll get an understanding for the next year. Or if you want a quick lesson just join one of the free schools provided by H & R Block

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=3974253&postcount=21
read the link. Now is that combined income or is that just you? I cantbet that dayum near every credit card company is chasing you like there is no tommorrow. What I suggest as well is post your strategy of how you placed yourself in the good situation you are in to motivate some of the guys here. Shit making dough is my favorite topic of discussion.

There are no risk to them. The only catch is that when you make the transfer from your linked checking it’ll take 2-3 business day before you can use it. The point is though that you are not supposed to use it.

89

Some opinions for discussion

  • I’ve never tried Emigrant Direct, but with a savings account I kind of want it with a bank I still a lot with. I had a small sum in a Capital One savings and it was mildly difficult to access it or move it around. I have an Etrade account now as a brokerage and savings account and they offer the same ~5% rate in savings. I check my stocks every now and then and its cool to see my savings at the same time. I feel like its a lot easier getting money in/out and when you want to buy a stock, a transfer from your in house savings acct to brokerage occurs instantly.

  • Someone earlier mentioned about withdrawing money from an online bank. You can just have a checkings with a bank you see everywhere. I use Chase and they have branches pretty much everywhere. Its also nice cause they offer a pretty good credit card called Chase freedom which is like 3% gas, groceries and a few others (maybe fastfood too?) and it you have $200 cashback they send you a check for $250. I think it’s kinda nice to have your credit card and checking in the same if possible, since payment posts instantly and they have no real excuse to ask why your other bank is taking so long.

Pay your credit card on time consistently. I try and pay everything the first of the month when its usually due 12-19th ish. Getting a good job and showing up late everyday and not holding your end of the bargain up is gonna hurt you more than help you. Same goes for credit cards.

I don’t spend enough to warrant an air miles card, but my first credit card I had was a Barnes and Noble, which treated me real good. It was low limit of $500 so nothing got out of hand and the rewards were meh. The good side was I thought doing its cashback and discounts would actually get me to go buy/read books and it really did. When I signed up too they sent me 4 $10 gift certificates only to have the card become discontinued about a year later.

  • I’d recommend starting a retirement account like an IRA or Roth IRA asap. I think Roth IRA’s are more beneficial for younger people, so read up on it. But yeah, it helps you out taxwise now and later and its a place to put your deposit and forget about for a long time money to grow even better. I believe money you put in reduces your taxable income. Put your money here in a index fund or something.

  • I’m not really savvy in economics or currency, but from I understand and please correct me if I’m wrong with a source a weak dollar works to boost the stock market by making stocks go up and actually making stocks cheaper. I’d really love to hear though an explanation of what The Fed does with dollar worth being weaker or stronger and why they allow it to go someway. We also complain about weak dollar, weak dollar, but really I could see Canada complaining why everything is so damn expensive now if not soon and the same goes to Euro countries that aren’t France/Germany. I hear Greece really hates it.

  • Investing in stocks is fascinating. I’d encourage people to at least buy something you like and understand (not some hot tip. Its my opinion that VMware is wayyyy out of control pricewise) with a small amount to get your foot in the pool and get yourself in gradually before jumping in. If your young its one huge thing you probably have over most people your age. I read some books, but my favorite read is http://www.morningstar.com/Cover/Classroom.html it has a lot of nice short chapters with only a few Morningstar plugs. Very good content though. Really you could use it as a checklist.
    Whatever you try and do, just don’t try beating Wall Street at its own game, which is trying to make money between today and next monday your pretty likely to get burned. They seriously have hordes of people who do 100 hour weeks working at that. Go long term and patience is what wins this and fighting games.

90

I thought I’d give some info here that maybe could answer this. The value of the dollar has many effects. I’ve answered this mostly dealing with the financial areas, but obviously it affects other areas such as consumer spending.

So the discount rate is the rate at which bank’s can borrow directly from the federal reserve. They borrow at the discount window of the Fed and these are usually short term borrowings (sometimes overnight). It used to be that the Fed was the lender of last resort and it was looked down upon for financial institutions to borrow from the Fed. However, this has recently changed and the Fed now has several programs that financial institutions can use to get this extra liquidity. There are seasonality programs for those institutions that experience extreme seasonality in deposit liquidity (think a tourist area located bank).

The fed funds rate is the rate is the rate you hear about all the time in the news. This is the nominal rate that the Fed controls through open market operations or the buying and selling of bonds on the market.

This rate is used by financial institutions to lend money to each other. They do this through their regional Fed banks. The bank can either SELL fed funds or PURCHASE fed funds. When they sell fed funds they are giving money to the Fed to lend to another institution and receive an interest rate on these funds. Banks generally sell fed funds if they have extra money they don’t know what to do with. Another bank with purchase these fed funds from the Fed because they need money and they will pay the fed funds rate for them or sometimes get a discount off the rate if they are a “good” borrower with the Fed.

The rate that most affects the normal person is the fed funds rate. Prime rate (on residential mortgage loans), in the recent past has been 300 basis points or 3% higher than the fed funds rate. In general, you want to think of prime as being a separate entity. Really Prime rate or Wall Street Journal Prime is the rate at which 75% of the nation’s 30 largest banks lend at. A mortgage loan is not necessarily priced off of prime and can be priced off a number of other rates, such as LIBOR (London InterBank Overnight Rate), which is similar (I believe) to the fed funds rate here in the U.S…

Rate change example for Fed Funds: Say they set a rate at 5.00 when it was 5.25 previously. In order to move this rate down to 5.00, the Federal Open Market Committee(FOMC) must increase the amount of money in the system to decrease the rate at which banks in general are willing to lend out money. The Fed must then buy back Treasury securities to allow cash back into the banks.

In the opposite, if they were to raise rates they would issue a ton of Treasury securities and therefore effectively destroy the amount of U.S. dollars that exists in the system.

The idea here is that if bank’s can get money for less they will be able to lend for less and vice versa. Also, you have to be weary when people talk about the fed funds rate, afterall, this rate is a NOMINAL rate that is set by the Fed or a target rate they’d like to hit. It is extremely difficult to get an exact rate by using the buying and selling of bonds/securities through the Treasury. The action of buying and selling securities by the Fed is called, “open market operations.” Hence the name Federal Open Market Committee.

Hope this helps. I’ll subscribe to this thread and see if I can try and help with any other questions.

p.s. I’m an economics major turned bank analyst so my knowledge mainly comes from banking.

91

If you open an account with that money you better believe that teller is telling uncle sam.

And the post above me is on point. More money less interest, less money more interest.

92

Heh short story…
Because I’m still shuffling my cash around trying to kill things, I’ve wanted my money ‘accessable’ - including my savings - so I haven’t put it anywhere but a normal savings account at BoA. anyone who knows me knows I hate BoA with a passion. Last night was the final straw.

I made…two cents for the month. Yeah real good :rolleyes:.

But thats not the problem.

I got taxed 3 bux for monthly maintenance…

so my savings account actually currently COST me money. If I leave the money there it will disappear. And thats with me dumping 150 bux in it this month. I’m not concered about the intrest truth be told, but the fact that I got taxed for having a saving account was too much. No money comes out, only goes in. So I’m closing all but my main BoA account and transferring banks, cause this is ridiculous.

Well here is a financial question, has anyone here opened up their own ‘physical’ business? Not internet stuff where you can just store stuff in a warehouse, but like a restaurant or store. I’ve got a REAL ambitious project that I’m interested in undertaking hence the txt to Ace and ATN is getting a txt after I do a bit more research, but I’m currnetly at the “I got the idea” phase, I’m starting to enter the “can I do this” phase and “the real research” phase. Looking for advice. Of note I will not be living near said location.

  • :bluu:
93

Then you and i need to talk because im in that “hustle” phase as well trying to get a dry cleaners company within the next 2 years or so. As of friday my focus is that and getting a house within that timeframe.

white ninja that was an awesome post right there.

94

nevermind…I found it

95

Unreal: there are plenty of banks that don’t cost a thing to use, in fact, my ED account made 1.94 cents and there is NOTHING in there…weird…

As for the business side, I will listen and research, but will not get anything popping til 12 months from now. Been doing my own research on things, but I need/will be completely out of CC debt before I put anything down.

Wife Edit: Unreal, you know Lauren had her own company, right? She started it in college.

96

I remember something, but I’m talking a physcial store you sell shit at. There was na idea I had about a year ago, and this weekend ‘it started materializing in front of my face’. Well the possibilities.

I’d love to wait until my CC is completly clear, but things just got potentially shaky I’m moving out by the 15 to sum it up so I dunno how strong my ability to keep killing it will be…too many ‘factors’ to say for sure when its finally gone. I’m not on a timeframe with this though either, if no one else has done it, no one else WILL :rofl:, so if it takes me five years to get off the ground, it takes me five years to get off the ground. But its out of my current abilities, so I’m trying to do some reality checks on whats possible with pulling it off. Location for instance, its in a REAL expensive area, but on arguably a real cheap piece of land. Structure already exist that I can use after renovation…at least for phase 1. There’s licensing, real estate, staffing, procurement of equipment/materials etc, and what I actually want folks help with is pheasability. My GF is sold and thinks its a great idea, but I want to do more research on it and get more opinions from others who aren’t ‘accustom’ to the idea. This would require a road trip with said individuals, but don’t know when the folks I want to see wil lbe available or even interested in the drive a few hours from DC.

As for the bank thing, I’ve known for a long time that there are other banks that don’t cost anything. I chose BoA when I did basedo n convienance, and IMO they are still unbeatable in that reguard, but I’m just sick of this, from them jacking up my intrest for no cot damn reason no missed payments or anything to them taking more money out my savings account than what they are putting into it. I’m just sick of them, the ONLY reason I’ve given them a bi for so long is how they handled the situation when my roommate stole my shit - I was extremely impressed.

“Mr. Neal doesn’t write checks, something is up”.
But its just not worth it anymore. I’m tryign to clean up my finances the last thing I need is them leeching even more money off me. In my mind they are stil la large reason as to why I’m in the hole I’m in now. Asking for a double payment 'just because they werne’t sure I coudl keep payments up" - Yeah, I had quit one job and just started working my new one…I had the money set aside for that payment, not a double. So I am technically ‘late’…so my APR goes from 6.99% to 21.99% I think it was. Minimum payments fly up cause of this and I’m dead in the water when I have issues at my job. So phuck’em.

  • :bluu:
97

Originally posted by DJ Ether (yeah I screwed up pasting it I suck)

  1. Lets say I got a little over ten thousand. I didnt earn this money, meaning I didnt get taxed. It came out of the sky lets say. I want to put this in a bank account for safe keeping. But at the moment im trying to get welfare(food stamps) and possibly go into disability. If I put the money in an account in my name will uncle sam find out and deny me welfare and or disability? (this question is strictly hypothetical)

Yes, Uncle Sam will know about a deposit of that size especially since it would not fall into your regular pattern of deposits. However, I do not know if that would affect your listed financial status with the government.

  1. Q: Where to do taxes?
    Peronsally, I would recommend doing them yourself especially if they are not too complex i.e. one income, maybe rent, little-to-no dividends/interest income etc… Otherwise you could always take a tax class offered by H&R block. They offer free courses and you have plenty of time to file if you try to sign up for a class in the near future. INVEST IN YOURSELF!

cheers

98

You need to read the disclosures with your account or call up one of their customer assistants. I also have a BoA accounts(checking and savings). The savings account requires an average daily balance of $300. You must maintain $300 in this account in order to not be charged a fee for holding your account. Also, generally if you drop below the $300 you will not be paid interest on your account as it does not meet the required minimum. So if at any time your average daily balance drops below $300 you will not receive interest for that day.

Also, as it is a savings account you are not allowed to transfer money out of the account more than 6 times during a statement period. This has to do with restrictions on paying interest on checking accounts. If you are transferring money in and out of your savings account then you are treating it like a checking account and will therefore be charged for using it like a checking account.

BoA pays 0.20% on their savings account. You should put $300 in it and leave it alone and enjoy your free checking you have with them. Any other money you want to save should go into CDs/online savings etc… as they will earn you more interest on your money. Your money should work just as hard as you do.

In conclusion, it’s your own damn fault for all the charges you incurred.

99

Just FYI - a stock for yall to take a look at:

JYHW

It’s an energy stock and it’s cheap as fuck (~2.5$ a share)… I picked up a bit today - I figure at this point in the world an energy company really can’t “do wrong.” Considering their market cap, it might be worth picking up just to speculate a potential buyout.

If you have a few hundred lying around you can pick up a bundle of stock and ride it for a bit - its risky but has potential.

100

This is from Jayhawk Energy Inc’s 6/30/07 SEC filing…

For the three months ended June 30, 2007 and June 30, 2006. The numbers in the following paragraphs are in thousands.

Revenues. We had no sales for the three months ended June 30, 2007, as compared sales of $432 for the three months ended June 30, 2006. For the three months ended June 30, 2006, we had $297 in cost of goods sold, resulting in gross profit of $135 for the period. Since we had no sales during the most recent period, we had no gross profit. We do not expect that we will generate any revenues from our jewelry business as we are discontinuing the operations related to our jewelry business. Going forward, we hope to generate larger revenues as we implement our new business plan, which we adopted in April 2007.

Operating Expenses. For the three months ended June 30, 2007, our total operating expenses were $21,815, as compared to $3,738 total operating expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2006. The increase in total operating expenses is primarily due to the increase in legal and professional fees, attributable to the costs associated with our name change and change of focus. We expect that we will continue to incur significant professional fees related to being a public company. For the three months ended June 30, 2007, our operating expenses consisted of Interest expense of $3,667 related to our promissory note, professional fees of $17,675, other general and administrative expenses of $173, and contributed rent of $300. In comparison, for the three months ended June 30, 2006, we had professional fees of $2,235, other general and administrative expenses of $1,203 and contributed rent of $300.

Net Income or Loss. For the three months ended June 30, 2007, our net loss from operations was $21,815, as was our net loss. This is in comparison to the three months ended June 30, 2006, where our net loss from operations and net loss was $3,034. The increase in our net loss for the three months ended June 30, 2007, was due an increase in operating expenses between the two periods, which was primarily represented by interest and professional services expenses.

**This company is garbage. I would suggest not looking for stock picks on shoryuken.com. Thanks. **