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What is Publication 504, Divorced and Separated individuals?
IRS Link to Publication — Found Here Divorce can be a hard thing on a personal level, and the tax returns can become more difficult to sort through as well. Publication 504 walks through the various choices available to those who are divorced or separated and who may need to adjust how their dependents are claimed, how property is divided up or sold, and who pays the taxes due at the time of divorce. Publication 504 gives detailed instructions concerning how to correctly report and file the proceeds of divorce. Continue reading...
What are Domestic Stock Funds?
Domestic equity funds invest in companies domiciled in the United States. Domestic Equity Funds, as the name suggests, invest primarily in stocks of U.S.-based companies. These come in many varieties: some invest in companies within a certain size range, some focus on specific sectors, some seek value or growth stocks within sectors, and so on. Domestic stocks funds usually represent the majority of the holdings in an average American citizen’s portfolio. Continue reading...
What is an Accountant’s Opinion?
An Accountant’s Opinion, also called an Auditor’s Opinion, is a formal document signed by a certified accountant after a review of a company’s books. Companies may be required to have an audit from an independent and unbiased third-party accountant, perhaps annually before a report to shareholders or the submission of financial documents to regulatory bodies or lending institutions. At the conclusion of a review or audit, the auditor issues an Accountant’s Opinion (or Auditor’s Opinion) letter. The two outcomes that are most common: Qualified or Unqualified. Continue reading...
When Do I Have to Start Taking Money Out of My IRA?
The IRS requires IRA owners to take distributions starting at age 70 ½. By April 1st of the year following the year you turn 70 ½, the IRS needs to see a distribution from your IRA that satisfies the Required Minimum Distribution rule. The RMD is calculated using a table published by the IRS, and each age is assigned a different “factor.” The factor is a number, and you divide the balance of your IRA or 401(k) by that number to reveal the amount that will satisfy your RMD obligation. The factor decreases incrementally as the ages increase. Continue reading...
What is GDP?
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the production of all industries within a country, to get a picture of how the national economy is doing. GDP is one of the most important number to economists, and it is calculated every quarter. Growth for the current quarter compared to the previous quarter is a good sign. Two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP are an indication of a recession, but it is not the only metric used to make that call. Continue reading...
What is a Market Order?
A market order is an order to execute a trade (buy or sell) immediately at whatever the current market price. If an investor places a market order after hours, for instance, the order will be filled at the market’s open wherever the price of the security is. Placing a market order, also known as an “unrestricted order,” means the person trading the security is more concerned with timely execution of the trade than they are the actual price. If a market order is placed for a security that has very high volumes and is a common stock, the market order is likely to be filled right away. Continue reading...
What is a Limit Order?
A Limit Order is a type of order to buy or sell a security, where the trader wants to set a specific price for the trade, or any price that’s better than the price set. From a buy and sell standpoint, a buy limit order would be designed to have the trade executed at the designated price, or any price lower than that. A sell order is just the opposite, where the trader hopes to execute the trade at a minimum set price. Limit orders typically have a period of time before they are canceled, if the designated price is not reached by a certain period. Continue reading...
What is the minimum investment in a typical hedge fund?
Hedge funds can require initial investments that are quite large. This may be somewhere between $250,000 to $10,000,000. They will generally only accept Accredited Investors, meaning high net worth individuals that pass SEC standards which exempt the fund from some reporting and disclosure requirements. While the minimum investment varies, most Hedge Funds will accept only so-called accredited investors. Continue reading...
What is a Stop Order?
A stop order is like putting a lure out on a pond but having a robot there to cut the line or reel in the lure if the conditions are not met, such as a fish too small to bother with, to stick with the metaphor, so that the fisher-person (investor) can take a nap or attend to the many other lines he may have in the water. A stop order names a price which serves as a trigger point, and once the security price has crossed this trigger point, a market order is entered to buy or sell at the next available price. It might be called a buy-stop or sell-stop depending on which action it pertains to. Continue reading...
What is a Stop Limit Order?
A Stop-Limit Order basically automates the preferences of an investor or trader, to reduce exposure to price uncertainty even after a trade ticket is entered, by stipulating a price at which the search for a bid/ask price is to begin, but limiting the range of prices at which an order can actually be entered or executed. A Stop-Limit Order has two parts: the Stop Price and the Limit Price. The stop price is like an amendment or contract rider on a security that is held which stipulates that if the price of the security crosses the Stop price, the search for an agreeable price begins. Continue reading...
What is Stop-Loss Order?
A stop-loss order is appended to a securities position being held long or short, and stipulates that the security is to be sold or bought if the price moves beyond the stop price, at which point the investor seeks to "cut his losses," or limit his potential exposure to losses. A stop-loss order will name a price below the market price on a long position and above the market price on a short position, at which point a sell order will be triggered for the long position and a buy order will be triggered to cover the short position, with the goal being to limit the potential losses to which an investor is exposed. Continue reading...
What is a market-on-close order?
A market-on-close order is used to execute a trade at the last possible moment before the market closes for the day. This may be an order to sell or buy. Market-on-close orders are instructions to execute a trade just before the market closes for the day, at the best price available at the time. The exchange will actually settle all of the market-on-close orders at the same price. Why would an investor enter this kind of trade order? Continue reading...
What is a market-on-open order?
Traders can enter time-specific trade orders in the form of opening or closing orders, which are only to be executed as close to the opening or closing price as possible. Market-on-open orders are looking to buy or sell immediately after the market opens, at the opening price. Market-on-open orders are instructions for a broker or floor trader (even though we don’t see those much anymore these days) to buy or sell shares at opening price of the stock being traded. Continue reading...
What is a market-with-protection order?
A market-with-protection order starts out as a regular market order to buy or sell at the market price. This kind of order will cancel the remainder of the order if the price moves before the entire order is filled, and it is immediately re-entered as a limit order with a price just above or below the market price. A market-with-protection order allows investors to hedge against the change that prices will move unexpectedly before their entire order is filled at the desired price. So an investor would submit an order to be executed at the current market price, and then, if the price moved, the order would automatically cancel the rest of the order and resubmit it as a limit order. Continue reading...
What are some Key Numbers Related to the World Capital Markets?
As of 2014, global GDP was $77 trillion. The total market capitalization of all world stock markets is approximately $70 trillion, and about a fourth of that amount is the U.S. market. The U.S. economy is the largest by GDP, which for 'fiscal year' (FY) 2016 was approximately $19 trillion. The total value of notional derivatives fell to $18.1 trillion. How Many Dollars do We Have in Circulation? What is Currency in Circulation? Continue reading...
What are My Self-Employed 401(k) Investment Options?
As with other retirement plans, this will mostly depend on the options available to you through your custodian. Solo 401(k)s will have an array of asset exposure available to you, but it may come only in the form of mutual funds. This is not unlike many larger 401(k)s. The way these plans are bundled as simple and straightforward products, without so many bells and whistles that they will attract the attention of the IRS, may cause them to be slightly more plain vanilla than the options available in some 401(k)s. Continue reading...
How can I invest in hedge funds?
Fund managers are allowed to accept up to 35 non-accredited investors, but for the most part you will either need to satisfy the “accredited investor” requirement of the SEC to invest directly in a hedge fund. Otherwise, there are now hedge fund indexes and ETFs that track and mimic hedge fund strategies that are accessible to everyone. You should know now that the minimum initial investment requirement to participate in a hedge fund can be quite large, such as upwards of $1 million. Continue reading...
What does Earnings mean?
Earnings is another word for the net income of a company. It is one of the most important numbers in corporate finance. If a company cannot show earnings, and growth in earnings, investors aren’t going to stick around. Earnings are normally computed as revenue minus taxes and expenses. It is synonymous with net income. Earnings is a positive cash outlay for the year, which means the company is not operating at a deficit. Continue reading...
What is an Earnings Call?
An earnings call is when a company opens up a teleconference line or webcast that the public can join to hear the company management talk about how the company performed recently, their plans for the future, and the market forces that exist in the current environment. Most publicly traded companies today have adopted this practice. Earnings calls may take place once a year or during earnings seasons after the quarterly earnings have been announced in a press release. Companies often have one executive whose job is to interface with the shareholders in such settings, but various executives are often given a chance to present some thoughts. Continue reading...
Can I Take a Loan From my Cash-Balance Plan?
The IRS permits such loans, but it is rare to find a plan that allows it. In the vast majority of cases, you cannot. Though the IRS permits it, the administrative burden of a defined benefit plan is already significant for an employer, and it is much more likely that they will not make a provision for loans in the plan document. As far as the IRS is concerned, generally speaking, these plans have the same rules as other qualified plans. If a small partnership or LLC with a cash balance plan wants to put loan provisions into their plan document, they can do it. Continue reading...