What Are the Vesting Rules for My SIMPLE IRA?
Employer contributions to SIMPLEs are immediately vested to the employee. The employer’s contributions into SIMPLE IRAs do not have any vesting restrictions. In other words, the contribution belongs to you immediately after it has been made, notwithstanding standard IRS rules for withdrawals from retirement accounts. SIMPLEs do have some restrictions during the first two years, however, that are known as the ‘Two Year Rule.’ Continue reading...
What is the Broadening Wedge Ascending (Bearish) Pattern?
The Broadening Wedge Ascending pattern forms when a security price progressively makes higher highs (1, 3, 5) and higher lows (2, 4), following two widening trend lines. This pattern may form when large investors spread their buying over a period of time. When initial buying occurs, other market participants react to rising price and jump on the bandwagon to participate. Then value investors begin to sell, believing the price has risen too much, which spurs the original large investor to resume buying again. Once these activities stop, the price may break out in either direction. Continue reading...
What does it mean to Accept Risk?
The notion of who bears risk for various sorts of failures, circumstances, or losses is a prevalent one in the financial world, and many institutions make all of their money accepting risks. To accept a risk is to bear the burden of loss or replacement if an event occurs that causes an asset to lose value or disappear. There is a bright side to this, however. There is a real and theoretical “risk premium” due to those who accept a risk. Continue reading...
BB+/Ba1 — credit rating
BB+ — S&P / Fitch Ba1 — Moody’s This rating is the highest non-investment grade category that the ratings agencies will give to a bond. When rating bond issues based on their risk of default, investment grade bonds will range from AAA/Aaa to BBB-/Baa3, in the parlance of Fitch, Moody’s and S&P. Below this level, starting with the BB+/Ba1 rating, are High Yield Bonds, also known as Junk Bonds. If an investor chooses wisely, high yield bonds can be some of the best investments in his or her portfolio. The further down the ratings scale a bond appears, the higher the yield; but there is also a higher risk of default. The higher yield paid out on higher-risk bonds is known as the “risk premium,” which is a concept present throughout the investment world. Continue reading...
What is Cash Budget?
Budgeting is the act of planning accounts for the future. A cash budget plans out the expected cash flow of a business. Sales and production estimations are used along with historical cash flow data to project where money will come from and where it will be spent in the months ahead. A cash budget tends to be laid out on a monthly basis. Accounting is the documentation of the outlay of all expenses and income from the past, while budgeting is act of building an outlay for the future. A cash budget tries to ensure that there is more cash coming in than going out; any excess cash can be rolled forward into the budget plans for the following months, and this is called a cash roll. Continue reading...
What is foreign debt?
Foreign Debt is also called International Debt or External debt. It is the amount of debt that is owed by one country to other countries or entities outside of the borrowing country’s borders. A country may find it easy to raise capital for operations and projects by issuing lots of bonds and taking on lots of debt obligations. If this proves to be unsustainable, or if the sheer amount of debt has investors worried, it can have significant detrimental effects and send an economy spiraling out of control. Continue reading...
Who are Some of the More Well-Known Investment Managers?
There have been many notable investors who have withstood the test of time. Of those that are still living, Warren Buffett definitely stands out of the crowd. If you had invested $1,000 with him in 1965, the investment would be worth over $6 million today. Some of those who could be considered in the realm of "founding fathers" of sound investment strategy would include J.P. Morgan, Benjamin Graham (author of the famous "The Intelligent Investor"), and John Templeton. Continue reading...
Do I Need an Advisor on a Permanent Basis?
Short-term advisor relationships do not tend to be very productive, and can sometimes be counter-productive, but advisors may still be useful for one-time consultations when an investor just wants an opinion on a specific issue. A long-term relationship with one advisor is preferable to many short-term relationships. Meeting with a new advisor will usually be part of a transition period where an investor is looking to try something new. The advisor may start out with some preliminary planning but the investor may jump to the next advisor before the former advisor could really shape the plan he or she was seeking to build. Continue reading...
What is active money management?
Active management is when an investor or money manager attempts to outperform an index or benchmark, using tactical strategies. Many economists and financial professionals believe that the markets are efficient. This means that all available financial information has already been built into the prices of securities, and that you cannot outperform the market by making specific selections of stocks, timing the market, reallocating your assets regularly, following the advice of market pundits, or finding the best portfolio managers. Continue reading...
What is Mutual Fund Classification According to Market Capitalization?
One way of classifying mutual funds is by the market capitalizations of the companies they invest in. Mutual funds can invest in stocks and bonds of foreign corporations, or corporations in the biotechnology industry, or with any other objective they may have. But one way to manage it is by size—to capture market exposure for companies of different sizes. The size of a company is defined by the amount of market capitalization it has, which is the number of shares outstanding multiplied by the share price. Some indexes and funds will adjust market cap rankings to give weight to “free float,” which is the amount of market capitalization that is freely trading, and is not held by other companies, governments, or founding families. Continue reading...