What are Municipal Bond Funds?
Municipal bonds funds invest exclusively in tax-advantaged municipal bond issues. Municipal Bond Funds invest in issues of municipal debt, often with the intention of using its tax advantages. Bonds held in a ‘muni fund’ might be state or local issues of general obligation or revenue bonds. Gains on muni funds are not taxable at the federal level, and if a person resides in the state in which the bond was issued, they can most likely avoid state or local taxes on gains as well. Continue reading...
What if I Want to Retire Abroad?
Retiring abroad requires additional planning to account for visa requirements and currency exchange factors, but like any financial goal it can be reached with proper planning. Retiring in the U.S. is difficult on its own, given rapidly rising cost of health care and the fact that most Americans under-save. Retiring abroad, while possible, makes matters even more difficult. Amongst other factors to consider, a retiree needs to plan for a myriad of additional costs such as tax implications, currency fluctuations, visa requirements, and health care. Continue reading...
What is Earnings Season?
Earnings season describes not one, but four times in a year, when corporations release their quarterly earnings reports. Investors look forward to this time because they are able to get an update about how the year is going, compared to projections. After each fiscal quarter ends, there are a few weeks in which companies file their quarterly reports with the SEC and announce their current earnings and sales numbers. Each of these periods is known as earnings season. Continue reading...
What is an Income Statement?
An income statement is a business’s financial statement that gives the income results from operations and non-operations activity. It is also called a profit and loss statement or a statement of operations. It is one of the major financial statements in the world of corporate accounting. The others are the balance sheet, the statement of cash flows, and the statement of shareholder’s equity. The income statement will included revenues and gains from investments and “secondary operations”, but it will not include cash flows in or out which may stem from other accounting periods. Continue reading...
Who Can Participate in an HSA?
In order to be eligible for an HSA, you must be enrolled in a high deductible health plan (HDHP) that is HSA-eligible. You must also not be enrolled in Medicare and you cannot be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s health plan. Your health insurance must also be part of a high deductible plan with substantial out-of-pocket costs. How Does a Health Savings Account Work? Where Should I Put my Healthcare Savings? What is Medicare and Medicaid? Continue reading...
What is Form 1045: Application for a Tentative Refund?
IRS Link to Form — Found Here Form 1045 can be used to apply for a refund that might carry-back of up to 5 years, if an individual or trust has overpaid on their taxes, finds Net Operating Losses (NOL), or has section 1256 losses to carry-back. The 1045 is meant to be the quickest way to get a carry-back refund. Net Operating Losses from a pass-through entity or business can be carried back up to 5 years now, according to updates to IRC 172(h). Section 1256, which applies to futures contract investing, will allow a carry-back of losses in a 3-year time frame. For such carry-backs, the standard filing is IRS Form 1045. Continue reading...
What is the Falling Wedge (Bearish) Pattern?
The Falling Wedge pattern forms when prices appear to spiral downward, with lower lows (1, 3, 5) and lower highs (2, 4) creating two down-sloping trend lines that intersect to form a triangle. Unlike Descending Triangle patterns, however, both lines need to have a distinct downward slope, with the top line having a steeper decline. This pattern is commonly associated with directionless markets, since the contraction (narrowing) of the market range signals that neither bulls nor bears are in control. However, there is a distinct possibility that market participants will either pour in or sell out, and the price can move up or down with big volumes (leading up to the breakout). Continue reading...
What is Adjusted EBITDA?
Basically synonymous with Normalized EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP method of making earnings valuations a little more standardized between companies. Adjusted Earnings is a valuation that has many moving parts in the form of the interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization that might be included there, in addition to the non-GAAP nature of the methods. EBITDA removes all of those moving parts and looks at the Earnings before any of the other arithmetic interferes, hence the name Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. Continue reading...
What are foreign currency effects?
Companies with significant operations or sales abroad will be affected by changes in foreign currency exchange rates. If the dollar strengthens relative to a foreign currency, the price paid for the goods in the country will not be worth as much domestically when the company converts their profits back to dollars. Some foreign currencies fluctuate much more than the US dollar does, but even the dollar can behave unpredictably. This can have a tremendous effect on the bottom line of companies engaged in significant amounts of business abroad. 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...