What if My Life Insurance Doesn’t Pay the Death Benefit to My Survivors?
Generally a life insurance company will have to pay a death benefit once the contestability period of two years has passed. Policies may have certain exclusions, such as suicide or death while committing a felony, but these will appear in the contract language. Even if it turns out that an insured person lied about smoking or their age, the insurance company will have to pay a death benefit that will simply be reduced to account for the premiums paid and what should have been the correct risk rating for the person. Most life insurance will pay out a death claim if death occurs for any reason after the contestability period has passed. Continue reading...
What is Income Per Capita?
Income for an area or country it totaled up and divided by the total population of the area to give us the Income Per Capita statistic. Per capita is Latin for “by head,” and income per capita takes every man, woman, and child into account. Income per capita is a statistic that divides the total amount of income reported in an area by the total population of the area. This shows us how much income, as a resource, is available on average to each person in the area. Continue reading...
What is a Bitcoin Fork?
The code for most cryptocurrencies is open-source, and the community operates by consensus, so sometimes newly modified code is released that is adopted by some, creating what’s called a fork. A Bitcoin Fork is when the blockchain, made up of interconnected computers holding a distributed and permanent record of all bitcoin transactions up to that point, is offered a modified currency protocol that is adopted by some of the Bitcoin community, which creates a “fork” in the previously longitudinal history of the ledger (i.e. “a fork in the road”), where one ledger continues to grow based on the changed protocol, and one ledger continues to grow with the old protocol still intact. Continue reading...
What is defined as a market correction?
Sometimes a stock or index will reflect prices that have become inflated or overvalued in the short-term as a result of bullish conditions. In some cases, due to shift in sentiment or a negative news story in the headlines, stocks may retreat suddenly and without notice. A market correction is a sharp, sudden decline in stock prices, where they fall in value by around 10% - 20% over a short period, usually no longer than 6 months. Corrections are frequent occurrences (typically an average of once a year) and are a normal and healthy part of equity investing. Continue reading...
What is the Federal Funds Rate?
The federal funds rate is the overnight rate at which commercial lenders lend excess reserves to other institutions, on an un-collateralized basis. This term is unique to the United States, though other central banks around the world also have an overnight rate. The federal funds rate is a closely watched and crucial rate for determining how easy capital is to access. The lower the fed funds rate, the more accessible the Federal Reserve is trying to make cash - to inspire banks to borrow and lend. The opposite is also true, where the Fed may raise the fed funds rate if an economy is overheating or lending needs to be curbed. Continue reading...
What is Cost of Capital?
The Cost of Capital is the hurdle over which a business must get to generate positive cash flow. It is what it will cost companies to get capital from investors. Companies sometimes use debts or equities to finance their business operations. The service paid on debt and the operating expenses are lines over which the revenue must get to be saved as retained earnings or distributed as dividends. The yield expected by investors on debt is the cost of capital for the company taking on those loans. Continue reading...
What is an Asset-Backed Security?
Asset-backed securities are bonds or notes that come in several forms, but they typically use the cash flows from debt repayment as the asset that backs them. The assets that back the bonds called asset-backed securities (ABS) can be basically anything with a fairly predictable cash flow, but debt repayment cash flows tend to be used the most. These include credit card debt, home equity loans, auto loans, student loans, and so forth. Continue reading...
What is a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)?
Much like a Reverse Mortgage or Second Mortgage, a HELOC gives homeowners the ability to convert their home equity into cash. A HELOC is a line of credit secured by the equity in your home. Homeowners can choose when to use the funds, and there are repayments due according to a schedule in the contract. It functions as a revolving line of credit, similar to a credit card with large limits. Some people find themselves interested in a HELOC if they have a large balloon payment due on a loan, perhaps even their home mortgage loan. They are also sometimes used as a debt consolidation tool to pay off credit cards and other outstanding debts (but, for this, fixed-rate home equity loans are more popular). Continue reading...
How should my strategy change with age?
The more time you have to invest, the more room you have to make mistakes, wait-out downturns, and to experience the power of compounding interest. As you get older and need to draw income from investments, things change. The answer is relatively simple: you can afford to be very aggressive when you’re young, and gradually become more and more conservative with your investments as you grow older. Generally speaking, stocks are considered risky investments, while bonds are considered less risky, so a person’s portfolio mix from age 40 to age 80 might go from 80 stocks/ 20 bonds to 50/50 or even 20 stock/ 80 bonds depending on his or her preferences and the market conditions. Continue reading...
What Happens When a Company Goes Bankrupt?
There is a hierarchy of which creditors and investors will be serviced first in the event that a company goes bankrupt. When a company goes bankrupt, it is unable to pay back the money that it borrowed. The higher the bond's rating, the less likely that the issuer will go bankrupt. To learn more about bond ratings, see “What are Bond Ratings?” The possibility of bankruptcy is the risk associated with investing in bonds - you can never know for sure if you will get your money back. Typically, bonds with higher coupons are riskier investments (again, the recurring theme of higher returns = higher risks!). For example, if you see a bond with a 30% coupon, there is (obviously) a greatly increased chance that the company will not be able to pay back your loan. Continue reading...