What is Income Inequality?
Income inequality is the difference in the average income of the lower/middle class and the upper class. Naturally the high income of very rich people in the country, which constitute a very small percentage of the population, will dwarf the average income of those who are not very rich. The worrisome thing is when the gap between them widens at an accelerating rate and the lower classes are not able to break through to the upper classes. Continue reading...
What is Publication 503, Child and Dependent Care Expenses?
IRS Link to Publication — Found Here Publication 503 covers tax deductions and filing guides for individuals who pay for childcare. It does not address the employer side of things, for those who provide childcare as a fringe benefit, which is covered in IRS 15-b. Tax deductions are available for parents who have to pay for child-care so that they can work at a job and earn income. Publication 503 describes the circumstances under which this type of deduction is allowed and the filing requirements for it. Continue reading...
What Does Opportunity Cost Mean?
When given choices on (for example) an investment action to make, the opportunity cost represents the potential loss of taking one action versus another. Let’s say you have the choice of buying stock A or a U.S. Treasury yielding 4%, and you choose stock A. But it turns out that stock A only ends up producing a 1% return on the year. In this case, your opportunity cost for that year would have been 3%. Continue reading...
What is Accounting Profit?
Profit is a term that is synonymous with earnings and net income, and it is basically what is left of revenues after expenses. All of these are basically computed the same way: gross revenue minus the cost of goods sold, business expenses, and taxes. Some variations on each of these will choose to look at the numbers before certain expenses, such as taxes. For example, “gross” accounting profit could be defined as revenue minus cost of goods sold, while “operating” profits would also subtract the costs of business expenses and operations, and “net” profits would also subtract taxes. Continue reading...
What is Accrued Revenue?
Revenue that has not yet been received for goods or services already rendered may be documented as Accrued Revenue. Accrual accounting allows a business to put the payments due to it for good and services already rendered into the Assets column of its books. If no invoice or payment plan is established, it sits in the Accrued Revenue line; if so, the item goes into Accounts Receivable. Accrual accounting is different than cash accounting in this regard: cash accounting will only make an entry on the books when cash or goods are exchanged. Accrual accounting is actually mandatory for publicly traded companies with revenues over $5 million who are based in the US, per SEC regulations. Continue reading...
What is Cash Accounting?
Cash Accounting is the accounting method where only finalized transactions are documented. Larger, publicly traded companies are actually not allowed to use Cash Accounting because it can’t keep up with all the Payable, Receivables, and so forth that large companies have to keep on their books. Instead, larger companies are required by the SEC to use Accrual Accounting, which makes ledger entries for cash that has not yet be paid or received, among other things. Continue reading...
What is a Student Loan?
Expenses for tuition, room, and board at a secondary education institution can be loaned to a student and paid off over time in the form of a student loan. Tuition and other college expenses have inflated at a much faster rate than the rest of the consumer price index. These institutions can charge more and more as they experience student housing crunches and an ever-growing demand for college education. Continue reading...
What is a leading indicator?
Leading indicators are economic or price data which have some degree of correlation with a movement in the market or a stock price. Leading indicators tend to happen before the market or price movement occurs. Traders and economists use leading indicators frequently to prepare for what’s next; they are based on theory as well as empirical historical evidence but like all indicators, they do not have a 100% accuracy rate – past performance does not guarantee future results. Continue reading...
What is Dividend Drag?
When an ETF is not able to offer a quick, automatic dividend reinvestment option to clients, it can sometimes take a week or more to get the dividends back into the market. In a rising market, this lag can cause the reinvested amounts to purchase higher-priced shares than they would have been otherwise. This drags the performance of the fund down, compared to an index or more efficient fund. The structure of ETFs prevents them from immediately reinvesting dividends, and they often do not offer what is known as a DRIP, or dividend reinvestment plan, which is built into many pooled investments like mutual funds (and other ETFs). 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...