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What is Accelerated Life Insurance?
Life insurance contracts sometimes contain provisions by which the death benefits can be paid out to an insured person while they are still alive. This is called “accelerating” the benefits. Certain terms must be met for the benefits to be accelerated, and different policies have different contract language and exclusions. Sometimes these provisions are attached to a regular contract as a Rider, which might require an additional premium, or might be included by default. Continue reading...
What kind of hedge funds exist?
Hedge funds can employ many strategies and focus on virtually any kind of investing style or market. They also have the flexibility to change their strategy as they see fit. Morningstar and other services will group hedge funds into categories and provide benchmarks based on their average performances. As of 2016, there are over 12,000 hedge funds, and over half of those are required to report to the SEC. Continue reading...
What are Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)?
Companies often hold minority interest positions in other companies, but sometimes they decide to merge into one company, maybe by selling-out to a bigger company, or acquiring a smaller one. Very often, small companies are very agile and develop new technologies quickly, but do not have sufficient funds to bring them to the market. Large companies need the technologies and it is cheaper for them to buy smaller companies rather than spending money to develop them on their own. 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 was the "Flash Crash"?
On May 6, 2010, investors around the world were shocked when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 1,000 points in a matter of minutes. The market recovered just as quickly, finishing the day down a much lesser 348 points. The so-termed "flash crash" was caused by a trader's technical errors in entering order amounts, which caused a few stocks to post erroneous numbers (notably Procter & Gamble, which showed a 37% loss, before recovering to a 2% loss on the day). 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...
What are Envelopes and Trading Bands?
Moving average envelopes and trading bands help traders filter their decisions to trade. These tools set thresholds on the amount of movement above and below a moving average to trigger a decision to trade (or at least prompt further consideration by the trader). A moving average envelope often takes a moving average line for a security or index and duplicates it, moving one line a certain percentage above and one a certain percentage below (the distance may depend on volatility levels). Price fluctuations in a security then might trigger a decision to sell when the price hits the upper band, or a decision buy when the price hits the lower band. If it crosses the bands it might be seen as a new trend. Continue reading...
What is the definition of a bank run?
Unraveling the mystery of bank runs: When panic strikes, depositors race to retrieve their money, potentially leading banks to collapse. Dive into the causes, historic instances, and safeguards like the FDIC. Can trust prevent financial catastrophe? 🏦💸 #BankRunExplained 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...
How to use Bollinger Bands in trading
Bollinger Bands were developed by famous trader John Bollinger as a technical analysis tool to discern the likely trading range of a security. A Bollinger Band is typically two standard deviations from a moving average line, both above and below the average. Standard deviation is another word for the average volatility of a price over a length of time. It is typical for a trader looking up the historical price chart for a security to compare it to a moving average line. Continue reading...
What is a Margin Call?
A margin call is a mandatory request by the custodian/broker for the account holder to add equity to the account, either by depositing cash or selling securities to raise cash. When an investor takes an account on margin, the custodian will require that they keep a certain amount of equity/cash in the account to maintenance the borrowed amount. If the account value drops past a certain level, the custodian may require the investor to add equity to the account to cover the margin balance. 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 Stop Order?
A stop order is an essential tool in a trader's toolkit, offering both protection against losses and opportunities to capitalize on market movements. As one of the primary order types alongside market and limit orders, understanding the intricacies of a stop order is crucial for navigating the dynamic landscape of financial markets. In this article, we'll delve into the various facets of stop orders, their types, and when to strategically employ them. Continue reading...
What were the Biggest Single Day Market Moves?
Since the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s creation in 1896, there have been several crashes and several days of huge gains. The biggest moves can be defined in two ways: either by percentage change or by change in points. In terms of gains, the largest single-day point gain occurred on October 13, 2008, when the Dow rose 936 points (11%) – the sudden leap occurred during a time of wild upside and downside volatility, and was in response to unexpected positive global economic news. Continue reading...
How do Market “Bubbles” Burst?
Bubbles, while both intriguing and puzzling occurrences, have always been a part of market and economic cycles. In short, a bubble forms when investors start bidding up the price of an asset well beyond its intrinsic value, based on speculation and euphoria surrounding potential gains. Eventually demand will dry up when valuations are too high, as investors start shunning the risk premium associated with investing. Investors will then race to be the first out of the position, and it ultimately brings all the sellers to the table at once. The bubble then pops. Continue reading...
What is an Earnings Surprise?
Earnings surprises occur when the reported quarterly or annual earnings of a company are different than they were projected to be. This could be a good surprise or a bad surprise. The price of a stock will change quickly with this new information. Positive or negative earnings surprises occur when the earnings estimates for a company in a given quarter or year turn out to be better or worse than expected. Positive surprises will naturally cause the stock price to jump up, while negative surprises will cause the price to fall. Continue reading...
What is a Housing Bubble?
Bubbles form in markets when there is such a large amount of demand that it drives prices up to levels where it is no longer supported by inherent value. Bubbles have effects on an interconnected web of economic forces and institutions. It was postulated before 2008 that the housing market could not form a bubble in the same way the stock market could, but the subprime meltdown proved those theorists wrong. Bubbles are when a market suffers from unnatural price inflation due to speculation, bandwagon investing, and, to some extent, misinformation. Continue reading...
How often do I need to rebalance my portfolio?
There are different methods and theories about rebalancing, and the answer is basically “it depends.” There is no set rule for the frequency of rebalancing your portfolio, and any generic rules that exist do not necessarily apply to or predict the performance of your particular portfolio. If you’re not very familiar with it, rebalancing is the redistribution of gains from the winning areas of your portfolio to the other areas. Continue reading...
Are Social Security Benefits Taxed?
Many people do not realize that their Social Security Benefits may be taxed. If you have a taxable income in retirement above a certain threshold, up to 85% of your social security benefits can be taxed. The calculation for the threshold income actually includes half of your social security benefits. Whether or not you trigger taxation on your benefits will depend on your “combined” income, which is a sum of your adjusted gross income (taxable income, which can include taxable sources such as qualified retirement plans), your nontaxable interest (from Muni bonds in particular, Roth IRAs are excludable), and half of your household Social Security benefits. Continue reading...