89
votes
Accepted
Is it a good idea to copy a trader when investing?
The first thing that pops up when you open your link is a disclaimer:
66% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how ...
- 77k
64
votes
Is it a good idea to copy a trader when investing?
Well, consider it from the other side. Why would a trader be willing to share trades? Consider the following scenario.
The reference trader makes a trade in a low volume market.
The trade is ...
- 21k
47
votes
Excess income after fully funding all retirement accounts. Now what?
Well, one sensible thing to do with it is paying down the mortgage to finish it asap - that will give you even more leftover money.
First, you do save (and thus get) 2.8% as per your own information. ...
- 11.6k
37
votes
Accepted
Why do 1099 forms take so long for brokerages to prepare and send out?
There are probably many correct answers to this question, but for most people, the main reason is qualified dividends. To be a qualified dividend (and therefore eligible for lower tax rates), the ...
- 16.2k
35
votes
Why would collateral be required to make a stock purchase?
However, if I give a broker cash money and ask for a share of a stock in return, why would this need anyone to have collateral?
The seller's broker needs to get paid by the buyer's broker. Because ...
- 10.4k
33
votes
Accepted
Is thomastradingservices legit?
This has all the red flags of a scam.
(1) You shouldn't have to pay money to withdraw money from your account.
(2) it is extremely uncommon and suspicious to ask for fees in bitcoin, a completely ...
- 53.5k
31
votes
How can a resident of the European Union (not from UK) practically buy stocks?
If you're just planning to buy-and-hold, it is worth considering whether the value of the time you spend on searching for a cheap brokerage will not dwarf the savings.
Around here (Denmark) banks don'...
31
votes
Accepted
Excess income after fully funding all retirement accounts. Now what?
First of all, congratulations on what you've accomplished.
About the only remaining conventional tax-advantaged option is a Health Savings Account (HSA), and that's only available if you have a high-...
- 142k
27
votes
Accepted
Maximize trading commission bonus
I don't think that there's a way to maximize this. Even more importantly, you shouldn't be attempting to do so. Whether you're investing or you're actively trading, you should place your trades ...
- 77k
26
votes
Accepted
Why does an online stock broker need to know information about my current salary?
Anti Money Laundering (AML)
In our current political climate, there is a huge amount of pressure to enact strong AML controls to prevent tax evasion, funding of terrorists and circumventing of ...
- 1,058
25
votes
Accepted
Why do some brokers allow selling naked put options but not naked call options?
A stock can only lose ~100% of its value on the downside, so while the risk is high it is effectively capped and definable selling naked puts as you can't go lower than zero on equities. Selling naked ...
- 5,768
24
votes
Is it possible to violate SEC rules within a retail brokerage account?
As with all crimes there is a huge difference between violating the law and being caught.
Probably the most problematic and easiest SEC rule for a small investor to break is insider trading. In most ...
- 9,082
24
votes
Why does an online stock broker need to know information about my current salary?
Stock brokerages are required by law, in the USA at least, to collect employer information as well as income and other personal information. You will find that all of them do this because the ...
- 3,478
24
votes
Why does this 4-week Treasury bill that I bought have a 17-week term and a much earlier issue date?
Fidelity may have sold you a bill that expires 4 weeks from your order date instead of a newly minted bill. It is not uncommon to trade "off-the-run" treasury bills that have identical ...
- 142k
21
votes
Accepted
Why does this 4-week Treasury bill that I bought have a 17-week term and a much earlier issue date?
The other answer is actually misleading. No, Fidelity didn't sell you off-the-run bills. What you got is indeed a newly issued T-bill. There's a term for this: reopening.
https://www.treasurydirect....
- 2,197
19
votes
Is the stereotype of a businessman shouting "SELL!" and "BUY!" into a telephone in any way attached to reality?
For about 100 years or so, stock quotes (symbol, price, volume) were transmitted by telegraph. Many traders of that era were tape readers, often sitting in the office of their broker before phones ...
- 77k
16
votes
Excess income after fully funding all retirement accounts. Now what?
First off, congratulations on getting mostly debt free and having so much extra!
That said, even though $700 extra sounds like a lot, it isn't. You already have a 1 year emergency fund, so that's good,...
- 2,429
16
votes
Is thomastradingservices legit?
I don’t know anything about them, but any organization which claims to require payment of funds before allowing withdraw of funds is quite obviously a scam.
Assuming that a 20% withdraw fee was ...
- 1,603
15
votes
Excess income after fully funding all retirement accounts. Now what?
Again great job. To me you have really two choices and no matter what you choose you will end up with the second choice eventually.
First choice: Throw more at the mortgage. You may want to do this ...
- 79.6k
14
votes
Why does an online stock broker need to know information about my current salary?
"Especially since all the employment contracts I've seen have had
clauses that say the salary and all remuneration is confidential."
Let's assume that you have signed an agreement to not ...
- 145k
13
votes
Is it a good idea to copy a trader when investing?
Contracts For Difference (CFD) are not investing. They are a form of gambling tarted up with the appearance of investing by the platforms that market them.
It is not a good idea to trade in CFDs. I ...
- 5,327
13
votes
Why would collateral be required to make a stock purchase?
This was explained on a very recent NPR Planet Money podcast: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/963466346
Here's a brief summary:
There is a two day window between when a stock transaction executed and ...
- 1,343
13
votes
Accepted
Does shorting stock cause your account value to go up?
Shorting a stock increases the amount of cash in your account but it does not increase the value of your account because there is an offsetting short position whose value is negative (you must buy it ...
- 77k
13
votes
Why don’t broker-dealers borrow against their clients’ stock holdings instead of lending them?
Pause on the issue with 'having security for a loan' for a moment [it seems to be clouding the economic reality of what you are presenting]. Your plan is for a bank to lend your hypothetical broker ...
- 43k
12
votes
Accepted
FDIC vs SIPC: Are they the same?
There is a subtle difference.
In an FDIC insured bank account, you are guaranteed to get all of your money back out. If you put $1000 into your bank account, you are guaranteed to be able to get at ...
- 116k
12
votes
Buying an US ETF from Europe using Interactive Brokers
If you have only EU/UK tax residency, you can buy any ETF with "UCITS" in the name - those conform to the new consumer information regulations. I gather that the expense ratios often aren't quite as ...
- 436
12
votes
Accepted
Mechanics of forward stock split
Your confusion appears to be due to a poor summary in the CNBC article. Where they had:
The shares will be distributed to shareholders at the close of business on August 24, and trading will begin on ...
- 9,600
12
votes
Why would a financial institution prevent their clients from trading a specific security?
Your quoted paragraph says it all. The restrictions are intended to mitigate risk for the brokerage firm and for the clients.
There's a long history of risk mitigation by the SEC as well as brokers. ...
- 77k
11
votes
Am I scammed by this company?
The idea that you should pay $5,000 up front to convert your shares and sell them to ultimately receive some larger amount is crazy.
If in fact the shares need to be converted (unlikely), they should ...
- 498
11
votes
Accepted
Is SIPC a scam or does it protect investors from fraud?
Larry Kotlikoff, who wrote the two 2014 articles that you referenced, uses very strong rhetoric in describing the SIPC: "terrible risk," "financial fraud," and "bigger scam than Madoff." He advises ...
- 116k
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