If you are talking about hsa accounts... I keep only enough to cover the monthly fee. Everything else is invested.

If you pay for medical expenses using the hsa money, then you would obviously want to keep some cash there for that.

Is there any reason to roll over a US Government Thrift Savings Plan account?

It's basically a 401k for federal gov employees. I quit 10 years ago but never rolled it over. Fees are extremely low. 3 stocks funds, 1 bond, and lifecycle funds. The funds are fine for my purposes.

TSP is a great plan. No reason to move most likely.

My family wants to make sure my grandma's finances are ok, but her paperwork is a mess. She has a financial advisor who manages some investments for her, but she doesn't know/remember if she has any other accounts elsewhere. E.g. my mom just found a statement from 2004 for another brokerage account that grandma knows nothing about.

So is there any way to reliably track down all of her accounts? Public records or some government database? Or do we just have to wade through the paperwork we have, and anything that we don't find gets lost in the abyss?

If you google "unclaimed property" and your state's name you can be directed to a site like this. https://abpweb.tre.state.ma.us/ucp/home/search

I have my Roth IRA with Schwab - if I wanted to buy Vanguard indexes, is this possible? Pardon what might be the most ******ed question posted to date.

Yep, I'd be surprised if they don't have basically all of the vanguard funds/etf's available. You'll just have whatever transaction fees would apply from Schwab.

I'm sure they do, but as jalexand42 mentioned, you will most likely need to pay a transaction fee to purchase them.

You should also look into the comparable Schwab funds. Very recently I read a headline that mentioned they had reduced their ERs to compete with Fidelity and Vanguard. You can likely purchase the Schwab fund with no transaction fee.

You'll have to figure out which is the cheapest route.

Is it possible to make an account on Schwab as an European?

Yeah this is good advice. I actually have some of the newer schwab funds from tax loss harvesting some of my vanguard stuff last year.

Cheers thanks guys.

anyone?

Stupid question - If a company is created where the major VC invests $5MM, has a $1 cost/share, and owns 50% of it, that means there are 10MM shares in total right? It seems like simple math to me but these things are sometimes not as simple as they appear.

Just getting into trading. Have most locked up in Vanguard. Reading books/listening to podcasts on trading, and surprised to hear a guy on "chat with traders" pod say he looks at NOTHING BUT price when making trades.

Is that really viable, trading off of TA and nothing else? Also have a friend who claims to trade on TA alone. He's been around forever now. I find that baffling.

No.


1. He's probably lying

2. Even if he's not lying, you can repeatedly make -ev bets and still be ahead over long periods of time.


Do yourself a favor and forget TA and don't be duped by the charlatan traders and brokerages. If you want a strategy to be successful long term in the market, look into value investing.

But markets reflect human bias, and TA is just mapping those signals. Now that I look at it after reading, the trends are everywhere. I fully realize it seems ridiculous as a standalone trading strategy, but just scrapping it completely also seems suboptimal.

Was just trying to gauge how people felt about TA here. Sample size now 1, thanks for that

This thread is kind of old (2013) but it's a good read.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30...nical+analysis

If you want to have a TA debate just bump that thread, this isn't the right place for it.

TA seems like it should work. In our hearts we want it to work. We look for trends. Who won the election, the super bowl, the world series? How much volume, what is the 200day MA, what do the Bollinger bands show? In the end, if anyone wants to show documented proof they beat the market using TA I would love to see it. Failing that, we might as well go to the ocean and watch the waves:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles...cal/111401.asp

Thanks for replies. Another newb question:

What, besides commission fees, would make me -EV in trading stocks from the get-go? Assuming market fluctuation could benefit or hurt me to an even degree on both sides, what is it that makes my trades as a newb -EV? I'm hearing only 1/10 traders succeed, and it seems like, given a just about equal chance of winning or loosing, that that number should be much greater.

inefficient tax management and poor emotional control

What type of trading are you talking about? Extremely short term, short term or long term? Answers may vary depending.
I think the better question may be what makes you think you could be +EV? If you only break even, you will lose to the bid / ask spread (vig or rake, so to speak). If you think you bring something to the table that all the MBA's and Quants at all the large trading firms can't match, go for it.

I'm still wondering about this if anyone has any insight. I've found that when it comes to stocks/investments the obvious isn't always correct.

Unless the deal has warrants (or other attachments), you did the math correctly.

There are issues with shares authorized and shares issued being different quantities, but at the point of the transaction, the math is correct on shares issued.

I'm CDN with funds in both the TSX & NYSE (roughly 2/3 CAD and 1/3 in USD). I bought much of my portfolio back in 2008-2011 and didn't know as much as I do know now. My goals are to hold long-term and I see no immediate need for any of these funds (consider it long-term value investor mindset).

Here's the problem,

My 1/3 USD side is well-diversified and I'm pretty happy about it. My 2/3 CAD side is extremely overweighted into financials mostly (think CDN banks like BMO/TD, etc) because when buying several years ago that's what I was ended up buying and have never sold out. I still have TSX ETFS and stuff, but yeah, the problem is it's heavily weighted into that sector (as a % of my portfolio). In a perfect world, I would like to sell and move more into emerging markets (as a % of my portfolio, it's probably 12% and if I upped that I'd be happier). The problem is the gains are all around 60~120% on some of these positions. I'm in the top tax bracket, so the tax situation would be sell position X. On those gains 1/2 of them are taxable, and at a rate of about 42%. So a $100 profit would be taxed roughly $21 if I did a reshuffling.

1) Should I just run the #'s making assumptions? For example, If I think Emerging markets the next 20 years outperform CDN banks by X%, just figure out what X needs to be for it to be worth it or:

2) Overcoming a tax hit like that is way too hard. I'd be better off staying overweighted. I feel this is probably correct but wanted to hear second opinions.

There's also no extra funds coming in (so I wouldn't be able to just buy say emerging markets with new $ go balance long run. What's in the market is in, and nothing else will be added for the foreseeable future)

I can post actual positions & capital gains if someone knows how to go about solving what's best in this situation, or do I have it correct on 1)?

Cheers for any help!