It does get recalculated. They are considering your "extra" payment an "early" payment and your "early" payment gets applied to the principle and therefore reduces the amount of interest they will charge you.

Doing it your way (applying $5 to each of the subsequent payments) would be horrible. They are applying the full $100 right away, which is better.

That is 100% exactly what you should want them to do. It is in absolutely your best interest that they do it this way.

The only thing you should ask them is "is there a prepayment penalty for this loan?" If they say "no" then you are fine.

I have a checking/ brokerage account with Charles Schwab.

I think my first investment should be opening a Roth IRA. Correct? Am I fine going with cs or is vanguard a better choice?

roths are good.

schwab is fine, but it depends on what you want to buy. i like to hold vanguard mutual funds so having an account with vanguard makes life easy. if you want to, say, day-trade lots of random equities, vanguard might not be the best choice.

Say I buy a stock (100 shares, $10/share). And then I buy some more of it (100 shares, $11/share). Then I sell 150 shares. Which shares sell first for the purpose of net profit/loss? Or does it average the cost basis to $10.50/share?

Call your broker/whoever. It's been years since I bought individual stocks, but if I remember correctly, companies figure it differently. With everything being online, it should be automatically figured for you. Also, don't buy and sell individual stocks.

basically what dale said.

most brokers should let you do either share averaging (the $10.50 case) or specific share id, in which case you would specify to sell X of the $10 lot and Y of the $11 lot.

fun fact i bitched about earlier this year: fidelity would not allow me to do specific share id in my 401k, leading to me sitting on a bunch of TSM to avoid a frequent trading surcharge

With regards to per person/per accident/property limits how do you determine what the best limits to select for your auto insurance is? I'm sure there's some sort of empirical best bet but I have no clue whether or not the insurance agent knows it or would recommend it if he did.

It depends on what your net worth is.

Yeah, that makes sense. Like $20k cash, that's about it.

Just get the State/Province minimum.

If I do get in an accident and cause well in excess of the damages covered by the state minimum, what is the worst that happens? I know that if I had a lot of assets, there could be (I'm guessing) claims against those, but since I don't, can they garnish wages/future wages to some degree that makes getting more than the minimum advisable?

Stupid question but I just want to make sure I am not going crazy when talking to a friend about there Company's new Employee Share Purchase Plan:

Withhold $$ from Payroll for the quarter
Stock is offered at a 15% Discount

Assume the person has the money to withhold the maximum of $25K but doesn't want to hold the stock. I've read the plan documents and there are no limitations on sale:

"As promptly as practicable after each Purchase Date on which a purchase of shares occurs, the Company shall deliver the shares purchased by the Participant to a brokerage account established for the Participant at a Company-designated brokerage firm. The Company may require that, except as otherwise
provided below, the deposited shares may not be transferred (either electronically or in certificate form) from the Brokerage Account until the later of the following two periods: (i) the end of the two-year period measured from the Grant Date for the Offering Period in which the shares were purchased and (ii) the end of the one-year period measured from the Purchase Date for that Offering Period. Such limitation shall apply both to transfers to different accounts with the same broker and to transfers to other brokerage firms. Any shares held for the required holding period may be transferred (either electronically or in certificate form) to other accounts or to other brokerage firms. The foregoing procedures shall not limit in any way the Participant’s right to sell or dispose of the shares deposited to his or her Brokerage Account."

Is there anything I'm missing or is the optimal plan to buy the maximum and then sell it as soon as you receive it under the assumption that they don't want to hold? Obviously there is some risk that the stock goes down in the "practicable period" but it should be pretty minimal.

Obviously selling immediately results in ordinary income and a higher tax rate than holding for an extended period but I'm having trouble seeing why this would not be the equivalent to $4k of pre-tax income each year.

i would double check with payroll about any holding requirements, but yes, ESPPs are usually free money.

btw you said "pre tax" -- i'm pretty sure you meant it as "before taxes are removed" i.e. "gross" but note that there are no tax-advantage benefits to an ESPP like there are to a 401k.

Thanks Tyler.

Edited the above as it was typed out like I am a fiscal idiot... I did mean gross or pre-tax income.

Get the minimum.

Correct. The more assets you have, the more insurance you need. I have maximum car insurance and a $2 million personal umbrella (this is way more than my net worth), which gives me coverage beyond my car insurance as well as coverage for non-car-related accidents. The idea is to have enough insurance that you get sued for whatever your coverage is and they leave your assets alone, so your insurance should be significantly greater than your net worth.

The umbrella itself is cheap (mine is <$200/year), but it requires max car insurance and that's the expensive part.

I'm not a lawyer but I highly doubt this is possible.

Keep in mind that in most states social security, pensions, 401ks, IRAs, and primary residences are protected from decisions. Few people are sued individually beyond their insurance coverage limit b/c very, very few people have significant assets outside of those things listed.

I am very new to investing and want to get some practice through a practice account, but am having trouble finding a good one. I tried to go through Etrade but as far as I can tell they do have a practice section. A couple other places had places where I could practice but I could not figure out how to work them. Do any of you know of any sites good sites to learn how to trade on? Also, what about some sites where I can analyze a chart? would the trading website do this or would I have to go to a different site? Thank you for putting up with the most basic of questions.....

hey guys just wanted to do a check-up on my investments and portfolios (25yr old)

Vanguard
40k (ETF's - 100% stocks)
5k (individual stocks)
12k (Roth IRA)

401k/Employee Pension Plan
18k

Checking/Savings
3k

I feel like I have a ton of risk given that a majority of my savings lies within stocks. I am debating buying bond based ETF's to diversify, however I can't think of an upside to making 10% of my portfolio bonds at this point.

Any suggestions on what I should be doing differently so I can maximize my returns?

you seem confused about the difference between an account (basically a bucket in which you put stuff) and actual investment vehicles (the stuff you put into the bucket). it makes it hard to understand what's going on.

a 401k and a pension plan are completely orthogonal.

correct; stocks are a high-risk investment. why do you hold them?

you mean you can't think of an upside other than diversification? cuz that's a pretty substantial upside.

maximizing your returns is the wrong goal since you can't control it.

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_Started - you're welcome.

newb question ---

Is buying a share of a tournament package at no mark up or at 1.1mu good value?

Given good player with solid MTT results and standard field for $100+ online tourny.

Try optionshouse.com. They have a play money system and a good interface. They also have the lowest commissions around if you decide to take the plunge.

My income is mostly USD based but I get paid in EUR. I live in a country that uses neither. Setup isn't changeable, exchange rate is very fair.

I'm interested in buying some ETFs but I'm a bit worried since I'd have to buy/hold them in USD and that would expose me even more to the risk of a falling USD...
Obviously I don't know where the USD is going, but already a rising USD is super nice for me and falling rates pretty bad.. Is the share price adjusting to currency fluctuations well, a bit, or not at all?

Should this even concern me since I can't really do much about it anyway (except don't invest or pay much higher fees and lower versatility in EUR shares)?

Europa,

It should be possible to purchase ETFs in almost any currency in the world.

I currently have them in GBP, I think I used to have some in AUD.

Either way, since the valuation of the stock values the underlying stocks, rather than the currency, I would imagine that the currency issue would not be a big deal.

i'm not an expert here (hi pokerfink! ) but i'll just add that one man's currency risk is another man's currency hedge. i.e., it cuts both ways, as you note.

i suspect expense ratio is going to dwarf any currency effects where long-term expected return is involved, so i'd focus on that -- it's the thing you can control.

I guess the fact that I'm holding a bunch of Euros in "cash" helps me set off fluctuations a bit already..

@Josem, yeah I know but doing anything not in USD would make it more expensive since I can't for example sign up for a discount broker in my home country for a lack of address there (I could get an adress I guess, but then I'd have to pay taxes there as well), I do have bank accounts in my home country but they charge an arm and a leg.

One discount broker I've found that I could use and that would give me an € account is www.boom.com they are Hong Kong based which is convenient for me but I haven't found much in reviews for them (which were positive though), anyone got an opinion about using them? Seem to be owned by Monex Japan, which I've never heard off either obv.

Other option is I could buy US stocks through HSBC HK for pretty low commission (compared to EU banks) of $18 flat.