I think delivery route like UPS or FedEx. UTZ is a potato chip company.

Is it possible to invest in the second derivative of the market, i.e. a high rate of change (like a flash crash) would yield me a high return?

Sure, it's called volatility. Simply buying a call or put option gives you a long volatility position.

what's the best paper trading site out there?

Best e-trading site for Canadians?

In the early days of online poker, I remember bonus whoring. Playing on site A and getting a new player bonus, then moving onto site B to get their new player bonus, etc.

Is there any downside to doing this with brokerage accounts? Some brokers offer free trading for x amount of days or some cash. What's stopping me jumping from brokerage account to brokerage account and then using whichever one better suits my needs?

I can see the annoyance of moving the money around (loss of time to trade) and having more accounts to keep track of. Anything else to consider?

The bonuses aren't nearly as good as the poker bonuses. Like ameritrade's free trading isn't really worth that much when you compare it to commissions at other brokerages.

Any websites out there that have old annual reports of companies? One example is I'm looking for all of Coca Cola's 10-Ks from the 1980s and can't find them anywhere. EDGAR only goes back to the early 90s, Coke's site doesn't have them and Googling hasn't found anything.

I literally googled "historical annual report" and got the following:

http://faq.library.upenn.edu/recordD...stitution=Penn

I sure an additional 30 seconds of work would turn up more.

I sure an additional 30 seconds of work would have led you to realize that you have to be a Penn student to access those reports. Tons of colleges have databases of annual reports but I can't access them. And yes, I've already tried my alma mater--apparently I've been gone too long and they don't give a f*ck about me anymore.

Are you really trading so much that 30 or 60 days of free trading will make a difference?

And if you are trading that much, is it worth waiting a week (or two or five) while your assets get transferred to each new brokerage?

I've decided to take a small early withdrawal from my 401K which will not qualify as a hardship withdrawal. My combined family income this year is a lot more than we expect it to be in 2014.

If I wait until after 1/1/2014 to make the withdrawal will the taxes and penalties be due on our 2014 income tax? (Meaning due by 4/2015)

sounds like a pretty awful idea.

yes, modulo required early payments, but those won't apply if your 2014 income will be less than your 2013 income.

Yeah I know it's far from ideal but I've got my reasons and have thought it through.



Thank you.

Stupid question...is it possible to add money to your employee sponsored 401k at the end of the year to get to irs max?

Say I contributed 10k throughout the year to maximize company matching. Is it theoretically possible to write a 7.5k check at year end (or by April??) to get to IRS max and deduct that from my income??

Not sure where to put this but here seems appropriate.

Wondering what my play is as I've been on 3 interviews for a position and still haven't heard back. First interview was about 30-40 min, 2nd was an hour, third was supposed to be an hour with an HR rep but turned out being 15 minutes. When I asked about the next step in the process they said original interviewer would get back to me in a couple days. Tomorrow will be a week- I have emailed two thank you letters for the interviews to keep in touch, should I call to follow up further or is this acting like too much of a pest?

posted this in the "What should I read thread" but thought this may be a good place for a few of my general questions to:

I have done some investing in my life, pry not very good though. I had a sharebuilder account and started throwing money in funds that were rated high and picked up some more conservative funds like ETFs. pry ended up paying way more in fees than i should of. Anyway, i withdrew everything from my SB account to downpay my home. I still have a nice chunk in a Prudential account (SEP IRA, Roth, and standard IRA accounts), a good amount for a person my age of 27. I need to start planning much better as I start a family, in terms of investing and budgeting better.

I have started my first real study into investing, starting with the Boglehead's guide to investing, my first book. I wanted to pursue finance in college but poker lead me to dropping out after ~2.5 years, only which some of that time I was efficient. All good, poker has been good and I am enjoying it and I am currently pretty optimistic, even while living in the US and A(Indiana).

I am writing because I am going to use this thread for knowledge and where to seek that knowledge. My first move I think should be looking to reduce my investing expenses/fees, I think it would be wise to forgo Prudential and my "financial professional." I am not even aware of what I pay in fees or expenses but I know it is pry much worse than it should be. I want to get my IRA accounts into something more cost efficient like ETF's. Is this hard to do? Are there penalties I would pay if i moved from Prudential funds to ETFs through an online broker? Is that wisest or would it be smarter to go through something like Vanguard directly? I want this money to stay allocated toward retirement, so keep it all in my SEP, Roth, traditional accounts, but just in different funds with lower expenses. Is this the definition of rolling it over?

I was aware of the above before I started reading the Bogleheads book but that seems to be the general theme of the book, keep costs low and let that "expense money" compund for me, rather than watch it go to someone else's Benz

Hey Sham.

The good news is 3 rounds def makes you a strong candidate but given the lack of follow up on their end perhaps not their first candidate.

I'd wait, they know how get in touch with you if they want to pursue.

Also it is December, hopefully the original guy is on vacation somewhere.

Hey tyrannic! Ya- I'll probably just wait a bit and follow up later in the week.

i'm pretty sure that 401k contributions have to be withheld from your wages, so the write a check plan is not going to work.

what you usually can do is go to your payroll department and max out your contributions on the remaining paychecks for the year. you're probably too late to hit the max but better late than never.

fwiw 401k contributions follow calendar year, unlike say ira contributions, so whatever you're going to do you have to do by december 31st.

either this thread or "i have xx to invest" seems like the best fit. i'll reply here.

yes and yes.

pry

transferring assets from one custodian to another is extremely commonplace. you'll usually pay a transfer fee; i paid $75 to move an ira from fidelity to vanguard a couple years ago.

not sure what you mean. prudential is already an "online broker" in that they have a website and allow you to buy securities. vanguard is another online broker.

i like and use vanguard because vanguard funds are awesome (well-diversified, low-cost) and it's free to trade vanguard funds at vanguard. however just about every discount broker has their own substantially identical low-cost index funds which are free to trade in their own house, so pick one you like. e.g. some people say fidelity has better customer service and so choose them over vanguard.

sounds good.

no.

yup!

I really appreciate the reply, thanks for ur input. I just gained even more confidence in the potential transfer. gonna read some more bogle heads shortly before I sleep. thanks again

Hey guys.. I'm new to the forum and have a few super newb questions. Basically I've decided to start being more active with my investments (instead of boring mutual funds etc..) with a possible transition into finance/investing in some capacity over the next X years as poker continues to become less lucrative.

First question is how taxes work wrt having a portfolio.. for example I've got a self-directed portfolio (w my CDN bank) in US$ with stocks in the NYSE. As I sell stocks and make gains (as well as dividends), will I receive the necessary tax paperwork in the mail or do I need to track all these gains/losses/dividends myself?

Next question is regarding the progression from investing to actively day trading.. I guess I'm just trying to get a feel for what's reasonable for expectations of someone who's an expert retail trader after years of experience in relation to the indices. Ie. what type of premium above the average can someone who's really good at trading expect..

My understanding is that it seems like learning the principles of value investing and the markets in general is a good way to go about developing a portfolio that you can expect to out-perform the average mutual fund. This doesn't seem to take a ton of work/energy other than reading some books and becoming familiar with the value investing process. But it seems like being a successful retail day trader is just insanely tougher wrt all the time and effort involved, and I'm looking to get a feel for what it's actually worth.

The overwhelming majority of retail traders get absolutely crushed by the index, and this includes traders who have been studying and trading for years. The easiest way to beat mutual funds is by reducing management fees by investing in market ETF's. Also, you seem to be confusing day-trading with investing. Value investing involves fundamental analysis and waiting months or years for your thesis to play out. Day trading is dominated by HFT algorithms that take money from retail traders who demand liquidity and are willing to pay for it.

Thanks for the reply. If that's the case, what is the incentive for the retail traders to put so much time and effort (and risk) into day trading other than over-confidence and delusion? Seems like simple value investing is insanely easier while giving yourself more time to develop capital with some other career, while on average also producing better performance. Are there some small X% of retail traders who actually are legitimately extremely successful that people aspire to? (Note that I'm seeing a lot of parallels with poker here.. )

I think I understand the difference between day trading and investing, but I'm new to all the jargon and likely not expressing myself that well. Are there people that become very good at value investing and as a result understand the markets well enough to also do some speculation with more short-term day trading stuff added to their portfolio?

Also, could you possibly expand on this and explain it further for me?

"Day trading is dominated by HFT algorithms that take money from retail traders who demand liquidity and are willing to pay for it."

Thanks for your patience, any help is much appreciated. I'm a vulnerable sponge at this point..