Personal Finance and Money Stack Exchange
Personal Finance and Money Stack Exchange

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1500 questions
112
votes
10 answers

Why should we expect stocks to go up in the long term?

I have read in many personal finance books that stocks are a great investment for the long term, because on average they go up 5-7% every year. This has been true for the last 100 years for the S&P500 index, but is there reason to believe this trend…
Bai Li
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110
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7 answers

Why is the stock market closed on the weekend?

It's all digital and done with computers these days, so why bother? Doesn't that just make the system less liquid, which is the opposite to one aim of having the stock market? Plus can't you just play the futures market after hours anyway?
Joe.E
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110
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20 answers

Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?

If the odds of winning a lottery jackpot are one in 292 million, and the jackpot prize is expected to be greater than than $1 billion, does this make a lottery ticket a wise investment? I know there is a risk that I'll lose my investment, and also a…
Chris Payne
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107
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13 answers

Does it make sense to insure something when you could financially bear its loss?

I'm wondering whether it makes sense to insure something if its loss would not be life-changing. I want to buy a boat to live on while I attend university. It would cost about 10,000 dollars and my financial situation is good enough so that I would…
Pertinax
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106
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8 answers

Scamming an investor by offering a quick sale of a property at her named price

My mother-in-law was approached by an old friend who she hadn't heard from in a couple of years with a "business proposition" which is almost certainly a scam. I don't really understand how the scam works, though. Here's the story: My mother-in-law…
Kryten
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106
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13 answers

Isn't "I bought [blank] as a tax writeoff" complete nonsense?

There's a trope in movies where people do something to keep from being bumped into a higher tax bracket (For example, in The Big Lebowski: "I'll have to check with my accountant, but it might bump me up to another tax bracket"). The thing is, that…
Lord Farquaad
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105
votes
5 answers

What does it mean for the price of oil to be negative?

The New York Times website currently has this graph, showing that the price of "West Texas Intermediate, May contract" is $-13.10. Does it literally mean that someone's offering $13.10 to take a barrel of oil off their hands, or is it a quirk of…
Mark
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102
votes
11 answers

Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer

A debtor with my same first and last name and middle initial owes a student loan debt for a college in another state I never attended. The debt collectors have my previous address listed on the notice, and have contacted my work to attempt to…
Jamie
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102
votes
10 answers

How is Bitcoin useful as a currency if so few services accept it?

I've done research on bitcoin and I know what it is and how it works, kinda. I've even built a small block chain app. What I don't understand, and I haven't been able to find the answer to, is if I own some bitcoin, how does that help me buy…
King Wilder
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101
votes
5 answers

Is this person doing illegal money transfers?

This girl that I'm friends with and have actually seen in person before, keeps posting [on social media] that she "loves when the transfer goes through" and gets $2000-$6000 for free quite often. She said you can make up to $6500 a day. She is not…
Autumn Thompson
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101
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6 answers

Can someone explain the GME short squeeze situation to a non-stock trader?

GameStop Corp. (GME) stock is over $300 at the time of this post. I understand the 10,000 foot view of the story only: That some Reddit folks are buying up shares to squeeze a short seller. But I don't understand how this works. Why buy shares?…
Paul
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100
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14 answers

Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it?

My wife and I are considering buying a home theater - plasma TV & new stereo - on Black Friday this year. We do have the cash for it, but Best Buy is offering 0% financing for up to 3 years on its store credit card. We both have excellent credit…
gabeanderson
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98
votes
11 answers

Why does the introduction of chip & pin appear to be so controversial in the United States?

The past few weeks there have been many news articles about the introduction of chip & pin in the United States; most of these articles are against it and citing such 'issues' as: "Some people are experiencing a 20 second wait times with these …
AStopher
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97
votes
9 answers

Do people tend to spend less when using cash than credit cards?

I know this is a popular theory on this site and finance blogs/media in general, but I'd like to know if there is any reliable research on the subject. I can share personal experience that makes me think it's true, and there is plenty of anecdotal…
D Stanley
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96
votes
5 answers

How do scammers retract money, while you can’t?

I see a lot of question about scams with the same premises: Someone puts money in your account. You send money somewhere. They take their money back, while you lost your money. I don't know a whole lot about banking and money transfers, but it…
darnok
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