Not all small businesses grant credit. Instead, they make all their sales on a cash basis. In many cases, this costs them sales and customers because, like it or not, we live in a credit-driven society. If a supplier needs to place a larger order from a company, that supplier may not have the funds to pay for it all in advance. That order will go to another company unless your small business extends credit....
Market capitalization is usually called “market cap” for short. It also refers to the total value of a stock exchange. For example, the market cap of the Nasdaq would equal the market cap of all the companies traded on the Nasdaq combined. Small, Medium, and Large-Cap Investors typically use market cap to divide the stock market into three broad size categories. Small-cap companies have market capitalizations between $300 million to $2 billion....
We put in more than 100 hours researching top providers to come up with our list of the best Medicare Advantage plans. We collected and analyzed thousands of data points for 13 major insurers who offer Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare Part D prescription medication coverage, or Medicare supplement plans. Here’s exactly how we determined who came out on top. Which Articles Use Our Methodology This document describes how we came up with our list of the Best Medicare Advantage Plans....
The standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B, that portion of the federal health insurance program that most recipients pay for covering such things as physician services and outpatient hospital services, was set at $170.10 this year, up $21.60 or 14.5% from 2021. It was the highest percentage hike since 2016 and the biggest dollar increase in the program’s history. Part of the jump was due to COVID-19 as well as uncertainty over the cost of certain drugs including Aduhelm, a new clinician-administered Alzheimer’s drug....
What’s the Difference Between Mortgage Deferment and Forbearance? Forbearance pauses or reduces payments for homeowners who are experiencing temporary hardship. While borrowers have the option to make payments during the forbearance period, they’re not required. Some lenders may require you to provide regular updates on your finances during the forbearance period. Interest Accrual Mortgage payments that have been deferred to the end of the loan don’t accrue additional interest. With forbearance, on the other hand, interest will accrue normally each month as scheduled....
MSCI Indexes are used as the base for exchange-traded funds. The ETF duplicates the Index’s stock holdings. That allows investors to profit from gains in the Index. Similarly, Indexes are also the benchmarks that actively managed mutual funds use as bases. The exchange-traded funds follow the MSCI Indexes. Managed mutual funds try to outperform them by picking better stocks. How They Work MSCI selects stocks for its equity indexes that are easily traded and have high liquidity....
The June figure missed a consensus forecast of 800,000, according to Moody’s Analytics, and came in below April’s revised 785,000 annual rate and March‘s 873,000. Even though the median price of a new home dropped in June to $361,800 from May’s $380,700, it is still up 6% from last year. The housing market has been on fire during the last year as people working from home yearned for more space and took advantage of extremely low mortgage rates to snap up homes....
When the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reports quarterly GDP, it presents it as an annualized rate. This tells you that the economy would produce that amount for the year if it kept going at the same rate. Each month, the agency revises the quarterly estimate as it receives updated data. What Is and Isn’t Included in Nominal GDP You might be surprised to learn nominal GDP doesn’t include the sale of goods....
The 2020 profit on a median priced single-family home or condo represented a 34.7% return on investment from the original purchase price, up from 29.4% in 2019—the highest average home-seller return on investment since 2006, the report said. Profits soared in tandem with a 12.8% jump in the national median home price in 2020 to a record-high $266,250. “Demand remained strong as people who could afford the space and relative safety of single-family homes did just that, aided by super-low mortgage rates and a strong stock market,” Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM Data Solutions, said in the report....
Just how much they’ll go up depends on whether the Ukraine situation spirals into a wider clash between Russia and the West, experts say. In a worst-case scenario, oil could climb to the $140 mark, the highest price since 2008, according to Caroline Bain, chief commodities economist for Capital Economics. That’s more than double the $60 per barrel that Bain thinks oil should cost if prices were based strictly on supply and demand fundamentals, not geopolitical risk....
The Personal Exemption Was Removed in 2018 The deduction for personal exemption was suspended from the tax code when the TCJA went into effect in 2018. As with many aspects of the TCJA that affected personal taxes, however, this change is scheduled to revert to pre-TCJA status after the 2025 tax year unless Congress takes steps to renew the legislation. Generally, you have three years from the original date of filing to amend a previous year’s tax return....
A new batch of supplemental payments, worth a total of about $1.2 billion, went out this week to nearly 700,000 people whose 2020 tax returns qualified them for a larger stimulus payment than what they received earlier based on their 2019 returns, the IRS said in a release Thursday. The latest round of plus-ups means the federal government has sent at least $4.4 billion in extra payments to more than 2....
Combining your personal and professional lives can be both rewarding and problematic depending on the type of business you own, the members you work with, and how you divide responsibilities and revenue. Here are the pros and cons you need to consider before starting a business with your family. Before Starting a Small Business With Family In 2017, there were a total of 31.7 million small businesses in the U....
It’s helpful to become familiar with one of the most helpful aspects of Quicken: budgeting. Get Started by Creating a Budget Even though the software can be a little daunting when you first open it up, don’t be afraid to dive into the deep end and just try setting a budget. It’s a pretty straight-forward process, and you can always go back and change aspects of it (or start over completely)....
Even worse, 75% of restaurant operators expect to see their sales decrease from current levels over the next three months, according to the trade group’s November survey of 6,000 restaurant operators. The association cited the bleak survey data in a letter Monday pleading for Congress to bail out restaurants. “For every month that passes without a solution from Congress, thousands more restaurants across the country will close their doors for good,” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs for the association, wrote in the letter....
Usually, this means sending a farewell email, thanking everyone for the opportunity to work together, and inviting them to keep in touch. Depending on your company culture, you might opt to send handwritten notes instead. Skip this step, and you may leave your former colleagues feeling snubbed, which isn’t the way to leave a positive last impression and ensure a good reference if you need one in the future....
Finding the right service to fit your industry, experience, and budget can be challenging, though. There are dozens of services and freelancers who offer this service and who promise to help you get more interviews or land your dream job. Our Review Process To help you find the right service to write your resume, we reviewed more than a dozen companies to see which ones can best help you land your next interview....
Learn about leveraged bond funds, the risks involved, and how you can use these funds to your advantage. What Is a Leveraged Bond Fund? In financial terms, leverage is the use of debt to finance operations or investments. Concerning bond funds, leverage refers to using debt to purchase the bonds, then create issues within a fund for investors to buy. Risks and rewards to investors depend upon how well the underlying bonds in the fund perform....
What’s the Difference Between Salary and Hourly Pay? According to a Department of Labor doctrine known as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), hourly employees eligible for overtime are classified as “non-exempt,” while hourly workers ineligible for overtime pay are classified as “exempt.” According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, employees considered “exempt” must satisfy the following requirements, depending on the type of exemption: They must earn at least $684 per week (a salaried equivalent of $35,568 per year)....
Here are seven sample letters you can customize and send to handle tough issues like billing statement errors, credit report disputes, and debt-validation requests. The cease-and-desist letter only applies to a specific debt collector, so you will have to send another one if a new collector takes over that debt or you have debts with multiple debt collectors. You can also use a cease-and-desist letter to stop wrong-number collection calls....
