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Financial Engineering for Small Businesses?

Large companies continually change the composition of their balance sheets to use their capital as efficiently as possible and to maximize their profitability. While small business owners can’t issue billion dollar bonds at 2% interest, there are a few things that small businesses can structure their assets. Read more:

Reverse Mortgages for Retirees – Boon or Bane?

It’s a commonly quoted statistic that nearly half of American families have no retirement savings. For many people facing retirement, their homes may be the only asset they have to help fund their post career living expenses. Over the last few years there have been a lot of stories about reverse mortgages where retirees sell

Donor Advised Funds and Foundations

Donating money to charities can be a great way for a family to make an impact on their community, and to create a lasting legacy.  Charitable donations can also make sense as a way to eliminate tax liability. Many times, when a family is considering a donation to charity, the donation they will fund the

Life Insurance: The Usages

They say that when you’re a hammer, all the world’s a nail. It seems like life insurance salespeople will try to sell you life insurance as a solution to almost any problem you may have. We’ll give you a bit of a quick primer on some of the various ways life insurance is used. These

Side Businesses and Tax Deferral

If you’re a small business owner who has a significant income, minimizing your taxes can do a lot to improve your income. There are a number of different shields people use – depreciation, and business expense deductions for example, we won’t go into these, instead in this article, we’ll talk about setting up other companies

Setting Up A Corporation In New York State

As long as your articles of incorporation meet these five requirements, and you pay the $125 filing fee, your application should be approved. Setting up a corporation is the easy part though — now that you have a small business of your own, you may need small business financial advice to avoid the pitfalls many

Employer Income Tax Withholding: The Basics

If you have recently changed jobs, you’re probably familiar with the W-4 form, where you declare how many exemptions you have, for things like having dependent children, being married, or holding multiple jobs. These allowances are meant to offset the amount of tax withheld, based on approximately how much tax you will be able to

Investing in Volatility: Understanding the VIX

If you follow the stock market coverage on CNBC or Bloomberg, or read the Wall Street Journal, you’ve probably seen references to the VIX, especially in politically and economically volatile times like the 2008 financial crisis or last year’s election. While it appears in charts and tickers like a stock or exchange-traded fund, the VIX

Multi Level Marketing: Too Good To Be True?

You’ve probably seen the advertisements: “Start your own business!” “Be your own boss!” “Become a part of something great!” Or the bumper stickers and even vehicle wraps advertising Mary Kay or Herbalife. Maybe you’ve gone to a friend’s house for a dinner that turned into a sales pitch, or noticed the catalogue in the office

Are Futures In Your Future?

The idea seems simple enough at first: anyone can become a member of the merchant class, without ever having to physically even see their product. Commodity futures originally developed as a way of making the market more stable, guaranteeing future prices (hence the name) for staples like wheat, corn and cattle. Every futures contract required