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Certificate Of Deposit
A certificate of deposit (CD) is a time deposit, a financial product commonly sold by banks, thrift institutions, and credit unions in the United States. CDs differ from savings accounts in that the CD has a specific, fixed term (often one, three, or six months, or one to five years) and usually, a fixed interest rate. The bank expects the CD to be held until maturity, at which time they can be withdrawn and interest paid. Like savings accounts, CDs are insured "money in the bank" (in the US up to $250,000) and thus, up to the local insured deposit limit, virtually risk free. In the US, CDs are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for banks and by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for credit unions. In exchange for the customer depositing the money for an agreed term, institutions usually offer higher interest rates than they do on accounts that customers can withdraw from on demand—though this may not be the case in an inverted yield cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opportunity Cost
In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a particular activity is the value or benefit given up by engaging in that activity, relative to engaging in an alternative activity. More effective it means if you chose one activity (for example, an investment) you are giving up the opportunity to do a different option. The optimal activity is the one that, net of its opportunity cost, provides the greater return compared to any other activities, net of their opportunity costs. For example, if you buy a car and use it exclusively to transport yourself, you cannot rent it out, whereas if you rent it out you cannot use it to transport yourself. If your cost of transporting yourself without the car is more than what you get for renting out the car, the optimal choice is to use the car yourself. In basic equation form, opportunity cost can be defined as: "Opportunity Cost = (returns on best Forgone Option) - (returns on Chosen Option)." The opportunity cost of mowing one’s own la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bank Deposits
A deposit account is a bank account maintained by a financial institution in which a customer can deposit and withdraw money. Deposit accounts can be savings accounts, current accounts or any of several other types of accounts explained below. Transactions on deposit accounts are recorded in a bank's books, and the resulting balance is recorded as a liability of the bank and represents an amount owed by the bank to the customer. In other words, the banker-customer (depositor) relationship is one of debtor-creditor. Some banks charge fees for transactions on a customer's account. Additionally, some banks pay customers interest on their account balances. Types of accounts * How banking works In banking, the verbs "deposit" and "withdraw" mean a customer paying money into, and taking money out of, an account, respectively. From a legal and financial accounting standpoint, the noun "deposit" is used by the banking industry in financial statements to describe the liability owed b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allen Stanford
Robert Allen Stanford (born March 24, 1950) is an American financial fraudster, former financier, and sponsor of professional sports. He is serving a 110-year federal prison sentence, having been convicted in 2012 of fraud, on charges that his investment company was the vehicle for a massive Ponzi scheme. Stanford was the chairman of the now-defunct Stanford Financial Group of Companies. A fifth-generation Texan who once resided in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, he holds dual citizenship, as a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda and of the United States. He contributed millions of dollars to politicians in Antigua and the United States, amongst other countries. In early 2009, Stanford became the subject of several fraud investigations, and on February 17, 2009, was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with fraud and multiple violations of U.S. securities laws for alleged "massive ongoing fraud" involving $7 billion in certificates of deposits. The Federal Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Income Tax
An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Taxation rates may vary by type or characteristics of the taxpayer and the type of income. The tax rate may increase as taxable income increases (referred to as graduated or progressive tax rates). The tax imposed on companies is usually known as corporate tax and is commonly levied at a flat rate. Individual income is often taxed at progressive rates where the tax rate applied to each additional unit of income increases (e.g., the first $10,000 of income taxed at 0%, the next $10,000 taxed at 1%, etc.). Most jurisdictions exempt local charitable organizations from tax. Income from investments may be taxed at different (generally lower) rates than other types of income. Credits of various sorts may be allowed that reduce tax. Some jurisdicti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Credit Crunch
A credit crunch (also known as a credit squeeze, credit tightening or credit crisis) is a sudden reduction in the general availability of loans (or credit) or a sudden tightening of the conditions required to obtain a loan from banks. A credit crunch generally involves a reduction in the availability of credit independent of a rise in official interest rates. In such situations, the relationship between credit availability and interest rates changes. Credit becomes less available at any given official interest rate, or there ceases to be a clear relationship between interest rates and credit availability (i.e. credit rationing occurs). Many times, a credit crunch is accompanied by a flight to quality by lenders and investors, as they seek less risky investments (often at the expense of small to medium size enterprises). Causes A credit crunch is often caused by a sustained period of careless and inappropriate lending which results in losses for lending institutions and investor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Real Interest Rate
The real interest rate is the rate of interest an investor, saver or lender receives (or expects to receive) after allowing for inflation. It can be described more formally by the Fisher equation, which states that the real interest rate is approximately the nominal interest rate minus the inflation rate. If, for example, an investor were able to lock in a 5% interest rate for the coming year and anticipated a 2% rise in prices, they would expect to earn a real interest rate of 3%. The expected real interest rate is not a single number, as different investors have different expectations of future inflation. Since the inflation rate over the course of a loan is not known initially, volatility in inflation represents a risk to both the lender and the borrower. In the case of contracts stated in terms of the nominal interest rate, the real interest rate is known only at the end of the period of the loan, based on the realized inflation rate; this is called the ex-post real interes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Certified Check
A certified check (or certified cheque) is a form of check for which the bank verifies that sufficient funds exist in the account to cover the check, and so certifies, at the time the check is written. Those funds are then set aside in the bank's internal account until the check is cashed or returned by the payee. Thus, a certified check cannot be stopped or bounce, and, in this manner, its liquidity is similar to cash barring bank failure or an illegal act (such as the funds being based on a fraudulent loan, at which point the check will be disavowed). In some countries (e.g., Germany), it is illegal for a regular bank to certify checks. This regulation is supposed to prevent certified checks from becoming a universal substitute for cash, which is considered the only legal tender. In the case of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbank (Federal Bank) is the only financial institution authorized to issue certified checks. Because of the liquidity and certainty of payment of a certified ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IRA Required Minimum Distributions
Required minimum distributions (RMDs) are amounts that U.S. tax law requires one to withdraw annually from traditional IRAs and employer-sponsored retirement plans. In the Internal Revenue Code itself, the precise term is "minimum required distribution". Retirement planners, tax practitioners, and publications of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) often use the phrase "required minimum distribution". Lifetime distributions Individuals with IRAs are required to begin lifetime RMDs from their IRAs no later than April 1 of the year following the year in which they reach age 72. IRA owners do not have to take lifetime distributions from Roth IRAs, but after-death distributions (below) are required. They can always withdraw more than the minimum amount from their IRA or plan in any year, but if they withdraw less than the required minimum, they will be subject to a federal penalty. The monetary penalty is an excise tax equal to 50% of the amount they should have withdrawn, plus interest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Individual Retirement Account
An individual retirement account (IRA) in the United States is a form of pension provided by many financial institutions that provides tax advantages for retirement savings. It is a trust that holds investment assets purchased with a taxpayer's earned income for the taxpayer's eventual benefit in old age. An individual retirement account is a type of individual retirement arrangement as described in IRS Publication 590, ''Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)''. Other arrangements include employer-established benefit trusts and individual retirement annuities, by which a taxpayer purchases an annuity contract or an endowment contract from a life insurance company. Types There are several types of IRAs: * Traditional IRA – Contributions are often tax-deductible (often simplified as "money is deposited before tax" or "contributions are made with pre-tax assets"), all transactions and earnings within the IRA have no tax impact, and withdrawals at retirement are taxed as income (e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bank Run
A bank run or run on the bank occurs when many clients withdraw their money from a bank, because they believe the bank may cease to function in the near future. In other words, it is when, in a fractional-reserve banking system (where banks normally only keep a small proportion of their assets as cash), numerous customers withdraw cash from deposit accounts with a financial institution at the same time because they believe that the financial institution is, or might become, insolvent; they keep the cash or transfer it into other assets, such as government bonds, precious metals or gemstones. When they transfer funds to another institution, it may be characterized as a capital flight. As a bank run progresses, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy: as more people withdraw cash, the likelihood of default increases, triggering further withdrawals. This can destabilize the bank to the point where it runs out of cash and thus faces sudden bankruptcy. To combat a bank run, a bank ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
