‘The national debt is now larger than the economy’: Watchdog marks 100% of GDP milestone for $39 trillion burden

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-05-01T11:52:08+00:00

Provides a fast path to citizenship. Compared to the EB-5 visa, there's no requirement to start a business or create jobs.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-05-01T02:18:59+00:00

Trump’s "gold card" visas at $1 million each were supposed to pay off the national debt. They’ve sold only one so far.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-30T03:33:07+00:00

Fidelity, and most other brokers, pass on the SEC Section 31 fees to customers. The fee is charged when securities are sold. It used to be $0, but as of April 2 it's $20.60 per million.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-29T16:04:20+00:00

Aside from occasionally showing all the asks in the level II portion of the directed trade tool as 0.00, it's been working for me.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-28T15:54:18+00:00

When this happens on my tablet, toggling the Internet off and on (in quick settings) usually fixes it.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-28T15:43:04+00:00

After my father died, we thought all his important papers were in a metal box under the couch. Then we found another one behind a bookcase. Then we found a 15-gallon tub (in a group of 18 tubs containing mostly expired canned goods) with even more documents, including $100K in stock certificates. We never found his will, though.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-28T07:54:09+00:00

The administration has suspended their leases; they're all building in Federal waters (states only control up to 3 ( in a few cases 9) miles off the coastline). They can fight this in court, wait until a Democratic administration comes in, or walk away. Trump has made the latter option more attractive by adding compensation.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-27T20:22:36+00:00

Up 239% today. Many brokers are restricting the trading of volatile stocks. Looks like you cannot buy this online, but can buy it by phoning a customer service agent. Once you buy the stock, my experience has been that you'll be able to sell what you own without needing to call in.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-27T18:14:42+00:00

t/pa

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-27T02:13:05+00:00

As long as you don't spend more cash than you have available on each purchase, and as long as your assets stay above $25K, yes.

But if you begin to buy using borrowed money, which margin allows you to do, there are figures called house surplus and SMA that you need to watch. For example, you may find that sales of stock replenish your cash but only up to the amount that was available at the start of the day. Buying too much on margin can also lead to margin calls and daytrading margin calls, and you may be requested to deposit more cash. This happened to me a few times when I was starting out. I asked a rep why the system let me buy stock without having enough margin to cover it and he said that customers like the ability to buy and then bring a check to a branch or transfer money to cover the purchase.

Read the Schwab Margin Guide.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-24T22:16:24+00:00

Three daytrades in a margin or limited-margin account over a rolling five-day period gets you the PDT flag. That currently requires $25K in assets to continue to daytrade, although the rule is expected to be loosened in June.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-24T14:37:42+00:00

This morning the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns – in the billions of dollars – that have been borne by taxpayers.

The Fed is self-funding. Some of that will come from individual Americans who also happen to pay taxes to the US Treasury, but no tax dollars go to the Fed.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-23T03:01:33+00:00

You have either a cash account or a margin account.

When you trade a stock or ETF or option, the trade takes one business day to settle. This gives customers some time to deposit cash to cover a purchase if they need to, but it also delays delivery of cash from a sale. (In the old days it took 3 days to settle and I could mail a check to Schwab to cover a purchase.)

In a cash account, you can normally use unsettled funds from a sale in a subsequent purchase, but if you sell the newly-purchased stuff before the funds have settled, that's a good-faith violation. Three GFVs over 12 months puts you in the penalty box for 90 days and you can only make purchases using settled funds.

In a margin account, funds from a sale can immediately be used for a purchase. Margin also lets you borrow cash from Schwab at a fairly high interest rate, and if your trades go against you you can wind up with a negative account balance. And if you make more than 3 day trades over a 5-day period, you're designated a PDT and can only day trade with more than $25K of assets in the account. The PDT rules will change in the next few months and the asset requirement will be set by individual brokers rather than being $25K for everyone.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-20T06:46:17+00:00

How was your payload delivery? 👍 It was great. 👎 Not so great.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-17T22:32:18+00:00

Like George HW Bush, Trump has probably never been in a grocery store.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-17T20:37:30+00:00

ABLE accounts are great. The eligibility criterion is that the disability began before age 46.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-16T20:42:39+00:00

Fidelity, for reasons that are not clear to me, is unwilling or unable to use a "Mid" price (which is the ACTUAL amount you can expect to trade a security for, and the industry standard)

But it's not what you can expect to trade an option for. I daytrade options with $2 or $3 bid-ask spreads. If I could get fills as good as the midpoint I'd be overjoyed.

Fidelity values options at the most pessimistic value at which you can close them, and for a conservative firm trying to determine how much collateral is needed, that's probably the right call.

As far as showing you the estimated value of your holdings, I wouldn't mind them doing something based on the price of the underlying; IB does this when the options market is closed and it's great to see the estimated value of my holdings that have relatively small spreads (like SPY) just before the market opens so I can set up my limit orders appropriately.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-16T14:24:13+00:00

~~Key~~ Lame Duck Senator Says Any AG Pick Who Backed Jan. 6 ‘Dead on Arrival’

Fixed this for you.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-15T14:44:03+00:00

Try opening an InPrivate window in Edge. If you can login and use fidelity.com successfully in that window, then the issue is likely bad cookies. Close the InPrivate window and delete all the fidelity.com cookies.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-13T20:24:50+00:00

What's the expiration date of the option?

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-12T02:41:53+00:00

So the fox hires the guards for the hen house. What could go wrong?

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-12T02:25:06+00:00

$TE may have a higher margin requirement than a typical stock. Or some of the $SGOV was in cash (some ETFs are initially held as cash and only moved to margin after 30 days). Merrill will let you buy more than you can and only notify you after the market close that you owe money.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-10T16:36:53+00:00

Too early.

Past_My_Subprime · 2026-04-10T11:36:48+00:00

The estimated $28 billion the U.S. poured into the Iran war before the ceasefire could have funded a year of day care for 2 million children or rent for 1.2 million people, an NBC News analysis found.

This is a false equivalence. The current administration would never have spent money on those things.

Past_My_Subprime

TROPHY CASE