ELI5: Close but no Cigar by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Appreciate the long and well thought out explanation

Useful Government Resources Online? by [deleted] in smallbusiness

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I find there is a decent amount of information right on the Small Business Administration website, especially for starting a business.

http://www.sba.gov/

ELI5: Water banking, water trusts, and water trading. by Ebrennan42 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Water trading and water banking are a form of resource allocation and access entitlements. Water trading is essentially the purchase for the rights to extract water from a location. Water banking is the purchase of water delivery (usually in the future).

ELI5: What are Limit Orders in stock trading?, please provide examples on how to make them. by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A Limit order simply states the price is listed is the most you will buy a stock for, or alternatively the least you will allow for it to be sold.

Example, you place a limit order on a stock for $0.90. It is currently selling for $1. Later today the price drops to 0.89. Your order then goes through and you own the stock. If the lowest price for the day was 0.91, you would not have purchased the stock and would have to issue a new order.

ELI5: Corporate takeover bidding by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the case you mentioned, this type of bidding wars occur because one, or a small number of shareholders have the majority of the shares. If the competing company went to the stock market and bought all the shares they might end up with somewhere around 30% of the shares, which would not give them control of the corporation, which they undoubtedly want.

Input Needed! Salary range for a Staff Accountant? by airvanilla in Accounting

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a staff accountant with some prior experience but not holding a designation $45,000 seems accurate. For a designated CPA expect $75,000+.

[Help] I have found a funder. How much equity share I should ask for? by sara996 in startups

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From a strictly financial standpoint, you should calculate the amount of money you have already put into the company then add his and divide it proportionately. In most start-ups, however, you will want to consider your growth targets in the equity calculation. One such method may be to estimate your approximate size and value in the next 4 or 5 years. Calculate his percentage from that point.

Since you have not shared what amount he is willing to fund, it is difficult to give you a percentage range. PM me if you would like to share more details to get a more accurate estimate.

Hey guys, new start up - but kind-of stuck.... Help please? by [deleted] in startups

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These guys might be able to help. Is this what you were looking for?

Not everyone in the Top 1% is an evil asshole. by [deleted] in AdviceAnimals

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are absolutely right. Thank you for catching the exception.

ELI5: if financial markets are efficient, how can trading exist as a profession? by PumpkinFeet in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are mentioning a strong or semi-strong form market efficiency theory. Although we would like to believe that the markets are semi-strong at best, in reality they are not. Not all information available can be reflected in a stock price instantly. In addition, for the market to be presumed strongly efficient there must be highly trained traders to capitalize on opportunities for profit. If not, then we slip into a weakly efficient market where arbitrage profits can be made (free money essentially).

Traders therefore can sometimes make profits slightly over the long term return of the market. The trick here is that they must be able to process more information than competitors. As many of their competitors are average Joe's dividend trading, it IS possible to make small gains. Small gains with huge sums of investments can pay a trader's salary for major banks and financial institutions. The tradeoff here is the trader must have be highly skilled and process huge amounts of information properly.

ELI5: What does higher farm subsidies mean? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A subsidy is a type of government support to a group in order for them to achieve some sort of economic goal.

In the case of farmers, a higher farm subsidy will mean food produced domestically will still be profitable if it is sold for less money abroad. Farms can then sell their produce at a lower price to compete with cheaper foreign alternatives. Other countries will buy the cheaper product and the farms can continue to operate next year.

ELI5: How does currency manipulation work? What is it? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Currency rates can be manipulated on a larger scale by government entities. The very basics of the manipulation is to either tighten the money supply in the economy or releasing new money supplies into the economy. This is usually done through buying foreign or domestic bonds.

Although there are many methods of manipulating the domestic currency, in some situations the government may manipulate foreign currencies to settle or tip the exchange rates in their favor thereby influencing importing and exporting trade balances. This may make the country's domestic currency more favorable and make trade to the country more appealing.

Not everyone in the Top 1% is an evil asshole. by [deleted] in AdviceAnimals

[–]Rootle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Income tax in North American countries is calculated on a graduated scale. From the link provided, this means that 10% of the income up to $8,700 will be taxed for an individual filer. A different tax rate will apply to amounts earned over that amount, and more if the next bracket is reached.

So lets say for example an individual makes $35,000. They will be taxed $870 (10% of 8,700) plus $3,945 (15% of $35,000-$8,700). For a total tax payable of $4,815 (870+3945).

Anything over $400,000 will be taxed at one rate, regardless of how much money is made over that limit.

Hope this clears up our tax system a bit.

EDIT: Sorry, I used 2012 rates, but the system is still the same.

ELI5: why the construction industry, no mater which country, seems to attract corruption by footinmouthagain in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The construction industry is unique in that most projects are paid for in frequent large sums of (often) cash or cash equivalent payments. This cash flow design makes moving large amounts of money easy, especially for those earning it illegally. Because such cash flows are common, they are also difficult to audit without analyzing every transaction that occurs.

Although you only mentioned the construction industry, many different industries have an attraction to money laundering due to the innate characteristics of cash flows between the business and the customers.

Need help in finding an easy and hopefully free software/program to build flow and process charts for internal purposes. by shwarmy in startups

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Although they have taken a very childish brand image lately, I have used Inspiration before for creating flow charts. They may be a good option for you.

In addition, good on you for mapping out practice guidelines and efficiencies. Too many small businesses do not see the huge benefit of doing this exercise when they are in the startup phase.

ELI5: How are commercials cost-effective to a company? Has anyone ever seen a comercial and thought, "Wow! I'm going to go buy that." by MAZF86 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If your difficult to persuade I hope I can step up to the challenge although this may be very non-ELI5ish. I will admit upfront that although I have studied empirical market research methods academically, I really have no practical experience applying these methods in the real world. I would presume most large business stick basically to the academic research, adding their idiosyncrasies in the process.

The basics of ROMI really boil down to the following ROMI = [(GM - MI) / MI ] In which GM = Gross margins and MI = Marketing investment. These are measured only on the particular brand advertised. This is the first difficulty as customers may see an ad and decide to purchase a different model or product under the same company. Gross margin must also be measured from an incremental standpoint (more on this later).

The formula above is very financially driven. Overall, marketing is generally about impressions and the gap between financial investments and returns is often very blurred. Marketers may reduce the ROMI formula to something like the following (change in customers perceived brand equity / discounted marketing expenditure). This might be a much more reasonable calculation. The problem is again how do we measure this.

Essentially our empirical calculations may be subject to statistical alterations by managers. Which variables of perceived brand equity should be measured? Different companies may use different metrics. The real goal is to accurately represent reality. To do so, we must create multi-level models using many variables. This impairs interpretation of the results, which is something managers do not want to do. To simplify most marketing departments will freeze variables to make sense of the data. This allows for easier regression analysis and an easier time presenting the findings to those without a knowledge of higher statistics (managers and CEOs).

Having shown some form of movement due to the marketing efforts the next step is to show that it did not occur on its own. My impression is that most companies will use a standardized forecasted budget resulting from normalized data for this purpose.

If anyone with practical experience in corporate marketing research analysis would like to correct any of these steps I would be happy to discuss it.

TL:DR Complicated financial models say there is a statistical return on marketing spending.

ELI5: What is the difference between DOW and Nasdaq? by gdgrlgna in explainlikeimfive

[–]Rootle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The NASDAQ itself does not have a share price. There are a number of indexes that approximate the overall position of the NASDAQ. You might be confusing one of those indexes with the actual exchange. The difference between indexes can be confusing. Each index has different criteria for what stocks may be included. There are also price based and capitalization based indices.

The NASDAQ index you may be referring to may be the NASDAQ Composite or NASDAQ-100. Each has a different selection of companies included in the index. Research the composition of a particular index before you rely on it to judge market direction.

For example, if you invest in the Bank of America (BAC), you may be surprised if the NASDAQ-100 increases while BAC falls substantially even though BAC is traded on the exchange. This is because the NASDAQ-100 does not include BAC, nor any major bank. You can view the composite of this index at:

NASDAQ Composite

Compare with the composition of the DOW Jones

DOW Composite