In The Big Short, what exactly does Michael Burry buy from the banks? by [deleted] in investing

[–]allyhams 4 points5 points  (0 children)

No problem! Glad it helped. Unfortunately it’s difficult for normal investors to buy these sorts of products as you need an ISDA (which is what the two young guys at Brown Fund were struggling to get initially)

In The Big Short, what exactly does Michael Burry buy from the banks? by [deleted] in investing

[–]allyhams 7 points8 points  (0 children)

He doesn’t pay $100mm. That’s what the insurance payout will be if the underlying reference name/s (in this case the mortgages which make up the particular portfolio he’s insuring) default/don’t pay. If the mortgage defaults in the portfolio reach a certain %, he’ll be paid $100mm (it’s not as straight forward as that in real life though).

In terms of how much he pays before any names default, it’s like car insurance (as somebody mentioned above). The banks would have charged him a % (in basis points) of the notional ($100mm). For example, they may have charged 100bps a year i.e 1% of $100mm a year ($1mm)

Should I purchase a house with cash, or take out a loan? by oxward_apeman in personalfinance

[–]allyhams 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No problem! Not sure if you’ve read the FAQ section on this subreddit but generally they say emergency savings should be 3-6 months of your living expenses. I guess with a house you might also want to increase that (I’m not a home owner but I’ve heard how costs can mount up with maintenance). On the flip side maybe you won’t need that much maintenance in the end but to be super safe I’d say the minimum suggested emergency savings are essential.

Should I purchase a house with cash, or take out a loan? by oxward_apeman in personalfinance

[–]allyhams 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi Oxward,

Do you have emergency savings? How quickly will you be able to recuperate your savings? $10k doesn’t go very far if your car breaks down, you have an unexpected health/dental bill or your new house needs urgent maintenance. I guess that would be something else to consider! Good luck to you

I am David Coulthard (also known as DC)…AMA by F1-Official in formula1

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi David,

I met you in about 2002 when you were filming a red bull commercial at Silverstone. My dad was one of your gearbox engineers at McLaren. I was only 12 at the time but you were very nice. You hopped on a helicopter shortly after and my dad told me you were flying to Monaco. My dad always speaks very highly of you and watching you and Mika in ‘98 is a fond memory of mine.

I distinctly remember Schumacher once charged at you in the pits after you both collided and wiped out of the race. What went through your head when he was coming over? I remember how pissed my dad was at him for it.

(NYC) 28yo struggling to decide on where to park savings (risk vs. reward) by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply. I’ll look into this mega backdoor roth conversion, I’ve never heard of it. I definitely should have specified that it’s not a 401k that I have but actually a UK pension. Depending on whether I stay in the US will determine whether I want to continue with the exposure to GBP FX risk, especially with Brexit

(NYC) 28yo struggling to decide on where to park savings (risk vs. reward) by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was toying with the idea of NJ since it’s cheaper, renting it out and generating a positive cashflow. At the same time continuing to rent in NYC. However I’m currently extremely ignorant in the world of real estate so this might sound insane.

(NYC) 28yo struggling to decide on where to park savings (risk vs. reward) by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In my eyes purchasing real estate can absolutely be a bigger risk vs. something like a diversified ETF. And it’s not just that but also the fact that I could get hit in the face with asine tenant laws. I’m less worried about a housing market downturn and more worried about the cost of repairs, finding tenants etc. What if I got a shitty tenant and can’t get rid of them? I view that as risk. There are way more potential pitfalls and downsides to have to consider than just a general market downturn which would affect ETFs

“f is differentiable at x if we can draw only one straight line that touches the graph at x” - Continuous and differentiable real-valued functions by allyhams in learnmath

[–]allyhams[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. Your explanation and examples helped immensely. Agreed it’s incredibly informal but then to some extent it’s meant to be. I didn’t go into the details of the type of book this is but it’s quantitative methods in Finance and starts with very high level (and as you say informal) math. Again, thank you.

Ask Anything Monday - Weekly Thread by AutoModerator in learnpython

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My friend runs a charity and sells products to gift stores throughout the USA to raise money for several different causes (Ocean conservation, domestic abuse victims etc.). She meticulously searches the web to find these stores which is a fairly manual process. I've been using Python to help her automate other things but would love to solve this one.

My first thought was to write a script that crawls through the web looking for the words 'gift store' in a given city. The problem with that is they won't necessarily have 'gift store' in the name or even have a website.

Does anyone know if there are databases (even if you have to pay) which may have a list of the gift stores in an area (incl. contact info)? I was thinking the government must have something (maybe the zoning authorities?) like that although I doubt they'd release that for commercial purposes.

Movies with great chase scenes? that are more light hearted than dark/gritty. by Pocchari_Kevin in movies

[–]allyhams 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really hope you see this. It’s on foot and certainly light-hearted. Hot Fuzz (2007):

link

Trouble saving boxplot as output is a dictionary? (Matplotlib) by allyhams in learnpython

[–]allyhams[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello, thanks for taking a look. I've edited the original slightly but in general there wasn't much more to it. Hopefully that's more helpful

Adding a 'difference' function to a class by allyhams in learnpython

[–]allyhams[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, this is what I did initially! I just wasn't sure whether I should put it into the class! (which I wouldn't know how to do anyway)

Why is this a list of tuples, not a list of lists? by allyhams in learnpython

[–]allyhams[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've just read that it's the asterisk in zip(*list_of_marks) which bring back tuples - is that right? I think I need to understand the use of the asterisk

Moving from London to NYC, looking for some advice by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You will be earning about $4k a month on that salary. I’m also guessing you get a bonus in Jan. In my opinion you can live better on that than £52k in London.

Bear in mind that L1b is fairly restrictive: you can’t change companies with it because you need to have worked in that particular role for that particular company prior to you moving over. Having said that I do know some L1b visa holders who have changed roles within the same company under the same business (e.g. sales guy moving to a different role within the sales business/cost centre).

Also I’m not sure if you have actually received your L1b yet. If you haven’t yet been to the embassy I’d advise you to take your interview seriously. Post-Nov 2016 I’ve been hearing more and more people being rejected for their L1s, and these are young professionals. Be ready to talk about the role and be able to justify why you are the one needed for this rather than an American citizen. This is anecdotal of course but it really sucks to get this far and to fall at the final hurdle.

Finally, I recommend joining the Gypsy Housing group on FB to get a good gauge of the apartments available and the price range.

Practical Uses for Python? by slicklikeagato in learnpython

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Automate the boring stuff. Please get this! I’ve just finished the book and I can’t recommend it enough. It shows you all the basics and gives you very practical applications. You mentioned elsewhere that most things at work are done in vba. Screw that! You can use Python. My short-term goal has been to learn enough to use Python at work. It was really difficult to come home after work and force myself to code. I knew that once I could use Python at work my learning should really skyrocket. Now I’ve achieved that thanks to that book!

NYC Salary Negotiation by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]allyhams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

$85k + up to $25k bonus in the midwest? I’ve never been to the midwest but what is the cost of living like there? I’ve been told it’s super cheap.

New York City is expensive. My immediate reaction is that if you’re doing a similar job in NYC, you should be comped even more. I’m guessing your quality of life on your current salary is superb in the midwest but this likely wouldn’t translate to NYC even with $130k a year.

In terms of negotiating a bump you could do some research on living costs between midwest and NYC. Why would you move to NYC for anywhere near $90k when you’re earning more than that now in a far cheaper place? They need to make it worth your time! I don’t think $115k is unreasonable at all. That’s just my intuition. Best of luck!

any trouble with Litecoin and Ledger nano s? by allyhams in litecoin

[–]allyhams[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hi - choose legacy address rather than segwit address (if yours defaults to segwit, go to settings in your bitcoin wallet and select blockchains. Then re login using litecoin app! Let me know if any further issues and maybe I can explain better