950. My mother's name is on my car title, how can I protect my ownership of the car in the event of her death?
It's her car.  Unlike what Ross said in the comments she can't sign it over to you--she doesn't own it yet.  The best you'll be able to do is have her leave it to you in her will--but beware that you very well might need to refinance the loan at that point.

951. I'm halfway through a 5-year purchase financing deal on my car. It's expensive. Can I sell it and get a cheaper car?
You say "it's expensive".  I'm going to interpret this as "the monthly payments are too high". Basically, you need to get your old loan paid off, presumably by selling the car you have now.  This is the tough part.  If you sold the car now, how much would you get for it?  You can use Kelley Blue Book to figure out what the car is roughly worth.  That's not a guarantee that it will actually sell for that much.  Look in your local classifieds to see what similar cars are selling for.  (Keep in mind that you will usually get less for your old car if you trade it in versus sell it yourself.) Now, if you owe more than your car is worth, you're in a really tight spot.  If you don't get enough money when you sell it, you are still stuck with the remainder of the loan.  In that case, it is usually best to just stick with the car you have, and be more cautious about payments and loan length the next time you finance a car. Penalties:  Most car loans don't have any kind of early repayment penalty.  However, you should check your loan paperwork just to make sure.

952. What are some examples of unsecured loans
Unsecured loan is any loan that you don't provide an asset as a collateral for. Auto loans are usually secured - by the auto. If you don't pay off the car, it will be repossessed. Credit cards are a good example, personal/business loans are also usually unsecured, and you've pretty much covered it. Majority of loans, especially for large amounts, are usually given for a specific purpose (usually purchase of a large asset) and are secured.

953. Should I purchase a whole life insurance policy? (I am close to retirement)
I'll start by saying that if this is being explored to scratch a specific itch you have then great, if this was a cold call it's probably safe to ignore it. Certain whole life products (they vary in quality by carrier) can make sense for very high earners who are looking for additional tax preferred places to store money.  So after you IRA, 401(k), etc options are maxed out but you still have income you'd like to hide from taxes whole life can be a potential vehicle because gains and death benefit are generally exempt from income taxes.  Be on the look out for loads charged to your money as it comes in to the policy.  Life insurance in general is meant to keep your dependents going without having to sell off assets in the event of your death.  People may plan for things like school tuition, mortgage/property tax for your spouse.  If you own a business with a couple of partners it's somewhat common for the partners to buy policies on each other to buyout a spouse to avoid potential operating conflicts.  Sometimes there can be estate planning issues, if you're looking to transfer assets when you ultimately pass it can make sense to form a trust and load cash in to a whole life policy because death benefits can be shielded from income tax and the estate tax calculation; the current estate tax exemption is about $5.5 million today (judging from your numbers you might actually be close to that including the net value of the homes).  Obviously, though, the tax rules are subject to change and you need to be deliberate in your formation of the trust in order to effectively navigate estate tax issues.  You seem to have a very solid financial position from this perspective it looks like your spouse would be in good shape.   If you are specifically attempting to manage potential estate tax liability you should probably involve an financial planner with experience forming and managing trusts; and you should be very involved with the process because it will absolutely make your finances more complicated.

954. InteractiveBrokers: How to calculate overnight commissions for CFD?
I have found a good explanation here: http://www.contracts-for-difference.com/Financing-charge.html Financing is calculated by taking the overall position size, and multiplying it by (LIBOR + say 2%) and then dividing by 365 x the amount of days the position is open. For instance, the interest rate applicable for overnight long positions may be 6% or 0.06. To calculate how much it would cost you to hold a long position for X number of days you would need to make this 'pro rata' meaning that you would need to divide the 0.06 by 365 and multiply it by X days and then multiply this by the trade size. So for example, for a trade size of $20,000, held for 30 days, the interest cost would be about $98.6. It is important to note that due to financing, long positions held for extended periods can reduce returns.

955. Why is tax loss harvesting helpful for passive investing?
Your assertion that you will not be selling anything is at odds with the idea that you will be doing tax loss harvesting.  Tax loss harvesting always involves some selling (you sell stocks that have fallen in price and lock in the capital losses, which gives you a break on your taxes).  If you absolutely prohibit your advisor from selling, then you will not be able to do tax loss harvesting (in that case, why are you using an advisor at all?). Tax loss harvesting has nothing to do with your horizon nor the active/passive difference, really. As a practical matter, a good tax loss harvesting plan involves mechanically selling losers and immediately putting the money in another stock with more-or-less similar risk so your portfolio doesn't change much.  In this way you get a stable portfolio that performs just like a static portfolio but gives you a tax benefit each year.  The IRS officially prohibits this practice via the "wash sale rule" that says you can't buy a substantially identical asset within a short period of time.  However, though two stocks have similar risk, they are not generally substantially similar in a legal sense, so the IRS can't really beat you in court and they don't try.  Basically you can't just buy the same stock again. The roboadvisor is advertising that they will perform this service, keeping your portfolio pretty much static in terms of risk, in such a way that your tax benefit is maximized and you don't run afoul of the IRS.

956. What do these options trading terms mean?
With stocks, you can buy or sell. If you sell first, that's called 'shorting.' As in "I think linkedin is too high, I'm going to short it." With options, the terminology is different, the normal process is to buy to open/sell to close, but if you were shorting the option itself, you would first sell to open, i.e you are selling a position to start it, effectively selling it short. Eventually, you may close it out, by buying to close.  Options trading is not for the amateur. If you plan to trade, study first and be very cautious.

957. Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in?
The answer depends on whether the company involved has 'limited liability'. Most, but not all public and listed companies and corporations have this, but not all so it is worth checking and understanding what you are getting involved with.   The expression 'limited liability' means that the owners (shareholders) of a company have a liability up to the amount of the face value of the shares they hold which they have not yet paid for. The difference is usually minor but basically it means that if you buy $10 of shares you have no liability, but if the company gives you $10 of shares, and you pay them (in cash or kind) $5, then you still have a liability of $5. If the company fails, the debtors can come after you for that liability.  An 'unlimited liability' company is a different animal altogether. Lloyds insurance is probably the most famous example. Lloyds worked by putting together consortiums to underwrite risk. If the risk doesn't happen, the consortium keeps the premiums, if it does, they cover the loss. Most of the time they are very profitable but not always. For example, the consortiums which covered asbestos caused the bankruptcies of a great many very wealthy people.

958. How much does it cost to build a subdivision of houses on a large plot of land?
A bank may not like loaning money to you for this. That is one snag. You listed 500,000-600,000$ for a monster of a house (3000 sqft is over three times the average size of homes a hundred years ago). Add in the price of the land at 60K (600K divided ten ways). Where I live, there is a 15% VAT tax on new homes. I can't find out if California imposes a VAT tax on new homes. Anyway, returning back to the topic, because of the risk of loaning you 660K for a piece of land and construction, the bank may only let you borrow half or less of the final expected cost (not value). Another huge snag is that you say in a comment to quid "I came up with this conclusion after talking to someone who had his property built in early 2000s in bay area for that average price". Let's apply 3% inflation over 15 years to that number of 200$/sqft. That brings the range for construction costs to 780K-930K. Even at 2% inflation 670K-810K. Edit: OP later expanded the question making it an inquiry on why people don't collaborate to buy a plot of land and build their homes. "Back in the day" this wasn't all that atypical! For example, my pastor's parents did just this when he was a young lad. Apart from the individual issues mentioned above, there are sociological challenges that arrive. Examples: These are the easy questions.

959. Should I Use an Investment Professional?
Ask yourself the same question for furniture making. Would you feel more comfortable sitting in a chair that you made yourself versus one that you bought from a furniture store?  How about one that you bought from IKEA and assembled? For an experienced, competent furniture maker, you might be able to make an equivalent chair for less money and be highly confident.  For a "DIY" builder, you might be less confident but be willing to take more of a risk with the possibility of making a good chair for less money (and gain experience on what not to do next time).   The same applies to investing - if you are highly confident in your own abilities, DIY investing may work better for you.  For the "general population", however, relying on experts to do the hard work (and paying a little more for their services) is probably a better option and gives you more confidence. As for the second quote, I'm note sure there's a causality there.  If anything, I think it's the other way around - people who have more money saved for retirement are more likely to use investment advisors.

960. Supply & Demand - How Price Changes, Buy Orders vs Sell Orders [duplicate]
Yes for every order there is a buyer and seller. But overall there are multiple buyers and multiple sellers. So every trade is at a different price and this price is agreed by both buyer and seller. Related question will help you understand this better. How do exchanges match limit orders?

961. Opportunity to buy Illinois bonds that can never default?
If Illinois cannot go bankruptcy This is missing a few, very important words, "...under current law."   The United States changed the law so as to allow Puerto Rico to go into a form of bankruptcy.  So you cannot rely on a lack of legal support for bankruptcy to protect any bond investments you might make in Illinois.  It is entirely possible for the federal government to add a law enabling a state to discharge its debts through a bankruptcy process.  That's why the bonds have been downgraded.  They are still fine now, but that could change at any time.   I don't want to dive too deep into the politics on this stack, but I could quite easily see a bargain between US President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress where he agreed to special privileges for pension debts owed to former employees in exchange for full discharge of all other debts.  That would lead to a complete loss of value for the bonds that you are considering.  There still seem to be other options now, but they seem to be getting closer and closer to that.

962. How do brokerage firms make money?
Regarding "Interest on idle cash",  brokerage firms must maintain a segregated account on the brokerage firm's books to make sure that the client's money and the firm's money is not intermingled, and clients funds are not used for operational purposes. Source.   Thus, brokerage firms do not earn interest on cash that is held unused in client accounts. Regarding "Exchanges pay firm for liquidity", I am not aware of any circumstances under which an exchange will pay a brokerage any such fee.  In fact, the opposite is the case.  Exchanges charge participants to transact business. See : How the NYSE makes money Similarly, market makers do not pay a broker to transact business on their behalf.  They charge the broker a commission just like the broker charges their client a commission.  Of course, a large broker may also be acting as market maker or deal directly with the exchange, in which case no such commission will be incurred by the broker.  In any case, the broker will pay a commission to the clearing house.

963. What investments work for these goals?
Assuming this will be a taxable account (since you want to pull income off of it, although this will lower wealth growth), you could open a brokerage account at some place like Vanguard (free on their ETFs) and look at tax efficient index fund ETFs (such as total stock market or their 500 fund), including  some international (foreign tax credit is nice in taxable) and muni funds for the (tax advantaged) income, although CDs are likely better for the income at this point.

964. Long(100%)-Short(-100%) investment explanation
If you mean the percentages of long/short positions within a mutual fund or ETF, then it's a percentage of the total value of the fund portfolio. In that case, positions of 50% in X, -50% in Y are not the same as 100% in X, -100% in Y. If the long and short positions are both for the same asset, then, as D Stanley mentions, all that matters is the net position. If you're equally long and short X, then the net position is always 0%.

965. Do I have to pay the internet installation charges for my home's company internet?
Of course you don't have to pay them - you just might not like the result. As a matter of law - given that I am not a lawyer - I am not aware of any requirement for a company to pay employees business-related expenses. An example might be having a cell phone, and according to this article companies aren't required to pay for you to have a cell phone even if they require you have one and use it as part of your employment. The primary areas where law does exist relates to company uniforms with a logo (in a very limited number of US states) and necessary personal safety equipment (in California and maybe only few other states). All other tool requirements for a job are not prohibited by law, so long as they are not illegally discriminatory (such as requiring people of a certain race or sex to buy something but no one else, etc). So a company can require all sorts of things, from having an internet connection to cell phone to laptop to specialty tools and equipment of all sorts, and they are even allowed to deduct the cost of some things from your pay - just so long as you still get paid minimum wage after the deductions. With all that said, the company's previous payments of fees and willingness to pay a monthly internet fee does not obligate them to pay other fees too, such as moving/installation/etc. They may even decide to no longer provide internet service at their expense and just require you to provide it as a condition of employment. You can insist on it with your employer, and if you don't have an employment contract that forbids it they can fire you or possibly even deduct it from your pay anyway (and this reason might not be one that allows you to collect unemployment insurance benefits - but you'd need to check with an expert on that). You can refuse to pay AT&T directly, and they can cancel the internet service - and your employer can then do the same as in the previous condition. Or you can choose to pay it - or ask your employer to split the cost over a few checks if it is rather high - and that's about it. Like the cost of anything else you have to pay  - from your own food to your computer, clothes, etc - it's best to just consider it your own "cost of doing business" and decide if it's still in your interest to keep working there, and for something to consider in future pay negotiations! You may also qualify for an itemized Employee Business Expense deduction from the IRS, but you'll need to read the requirements carefully and get/keep a receipt for such expenses.

966. How much of each stock do index funds hold?
Yes, it depends on the fund it's trying to mirror.  The ETF for the S&P that's best known (in my opinion) is SPY and you see the breakdown of its holdings.  Clearly, it's not an equal weighted index.
