New lows

[CharonPDX]

If you have a 401k with a major broker, it's usually free to add a "personal investment account" with them. Research them to find out what kind of fees they charge, though.

When buying regular stock (as opposed to a mutual fund,) it's usually a fixed cost per transaction. "$5 per trade" or similar, with no ongoing maintenance fees.

You can also open a "Traditional IRA", which is basically a retirement account that you put money in now, and pay taxes on any gains when you take the money out. The benefit is any money you put in to a Traditional IRA account (up to a certain limit per year) is tax-deductible. Basically, it's as if you didn't earn the money this year. And you can put money in to a Traditional IRA up to April 15 of the *NEXT* year. So it's a great way to lower your tax burden by investing. (Last year, we would have owed a few hundred dollars Federal, so we played with the numbers to find out how much we'd have to deposit into our IRA to make our "Federal owed" $0. So instead of paying Uncle Sam $600 (or whatever it was,) we put $1500 (or whatever it was) in toward our retirement.)

[SparkE]

"You can also open a "Roth IRA", which is basically a retirement account that you put money in now, and pay taxes on any gains when you take the money out. "

Sorry, that is backward. A "Roth IRA" is the one that you get NO tax benefit for placing money in it, BUT the money grows tax-free and there are NO taxes when you take money out. (Unless they change the law.) I highly recommend (to my kids - the rest of you can take a flying leap . ) a Roth IRA as (part of) your retirement strategy. At a *minimum*, it is the absolute best place to put "for emergency only" money (i.e., the LAST place to go for money when you REALLY need it, and have no other choices). The reason I say that is that one can always take the contributions made to a Roth IRA with no penalty. Example: over the past 5 years you have put $5K/yr into the Roth IRA (total of $25,000). You absolutely need $10K for hospital bills after using all other emergency savings money. You can take $10K out with no penalty (it is less than your total contributions). Of course, you no longer have that money in the retirement account, and you can't replace it (except via the annual contributions, which are limited). As such, it is the perfect place for "a pickup-full-load of crap hit the fan and I absolutely have to have money" savings. You cannot, however, take out more than your contributions without paying a penalty. And if you are putting money aside for drastic emergencies, you might as well put it in a retirement account, where you will get no-tax growth.

A "traditional" IRA is the one that you get to deduct your annual contributions off of your income today (for income tax purposes), but when you take money out for retirement it is taxed as regular income (as if you earned it the year you take it out). So it grows tax free, but it is taxed at the higher "earned income" rate, rather than capital gains. Traditional 401(k) accounts are like that as well. If your employer is matching your contributions, it's a no-brainer (again, as PART of a retirement plan). However, you can't take money out without penalties before retirement age. (Well, you can, but only if you move it to another retirement account).

And thus ends this daily chapter of "planning for retirement".

Back to the topic of Arcimoto ...

[Tom]

I've been threatening myself to buy stock for a while..  It seems now would be a good time, but I haven't a clue how to buy stock and not be taken advantage of by some stock broker.

I second the suggestion you use Robinhood.  Totally free.  Trade as much as you want.

[CharonPDX]

Sorry, that is backward. A "Roth IRA" is the one that you get NO tax benefit for placing money in it, BUT the money grows tax-free and there are NO taxes when you take money out.

Gah! Yes. I got them backward! Went back and fixed my post.  (I knew the difference, I really did!)

[SparkE]

(Last year, we would have owed a few hundred dollars Federal, so we played with the numbers to find out how much we'd have to deposit into our IRA to make our "Federal owed" $0. So instead of paying Uncle Sam $600 (or whatever it was,) we put $1500 (or whatever it was) in toward our retirement.)

OK, still going off-topic, sorry. I had the opposite problem. Several years ago I had lost my job, and thus a low income for the year. I had kids in college and there was a (fairly sizable) federal tax credit for that, which I wasn't going to be able to claim. So I moved a bunch of money from my traditional IRA to my Roth IRA (thus generating income) - creating *just* enough income to bring the federal taxes up enough so that I could claim all the tax credits. (I think I ended up paying a tad under $100 in taxes.) And I ended up moving money from the "you will pay taxes on this when you take money out" IRA into the "you don't have to pay taxes on this" IRA. I have heard of people doing the exact same thing to claim the full $7500 tax credit for an EV when they didn't previously have a $7500 tax liability for the year: move money from "trad" into "Roth" IRA.

The "disadvantage" of a traditional IRA is that when you take money out, you pay taxes as if you earned them, instead of the capital gains taxes that you pay when you sell stock (capital gains taxes are generally much lower.) (In fact there is {currently, for quite a few years, but the bastards will probably change the law} the equivalent of a 0% tax bracket for capital gains profits if you don't make a lot of money - I think it is around $75K of taxable income for a married couple). The advantage of the "trad" IRA is that you get a tax break NOW - which is good if you think you will be in a lower tax bracket in retirement. The other benefit (true for both "trad" and "Roth" IRAs) is that all profit/interest/etc. grows without paying any taxes on it AT THE TIME - so it grows faster (but with the "trad" IRA you *will* pay the taxes, just deferred until you take money out). Another difference between the two is that there is a MINIMUM required disbursement for a "trad" IRA when you hit (ummm... I think ...) 70.5 years - you HAVE to take out at least a small percentage of the total worth every year. With a Roth IRA, you don't ever have to take money out.

I have both types - I will take out 'just enough' from the "trad" IRA to pay a very small amount of taxes (to get as much out as possible tax-less) and if I need anything else I'll either sell stock (if I manage to have some) or take tax-free money out of the Roth. At least, that's the plan - we'll see how it works out when I get there ...

Anyhow, again, ... back to the Arcimoto news.

[gregbinahurry]

Here is some reading material for you West Coasters that are still awake.  Interesting reading to say the least.  Basically calls for sales of 66 units for the 4th quarter if you use an average selling price of $ 15,000 each.  What do you think?

$990,000.00 in Sales Expected for Arcimoto Inc (FUV) This Quarter
December 1st, 2018 - By Lisa Kingston
Brokerages forecast that Arcimoto Inc (NASDAQ:FUV) will post sales of $990,000.00 for the current quarter, Zacks reports. Two analysts have provided estimates for Arcimoto’s earnings. The highest sales estimate is $1.92 million and the lowest is $50,000.00. Arcimoto posted sales of $90,000.00 in the same quarter last year, which suggests a positive year-over-year growth rate of 1,000%. The firm is scheduled to issue its next earnings report on Friday, March 29th.
On average, analysts expect that Arcimoto will report full-year sales of $1.22 million for the current financial year, with estimates ranging from $140,000.00 to $2.29 million. For the next fiscal year, analysts anticipate that the company will post sales of $40.87 million, with estimates ranging from $28.00 million to $53.74 million. Zacks’ sales calculations are an average based on a survey of sell-side analysts that cover Arcimoto.
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Arcimoto (NASDAQ:FUV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 16th. The company reported ($0.20) EPS for the quarter, meeting the Zacks’ consensus estimate of ($0.20). The business had revenue of $0.01 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $0.22 million. Arcimoto had a negative net margin of 5,067.42% and a negative return on equity of 71.99%.


A number of analysts have commented on FUV shares. Roth Capital started coverage on shares of Arcimoto in a research note on Thursday, November 1st. They set a “buy” rating and a $9.00 price target for the company. Chardan Capital started coverage on shares of Arcimoto in a research note on Wednesday. They set a “buy” rating for the company.

In other news, CEO Mark Frohnmayer bought 139,903 shares of Arcimoto stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 19th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $3.00 per share, for a total transaction of $419,709.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Jeff Curl bought 25,000 shares of Arcimoto stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 19th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $3.00 per share, with a total value of $75,000.00. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders bought 165,913 shares of company stock valued at $497,739. Company insiders own 56.30% of the company’s stock.
FUV stock traded up $0.05 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $2.15. 39,954 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 46,189. The firm has a market capitalization of $29.46 million, a PE ratio of -8.96 and a beta of 0.25. The company has a current ratio of 4.46, a quick ratio of 3.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. Arcimoto has a 52 week low of $2.00 and a 52 week high of $5.48.