Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 July 18

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July 18

Bid, ask and price (stocks)

Can someone explain to me what it means when a stock has a bid price, an ask price and how that relates to the last price? For example, I am looking at a stock right now that has a bid price of $4.01, an ask price of $4.99 and a last price of $4.85. I assume that the 4.85 means that at the moment to market closed in Friday the stock was selling for $4.85. Am I right? If so, how do they determine the "ask" price and what does that mean (whose asking?) and the bid price (who's bidding at the lower price?)--162.83.139.249 (talk) 03:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay I've answered some of my own questions. Let me restate my question. If I place a one day limit order at $20 And the ask price is $22 and the bid price is $18, is that impossible to fill? Do I have to start at the ask price, or can i hope that during the day the "spread" will change and my lower limit price might be filled?--162.83.139.249 (talk) 03:13, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Your limit order (I assume from context it is a purchase limit order) will be executed if the ask price falls to $20 or below during the day. The spread will not necessarily change - the bid price could move as well, so the stock might fall from 18-22 to 16-20 - lower price, same spread. If the ask price remains above $20 throughout the day, then your limit order will expire at the end of the day (because it is only a day order). In principle, you can place a limit order at any price you like, but in practice there is no point placing it above the current ask price, because it would be executed immediately, so you might as well just place a market order. There might be some point to placing a limit order at the current ask price if the stock's price moves quickly, you want to protect yourself against a price rise between when you place your order and when it is executed, and you would rather not get the stock at all than pay above the current quoted price. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Types of social housing in the UK

Just wondering what the differences are in practice (in the UK) between being a council house tenant and receiving housing benefit to rent a privately owned home? Why are tenants reluctant to move from the former to the latter? 188.221.54.24 (talk) 08:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Well the first thing to mention is that council housing is a lot harder to come by than a private situation, since demand way outstrips supply and there is always a long waiting list for suitable council properties. So that's one aspect to bear in mind. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 09:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Council house rents tend to be at the lower end of the range for a given area and standard. Councils also offer better security of tenure, and some are more willing to undertake repairs and modernisations than the average private landlord. There are exceptions, of course, and some private landlords fulfil their obligations to a higher standard than councils, but many others do not. Dbfirs 09:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Council houses were built to a very high standard as set out by the Parker Morris Committee. The rooms tend to be bigger for comparable houses built at the same time. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Rent for council housing and social housing is always paid in full if there is entitlement to full housing benefit. If the rent for privately rented housing is above the local rent median, then housing benefit is only paid up to that amount. In other words, it's quite common for tenants to receive less than the full rent in privately rented accommodation. Also, councils and other registered social landlords are more-or-less guaranteed to be good landlords, which is not always the case with private landlords. Finally, council and social housing tenure is often for the life of the tenant (and can sometimes be inherited) so giving this up may not be wise. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:14, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The other advantage to the council tenant is that even if you don't pay your rent for years and years, you still do not get thrown out. The disadvantages are that you tend to have belligerant or even downright mentally ill neighbours, and your surroundings are often squalid. 92.24.178.184 (talk) 11:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The larger size Tammy mentions also extends to land, giving many council houses a reasonably generous private garden that a privately rented flat or new-build housing association maisonette will not have. There's also the community element. Because of the security of tenure and the fact that council houses were built in estates, or at least clusters, you find some people who remain in one council house for decades with the same neighbours. Grown-up children may also be allocated properties nearby, (although reduced supply and increasing demand makes this less easy than it was) or they may be able to succeed to their parents' tenancy if they remain living in the family home and satisfy certain conditions, giving an "inheritance" of a sort. Karenjc 11:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

A factor not so far mentioned is that (to the best of my knowledge) you can remain a Council House tenant regardless of your/your household's income from employment (so you could advance to a comfortable salary, or have have a household with several jobs between them, while still enjoying the benefits of low rent, etc), whereas (to my certain knowledge) you can only receive Housing Benefit if you have a low-to-zero working income (so that if you obtain a job or improve your working income, you'll lose some or all of your Housing Benefit. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You sometimes find that private landlords are poor at responding to repair requests and things like that - where the council have workers employed just to do that kind of thing - it's not always like that - but it's something to consider. My wife and I bought an ex-council house when we were just married. It was really cheap and the room size, standard of construction, quality of materials and standard of upkeep were miles ahead of much higher priced houses that had been privately built. The downside is that large council house 'estates' are filled with poorer families - with higher unemployment - and (sadly) the crime and vandalism rates in those areas are typically higher than in neighborhoods where the majority of housing is 'owner-occupied' and only a small fraction are rented. However, it's important to say that this is a generalization that's not always true. There are a few really nice neighborhoods where all of the houses are council-owned. SteveBaker (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The rents for council housing are typically less than privately rented houses. This could have an impact should you land a poorly paid job and lose your housing benefit. Astronaut (talk) 15:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Its about time that council estate residents paid the same market rent as private tenants, and had the same terms and conditions. So they would no longer be subsidised by the taxpayer, and could not get away with not paying the rent for years. If you ask where would they go then, then they could be given ten or 20 square meters of floor area in an emergency warehouse. 92.15.4.196 (talk) 18:41, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Considering that housing benefit is often paid to private landlords, one could equally demand that private landlords be forced to reduce their rents. Private rents should be set to simply cover the cost of buying/building the property and then maintaining it, rather then allowing them to make the large profits that are currently possible (in my area private rents are typically double the equivalent cost of a mortgate to buy the same property). Astronaut (talk) 02:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

If private landlords are not able to make a reasonable profit - they'll invest their money elsewhere and you'll have a housing shortage on your hands. Property rentals follow the laws of supply and demand - if it were the case that there were plenty of houses out there up for rent - then landlords would be sitting on expensive and unprofitable houses - so they'd be forced to lower their prices to compete. Having an empty house is a MASSIVE liability...it still needs maintenance, the property management company still charge you, you're still paying taxes on it, and the mortgage still comes due at the end of the month.

If rental charges are high - it can only be that demand is at least keeping pace with supply and there is no need to compete on price.

I actually do own and rent out a house in the UK and I can tell you that it's not exactly a big earner! The amount I can charge if I want to keep the place occupied fluctuates up and down as the market changes. The rent money seems a lot - but you have subtract the cost of the mortgage interest, taxes, renter's insurance, management fees (10% of the rent!), re-letting fees, periodic maintenance (some of which can be REALLY big ticket items), fixing up the property after someone trashes the place (Which has on more than one occasion (three airline stewardesses from Virgin Atlantic) come to three times the deposit they put down!), tidying up the garden between tenants (they NEVER keep it in the condition they got it in) - and people who fall behind on their rent and their utility bills - and then just vanish in the middle of the night (which you don't notice until a month later when the property managers go to demand payment!) - then make an allowance for the several months each year when the house is empty...and we certainly don't make a profit - we don't even break even for years at a time if the rental market is poor. The gain we'll eventually get will be when the mortgage is finally paid off. That's really the investment. We have been suffering the net loss for the past 17 years - and when the mortgage is paid off in a few years time, we'll get a modest income from the rent for our retirement. So as a landlord, you put up with all of this grief (and there is a LOT of grief!) and with having your capital tied down for 25 years - and only at the end of that time, do you start to make your money. But that's a very long-term (and incredibly risky) investment because house prices (as everyone recently found out) do fall...a LOT sometimes. SteveBaker (talk) 04:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

... but it is a worthwhile investment in the long-term, isn't it Steve? I wish I'd done the same! Banks and stock markets are not a good place for savings at present (and haven't been for the past ten years). Dbfirs 08:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Having been a private landlord and a private renter, I can see both sides of the argument. The house I rented out made me no money until I sold it. Luckily I didn't make enough money to be clobbered by over 20% capital gains tax. When I bought another place after a period as a private renter, I pointing out to the mortgage lender that I would be hundreds of pounds better off each month by paying the mortgage, such was the difference. The difference is even worse now, my mortgage is around 30% less each month due to currently low intertest rates, while rents for similar properties have crept up by 20% or more in the last few years. Astronaut (talk) 11:16, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

For a good recent overview, I recommend Estates: An Intimate History by Lyndsey Hanley; Amazon info here. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

[[Category:]] new brand in fashion

Hi There, I want to setup a new brand in fashion clothing in India mainly by importing the finished product from taiwan, bangladesh, vietnam etc like all the major brands in the UK do.For example Next, TK max, Bench etc does. please kindly give any suggestions by the contacts you have.

With Regards Ravi k

This is a reference desk. We find references for people. We don't have contacts in the fashion business. --Tango (talk) 14:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I tried typing "Clothing manufacturers in Taiwan" into Google and got a ton of good search results - I suggest simply doing that for all of the countries you are interested in. The website http://www.alibaba.com seemed to be one common 'portal' site - you can select 'Apparel' and look at individual countries and clothing types and get lists of hundreds of manufacturers. For example, http://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/TW/Taiwan/category/3/Apparel.html 250 links to specific clothing types and cloth-related products (zippers, buttons, lace, etc) - each of which links to dozens of clothing manufacturers in Taiwan. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find what you need there. SteveBaker (talk) 15:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

retention of rank/stripes in military band setting

I am a former pipe major in a volunteer band, I resigned/retired from this position to move to another community, I have subsequently returned and rejoined this same band, am I still entitled to wear these stripes? in other words once I had earned them are they mine to keep or are they forfeited when I left?JamesRWarriner (talk) 19:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I would think that those decisions would be up to the leadership of the organization. Maybe your group has some sort of bylaws that they go by which would give you an answer. Dismas|^(talk) 23:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)