The discussion about minimum wages or salary increases in Romania is mainly a political issue. From an outside perspective, it’s sometimes hard to understand that in all the talking and complaining about local salaries many issues are brought up the most important and therefore most decisive factor for higher wages is rarely mentioned or misunderstood. This factor is called ‘Labor …

In 1944, Anne Scheiber, who worked as a tax-auditor at the IRS for 23 years and never earned more than 350 USD/month, retired from the service at the age of 50. After 23 years of work, her life savings stood at 5’000 USD. Using this sum and her monthly pension of 260 USD over the next 50 years, she built …

… is an often quoted stockmarket adage these days. It’s based on the historical underperformance of stocks in the 6 months from May until the end of October, compared to the period from early November to the end of April.   The significant seasonal trading pattern is a fact, based on data from the Stock Trader’s Almanac. Since 1950, the Dow …

I’d like to highlight two news stories about Romania from this week that caught my attention: Romania is the EU member with the biggest gap between the rich and the poor. The average incomes of Romania’s richest 20% were 7.2 times higher than those of the poorest 20%. (26 April – via ‘business24.ro’) Romania will no longer have an official …

The upcoming long Easter/1May weekend may give for many of us a much needed break from the daily rush of consumption or ever rising internet/smartphone-activities. Let’s start with consumption. It’s the most important contributor to the GDP in most countries. In the US for instance, consumption makes up 69% of the 17 trillion US-GDP. The other components are investment (17%), government …

You certainly heard about Saudi Arabia’s plans to sell a stake of its state oil company Saudi Aramco. Technically, the sale of Aramco would be less than 5% of the company and via an initial public offering (IPO). A 5% listing on the stock market would give it a potential value of over 100 billion USD. It’s gonna be the …

Today is ‘World Intellectual Property Day’. The day was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Geneva) in 2000 to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe. Each year’s ‘World Intellectual Property Day’ is dedicated to a different motto. This year’s …

‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’  – Warren Buffett When A High Price Is Still Cheap Let’s consider the price for a product rose from 275 USD in 1980 to over 219’000 USD today. No one would argue against, that this product has become quite expensive. But with stocks, the exact same price development doesn’t necessary mean …

The 500 Euro note is being viewed increasingly as an instrument for illegal activities. That’s why the European Central Bank is examining ditching the purple ‘500’ and that’s why I thought to compose a ranking of ‘The Highest Valued Banknotes in The World’ currently in circulation before the 500 EUR bill is withdrawn – as it happened for instance with …

“Mistakes are an inevitable consequence of doing something new and should be seen as valuable.” – Ed Catmull, President of Pixar A couple of months ago, I saw an interview with Steaua football club owner Gigi Becali after a game. The match ended 1:1, but in a way his team just lost two points after conceding the equalizer shortly before the …