The world of money

‘It’s difficult to get to the top, but even harder to stay there.’ This quote from Real Madrid player Alvaro Arbeola highlights a remarkable fact. Since the start of the ‘Uefa Champions League’ in 1992, not a single winning team of the trophy could defend the title the following season. It’s hard to stay on top – is not only …

A cool company attracts many customers and generates a lot of cash – as the tale of Nokia is demonstrating, this order is also valid the other way round. Nokia was founded in Tampere, southwest Finland, in 1865 – wait a moment, 1865 and mobile phones? Well, Nokia was in it’s first 100 years a paper- and then a rubber …

Gold is often labeled as the ultimate ‘safe haven’ for investors, because it usually gains in value, when other asset classes fall. If you take a look at the chart below,  you see what I mean: when the financial crises started after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, stock prices fell substantially over the next months, while gold started …

‘ I don’t think anybody has a very good model of what makes gold prices go up or down.’ What Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said at her confirmation hearing in November 2013, was instantly opposed by financial analysts. Of course, they would have good models for gold. According to these models, the following factors are decisive: Inflation Dollar Oil Geopolitics …

When investing in gold, you can basically choose between paper gold and physical gold. When you prefer ‘paper gold’ then Gold mining stocks and gold ETF’s are in play. There is actually a third option, gold futures, but I advise only experienced investors to consider it. If you are looking for the real thing and want to buy physical gold, then you …

Priorities & Profits A few month ago, a client of mine from Austria asked me to support him in the process of recruiting an employee for his office in Romania. The open position included regular office duties with a changing workload, sometimes low, but just the next day could bring a ton of work, I was told. And the candidate …

Pay Attention to the Average When chatting with friends about my job, they often compare the stock market with a casino. Well, I could argue with many facts contradicting this view, but I generally do not try to persuade people to invest. I only advise them if they want to play the markets. And there is one point, where the …

From time to time you hear in the news, that the central bank of Romania has changed the key interest rate. This change is rather small, in most cases 0.25% up or down. Why should I care too much about 0,25%? I have no money at the central bank anyway, you might think and switch the channel for more juicy …

I might be completely wrong, but based on recent conversations, I guess that 9 out 10 romanians would only invest in the stock market, when they are sure that the general economy is booming. The simple assumption, that better economic statistics and data, must be good for stocks, is unfortunately not true. If it where only that easy.. Why are …

The S&P 500 index contains 500 large companies listed at the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. The index can be viewed as a fairly good base, when it comes to examine the performance of different sectors like technology-, pharma-, energy- or cyclical stocks. I checked the data for the past 10 years and came up with the result, …