Информация о том, что такое Дефолт и их виды на Мосбирже, MOEX.

In the last article, I have shown reliable sources based on my experience and more or less reliable statistics. Here I post the list of unreliable media with more than 1 Million readers. I don’t add anonymous sources – they are unreliable. The state-owned political media are also treated as unreliable.

Note, I judge the media myself, with the help of Google and paid statistics, Given by the Vienna University of Economics. I am not affiliated with any source and do everything to help my readers.

I am centrist, and I trust neither lefts nor rights. I treat the neutral equally distributed to the left and right Information.

Where to check news

check an unknown website on similarweb.com. Similarweb shows everything about somewhat popular websites; try the following sources:
Allsides.com

Since the Russia-Ukraine conflict, most media have become opinionated and taken one of the two sides. Some media judged one of the sides without having enough proof, which does not correspond to the presumption of innocence. Conflict-participating countries enforced censorship. Posting videos with military groups is illegal. Whom then to believe?

I found reliable sources based on historical reliability and bias – the declination to the left or right party. The information is based on statistics:

Reuters

Reuters is a London-based news agency with 2500 employees founded in 1851 (170 years ago). “Reuters Connect” has a partnership with 17 news agencies, still including TASS (Russian state-owned media). Reuters has a reputation as the neutral (bias of -1.83 to the left side, for example, NBC News, PBS, and CNN have a bias from -5 to -8) and highly reliable (48 out of 64 points) source. Reuters is free to use.

The company adfontesmedia made a report about Reuters, where Reuters was treated as a reliable but a middle-biased source.

Popular western sources, based on parameters form Adfontesmedia.

The most reliable sources, based on statistics, appeared to be on the left party, The most unbiased are Reuters and AP news.

If you want to find another reliable resource, use Adfontesmedia Interactive Media Bias Chart®, that compares 1662 sources based on the bias and reliability score.
Note, the Adfontesmedia was criticized by the Association of College and Research Libraries and others, meaning that the statistics can also be biased.

The live map of events

liveuamap.com

liveuamap.com is a map of events developed by Ukrainian software engineers from Dnipro Rodion Rozhkovskyi and Oleksandr Bilchenko. Although Ukrainians manage the website, it is a trustworthy resource with constant and fast updates. I have been using the website daily since the 24th of February. Unfortunately, liveuamap.com mentions all Russian news as propaganda and relies mainly on western media.

Telegram

Telegram is the leading news platform nowadays. The media can post violent content, videos from different angles, and freedom to write anything without censorship. Such freedom attracts young people and citizens of conflict states. Hundreds of Russian and Ukrainian telegram channels have millions of subscribers each.

But most of the channels are anonymous. That means – no one has a responsibility for the words said. Enormous influence and impunity (being unpunished) make the owners extremely powerful. For example, no one knows who owns Ukrainian channels, such as “Real Kyiv” or “F***ing Kiyv,” and channels with other cities in the title. These channels spread nationalistic and extremist information. These channels want Ukrainians to hate ethnic Russians and also Russian citizens. Such sources escalate the war.

Ukrainians are subscribed to tens of such channels. Ukrainians spend their free time reading the news. The majority of the channels bring the same information, and some provide opinions. Opinions are scary – a person can claim any opinion and forecast anything. In stressed situations, people believe in any lie. The problem is if the media keep posting lies for a long time, then everyone believes in a lie. Such lies happen on Russian TV channels – that is why this is the least reliable source. People who regularly listen to other people’s opinions stop thinking, and they rely on others. People lose control over themselves.

Help with the mind

Read facts, Reduce opinions. People want to keep updated, moreover if the theme concerns them. People read news agencies, youtube bloggers, and telegram channels. The media also shares opinions and experts’ thoughts. Every opinion is biased and based on experience.

The same fact or an event is commented on by thousands of influential experts. Reliable experts have own view on a situation – they have a plan of action. Reliable experts are well educated and they project a situation that they have before in the future and current events. Listening to 2-3 experts, who have different strategies may help to educate yourself. Listening to tens of experts weekly makes a person anxious and costs time.

For example, I am interested in economics and people’s lives. I chose 4 channels, where I consume information (in Russian): @market_tweets posts economic, stock market facts, graphs, and governors’ quotes. @Varlamov posts videos about people’s lives and documentaries about different themes. Dengi_ne_spyat (Tinkoff bank media) posts 2 videos about the stock market weekly – aggressive and conservative investors with 20-year knowledge tell about stock markets based on news, data, speakers, and experience. Reuters posts trustworthy articles.

I took the graph idea from the psychology agency Zigmund.online, and its telegram channel.

If a person subscribes to tens of channels, he will be lost in opinions. He will spend all his free and working time keeping updated. I was in such a situation at the beginning of a conflict.

In the end, a person burns out. A person becomes angry or scared, and he can make hasty (rash, unthoughtful) decisions.

If the event is not escalating, you lose interest in it. For example, if ten soldiers were killed last week, you would be astonished and expect more. If today, hundred of the soldiers were killed, you would be even more curious to know what happened. But if next week there will be 5-10 deaths, you will lose interest in this event.

News agencies want you always to be astonished – they increase the importance of each following event. Remember how news agencies talked about killing a couple of civilians, Mariupol, Chornobyl, exploding of a hospital, theater, Bucha, train station, ship sunk – each event was seen as a bigger and bigger event. But no one cares nowadays about the tank explosions and deaths of tens of civilians. News agencies will do whatever they can to escalate the conflict; otherwise, people forget about the event.

News agencies are real winners in this conflict. They have got huge influence: new readers, paid subscribers, more time spent on a website. News agencies became rich due to advertisements and paid subscriptions. They don’t want you to leave but keep you updated for the long term.

Fake News

My team from the Vienna University of Business and Economics and I made a presentation and a paper about fake news – types of fake news, history, how to spot and prevent spreading fake news.

I collected surveys and statistics from Statista. If you want to learn more, purchase a report about the Russia-Ukraine conflict or be a student to download for free. Based on samples of 1000-3000 respondents.

Positive thoughts about Russia, and GDP per capita in Russia

Based on IMF Data and KIIS

Before the Crimea events in 2014, Ukrainians were friendly to the Russian nation. 4 years after the Crimea event, Ukrainians started to increase relationships with Russia.

Correlation between Russian GDP and feelings about Russia

We see a strong relationship between the GDP of Russia and the Attitude of Ukrainians to Russians.

Attitudes of respondents separately to the leadership and separately to the population of another state

How do Ukrainians think about Russians in October 2021?

The absolute majority of Ukrainians think good about Russians.

If a referendum on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union (EU) was held next Sunday, how would you vote?

Based on a sample, Ukrainians want to be a part of the EU.

Educational advertising brings value to a person. The reader learns, explores new themes, and obtains new values. Let’s see an example:

Alex wants to buy coffee beans. Alex knows nothing about coffee beans. Alex does the next actions:

1. He googles “how to choose a coffee.
2. Alex opens the most relevant blog.
3. He reads the article, for example this one.
4. Alex reads about roasting, types of beans, such as Robusta and Arabica, tastes, and storing a coffee.
5. Alex clicks on a suggested article about choosing coffee producers.
6. He finds the best coffee and a producer based on his preferences, even without tasting it.

Alex finds out that he can buy these coffee beans in a shop that runs this blog. Alex trusts the coffee shop website because the website educated him. Moreover, Alex sees that the guys in this coffee shop know the business and know everything about coffee. Alex is loyal to them and is ready to buy a product. Even if the price is higher.

The coffee shop could also show their expenses. The customer then understands a fair price for coffee and sees how much the company profits from it. If the customer, Alex, got from the blog precious information, he will reward the company with this profit (margin). And Alex will continue buying from this coffee shop if the company brings him more and more value.

Alex will recommend your blog to friends or educate them himself, and he will more probably give a link to your website. Alex will not recommend some bullsh*t; that is why the product that the company sells must have a high quality. Otherwise, Alex is scammed.

The blog and articles are assets of a company. A blog is a property that belongs to a company. Articles can also be posted on foreign resources, such as business journals (in Russia: vc.ru or Journal.tinkoff.ru), personal blogs (to be paid), or social networks: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, etc.

blogs and articles are powerful tools to attract customers. In my projects, I use articles as the primary source of attracting customers, investors, and employees. For example, I posted an article about bicycle lockers and in 1 week, I got 7.5k views, 100 likes, and 100 comments. I made new connections with 3 interesting people in Austria and got 5 contacts of people interested to help in a project and help with production. I also made a survey in this article, in which 500 people participated. I understood the demand and price for a parking spot in a given sample. I paid nothing for this blog but spent 4 hours of my life.

Youtube videos are also assets. Videos require more time and equipment. It is harder to link to a video, and the information from the video is harder to access. For example, you want to compare 2 coffee beans. You are interested in the type of coffee, size, and taste. You can easily find it in a table in a text, but if you watch a video, you search for a timestamp where the table is shown. To find information about taste, you should listen to a whole video or a fragment that you also have to find. But the video gives you a picture: a cup in which you pour a coffee, a foam from coffee, the foam elasticity, videos from picturesque places where the coffee was taken, and the roasting process.

Videos are great to show the process of production or properties, and use of a product. for example, seven miles coffee shop shows educational videos of how to brew coffee, recipes, competitions, and funny videos. They sell coffee beans online and sell coffee drinks in cafés. They have 150k subscribers, and I am sure they don’t spend too much money on ads.

Videos get old fast. In 4-6 years, the videos become old, and just a few people will watch them – there are competition and design trend changes. With a blog, it is easier – you may edit text and add fresh information. In a blog, you may also change the design theme – just make some changes in a code, and that’s it.

why not use ads

Ads are also powerful. However, an advertisement mainly works if a company has enough money to provide many ads and show them constantly on different sources. If a company stops the ad campaign, the new customers will stop coming, and the existing customers will leave. Profit in companies that rely primarily on ads and don’t have a brand, like Coca-Cola, will be small or even a loss. Let’s see 2 examples:

T-Mobile is a cellular carrier, that decided to enter the Austrian market. Austria already had a market leader – A1. T-Mobile had to enter the market fast and take a huge market share. Marketologists decided to attract people from Vienna, the capital of Austria, by showing ads offline in a city.

Marketologist placed ads on all available banners in Vienna: on houses, highways, train stations, and even banners on trams. There were no banners left so A1 could not post ads anywhere in a city. The ads were shown for 2 weeks everywhere, and in the next weeks, the number of banners was decreasing. Everyone knew about T-mobile after this campaign, and thousands of people became customers of T-Mobile.

The company spent millions of dollars on such an advertisement. Nowadays, the company does not make too many ads and I have even forgotten about T-Mobile, and only after meeting with a marketing specialist from T-Mobile I learned about that case. That means, that ads should stay everywhere to remember a brand.

Casper Sleep company that produces matrasses and sells them online never made a profit. However, Casper Sleep went to IPO on NASDAQ, and the market capitalization was at a max of one billion dollars. Casper sold matrasses via Instagram ads and other sources (as well as any other company).

To acquire one customer, the company pays hundreds of dollars, and with all the costs, they sell mattresses at a loss. The idea was to make a brand like Coca-Cola, but it did not happen. Investors understood that such business did not work and sold their shares. As a result, a company was delisted from NASDAQ, with market capitalisation of 280m$.

Save contacts

If you visit events or talk to new people, you need to leave contacts. The most popular ways are to show a QR for LinkedIn or Instagram, tell a phone number, or give a business card. From my experience, When I write a phone number, I have only time to write the name and the name of the organization – it takes 1 minute to do the whole process, It may sound a little, but when you talk with 40 people on one event, these 40 minutes become tremendous.

I had a problem at a summit in St.Gallen with the LinkedIn QR code – I did not find how to open it. I spent 2 minutes with a person trying to understand where the QR code was – in the end, we just changed the phone numbers (we could also find the names on Linkedin, but we did not do it). And also, people have a thousand connections on Linkedin, so your contact will be one of the thousands of similar contacts. But I still think that LinkedIn is the best social business network.

Business cards are the easiest way to show leave contacts. Within 5 seconds, the business card is in your interlocutor’s hands (companion’s). Also, millennials and older people use business cards by default – they expect to get the business card from you. That is why I use business cards.

Old card

The first 100 business cards I made when I was 16, I was making a project coldcaller.ru. I wrote in Russian: “hello! I am Daniill Kovekh, a Founder of Coldcaller.ru”, my phone number and a corporate email. I put a QR code linked to a website on the other side. I used a white background and black text. I used capital letters without serifs (grotesques) that were tall and narrow. I used the mid-price matte paper so that I could write on it.

New card

In April, I made 150 business cards with a new design. These business cards are personal and for universal use. I pointed out the name of a blog as a header. This is the primary information because, in a blog, a person finds all the links he can be interested in – CV, Linkedin, Projects, and the art shop. I don’t need QR on a business card because Koveh.com is easy to write and remember.

I wrote my email daniil@koveh.com on one side. I didn’t add the telephone number – first, I have different phone numbers: 2 phone numbers in Russia and two phone numbers in Austria, and soon, 1 in America. So, mentioning any will not mean that I respond from the telephone. The email, as well as the domain koveh.com, remains unchanged forever. Moreover, I don’t want to give my telephone number to everyone, and it should remain private.

I mentioned skills: Art, Architecture, Finances, Investing, Data science. I also mentioned that I know 3 languages: English, Russian, and German. I am not planning to learn new languages to a high level, so the information will be actual for a long time. I also wrote consulting and projects, because I create my projects (AKA startups, but I don’t like this word, It is now a synonym for “looser”), and make consultations on Investments, Marketing in the real estate market, and I am planning to consult about Architecture, Construction, and Urban Planning, as well as investments in Art, Wine, and Real Estate.

To make a business card interesting, I made an infinite stripe of skills I offer. The idea is that these skills are infinite, but later I decided to end with the starting word so that it looks like a separate printing or a pattern.

The words in the middle are huge; the margin from the borders compensates for the size. I Increased the letter-spacing because the letter “V” has too much white space at the bottom. I chose the serif fonts – they are easy to read.
The letters also remind me of Russia, especially the letter “M” reminds me of Moscow. The letter is unique because it has two different serifs: Linear serif and curved serif.

Unfortunately, I ordered an American card size, that is longer than the standard credit-card size.

Capsule machine, automatic machine, or manual machine? I tried 3 types and asked an expert about the difference.

Manual machine

Manual machines are the most expensive and complicated to use. Manual machines help you to make the best coffee. You upgrade your skills while working with it. You experiment with the number of coffee beans, temperatures, and what is the coolest – you draw leaves and hearts on the foams.

I tried the €1899 “ECM Mechanika slim” machine and €450 “ECM S64 manuelle” grinder. It was easy to use: first, I attach a spoon (portafilter) to a grinder. The grinder grinds coffee beans into the spoon. Next, I attach a spoon to a table or to a special holder so that the spoon does not move. Then I tamp (or press) the dust inside of a spoon. Next, I attach the spoon to the coffee machine. I turn on the machine. The boiling water flows through the dust and flows out to a cup.

coffee-brewing-menthods.com

You get viscous (dense) coffee with intense dark-light brown foam. It is similar to café-class coffee or even better. If you have such a machine, you don’t need to go anywhere to drink great coffee.

I used good beans, similar to Passalacqua, that cost 19€ per kilogram – it is not too much – only €0.15 per portion, but the quality was excellent. I used 60% Arabica and 40% Robusta, which gave a more Italian taste. I like strong coffee, so I need more Robusta – up to 60% of it.

Passalaqua is roasted in Naples in Italy. The quality is high for the price of 19-24€.

If you want the same beans as in cafés, then better buy coffee for 50€+ per kilogram. You may also try coffee Luwak, a coffee fermented in the belly of small, squirrel-like animals, luwaks. It costs nearly 300€ per kilo. I was once on a plantation in Indonesia and have seen these cute animals. Unfortunately, I was too small to drink coffee, but my mother said it was pretty good.

Manual machines are durable and easy to repair compared with automatic machines. You may use such a coffee machine for a decade. That is why the selling price for the used machine is so high. If you have a spare 2000-2.500€, I recommend investing in a coffee machine and selling it in 5-6 years for 70% of its cost, e. g., 1700€.

Automatic machine

The automatic machine makes good coffee. You set the needed amount of coffee beans, water required, water temperature, and milk temperature. You also choose the pre-installed coffee varieties. It is easy and is great variant for home. The prices start from 400€ till 1500€. Depends on the options you need. I recommend looking at the material, especially the milk box and tubes – they must be made out of metal. Otherwise, your coffee machine will stink. I also think that all details should be made out of metal because plastic breaks fast.

The foam is also nice in most models; however, the quality is better with manual machines.

Nespresso

Nespresso is a cheap, easy-to-use machine. Nespresso is great if you want to try different tastes of coffee and choose the best one for yourself. The machine price varies 70€ to350€ for a metallic version with a steam tube. Each capsule costs 0.35-0.5€, which is too expensive. In the long run, you will lose much more money using Nespresso. For example, I have a mid-class version machine with a milk heater. I used the model for 4 months, but I gave it to my friend because coffee machines make cheaper espresso with better taste.

Better spend more money on a coffee machine; you will always be able to sell a good machine on willhaben or eBay. And also, if you want a good and relatively cheap manual coffee machine, try to find it on willhaben.

Thanks to my friend Lele who can always lend me a bike.

I love riding a bike. Bicycles are great – they are fast, faster than public transport. It is 20 minutes by bike to my University, rather than 40 minutes by bus and underground. Moreover, it is healthy to ride a bike, and I can keep fit and get to my destination. I can even take a bicycle to train or travel on a plane with the bike. Even though the bicycle emits carbon when being produced, it is still nature-friendly transport.

I make hundred-kilometer rides. I love traveling by bike. There are four variants of traveling – short trips, full-day trips, weekend trips, and long journeys. Long journeys last one, two weeks, or even a month – friends from Moscow state university bicyclist club have done it. They traveled by train to Karelia – a northern Russian region with picturesque forests, sixty thousand lakes, and beautiful Finnish architecture. They have been riding in Karelia for two weeks. Later, some participants of the journey went to St. Petersburg. They spend some days there, and then they have ridden to Moscow. The way from Moscow to St. Petersburg is at least 700km. In total, they made nearly 2000km.

I prefer rides from 80 to 150 km per day and 2-day rides. It is an excellent way to explore new places and not be exhausted. For example, we can go to Bratislava from Vienna or ride through Donau and observe hundreds of vineyards and apricot gardens, symbols of lower Austria. It is also great to go to Hallstatt, the most beautiful lake and an old town surrounded by old mountains. You may spend one day in the city, swimming on a lake with a SUP board and riding in the mountains the next day.

Plans

I invite you to my bicycle group in What’s App in case you live in Austria. You may also join if you live in Europe, because, maybe, we will make a trip to your country or you to ours.

The requirements are: you can make at least 80 km per day, and you need to be able to get a good bike. Also, it is important, that you are a responsible, friendly, helpful, and interesting person. And now, some information about cycling, routes and how the bikes work

Biking 101

There are two distinct routes: paved routes and trail routes. These routes require different bikes and ranges. For example, on paved asphalt roads, you may ride 25 kilometers per hour on average with a road bike and make 200km or even 250km in a one-day trip. But If you use a mountain bike, even 150km will be tough. This is due to the weight of mountain bikes, wide rough wheels, and less-powerful cranks.

Mountain bikes are universal, but road bikes are faster. Road bikes are fast. My highest speed on a road bike was 64 km per hour, and I scored it in Mallorca when I was going on a highway with a small slope. Usually, I gain 50 km per hour. Professionals have a maximum speed of 112 km per hour. Interestingly, most riders named this number as the maximum they did. Such high speeds are gained due to the lightness of the bike and rider. Expensive carbon road bikes weigh nearly 7.5 kilograms.

The tires are important. There are tires for roads, trails, downhill, cross country, winter variations, etc. All of them have different forms and widths and, therefore, frictions. That is why downhill tires will stop faster and will be easier to control, but you will not score even 40 km per hour on the road.

Cranks help you to use the optimal force. Cranks make your rear wheel move. The bigger the front crank and the lower the rear is, the more force you will apply to a wheel. Why is that? To move the wheel, you need to trigger the rear crank. All the cranks are attached – therefore, all the cranks are constantly spinning together. We need to spin one of these cranks, but which one will be easier to spin?

Let’s experiment: put your phone or notebook on a table and spin it around the center of a device. Try first to do it on a point further from a center and closer to a center which is easier – further from the center. But check the distance your finger made to make one 360 degrees spin. The closer to a center made a much smaller distance. What does it mean? The shorter length, the harder it is to spin, to apply a force. That Is why the smaller rear crank gives more force. We have an opposite situation on the front wheel – try to explain it yourself.

The bigger front crank or lower real crank does not mean, that you will be faster – you need to apply much more force (or Power, in Watts), and you can be fastly exhausted, and you may damage your cranks. Friction of tires and a road and the friction of chain and the cranks are also reasons for lower speed and damaging a bike. You have to control the forces to get a higher speed.

But there are limits. Road bikes give you the possibility to apply a lot of force, or power, Watts. That helps gain huge speed on a road. But, when you want to ascend a mountain, you need much smaller power, otherwise, you will be tired in seconds. Road bike does not have such a small front or such big rear cranks. That is why it is too hard to ascend with a road bike, even with lower weight, and thinner tires.

I learned an interesting thing about my productivity – each year, I perform better and worse in precisely the same months as in previous ones. I have checked this dependency since 2019. I add my performance (good, average, bad) to the google sheets to see the pattern.

March-April is the most effective time, April-June is a high-performance time, July is less effective or random, August-September is effective, October-November is a bad-performance time, and December-January is the worst-performance time, February is a random time.

What to do in the bad-performance months? I think it is time to relax and make trips, learn or practice new stuff. For example, I am drawing and playing the piano in such months (I’ve been playing since 2021). I also made some mistakes: I played some computer games during the bad-performance times because games don’t involve responsibility, and games have no deadlines so that I can stick to my tempo.

One of the ideas to spend November and December is to travel to some countries, like Thailand, Indonesia, Dominican republic. You may just relax and spend a little time working. It is not bad to make progress slowly and spend less time at work. We are people – we live for emotions and fun. Ask an entrepreneur whether he spends all his time working. An entrepreneur is calm; he delegates work to others and makes the company work sustainably without the involvement of the entrepreneur himself. Otherwise, it is not a business.

What does it mean for you? First, also analyze your productivity cycles, find your patterns, and think about how to respond to them. And, you may expect a lot of new content on my blog and youtube channel. The blog theme, by the way, will be slightly changed: there will be content about traveling, architecture, business, and finances. In April I start a project on alternative investments. I will tell a lot about creating a business in Austria and why alternative investments are important for any investor.

The Stock market is a place of gambling and investing. You don’t get rich without risks, but you may save money for your future and get passive income. But how to invest effectively and what mistakes you should not do? Let’s read:

You won’t get more than 10% in $ per year in the long run. Even s&p500 grows 6-8% p.a. on average. Once Warren Buffet said that just a few funds will be more effective than s&p500. To prove it, he argued with fund managers that they will not gain more than S&P500 in 10 years. At a point in time, the funds had higher returns. But there was a crisis, and most of the funds lost all the profit that they made in previous years. Only 2 funds, as i remembered, outperformed S&500.

Don’t panic. We are all people: we have emotions and biases. When the stock falls, we start a panic, we think that it continues falling or that we must buy more because the stock is cheaper. That is our human nature. We think that the status quo, the one which was before the current events, will stay forever, but it does not always work this way.

There were nearly two hundred large companies that became bankrupt after the 2008-2009th crash, and if it was true for the index that time, then nowadays, with the risk of recession, the index may fall for a decade, who knows.

Buy when there is uncertainty and sell when there is euphoria. It works, but mostly if you stick to 2 types of assets: index or shares of stable companies that are not seriously affected. When you invest in an index, you lower the risk of bankruptcy of a given company. If the index is on historical (or 10 years) minimum or maximum, that is too different from reality, or if the

Markets fall every 6-8 years. Charles Kindleberger analyzed 400 years of the stock market. He found that each 6-8 years there was a crisis, with only some exceptions. Interestingly, each time people were sure that this time the situation is different from previous ones: new technologies or that people already learned previous mistakes. No, there is always a new problem, that leads to that. Did we have a market crash in 2020? No, we didn’t, but it will be soon – thanks to the Russian government, EU, and American politicians. The supply chains are broken, and the prices for production rise. Then the final prices rise. The demand falls. How can then companies generate huge profits? Think rational.

Don’t care about your losses. You will lose money on some stock, no one knows when, but you will. When you lose e. g., 10% of your portfolio, you would like to get money back, usually, you want it fast. As you may imagine, getting 10% of your portfolio fast, e. g., in one week is extremely risky:

weekly_rate = 100%/90% # 11.1% weekly  to cover losses  
annual_rate = (weekly_rate)^(365/7)*100
# it is 24317% annually

As you remember, the average annual rate of s&p 500 is 6-8% annually, and not a lot of investment houses can outperform S&P500 in a long run.

Macroeconomics first. The political situation in a country affects all of the companies. Look at Russia in February-March 2022. All companies, that had huge potential crashed in one day 30% to 70%. Russian addressed depository receipts have dropped to 0.01$. All of that happened not because of bad business decisions, but politics. When you invest in a developing country, you buy shares and bonds with discounts. These discounts are given because of such risks, as in the Russian case (I can’t say the word “War” by a law).

Political factors are harder than economic. Economic processes are well explained, for example in Pearsons’ books. We have enough data to expect prices for grains, raw materials inc the calm times. Therefore, in such times, the stock market trades not today’s value, but future value. Usually 6 months in advance. So, market lives in the future, that can be accurately predicted.

When unexpected things happen, the stock market players are uncertain about the future. Usually, players need 2-3 days to understand the future situation. Within these 3 days, there is uncertainty and the volatility (standard deviation, or simply, range of prices) is high. After, the market finds a fair price and predicts the future just 1 week in advance. Why 1 week? On Saturdays (or rarely on weekdays after market closing), politicians make speeches and announce new information and plans. Market players try to predict the announcements and set a fair price. So, if e. g., If J. Powell says that the inflation will be 10% (dramatic for the IT sector), but market players predicted that, then American IT companies will not lose too much equity after the speech. The chance of this event was already discounted.

Politicians are people and sometimes their decisions are not optimal, unpredictable. Let’s take the Russian president. He made the worst, unlogical decision – he attacked Ukraine. After, he lost connections with developed countries. Moreover, the Central Bank of Russia lost access to gold and dollar reserves worth $500bn. Only a few people could predict such an event.

Always have cash. You must have cash for at least some months to live (in my case, 6 months). Liquid instruments (EUR, USD, for example) are easy to withdraw, and you can buy whatever you need without a premium (commission).
When the war in Ukraine started, I had 25% of the cash. The following day I sold some shares and ETFs with a loss of 20-40% and withdrew all my cash (50% of a portfolio) to my Austrian account. Later, Moscow Stock Exchange stopped the trades. All my bonds and shares became untradable. If I did not withdraw money, I would have lost much more and would not have had any money to live in Austria.

both technical and fundamental analyses are important.

Most of the risks and opportunities are already in a share price. You may think that some companies have a bad future, based on something that you have read in some articles. But investors already know about this risk and have lowered the fair value even before reading the article. You may win in this strategy if you use your thoughts and calculations, or if you know insider information or any kind of information that only a few people know. Imagine, you are a telecommunications engineer and you know that Nokia makes good 5g transmitters, that are easy to use, and you know that Qualcomm (i just made up the assumption) makes worse 5g transmitters. Then, you, as an engineer assume that Nokia will take over the market. You look at newspapers and you see that there are just a few unpopular articles about that. Here you have a jackpot, and with a high probability, you will earn some money.

Bonds are good, even if they don’t cover inflation

Don’t use futures, options, and other instruments if you have not read books about that.

Never gamble. The stock market is not a place to try your luck. I, an investor, will be very pleased if you will gamble because you lose your capital, and probably I will own the money you lost.

Instead of Casino, in the stock market, you can lower your risks without losing returns. In the long run you will be profitable

The stock market is about psychology in the short run, and about numbers in the long run. It is hard to predict the stock price within a quarter or half of a year. You don’t know what happens in such a period of time. You may learn about the situation in a company by reading the company’s reports or news. Reports are usually shown each quarter and annuity. they represent the real situation in a company with all numbers etc. I recommend reading Global financial accounting and reporting to be a pro in analyzing the company’s reports.

News show the situation in a company in real-time, and each information affects the cost of a share. I used before this short-term strategy, and I was always stressed:

Invest for the long-time and don’t read news. You don’t want to spend your time

10% change in the company’s cost is not important. Don’t care about fluctuations of the stock. It can rise, fall tens of times per annuity. If you will take each fall into account, you will be stressed. You will get a habit to check the news about the market and each company all day long. And you have tens of companies in a portfolio. You will loose the ability to analyze the stocks and will only rely on news and graphs. If don’t want to have such problems, invest in ETF.

Invest in ETF. Exchange-Traded Funds are managing the capital, that investors bring to them. They decide on which stock (or other instruments) to hold, buy, sell. The Funds take a commission for the service in exchange for you patience. The Funds don’t guarantee a profit, therefore you need to know to whom to give your money. You may do it the same way as with companies, by analyzing their reports. Don’t forget, that the huge returns in the past don’t guarantee profit in future. Take an example of Cathie Wood, the manager of Ark Innovation ETF. She went from 50 in 2019, to 100 in 2020, to 130 in 2021, and to 60 in 2022. As you see, if you invested even in 2020, you would have lost 40% of investments, even though she had 30-100% of annual returns in the past.

Expect an unexpected. Humans make decisions in politics and business. Sometimes, people take wrong decisions and do stuff that they were not supposed to. Even a small thought or event, like a traffic jam, may affect the final decision. You cannot predict such events. But they happen often. That is why the even the algorithms can’t get huge profit

Power and information are compensated with a size. Big investment funds and banks know much more about investing: they have educated employees, networking, fast processors, and data. However, the investment banks are huge and they invest billions of dollars. But how do they invest?

As you know, on the stock market, people put their request to buy or sell a defined amount of stock for the exact price. If the requests to buy and sell are identical, the exchange happens. You see all of the available requests for exact stock in a “bucket”.

As you see, there are not so many offers, it is rarely bigger than 1 million dollars. If you are a small investor, it is easy to buy stock for the market price. But what if you are a big company and you need to invest 100 million dollars for that price? Obviously, the demand will be so huge, and the supply will be low, so the price must go up. A dumb manager will try to sell the stock for higher and higher prices because he has to invest fast. That is why price

What services to use

SimplyWall.St gives basic information of any company from reports. SimplyWall.St also compares a company with competitors and the market. It even shows the fair value of a company, that I don’t recommend to take seriously into account.

Wolfstreet.pro is similar to SimplyWall.St, but provides more information with beautiful minimalist design.

Yahoo Finance provides all the graphs of the cost of companies. I download CSV file with prices of stocks to use it with my code, that I write on R or Python.

Statista provides statistics about anything you want. It is free for students as far as I know.

Bloomberg terminal is a powerful tool to analyze companies that cost nearly 5000€ per year. But if you a student, you may ask your university whether they have this subscription. For example, the Vienna University of Economics has such a subscription.