Pets are soooo worth it
It is well-established that owning pets, on average, makes people happier.
Finance
Klement on Investing.
Thoughts on financial markets by Joachim Klement.
Recent essays
30 of 58Attracting investor flows through customer data
For decades, Meta, Alphabet and others have mined customer data to sell ads and other products to business customers.
If interest rates rise, do we have to worry about credit defaults?
Thanks to rising inflation, central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are pondering whether they have to hike interest rates.
Which news is incorporated slowly?
The news flow (or rather, deluge) is relentless, and nobody can stay ahead of all the news published on markets and companies anymore.
Guardian readers have fewer children
I sometimes hear people lament that young people are reluctant to have children because they don’t want them to deal with a world that gets destroyed by climate change.
The failure gap
Apparently, most people vastly underestimate how often things around them go wrong.
What’s in an odd number?
I used to collect wine (back when I still drank alcohol), and as part of that, I sometimes went to fine wine auctions.
Jevons’ Paradox seems alive and well
While many people fear that AI will eliminate millions of white-collar jobs, many have argued that Jevons’ Paradox indicates that the opposite may happen.
Why NATO should ask Ukraine for help
A bit more geopolitics from me at Reuters.
Are Europeans finally becoming stock investors?
To pre-empt the inevitable comment about headlines that are questions, the answer to this one is an unequivocal ‘kind of’.
When regulation is good for business
By now, I think I have established both my view that I am a fan of ESG investing and the benefits of regulating what is and isn’t a sustainable investment, and my view that in Europe, ESG regulation has gone too far and become too costly.
There is never good news in Iran
Let’s face it, most of us form our opinions about other countries based on the news reports we get from these countries.
The hidden risks from synthetic risk transfers
Synthetic Risk Transfers (SRT), where banks keep loans nominally on their books but sell the risk exposure to other investors via credit-linked notes or financial guarantees, have become big business, particularly in Europe.
A blessing in disguise for the EU?
Donald Trump’s tariffs are upending global trade in many ways, both intended and unintended.
Momentum crash warnings flash red. Here’s how you might survive
I am back to my regular finance beat on Reuters.
Globalisation in the 2020s
One of the eternal questions in stock markets is whether they are global or local in nature.
Investors must be wary of the earnings bubble
Last week, the FT Alphaville blog picked up a brief analysis I made about US stock market valuations and why the argument that “companies this time are highly profitable, not like in the late 1990s” isn’t really a defence against people claiming AI is in a bub…
Is water use priced in stock markets?
Yes (to provide one example that violates Betteridge’s law of headlines).
Incentives work: Cocaine edition
Twenty years ago, the book Freakonomics showed the world that drug cartels work like franchise restaurant firms and use the same economic logic as McDonald’s and others.
A fundamental flaw of prediction markets
A while ago, I wrote an article in the Financial Times about the failures of prediction markets.
The next Iran war may come sooner than you think
My latest opinion piece for Reuters is out today.
Circumstances matter
One of the shortcomings of behavioural economics and psychology is that in experiments, researchers focus on personality traits and socio-economic factors, but pay little attention to the circumstances a person is in.
You paid for it, so it must be worth something
One of the well-known effects described in behavioural economics is the price-value heuristic.
Gutted…
Eventually, after 12 years and being lucky in three World Cups, I ran out of luck.
Does it matter why a company is green?
Sometimes companies engage in green actions not because they are trying to save the environment, but because it is good for the bottom line.
A few thoughts on my World Cup predictions
The group stage of the FIFA World Cup 2026 is over, and since my predictions have gone a bit viral this time, I thought I would give you a quick update before the knock-out phase begins.
Playing football in the smog
The World Cup is in full swing, and because I am writing this before the tournament starts, I have no clue what has happened so far, let alone what the weather is in the stadiums today.
Businesses aren’t as evil as people think
Businesses and corporate executives have a bad reputation in the media.
Stock market concentration and fund portfolios
Way too much ink has been spilt on the increasing concentration of the US stock market.
From fiscal rules to fiscal stimulus
My home country, Germany, is doing an interesting experiment in the next ten years.