The world population crossed the 7 billion mark this year. The majority of this population lives in the developing world. According to The Global Wealth Report published last by Credit Suisse last year, about 92% of the world’s population can be classified as part of the middle, the upper middle and the lower classes. The …
Volatility in the U.S. stock market has been extreme in the past few years. The following chart shows the 5-year chart for the VIX index: Click to enlarge Source: Yahoo Finance After peaking in late 2008, the fear index started to moderate until the middle of this year after which it has spiked again due …
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Natural Gas is increasingly becoming an important fuel in meeting the global energy needs. In this post, let us take a quick look at the largest natural gas fields in the world. Eastern Europe and Eurasia have the largest known natural gas resources, which are concentrated in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The …
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Most investors are currently avoiding European banks due to the myriads of issues facing the whole banking industry. It is almost impossible to evaluate a bank’s balance sheet since there are many known unknowns. Austria’s Erste Bank (EBKDY) is a classic example of this scenario. Just when investors, including myself, thought that the worst was …