Investing

Jonas has €10,000 sitting in his account in Stuttgart. He already has an emergency fund and a monthly ETF savings plan, but he keeps hearing the same advice: “You should also own some bonds.” His colleague says bonds are boring and safe. A news article says bond prices just fell. His bank advisor recommends a

Anna starts investing €200 a month when she is 25. After ten years she stops completely and never adds another euro. Ben waits until he is 35, then invests the same €200 every month for 30 years until he retires. Ben contributes three times as much money as Anna: €72,000 compared with her €24,000. Yet

Revenue: Beat expectations. Profit: Beat expectations. Earnings per share: Beat expectations. The company is still growing. You check the stock the next morning: -11%. What exactly did investors want? At first, the reaction looks absurd. But the market is not asking only: “Were the results good?” It is also asking: “Were they better or worse

You check the news: S&P 500: +1.4% Nasdaq: +1.7% Another headline says: STOCKS RALLY Then you open your investment app. Your portfolio: -0.7% What? If “the market” went up, shouldn’t your investments have gone up too? Not necessarily. The headline is describing an index. Your app is describing your money. Those can be two very

You bought €5,000 of a company’s stock. A few months later, the headline appears: COMPANY FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY The stock is already down 90%. Your €5,000 position is now worth roughly €500. What happens next? Is the remaining €500 still yours? Can the shares recover? Does bankruptcy immediately send the stock to zero? What if

You open your trading app. A stock is: €50.00 You look away for three seconds. Now: €49.98 Another second later: €50.03 Who changed it? Was it the company? The stock exchange? Your broker? Some algorithm sitting in a data centre? The answer is more interesting: Nobody simply chooses the stock price. The number moves because

Imagine your investments paid you €2,000 every month. No salary required. No need to sell shares just to cover ordinary spending. Just dividend payments arriving throughout the year. How much money would you actually need invested? €100,000? €300,000? €1 million? The answer depends heavily on the dividend yield, and that is where the idea becomes

You have €100 left over. You think about investing it. Then another thought arrives: “€100? What’s the point? I probably need a few thousand before investing even makes sense.” That assumption stops many beginners before they start. There is no universal minimum amount you need before investing. Depending on the broker and investment, it is

A stock shows €50.00 on your screen. You press Buy. A moment later, your confirmation says: Executed at €50.08. Why? Or perhaps you place a limit order at €49.80. The stock never reaches an executable price at that level, so your order does not fill. Nothing has necessarily gone wrong. You simply gave the market

You invest €10,000 in an ETF. Its expense ratio is 0.20%. At first glance, that number looks almost meaningless. Two-tenths of one percent. But what does it actually mean? Do you pay €20? When? Does €20 leave your bank account? And what happens if you keep the ETF for 20 or 30 years? At a