Integrated Intellectual Investment Portfolio as an Efficient Instrument to Manage Personal Financial Investment

The redistribution of resources in global stock markets is prevalent: the capital is transferred from one investor to another. Sometimes, earning a substantial return in the stock market seems complicated to implement for an individual investor. Investing contributes to the welfare of society and the wealth of citizens. This is why people should look for efficient ways to invest. Investment should become a natural part of personal finance management in the majority of households. For this reason, an investment model is developed where stocks are selected based only on market intelligence using historical data. The model helps find one or several stocks that generate the highest return on a separate step. Applying this model, experiments were performed with daily data from German, US, and UK stock markets. The possibility of obtaining higher than average returns in these markets has been noticed. In the German market, during the 97-day period, the authors obtained a 1.46 return, which implies a 2.31 annual return: in the USA market, a 2.37 return (7.93 annual return), and in the UK market, a 1.90 return (4.09 annual return). Thus, the proposed investment decision-making system could be an efficient tool for forming a sustainable individual or household portfolio. It can generate higher investment returns for an investor and, moreover, make the market more efficient by applying market intelligence and related historical data.

Commercial Complementary Food in Germany: A Market Survey

Background: As consumption of commercial complementary food (CCF) during infancy and toddlerhood is common, the aim of the present study was to describe the current (2020) German market of CCF products with a special focus on ingredients, macronutrients, and the practice of nutrient fortification.Methods: Information on age declarations, ingredients, energy and nutrient contents, and nutrient fortification of 1057 CCF products was obtained by contacting the producers and searching manufacturers' websites. Each product was assigned to one of thirteen product categories (menus, milk-cereal-meal, fruit-cereal-meal, oil, vegetables, meat, fish, fruits, cereals, snack foods, pouches, desserts, beverages) and stratified into infants’ CCF (< 12 months, n=829) and toddlers’ CCF (> 12 months, n=228). Descriptive statistics were used in order to give an overview of the available products.Results: Highest protein content (% of energy content, %E) was found in meat products. More than 50 %E of total sugar was found in pouches, beverages, cereal fruit meals, and fruits. Highest median salt content was found in toddlers’ menus and desserts. Around one third of infants’ CCF products and one quarter of toddlers’ products were fortified with nutrients. Vitamin B1 (thiamin) was the most frequently fortified nutrient, followed by vitamin C, iron, calcium, and vitamin D. Apple was the type of fruit listed most often in products with fruits, whereas carrot was the most frequent vegetable among CCF with vegetables. Conclusion: The available product categories as well as the high sugar content of most CCFs currently available on the German market may promote unhealthy dietary habits. Parents need to be educated about the optimal selection of products.

Are adverse effects of cannabidiol (CBD) products caused by tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) contamination?

Cannabidiol (CBD)-containing products are widely marketed as over the counter products, mostly as food supplements. Adverse effects reported in anecdotal consumer reports or during clinical studies were first assumed to be due to hydrolytic conversion of CBD to psychotropic Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) in the stomach after oral consumption. However, research of pure CBD solutions stored in simulated gastric juice or subjected to various storage conditions such as heat and light with specific liquid chromatographic/tandem mass spectrometric (LC/MS/MS) and ultra-high pressure liquid chromatographic/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometric (UPLC-QTOF) analyses was unable to confirm THC formation. Another hypothesis for the adverse effects of CBD products may be residual Δ9-THC concentrations in the products as contamination, because most of them are based on hemp extracts containing the full spectrum of cannabinoids besides CBD. Analyses of 181 food products of the German market (mostly CBD oils) confirmed this hypothesis: 21 products (12%) contained Δ9-THC above the lowest observed adverse effect level (2.5 mg/day). Inversely, CBD was present in the products below the no observed adverse effect level. Hence, it may be assumed that the adverse effects of some commercial CBD products are based on a low-dose effect of Δ9-THC and not due to effects of CBD itself. The safety, efficacy and purity of commercial CBD products is highly questionable, and all of the products in our sample collection showed various non-conformities to European food law such as unsafe Δ9-THC levels, hemp extracts or CBD isolates as non-approved novel food ingredients, non-approved health claims, and deficits in mandatory food labelling requirements. In view of the growing market for such lifestyle products, the effectiveness of the instrument of food business operators' own responsibility for product safety and regulatory compliance must obviously be challenged, and a strong regulatory framework for hemp products needs to be devised.

Corporate social performanceand over-investment: evidence from Germany

Purpose With the Green Deal and Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, the European Union is driving forward its ambition for a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy. For this reason, this paper contributes to the ongoing discussion by examining how overall corporate social performance (CSP) and the respective environmental, social and governance (ESG) pillar performance affects corporate financial performance (CFP). In addition, this study aims to present novel insights by testing a theoretically derived CSP over-investment theory empirically for the German market. Design/methodology/approach The final sample includes firms listed on the German Prime Standard (DAX30, MDAX and TecDAX) from 2015 to 2019. The study includes a correlation and regression analysis using fixed effects on 363 firm-year observations to investigate the CSP-CFP relationship. This paper applies accounting and market-based CFP measures and uses Thomson Reuters (TR) ESG scores to measure CSP. Findings Overall CSP, social pillar and governance pillar performance improve CFP for firms listed on the German Prime Standard. However, the study provides evidence for a value-destroying effect of CSP over-investment in the social pillar. Research limitations/implications The implications of the study are ambiguous. First, firms can improve CFP when doing good, i.e. increase CSP. Second, however, CSP is a concept of decreasing marginal benefits. Consequently, managers can respond to increasing pressure from investors to be “sustainable” with the argument of CSP over-investment. Policymakers must consider materiality as a potential explanation for the over-investment phenomena when framing sustainable development programs, i.e. the EU Green Deal and regulations such as the Directive 2014/95/EU and the Regulation EU 2020/852. Moreover, the study sensitizes society that sustainability efforts do not exclusively affect CFP positively. Originality/value The paper contributes to CSP literature by revisiting the CSP-CFP relationship and debuting a CSP over-investment hypothesis on the German market. The results are highly relevant for practitioners, policymakers and society, as the study provides an empirical framework to evaluate CSP properly and reveals the importance of materiality in stakeholder management.

DO ECONOMIC FORECASTERS BELIEVE THE STOCK MARKET IS EFFICIENT? EVIDENCE FROM GERMANY

The perception of market efficiency is quite different from the reality of market efficiency. We show using a large survey of German market forecasters that few respondents consistently believe that the stock market is currently efficient and will remain so. Past volatility tends to erode the view that the market is efficient and strengthen the belief that the market is inefficient.

Posisi Kopi Robusta Indonesia di Pasar Jerman Menggunakan Metode Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System

Indonesia is one of the top coffee producers in the world. The major markets for Indonesian coffee are European Union (EU), then Germany is the largest importing country. This research analyzed the position for Indonesian robusta coffee in Germany among Vietnam and India as the major producers of robusta coffee as Indonesia. The econometric model of the Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System was used to estimate a position for Indonesian robusta coffee among its competitors. The analysis utilized time-series data from 1996 to 2017. The results of the study showed that the main exporting countries, including Indonesia, tended to have lower import tariffs than other countries, not the main exporters. The demand for imported coffee beans was generally influenced by the prices of major exporters, but demand for imported roasted coffee was not affected by the prices of major importing countries. Indonesian coffee beans in the German market was elastic, while roasted coffee was inelastic. Indonesian coffee competed with Vietnam both for coffee beans and roasted coffee. The expenditure elasticity of Indonesian coffee beans was positive and Indonesian roasted coffee was negative.

Design and regulation of balancing power auctions: an integrated market model approach

We present an integrated market model which considers the dependencies between the wholesale market and the highly regulated balancing power markets. This fosters the understanding of the mechanisms of these markets and, thus, allows the evaluation of the designs of these markets and their interplay. In contrast to existing literature, in our model the prices on the different markets are interdependent and endogenously determined, which also applies to the switch from inframarginal suppliers to extramarginal suppliers. Linked to this, the implementation of a specific assignment of the suppliers to the different markets is according to their production costs and their ability to provide balancing power. We prove the existence of a market equilibrium, analyze its outcome and contrast this with German market data. Based on this model, we assess design changes, partly stipulated by recent European regulation. This includes uniform pricing as a common settlement rule (effect: no truthful bidding in general), standardized prequalification criteria (promising measure for cost reduction), market flexibilization via “free energy bids” (no increased competition) and the alternative score “mixed-price rule” (no effect on the equilibrium).