Commodity
In economics, a commodity is an economic good or service that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. Most commodities are raw materials, basic resources, agricultural, or mining products, such as iron ore, sugar, or grains like rice and wheat. Commodities can be mass-produced unspecialized products such as chemicals and computer memory; the price of a commodity good is determined as a function of its market as a whole: well-established physical commodities have traded spot and derivative markets. The wide availability of commodities leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors other than price; the word commodity came into use in English in the 15th century, from the French commodité, "amenity, convenience". Going further back, the French word derives from the Latin commoditas, meaning "suitability, advantage"; the Latin word commodus meant variously "appropriate", "proper measure, time, or condition", "advantage, benefit".
In economics, the term commodity is used for economic goods or services that have full or partial but substantial fungibility. Karl Marx described this property as follows: "From the taste of wheat, it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, a French peasant or an English capitalist." Petroleum and copper are examples of commodity goods: their supply and demand are a part of one universal market. Non-commodity items such as stereo systems have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface and the perceived quality; the demand for one type of stereo may be much larger than demand for another. The price of a commodity good is determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have traded spot and derivative markets. Soft commodities are goods that are grown, such as rice. Hard commodities are mined. Examples include gold and oil. Energy commodities include electricity, gas and oil. Electricity has the particular characteristic that it is uneconomical to store, must therefore be consumed as soon as it is processed.
Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and DRAM chips. An article in The New York Times cites multivitamin supplements as an example of commoditization. Following this trend, nanomaterials are emerging from carrying premium profit margins for market participants to a status of commodification. There is a spectrum of commoditization, rather than a binary distinction of "commodity versus differentiable product". Few products have complete undifferentiability and hence fungibility. Many products' degree of commoditization means. For example, milk and notebook paper are not differentiated by many customers. Other customers take into consideration other factors besides price, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare.
To these customers, distinctions such as "organic versus not" or "cage free versus not" count toward differentiating brands of milk or eggs, percentage of recycled content or Forest Stewardship Council certification count toward differentiating brands of notebook paper. This is a list of companies trading globally in commodities, descending by size as of October 28, 2011. Vitol Glencore International AG Trafigura Cargill Salam Investment Archer Daniels Midland Gunvor Mercuria Energy Group Noble Group Louis Dreyfus Group Bunge Limited Wilmar International Olam International In the original and simplified sense, commodities were things of value, of uniform quality, that were produced in large quantities by many different producers. On a commodity exchange, it is the underlying standard stated in the contract that defines the commodity, not any quality inherent in a specific producer's product. Commodities exchanges include: Bourse Africa Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Chicago Board of Trade Chicago Mercantile Exchange Dalian Commodity Exchange Euronext.liffe Kansas City Board of Trade London Metal Exchange Marché à Terme International de France Mercantile Exchange Nepal Limited Multi Commodity Exchange National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange National Commodity Exchange Limited New York Mercantile Exchange Markets for trading commodities can be efficient if the division into pools matches demand segments.
These markets will respond to changes in supply and demand to find an equilibrium price and quantity. In addition, investors can gain passive exposure to the commodity markets through a commodity price index. In order to di
Sweden
Sweden the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre; the highest concentration is in the southern half of the country. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats and Swedes and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia; the climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence, that in spite of this still retains warm continental summers.
Today, the sovereign state of Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state, like its neighbour Norway. The capital city is Stockholm, the most populous city in the country. Legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister. Sweden is a unitary state divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the Hanseatic League threatened Scandinavia's culture and languages; this led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years War on the Reformist side, an expansion of its territories began and the Swedish Empire was formed; this became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809.
The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs; the union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, albeit Sweden has since 2009 moved towards cooperation with NATO. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but declined NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum, it is a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens, it has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality and human development.
The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes"; this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland. Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi and Rootsi are used, names considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, who were known as the Rus', through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia; the etymology of Swedes, thus Sweden, is not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania.
This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology. Sweden is first described in a written source in Germania by Tacitus in 98 AD. In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC; as for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts of male names, demonstrating th
China
China the People's Republic of China, is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering 9,600,000 square kilometers, it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. China emerged as one of the world's earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE. Since China has expanded, re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin established the first Chinese empire; the succeeding Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC until 220 AD, saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements.
The invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty and Northern Song completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread in Asia, as the new Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and Horn of Africa. Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution; the Chinese Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949, when the Communist Party of China established the People's Republic of China, a unitary one-party sovereign state on Mainland China, while the Kuomintang-led government retreated to the island of Taiwan. The political status of Taiwan remains disputed. Since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China's economy has been one of the world's fastest-growing with annual growth rates above 6 percent. According to the World Bank, China's GDP grew from $150 billion in 1978 to $12.24 trillion by 2017. Since 2010, China has been the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and since 2014, the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity.
China is the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest standing army and second-largest defense budget; the PRC is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as it replaced the ROC in 1971, as well as an active global partner of ASEAN Plus mechanism. China is a leading member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, WTO, APEC, BRICS, the BCIM, the G20. In recent times, scholars have argued that it will soon be a world superpower, rivaling the United States; the word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century. It is not a word used by the Chinese themselves, it has been traced through Portuguese and Persian back to the Sanskrit word Cīna, used in ancient India."China" appears in Richard Eden's 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. Barbosa's usage was derived from Persian Chīn, in turn derived from Sanskrit Cīna.
Cīna was first used including the Mahābhārata and the Laws of Manu. In 1655, Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived from the name of the Qin dynasty. Although this derivation is still given in various sources, it is complicated by the fact that the Sanskrit word appears in pre-Qin literature; the word may have referred to a state such as Yelang. The meaning transferred to China as a whole; the origin of the Sanskrit word is still a matter of debate, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China"; the shorter form is "China" Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó, a term which developed under the Western Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne. It was applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing, it was used as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia people from perceived "barbarians". The name Zhongguo is translated as "Middle Kingdom" in English.
Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominids inhabited China between 2.24 million and 250,000 years ago. The hominid fossils of Peking Man, a Homo erectus who used fire, were discovered in a cave at Zhoukoudian near Beijing; the fossilized teeth of Homo sapiens have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Hunan. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 7000 BCE, Damaidi around 6000 BCE, Dadiwan from 5800–5400 BCE, Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BCE; some scholars have suggested. According to Chinese tradition, the first dynasty was the Xia, which emerged around 2100 BCE; the dynasty was considered mythical by historians until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou, Henan in 1959. It remains unclear whether these sites are the remains of the Xia dynasty or of another culture from the same period; the succeeding Shang dynasty is the earliest to be confirmed by contemporary records. The Shang ruled the plain of the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BCE.
Their oracle bone script
Europe
Europe is a continent located in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south, it comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Since around 1850, Europe is most considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. Although the term "continent" implies physical geography, the land border is somewhat arbitrary and has been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity; the division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East-West cultural and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The geographic border does not follow political boundaries, with Turkey and Kazakhstan being transcontinental countries. A strict application of the Caucasus Mountains boundary places two comparatively small countries and Georgia, in both continents.
Europe covers 2 % of the Earth's surface. Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a total population of about 741 million as of 2016; the European climate is affected by warm Atlantic currents that temper winters and summers on much of the continent at latitudes along which the climate in Asia and North America is severe. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast. Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization; the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the subsequent Migration Period marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Renaissance humanism, exploration and science led to the modern era. Since the Age of Discovery started by Portugal and Spain, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at various times the Americas all of Africa and Oceania and the majority of Asia.
The Age of Enlightenment, the subsequent French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic and social change in Western Europe and the wider world. Both world wars took place for the most part in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded, following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill, with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals, it includes all European states except for Belarus and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, a separate political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation.
The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The currency of most countries of the European Union, the euro, is the most used among Europeans. In classical Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess; the word Europe is derived from her name. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, "wide, broad" and ὤψ "eye, countenance", hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean "wide-gazing" or "broad of aspect". Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to a Semitic term for "west", this being either Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" or Phoenician'ereb "evening, west", at the origin of Arabic Maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav. Michael A. Barry, professor in Princeton University's Near Eastern Studies Department, finds the mention of the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night, sunset", in opposition to Asu " sunrise", i.e. Asia.
The same naming motive according to "cartographic convention" appears in Greek Ἀνατολή. Martin Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is poor." Next to these hypotheses there is a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning "darkness", which produced Greek Erebus. Most major world languages use words derived from Europa to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu. In some Turkic languages the Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa; the prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the mid-19th century. Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water
Copenhagen Stock Exchange
The Copenhagen Stock Exchange or CSE, since 2014 called Nasdaq Copenhagen, is an international marketplace for Danish securities, including shares, treasury bills and notes, financial futures and options. Nasdaq Copenhagen is one of the Nasdaq Nordic Exchanges. Nasdaq Nordic goes back to the 2003 merger of OM AB and HEX plc to form OMX and is, since February 2008, part of Nasdaq, Inc.. The exchange was converted to a limited company in 1996 with share capital issued in a ratio of 60-20-20 to members, issuers of shares, issuers of bonds. In 1997 the FUTOP Clearing Center A/S, the Danish derivatives market, became a wholly owned subsidiary. FUTOP issues and guarantees futures and options on shares and interest rate products. FUTOP products can be traded electronically. In 1998, the CSE and the Stockholmsbörsen formed the NOREX Alliance, a step toward developing a Nordic securities market. Normal trading sessions are from 09:00am to 05:00pm on all days of the week except Saturdays and holidays declared by the exchange in advance.
The C20 Index, a weighted, market value index comprising 20 Danish blue chips, launched for futures and options trading. The KFX Index comprises growth companies in the medical, telecommunications and information technology sectors on the exchanges KVX Growth Market; the KAX Index is the exchange's all-share index, introduced in 2001 to replace the previous all-share index. It conforms to the Global Industry Classification Standard developed by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Standard & Poor's. Official site OMX Group
Luminor Bank
Luminor Bank AS is a bank headquartered in Tallinn, with branches in Latvia and Lithuania. It is the third largest bank in the Baltics. Luminor has a deposit market share of 16% and lending market share of 22%. Luminor was founded in August 2017 on the basis of the Baltic operations of Nordea and DNB. Luminor took 350,000 of Nordea former customers; the merger was completed by 1 January 2019. Nordea owned 56.5% and DNB owned 43.5% of Luminor. In September 2018, 60% of Luminor's shares was sold to the Blackstone Group; the transaction was approved by the European Commission in January 2019. After the transaction, Nordea and DNB own of 20% stakes both. Blackstone and Nordea have agreed that Blackstone will purchase Nordea's remaining 20% in luminor. Blackstone is planning to remain the shareholder for four to seven years after which it most will exit by listing Luminor on several stock exchanges. CEO of Lumonor is Erkki Raasuke and chairman of the supervisory board is Nils Melngailis. Kerli Gabrilovica is head of the Latvian branch and Andrius Načajus is head of the Lithuanian branch.
As of 2018, Luminor had 3,000 employees. In February 2019, the bank announced that due to consolidation it will reduce its staff by 130 employees in Estonia, 250 employees in Latvia, 420 employees in Lithuania. Luminor has over €15 billion of assets. Official website
Finance
Finance is a field, concerned with the allocation of assets and liabilities over space and time under conditions of risk or uncertainty. Finance can be defined as the art of money management. Participants in the market aim to price assets based on their risk level, fundamental value, their expected rate of return. Finance can be split into three sub-categories: public finance, corporate finance and personal finance. Matters in personal finance revolve around: Protection against unforeseen personal events, as well as events in the wider economies Transference of family wealth across generations Effects of tax policies management of personal finances Effects of credit on individual financial standing Development of a savings plan or financing for large purchases Planning a secure financial future in an environment of economic instability Pursuing a checking and/or a savings account Personal finance may involve paying for education, financing durable goods such as real estate and cars, buying insurance, e.g. health and property insurance and saving for retirement.
Personal finance may involve paying for a loan, or debt obligations. The six key areas of personal financial planning, as suggested by the Financial Planning Standards Board, are: Financial position: is concerned with understanding the personal resources available by examining net worth and household cash flows. Net worth is a person's balance sheet, calculated by adding up all assets under that person's control, minus all liabilities of the household, at one point in time. Household cash flows total up all from the expected sources of income within a year, minus all expected expenses within the same year. From this analysis, the financial planner can determine to what degree and in what time the personal goals can be accomplished. Adequate protection: the analysis of how to protect a household from unforeseen risks; these risks can be divided into the following: liability, death, disability and long term care. Some of these risks may be self-insurable, while most will require the purchase of an insurance contract.
Determining how much insurance to get, at the most cost effective terms requires knowledge of the market for personal insurance. Business owners, professionals and entertainers require specialized insurance professionals to adequately protect themselves. Since insurance enjoys some tax benefits, utilizing insurance investment products may be a critical piece of the overall investment planning. Tax planning: the income tax is the single largest expense in a household. Managing taxes is not a question of if you will pay taxes, but when and how much. Government gives many incentives in the form of tax deductions and credits, which can be used to reduce the lifetime tax burden. Most modern governments use a progressive tax; as one's income grows, a higher marginal rate of tax must be paid. Understanding how to take advantage of the myriad tax breaks when planning one's personal finances can make a significant impact in which can save you money in the long term. Investment and accumulation goals: planning how to accumulate enough money – for large purchases and life events – is what most people consider to be financial planning.
Major reasons to accumulate assets include purchasing a house or car, starting a business, paying for education expenses, saving for retirement. Achieving these goals requires projecting what they will cost, when you need to withdraw funds that will be necessary to be able to achieve these goals. A major risk to the household in achieving their accumulation goal is the rate of price increases over time, or inflation. Using net present value calculators, the financial planner will suggest a combination of asset earmarking and regular savings to be invested in a variety of investments. In order to overcome the rate of inflation, the investment portfolio has to get a higher rate of return, which will subject the portfolio to a number of risks. Managing these portfolio risks is most accomplished using asset allocation, which seeks to diversify investment risk and opportunity; this asset allocation will prescribe a percentage allocation to be invested in stocks, bonds and alternative investments.
The allocation should take into consideration the personal risk profile of every investor, since risk attitudes vary from person to person. Retirement planning is the process of understanding how much it costs to live at retirement, coming up with a plan to distribute assets to meet any income shortfall. Methods for retirement plans include taking advantage of government allowed structures to manage tax liability including: individual structures, or employer sponsored retirement plans and life insurance products. Estate planning involves planning for the disposition of one's assets after death. There is a tax due to the state or federal government at one's death. Avoiding these taxes means that more of one's assets will be distributed to one's heirs. One can leave one's assets to friends or charitable groups. Corporate finance deals with the sources of funding and the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources.
Although it is in principle different from managerial finance which studies the financial management of all firms, rather than corporations alone, the main concepts in the study of corporate finance are applicable to the financial problems of all kinds of firms. Corporate f
€9.303 billion (2016)
€3.766 billion (2016)
Selected members of the Euro Banking Association