How much is nature worth? This question was asked by private wealth in the 01/19 issue, when analyst Lawson Steele of Berenberg Bank predicted that demand for pollution rights would significantly exceed supply in the future. And that therefore the price for a _{CO2 certificate} would have to rise sharply. In recent months, however, the price of _CO2 has fallen. This could be an opportunity for investors.

Time and again, wealthy people ask themselves the question about the long-term stability of our monetary system. After all, the euro, dollar, franc and yen are all so-called FIAT money - artificially created means of payment with no value of their own, supported solely by trust in the issuing state. In his article "The end of fiat money" from DB Research's Concept 2030 study, Jim Reid has reflected on our fiat money system and comes to some disturbing conclusions.

Jim Reid, DB Research, considers that a fiat money system is inherently unstable because it is susceptible to high inflation. For it is always too tempting for political decision-makers to create unlimited new money in a monetary system based solely on trust.

In times of monetary policy experiments, there is growing interest in "hard" investments, the supply of which cannot be expanded at will and which therefore serve particularly well as a store of value. Today, the most widely used classic alternative to paper currencies is gold. Manuel Andersch, Senior Currency Analyst of the Bayrische Landesbank, calculates in his study "Megatrend Digitalization - will Bitcoin Gold outpace Gold" that Bitcoin will soon be "harder" than gold. The possible conclusions from this work are breathtaking.

At the beginning of the year, investors are keenly interested in twelve-month forecasts in order to find their investment favourites among the stock markets. "But that doesn't make sense," criticizes Norbert Keimling, head of capital market research at StarCapital, "only those who know how to assess the long-term prospects can identify particularly promising markets.

The turn of the year is the wedding of the augurs. The most popular question to them is: How will the DAX perform in the coming year? Norbert Keimling, Head of Capital Market Research at StarCapital, has summarized the forecasts of the leading financial institutions. "The mean value of the DAX estimates for the end of 2020 is 13,999 points, the highest and lowest expectations are 15,000 and 12,500 points respectively.

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When Oliver Schlick, former Chief Investment Officer of Bayerninvest, and his team led by Professor Rudi Zagst of the Technical University of Munich, translated the turbulence probabilities developed by the capital market seismograph into a stock allocation scheme, the professional pursued an ambitious goal. "The systematic change of the stock weighting analogous to the results of the seismograph should not only be a kind of insurance, i.e. strongly reduce losses in sustained downward movements, but at the same time ensure that upward phases on the stock markets are followed," explains the professional.