Bloomberg has a program about an online scam factory in the Philippines. Employees thought they were going to work for an online casino but were actually imprisoned to carry out romance scams. A large office/prison complex was next to the city hall, and a local mayor was among the owners. 
After the case was exposed, the mayor received a life sentence and online gambling companies were banned in the Philippines, but similar places still exist, at least in Myanmar. Duration 35 min.
Regarding the news of Faronās day, I hope a funding hangover isnāt hitting yet, but that weāre still experiencing a strong rise for a while. I would even hope that everyone there would take care of their own business like Jurriaan.
Iāll get my jacketā¦
Did you buy those on OPās side?
The only drawback with OP is that there are no currency accounts, and in currency exchange (incl. dividends), you always lose 0.30% each way, which quickly makes it more expensive than Nordnetās prices. 
I mentioned in that broker discussion that price is not the issue here 
But Nordnetās attitude towards Finland and, of course, the blocking of BDC & REITs. I donāt want to change my investments just because some Swedish company says, āyou canāt buy X, Y, and Z through us.ā And what bothers me even more is the āneed to raise prices,ā even though brokerage fees in Finland are already 111 times more expensive than the same companyās prices in Sweden. And itās specifically that difference in service depending on whether youāre Finnish or Swedish, not the price increase itself. For Nordnet, a Finn is a second-class citizen.
How are REITs forbidden in Nordnet and on what grounds, according to them? Iām asking because Iām opening an account there (itās taken three weeks), and Iāve been using a brokerage account at Nordea until now.
Kela (Finnish social insurance institution) tells a slightly different story:
595ā¬ seems to be for four weeks, on average about 640ā¬/month. (These are net amounts).
āYour assets affect housing allowance if\n\n* you live in a single-adult household and have assets over 10,000 eurosā
So, anything over 10kā¬ reduces the housing allowance, it doesnāt remove it completely (of course, there are case-specific differences).
āAssets affecting general housing allowance, e.g.\n\n* Deposits. However, a 2,000 euro deduction for available funds is made from deposits in the account, which does not affect the general housing allowance. The deduction is personal, meaning it is made from each household memberās account deposits.\n* Real estate, but not a self-used holiday home\n\nIf your household has assets of 50,000 euros or more, no housing allowance is paid at all. However, long-term debts such as housing or student loans are first deducted from the assets.\n\nIf you live alone, your labor market subsidy is reduced by capital income and other non-wage income that exceeds the income limit of 311 e/month. From the full labor market subsidy, an amount equal to 75% of the income exceeding the limit is deducted.ā
There seems to be quite a difference according to calculators between an āinvesting/saving unemployed personā vs. a ānon-investing/non-saving unemployed personā; the latter easily gets an advantage of a few hundred euros per month, as the āinvesting/savingā person often doesnāt receive income support (of course, it depends on how much investments/savings there are; if there are twenty euros in savings, income support decreases by those twenty euros per month). Perhaps the incentive of the support system does not mean encouraging investing/saving 
Iāll address this, even though I havenāt read the whole discussion from which this communication originated. This idea that an individual shouldnāt do anything is, in my opinion, catastrophic for the planet and its future, because the individual doesnāt even try to make better and more sustainable choices, let alone reduce consumption. It is true that Finns are a small nation, but relative to our size, we overconsume glaringly. If Africans and Asians consumed as much as Westerners, the Earthās resources would be depleted in a few weeks instead of the current Overshoot Day (July 2025).
You are right that merely driving an electric car wonāt save the world. However, it is a significantly better direction, and as an example, I can say that in our household, with approximately 20,000 km of annual driving, we could reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by a third when the car is charged with renewable energy. This means about three tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), which annually corresponds to a round-trip flight for two people from Helsinki to Las Palmas. Over ten years, the impact is already greater. Small streams create a big impact. When enough people act in the same way, a snowball starts rolling down the hill and the impact grows.
Naturally, housing, diet, and other consumption are the next areas where emissions can be reduced. On the www.ilmastodieetti.fi website, you can calculate your own emissions and consider what is worthwhile and where you can personally reduce emissions. I recommend it. How many people know that the target emission level for Finns according to the Paris 2030 climate agreement is approximately 3 tons of CO2e, when in 2021 the average Finn consumed 7.7 tons of CO2e? Few even reach that now. Why donāt we make changes already now, if financial resources allow it? At best, investments and reduced consumption can leave more money for savings, e.g., for investing.
Canadian REITs were blocked a couple of years ago because, according to Nordnet, they are PRIIP products. Nordnet, however, is alone in this view, meaning they can still be bought today through other brokers.
And, true to their habits, Nordnet has not published any news about this either. They just suddenly blocked them and sent a message if you already had them in your portfolio. Strange business and a bit unclear.
They did the same with BDCs.
Todayās Quarter is coming out a bit late, I ended up talking deeply about an interesting topic again, and I want to edit this in peace. 
Offerings are usually priced in negotiations with institutional investors (i.e., presumably professionals). In addition, the common interest of the organizer and the company is that the offering succeeds excellently (the sellersā interest may be different depending on the situation), making it easier to be a bit cautious with pricing. Furthermore, the relationship between demand and price is not linear. Total gut feeling, but I believe that 70-90% of investors would find the ārightā price within a Ā±10% range. Beyond a certain point, demand would thus drop dramatically, but no one can know what that point is.
Iāll approach this with sarcasm. I often write here about various topics from a sarcastic perspective.
Just yesterday I was driving on the highway and saw how someone had dumped their sofa set and bookshelf by the roadside to rot. These things make me furious. Attitudes and actions need to change. As long as some people recycle and take care of their waste, reducing their footprint, versus others who donāt, the results will be very poor.
Electric car drivers can calmly imagine saving the world. Everyone acts as they see fit. Most of them are probably company car perks, making it easy to put a halo over oneās headā¦
I was thinking about that IPO matter. In recent years, and now, companies going public have already been reviewed by many non-publicly traded investor entities and rejected there, either as uninteresting, non-growing businesses, or as too expensive. Outside the stock market, there are many entities equipped with very large cash reserves and highly professional analysts.
So, does this mean that only companies that are far too expensive, or have businesses without growth potential, have come and will come to the stock market? In other words, bad deals? After the previous IPO boom, I think 80% of listed companies are still below their IPO price, if not more.
If one wants to buy at a reasonable price from an IPO, one must focus only on companies that are less interesting to institutional investors, such as Posti, and avoid subscribing to Cityvarasto and Framery. Quick profits are, of course, a separate matter.
To put it bluntly, have stock market listings become a dumping ground for companies, offering only bad investments?
Hannu Angervuo addressed the issue as early as 2021, when the small-cap IPO boom of that time was at its peak. He already had a very skeptical view then, and it certainly proved to be correct; most of the companies from the 2021 boom were big disappointments in terms of stock performance.
So, for small-cap companies, the stock market has unfortunately been a dumping ground on average in the very recent past, but there are also gems among them. (That hit-and-run refers to a previous study on the previous small-cap boom.)
I myself am very skeptical of companies going public, especially if the company does not have a long history behind it.
The problem with IPOs is that companies usually list when they are doing well and see many investment opportunities. These conditions are often also related to the peak of the economic cycle, which was unusually sharp in 2021.
Investors should always be critical of IPOs.
On the one hand, they expand the investable universe, which is of course a good thing.
On the other hand, they drain liquidity from the stock market into company coffers and increase the supply of shares. Thatās not necessarily a good thing. 
Now we have a huge supply of shares listed in 2020ā22, and no one is interested. Or very few, at least.
Is the stock market a graveyard for companies? For some, certainly. Especially if a private equity investor lists a company, I would be a bit skeptical, although it should be mentioned that, for example, Harvia had Capman as a private equity investor who divested. Not all private equity investors are dumping a made-up corpse on investors.
Why go public? Itās true that thereās plenty of private equity and industrial buyers in these conditions of abundant money. But, for example, private equity takes a controlling stake in a company, and they are not eternal investors. For many entrepreneurs, their own company is like their own child, which they want to see grow and mature. It can be easier to simultaneously maintain a grip on the company and share risk with new owners on the stock exchange than privately.
One minor reason for listing can also be reputation and marketing, and if I recall correctly, Harvia itself seemed to consider this one of the good aspects of listing. Although in professional circles, listing might sometimes be seen as a laborious, unnecessary, expensive, and useless operation, listed companies (especially successful ones) do seem to get a relatively good amount of media coverage, even though my perspective as a stock investor is certainly very biased in this regard.
One should also not underestimate peopleās vanity. There are certainly some founders, owners, and executives who are attracted not only by stock market listing but also by leading a publicly traded company. While such an incentive might lead even somewhat dubious individuals to list a piece of junk in a candy wrapper, it can also sometimes lead an interesting quality company to the stock market.
Iāve slowly started thinking about my own research on the language, terms, and concepts of crypto (Kryptoala).
When you have to deal with something that has no intrinsic value but only a price that everyone is willing to pay, the discussion often becomes very descriptive.
Then, when Strategy comes in with its own strategy, the concepts go to another level.
I would rather say that āit has the instrumental value that is accepted for itā.
One organizer of BTC funds (for companies) remarked that he sees value in Strategyās BTC reserves - but because they are in Strategy, buying could be considered when it dips 90%.
(wants companies to have competent, at least sane management)
Currently, he sees the most value in HPC infrastructure, so BTC is a bit in the background..
Perhaps a somewhat outdated opinion, but in my opinion, cryptocurrencies (too?) are often used to fish for a yuppie-esque symbolic and signal value, which then genuinely raises the price. Itās quite a different thing to be a rapidly enriching cryptobro than to own Keijoās Excavator, even if Keijoās excavator would provide no-brainer income far into the future.
And instrumental value is precisely the accepted price. It does not require or exclude intrinsic value.
To be blunt; sometimes it feels like the big picture gets blurred in these Finnish eco-discussions, when Finnish consumersā ability to influence is globally truly insignificant: Finns make up about one per mille of the worldās population, and the environmental impact is one millionth.
If change is truly desired, then solutions are found entirely in other countries and from other solutions. Blaming and harassing Finns and making life difficult with these matters is absurd.
