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Where are the Ultra-Rich Buying Luxury Homes? Ranking the world’s best cities for luxury The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays. Whether it’s a 10,000 sq. ft mansion in Bel Air, or a classy penthouse in Monaco with a harbor view, the buyers of top-end real estate tend to be very particular. In fact, the most robust markets for luxury real estate can be found concentrated in only a few world-class cities like Hong Kong, London, or New York, or in luxury destinations like Cannes or The Hamptons....

Oil is by far the world’s most-traded commodity, with $786.3 billion of crude changing hands in international trade in 2015. While low commodity prices can hurt any major producer, oil prices can have a particularly detrimental effect on oil-rich economies. This is because, for better or worse, many of these economies hold onto oil as an anchor for achieving growth, filling government coffers, and even fueling social programs. If those revenues don’t materialize as planned, these countries turn increasingly fragile....

Commodities: To Short, or Not to Short? [Chart] Comparing “Dogs of the Dow” inspired strategies over the last decade The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays. Over the last week, we have received a wide variety of reactions from our audience regarding the Periodic Table of Commodity Returns that we published last Thursday from our friends at U.S. Global Investors. The most interesting email came from Brad Farquhar, the Executive Vice President and CFO of Input Capital, a Canadian-based agricultural streaming company....

Core Values of America’s Top 7 Tech Firms Every successful business is built on a vision. While sometimes these values get muddied down with the bigger and more corporate a company gets, tech companies have a reputation of staying honed in like a laser on their principles. This is partly because tech companies can rise and appreciate in value faster than other businesses. With a shorter lifespan, there is less chance that these founding ideas can change or degrade over time to corporate entropy....

This milestone will likely capture the attention of global policymakers, as the BoJ is the only central bank to purchase equities—a practice it first began in 2010. These purchases were intended to stabilize the Japanese economy after the 2008 financial crisis, but have carried on ever since. Why Does the Bank of Japan Purchase Equities? For decades, Japan has experienced a stubbornly low rate of economic growth relative to its peers....

Why Apple Watch is the Only Smartwatch That Matters Apple’s business model has famously focused on proprietary ecosystems to maintain maximum control over how a product is designed and marketed to consumers. When the company whiffs on a design, it can lead to one of their many product flops. However, when Apple hits the nail on the head, it can be a game-changer. Before the launch of the Apple Watch, there was much debate among analysts as to whether it would even move the needle on revenues for such a massive company....

However, cannabis itself is a fairly perplexing substance. It has close to 500 active compounds, and at least 113 of these belong to a family of diverse chemical compounds called cannabinoids. Of this group, the two most common and researched compounds are THC and CBD – but they are vastly different. As new strains and product offerings become available in the legal cannabis sector, it is more important than ever before for investors to understand the difference between these two compounds....

Not only are you up against the world’s best investors, but you’re also up against yourself. It’s easy to get caught making irrational decisions based on your own personal blindspots or cognitive biases, and these mistakes can lead to buying when you should sell, and vice versa. For the above reasons, the most successful investors are often those that have rational and proven systems in place. Having a method to your madness allows you to have confidence in your decisions, while also taking advantage of the strategies and heuristics that have performed well for the world’s most elite investors....

Everybody loves a little competition. It levels the playing field and ensures prices and products are kept affordable and available. But how do you measure and track the competitiveness of specific sectors? The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) is a commonly accepted measurement of market concentration, and in today’s case, we use it to show which mineral sectors have healthy competition between countries, as well as the sectors that are more monopolistic....

The Bitcoin Universe Explained This infographic explains the wide ranges of the Bitcoin universe, accompanied with quotes from some of its best-known business leaders. The diverse selection of companies in the Bitcoin universe is one of the multiple reasons that we are bullish on the cryptocurrency. Slowly, but surely, we expect Bitcoin to creep out of the hype cycle “trough of disillusionment” that many technologies go through. Original graphic by: Bitcoin Magazine...

Manufacturers created new body styles and market segments, automatic transmissions and power steering were introduced, and safety features such as airbags made passengers much safer. Computers were even added into cars to optimize performance and provide GPS for navigation purposes. In short, vehicles got cheaper, lighter, stronger, safer, cleaner, faster, and more luxurious. But despite this, there is a strong case that the biggest innovations in the auto industry are yet to come....

However, in actuality, the converse is true: modern media creates an echo chamber. Facebook and Google both create information vaccuums: by taking your past activities in account, they will display “news” that is geared to provide confirmation bias. In other words, you will see posts in your newsfeed and search results that tend to confirm your pre-existing beliefs, rather than challenge them. One way to challenge this? Instead of just assuming what other people believe, it’s worth it to actively search for data that provides a broad and unbiased perspective....

Globally, income from work fell $3.5 trillion in the first nine months of 2020, a change of -10.7% compared to the same period in 2019. In the above map, Our World in Data reveals the different levels of income support provided by governments across the globe. Income support, in this case, is defined as governments broadly covering lost salaries, or providing universal basic income or direct payments to people who have lost their jobs or cannot work....

About Mining Builds British Columbia Everything used by British Columbians in their everyday lives is either grown or found in the ground. The Mining Builds British Columbia Series covers six essential areas of life where materials derived from mining make a big impact. How does mining heal BC? Without materials such zinc, gold, lead, and molybdenum, modern health would be near impossible. Hospitals and doctors rely on many materials based on metals and minerals that are needed for instruments, equipment, and facilities that are needed for healing....

A personal saving rate is calculated as the ratio of personal saving to disposable personal income. Here’s a look at the U.S.’ personal saving rate over 2020. The U.S.’ personal saving rate skyrocketed in April to more than 30%. After a dip near the end of 2020, the rate has jumped back up again to around 20% in January 2021. With the most recent data from September 2020, many European countries’ savings rates were up, as well—the highest rate occurred in the Netherlands at 24%....

For starters, automakers are some of the world’s biggest advertisers. In 2020, the automotive industry spent $33 billion on advertising in the U.S. alone. Automakers also maintain a strong physical presence by placing their logo on every car they produce. This form of self-promotion is an automotive tradition, and because of it, car logos are designed to be eye-catching and memorable. To learn more, we’ve illustrated the histories of six brands of interest....

The Hedge Fund All-Stars Hedge funds are a vehicle that some of the wealthiest people in the world use to invest their capital, and the people managing the funds can make a killing. As evidenced by the above infographic, hedge fund managers that know what they are doing will undoubtedly end up in the “billionaire club.” But it’s not just the titans of the industry that are making good money. In America, the average salary for an entry-level analyst position is $335,000....

The Internet of Things in 2020 We’ve previously posted about the Internet of Things and the pace at which new devices are connected to the internet. However, this archived (but still relevant) infographic does a much better job at visualizing this exponential growth. There are roughly 10 billion devices connected to the web today. By 2020, Intel estimates there will be 31 billion devices connected. Here are some other predictions for the IoT in 2020:...

The Nuclear Conundrum [Chart] Median age of all operating nuclear reactors is 28.8 years and counting. The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays. The nuclear sector today certainly has its immediate challenges. Costs had already been a long problem, but the incident at Fukushima complicated matters even further. The industry and regulators were forced to take a second look at its safety practices and plant designs, creating uncertainty for the sector....

The Process For Printing US Currency Recently, a story surfaced about counterfeiting US currency that would be good enough for Hollywood. The Secret Service brought down a ring of counterfeiters who produced at least $77 million worth of fake American green! The gang consisted of thirteen Israelis and Americans who operated a money-printing factory out of a New Jersey warehouse. The Secret Service had been chasing this group for years and even watched it import a printing press via a semi truck to their facility....