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BRICS and MIST
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- Category: Personal Finance
- Published on Sunday, 08 April 2012 00:00
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 67
Reading the Economist this week I learned about a new country grouping. But possibly a grouping that won't be mentioned in Austria. MIST is the grouping of Mexio, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey. However given that Mist in Austrian German is a milder expletive than the Sch... word I expect mentions to be scarcer.
153% market penetration for SIM cards in Austria!
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- Category: Technology
- Published on Friday, 30 March 2012 00:00
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 68
Mobile phone SIM card penetration in Austria stands at a massive 153% of the population - according to a graphic in an article on futurezone.at (full article: http://futurezone.at/b2b/8284-wir-sind-nicht-in-der-lage-geld-zu-verdienen.php) - but this is down to the fact that many people have USB stick modems and/or tablet devices. I feel relatively frugal with only 2 contract SIMs in Austria. But then again there are also the 2 for Belgium, 2 for the UK and 1 for Switzerland - not to mention all the dead sims I have from places like Hong Kong, Lesotho, South Africa and Namibia!
Gold - has the bubble burst?
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- Category: Gold
- Published on Saturday, 24 March 2012 00:00
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 79
With the gold price having risen steadily until September 2011 for an extended period of time, recent months have seen a fluctuating gold price. The gold price was again subject of an article in Austrian daily Die Presse this week (story here) and is currently down approx. USD 300 per troy ounce on the September price and back at the mid January levels at approx. USD 1630 per troy ounce.
Source: Die Presse - 22.03.2012
The article also contains a box about the ways to invest in gold and their various advantages. Although the advise is not ground-breaking (e.g. only holding approx. 5-10% in precious metals), it does provide some interesting suggestions. It offers three tips in particular.
1) Diversification - i.e. holding only 5-10% in precious metals. The gold price predominantly increased in periods where there are low interest rates prevailing. It is only a long-term way of buffering falling stock markets.
2) Indirect investment through shares in mining companies. They are easier to trade than physical gold. There is production risk - e.g. if production is halted you have the consequences to face that are reflected in the share price.
3) Certificates: The fees at purchase are lower than for physical gold. They are in the form of bank debt securities. Leverage allows higher factors for profits and losses. There is however an institutional risk - if the bank goes to the wall then your investment is also gone.
With regard to the long-term side of it - physical gold is not easy to sell - since it requires an Assay test prior to resale. Of course the advantage of holding physical gold in Austria is that it is exempt from speculation taxes. Also holding physical gold has a storage risk - i.e. you need to have insurance coverage to cover gold holdings and anything more than a very modest holding is likely to require a safe that is encased in concrete and more or less impossible to remove. Investment in shares is liable to speculation taxes, although they are a lot easier to trade than physical gold.
How will Austria's Sparpaket affect property owners?
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- Category: Personal Finance
- Published on Friday, 10 February 2012 08:28
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 195
With the government having finalised its Sparpaket - with various measures being deployed across the board, property owners and speculators are going to be affected by it.
Der Standard claims that it will be the death knell for "Vorsorgewohnungen" (apartments bought for investment purposes e.g. buy-for-rent) with people reverting back to selling on "schwarz" thereby getting round Capital Yield Tax (KESt) (i.e. sell on at the purchase price contained in the Grundbuch and use a cash transaction to the vendor for the remaining balance e.g. flat bought for EUR 80,000 and sold for EUR 120,000 "sold" for EUR 80,000 in terms of the Grundbuch and the remaining EUR 40,000 would be done in cash - thereby getting round EUR 10,000 in KESt). Previously holding onto a property other than your principle residence for over 10 years allowed you to sell it on without being liable for the KESt on the gain.
What appears to be unclear to me is:
1) Whether there will be a transitional period (i.e. to allow a quick sale prior to the legislation coming into force)
2) Whether it will affect only new property purchases (say from 1.7.2012), or will cover previously purchased properties (in this instance the worst case scenario would have been to have bought a place in 2002-3 which could have been sold in 2012-13 without paying KESt on the increase, which would now have KESt applied on the increase regardless of whether kept for over 10 years).
2012 to see large shake-up among Austrian mobile phone operators
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- Category: Technology
- Published on Thursday, 05 January 2012 22:27
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 137
From recent articles on futurezone.at (most notably: http://futurezone.at/b2b/6681-drei-verz ... 1-netz.php) there is a big shake-up ahead for mobile operators in Austria this year.
Drei will cancel its network sharing with A1 (it has used A1's GSM and GPRS network since its launch in 2003) in order to combine network coverage with T-Mobile (owners of Tele.Ring) which will save between EUR 5-10 million a year, as the two will swap mobile network capacity, also improving T-Mobile's 3G network coverage as a consequence. There will be a period of parallel operation (i.e. using both A1 and T-Mobile's 2G networks before going over solely to T-Mobile only). The change will not affect the deal that is due to be completed soon under which Drei will take over Orange. Drei will spend EUR 1.4bn on Orange, with EUR 300m being raised by selling Yesss! some frequency spectrum and base stations to A1 for EUR 300m.
Saving EUR 1,200 in a year the painless way...
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- Category: Personal Finance
- Published on Monday, 02 January 2012 12:10
- Written by mdgb
- Hits: 149
With the prospect of a new recession in 2012 becoming ever more likely, I thought about my outgoings to consider what steps I could take to save EUR 1,200 (i.e. EUR 100 per calendar month). I came to the rapid conclusion that a return to cash purchases only for the time being and also to examine my non-essential spending would be the easiest way to save EUR 100 a month. My social outgoings are likely to decrease due to having more nights in with my girlfriend (socialising-wise single males certainly spend more in bars etc.) but the real thief of money is my use of taxis due to my inability to keep good time. Coupled with the fact that I often "grab a snack" - e.g. a filled sandwich on the way to/from the office, which probably costs me EUR 3-4 per day and the savings could be quite substantial. So it is bye bye pizza slice, noodles, takeaway sushi and bye bye taxis. I'll keep posting my monthly progress on spendings in these two categories (snacks and taxis) to see what I am not spending. Better time-keeping should hopefully reduce the calories consumed in this way as well as ensuring that I travel only by tram, bus or U-Bahn through Vienna and to/from the airport.