Learn the basics
Five-minute explainers on how money, markets and the economy work. No jargon without an explanation, and never a tip.
What is inflation, and why does 2% matter?
Inflation in plain words: what the number measures, why central banks aim for about 2% a year, and what it does to your salary and savings.
02 · 4 minWhat is a stock market index?
What the S&P 500, the DAX or Lisbon's PSI actually measure, how an index is built, and why the news reports it every day.
03 · 5 minETFs and single shares: what's the difference?
A share is a slice of one company; an ETF is a basket of many, traded like a single share. How they differ on risk, cost and effort.
04 · 5 minWhat moves the markets?
Company profits, interest rates, inflation and mood: the main forces behind share and bond prices, explained without jargon.
05 · 4 minWhat is a bond, and what is a yield?
A bond is a loan you can buy and sell. What its yield means, why bond prices fall when yields rise, and why it matters for your mortgage.
06 · 5 minHow does the stock market work?
What a stock exchange does, how buyers and sellers agree a price, what bid and ask mean, and how market and limit orders differ.
07 · 4 minWhat is a dividend?
Dividends in plain words: how companies share profits, what dividend yield and the ex-dividend date mean, and accumulating vs distributing funds.
08 · 5 minCompound interest: how money grows on its own growth
Compounding explained with real numbers: why returns on past returns add up over time, the rule of 72, and how fees and inflation work against it.
09 · 5 minDiversification: not putting all your eggs in one basket
What diversification means, how spreading money across companies, sectors, countries and asset types reduces risk, and what it cannot protect against.
10 · 5 minRisk and return: why higher gains come with bigger swings
Volatility, drawdowns and time horizon in plain words, the trade-off between risk and return, and how to read the 1–7 risk score in an EU KID.
11 · 5 minInvestment costs: the fees that quietly eat your returns
TER, trading fees, spreads, currency conversion, custody fees and taxes explained, with a worked example of how a 1% vs 0.2% yearly fee adds up.
12 · 5 minCentral banks explained: what the ECB does
What the European Central Bank is for, its three key interest rates, how often it decides, and how a rate change reaches your savings and your mortgage.
13 · 5 minGDP and recessions: what the headlines mean
What GDP measures, real versus nominal growth, why early figures get revised, what counts as a recession, and what GDP leaves out.
14 · 5 minExchange rates explained: reading EUR/USD
How to read a currency pair like EUR/USD, why exchange rates move, and what a strong or weak euro means for holidays, prices and foreign investments.
15 · 4 minBull and bear markets: what the terms mean
What bull and bear markets are, where the 20% and 10% conventions come from, what a correction is, and why nobody can reliably time the turns.
16 · 5 minWhat is crypto? Bitcoin and cryptoassets in plain words
What Bitcoin and other cryptoassets are, blockchain in brief, stablecoins, why prices swing so much, the main risks, and the EU's MiCA rules.
17 · 5 minWhat is leverage? Margin and CFDs explained
Leverage means investing with borrowed money. How margin and CFDs work, why losses grow as fast as gains, and the EU's protections for retail investors.