Index

Italy has been ranked the healthiest country on Earth in the Bloomberg Global Health Index of 163 countries. According to the study, the average life expectancy in the country is 80-89 years, while 2,800 miles south in Sierra Leone, the average newborn will die by 52.

The Bloomberg Global Health Index ranks Italy, Iceland, Switzerland, Singapore and Australia as the countries with the healthiest populations, in that order. The ranking takes into account metrics such as mortality, life expectancy, the number of people with elevated levels of blood pressure, blood glucose, and cholesterol, as well as the prevalence of obesity, alcoholism, and childhood malnutrition in the country.
Also on the top ten are Spain, Japan, Sweden, Israel, and Luxembourg. On the Bloomberg list, the U.S. landed in 34th place, with a health grade of 73.05 out of 100, compared to Italy’s grade of 93.11.

Norway, the Scandinavian nation of 5 million, known for its spectacular fjords, reindeer and "Midnight Sun," ranks No. 1 among 155 countries rated for happiness in a United Nations report out Monday.

The country rocketed from 4th place to the top of the list, on the basis of several key calculations for measuring social happiness, among them levels of caring, freedom to make life decisions, generosity, good governance, honesty, health and income. Notably, on The Children’s Worlds index of material deprivation, Norwegian children lacked the least in the world.

The European Patent Office (EPO) granted a record number of European patents in 2016, while the US led the charge for applications. According to a report released on Tuesday, the EPO granted 96,000 European patents in 2016, an increase of 40% year-on-year, which is due to “effective measures” to improve the EPO’s productivity.

“The figure is an indicator of the growing demand for patent protection from businesses worldwide,” said the EPO. It also recorded an “unprecedented” level of patent filings in 2016, reaching more than 296,000, an increase of 6.2% compared with 2015.

Luxury estate agent Knight Frank and research firm Wealth-X have released their annual report on where the ultra-wealthy are snapping up property across the world. The list focuses on high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) – those with $30 million or more in net assets – and examines their migration patterns.
The report notes: “The latest data on HNWI migration confirms the strong and growing attraction of Australia, the US and Canada as destinations for the footloose wealthy. “Cities such as Sydney and Melbourne top the list of growth markets,” it adds.

Switzerland is viewed as the No. 1 overall country, according to the 2017 Best Countries report, a joint rankings and analysis project from U.S. News & World Report, Y&R’s BAV Consulting and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

People regard the European country highly for its citizenship, being open for business, an environment that encourages entrepreneurship, the quality of life it provides its citizens and for its cultural influence. The rankings evaluate 80 countries – up from 60 last year – across a range of criteria, from power and economic influence to citizenship and quality of life, to capture how nations are perceived on a global scale.

Rolex, the luxury Swiss watchmaker, is the brand with the best corporate reputation in the eyes of consumers, according to a new global survey.

Reputation Institute (RI), a reputation management consultancy, each year compiles a list of the top 100 most reputable companies in the world based on more than 170,000 ratings collected across 15 countries.

Using its proprietary RepTrak measurement system, RI tracks consumers’ perceptions across seven key areas: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance.

Swiss private consumption is set to grow robustly over the coming months as households’ economic and financial expectations have improved considerably, results of a survey by the UBS bank showed Wednesday.

The UBS consumption indicator rose from 1.38 to 1.43 points in January and continues to signal solid growth in private consumption. Swiss consumers view the economic and financial situation with considerably more optimism than in the last quarter. New car registrations and domestic tourism have, however, fallen compared with the previous January. Economists had forecast a score of 1.5.

Richard W. Schabacker, financial editor of Forbes Magazine with previous experiences at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and at the Standard Statistic Company (today Standard & Poor’s), wrote three important books (1) on how financial market works. He described the first price models (patterns) that can be identified on charts, to better understand the sequence of underlying psychological relationships between buyers and sellers.

Hence is the psychological aspect that drives in many situations the movement of market prices. Professor Lo of MIT, is the author of a theory related to financial markets that combines the rational aspect with the psychological aspect (2).