Until last week, the Bucharest Stock Exchange was the best-performing stock exchange in the world — not one of the top 5, but number one! This year, the benchmark index of the Romanian economy, the BET index, has risen by almost +50%, with a positive performance of +80% over the last 12 months. The crises of recent weeks have triggered steep declines on the exchange. Sitting some 10–12% below its previous highs, the market reminds us that in investing, you can go from ecstasy to agony in a very short time.

Despite a prolonged government crisis, talk of Romania being downgraded to “junk” status (not recommended for investors) and public debt that has reached 60% of GDP, I still believe our country is headed in the right direction and that we have a lot to build and invest in here.

Today, after a run of consecutive sessions in which the BET index closed down 2–3%, and with many financial analysts trying to explain the recent sudden declines, we invested more than €300,000 in Romania — myself and other investors with whom I am fortunate to talk, interact and learn about finance.

There is no getting rich overnight, but the desire for a better life in 10 or 20 years, in a country we love, lives in each of us. When times are turbulent, calm wins. With every crisis Romania has been through, every single time, I have seen an opportunity to support it so it doesn’t fall even further — and yes, I have entrusted it with my money, money I saved and then invested, convinced that this country knows how to multiply it. Just as America multiplies Americans’ money, and Poland multiplies Poles’ money, Romania has shown in recent years that it can multiply the money of Romanians who invest on the stock exchange.

So why don’t we understand that every bit of instability we create at home costs us dearly?

Listed companies lose millions of euros in market capitalisation in times of crisis, and these capital outflows from the stock exchange end up hitting every one of our pockets.

Even if you don’t actively invest on the stock market, part of the contributions you pay every month on your salary or income goes to Pillar II pensions, which are exposed both to government bonds and to companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. If you reached retirement age tomorrow, and tomorrow Bucharest were also hit by a crisis that sent the market down 20%, your pension money would be much smaller.

In March–April 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 crisis, many Americans approaching retirement age decided to liquidate their private pension accounts, with losses of more than 35–40% compared with January 2020. By the end of the year, the US stock market had recovered those losses and, more than that, had grown Americans’ money by over 18%. In recent years, we have grown used to crises that come and go relatively quickly. But what do we do if crises (many of them self-inflicted, like the ones we are seeing today) last longer and end up having a significant impact on the economy and on investor sentiment? How do we cope when the recovery is expected to be slow, as it was after the 2008 crisis?

Are the nearly 400,000 investors on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, together with the more than 4.5 million Romanians who contribute 4.75% of their gross monthly income to Pillar II pensions every single month, willing to withstand recurring bouts of crisis that erode their chances of financial independence and a life with fewer worries?

The stock market “sneezes and may even catch a cold” at every tremor on the political and financial scene.

Romania, today I invested €300,000 in your economy. Do you know what to do with it?