Salam Stockholm!
Matein Khalid
My generation were teenagers in the late 1970's and thus passionate fans of Sweden since Abba dominated the Top of the Pops (God, how I hated the ghastly Dancing Queen since every girl in high school thought this syrupy pop tune was written specifically for her!) and Björn Borg dominated Centre Court at Wimbledon as the Men's Champion until the trophy was wrested from him in 1981 in a five set marathon by the awful but brilliant American John McEnroe. As I grew older, I learnt to love Sweden's amazing social tolerance and cosmopolitan culture, its democratic values, welfare state, its beautiful lakes, ancient cities and effervescent young women whom I met in my fave Hellenic beach resorts like Ayia Napa in Cyprus and Mykonos in the Greek Aegean.
However, in 2025, I have a special reason to love Sweden and it is definitely not the ugly furniture of Ikea my Gen-Z twins adore. The Swedish kroner has been the best anti-dollar FX hedge of 2025 and is up an incredible 17% in the last 6-months. As I expect the Trump Buckeroo to fall 20% before the Big Guy leaves the White house, I hope my Swedish kroner stash rises another 20% and offsets the already exorbitant cost of a Scandi holiday. Since I prefer the Med to the Baltics at any time of the year, why not revert back to the 1980's watering holes in the Cyclades and meet nice Swedish people in the Scandinavian love shack rather than actually flying to Stockholm Gothenburg or Malmö.
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Sweden is also one of the world's most successful case studies in innovation and entrepreneurial capitalism, the reason Nasdaq's Old World hub is in Stockholm. This $900 billion economy is one of my favourite countries to invest for the next 5-years as long as Putin does not invade Estonia and try to usurp King Charles XII's role as the supreme war lord of the North with a blockade of the Baltics. After all, Putin is from St. Petersburg, a port founded by Tsar Pyotr Alexievich to fight the Swedish empire, the superpower of the North in the first decade of the 18th century.
This IT/green tech/export colossus is a goldmine for investors who love corruption free economies dedicated to innovation and talent, a natural for any refugee from Planet Dollar like moi!
Also published on Medium.
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