SNB & CHF

Those who own stocks and housing now will continue getting richer, those who don’t will be priced out of these markets. A classified Federal Reserve memo sheds new light on the Fed’s confidence in its control of the economy and the stock and housing markets. In effect, the Fed is guaranteeing that there will be no recession for another 10 years, and that stocks and housing will remain in a permanent uptrend....

The number of Swiss Abroad citizens grew by 1.1% to reach 760,200 at the end of last year. Most live in neighbouring countries and in the United States. The expatriate community accounts for 10.6% of the total number of Swiss nationals, according to official statisticsexternal link published on Thursday. Nearly three-quarters of the Swiss Abroad have dual nationality. The most significant increase compared with 2017...

Construction of residential units has also experienced a decline. (Keystone / Martin Ruetschi) A significant increase in vacant homes is predicted by Zurich Cantonal Bank. Suburbs are particularly prone to lower occupancy levels. The problem of empty housing, particularly in the urban periphery, is likely to worsen, with construction activity concentrated in areas with already high vacancy rates. Last year around 59,700...

Alhambra CEO discusses all the talk about the recent yield curve inversion and how he views it. [embedded content] Related posts: Monthly Macro Monitor – February (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – December 2018 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – October 2018 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – January 2019 Monthly Macro Chart Review – March (VIDEO) Monthly...

The Swiss export industry is expected to suffer from worsening international conditions. Worsening international conditions will have a negative impact on Switzerland’s export-driven economy, prompting the Swiss Economic Institute (KOF) to lower its forecast for this year. KOF on Wednesday announced it had revised its growth forecast down from 1.6% to 1% for Switzerland’s gross domestic product. However, the latest...

Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable Interviews Jayant Bhandari Maurice Jackson of Proven & Probable has just conducted another interview with Jayant Bhandari, who is known to long-time readers as a frequent guest author on this site. Jayant Bhandari Below is a video of the interview as well as a link for downloading the transcript of the interview in PDF form. But first here is a list of the topics discussed:...

© Klevo _ Dreamstime.com Over the first three months of 2018 Switzerland’s authorities made 80 requests for Facebook user data, however two thirds of them were rejected, according to the newspaper SonntagsBlick as reported in 20 Minutes. When the requests were urgent the response rate rose to two thirds of requests. Reto Nause, responsible for security in Bern, is unhappy with the social network’s response record....

On board the Gotthard Panorama Express (Keystone) Foreign visitors spent 6.4% more on Swiss Travel System tickets in 2018 than in the previous year. Sales rose to over CHF130 million ($131 million). 2018 is thus the sixth record year in a row, the Swiss Federal Railways saidexternal link on Tuesday. Chinese guests were the top foreign users of public transport, with sales of CHF20.3 million, an increase of 14.9%. They...

Entering commoditized, fiercely competitive low-margin services cannot substitute for the high-margin profits that will be lost as global recession and saturation erode iPhone sales. Apple has always been equally an enterprise and a secular religion. The Apple Faithful do not tolerate heretics or critics, and non-believers “just don’t get it.” So the first thing any critic must do is establish their credentials as a...

Generations of people have learned to live with boom and bust economic cycles. Years of relative plenty were followed, as night follows day, by grief including high unemployment and forced emigration on a large scale. In fact, if you go back much beyond the late 1960s, it would not be too cynical to say the cycles were often more about going from bust to really busted, as for decades the country was hit by crippling...