SNB & CHF

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade...

Construction workers meeting before a rally in Bellinzona, canton Ticino. Some 3,000 construction workers staged a strike in southern Switzerland on Monday to protest changes in the industry, including disputes around the retirement age of 60. Further action is planned in Geneva on Tuesday. The strikes in canton Ticino were jointly called by the Unia, Syna, and OCST trade unions, who claimed that business leaders were...

Q. The UK voted in s referendum to leave the EU in June 2016. It will happen at the end of March 2019. What is the status of the negotiations? A: It had been hoped that the two sides would be close enough to allow a special summit to be called next month to finalize an agreement. This seems a bit premature, but an agreement still seems likely shortly.  There are two stumbling blocks. The first is the Irish border. The...

The calendar last month hadn’t yet run out on US Industrial Production as it had for US Retail Sales. The hurricane interruption of 2017 for industry unlike consumer spending extended into last September. Therefore, the base comparison for 2018 is against that artificial low. As such, US IP rose by 5.1% year-over-year last month. That’s the largest gain since 2010. While that may be, over the last five months American...

In one of the most profound developments in the central bank gold market for a long time, the Hungarian National Bank, Hungary’s central bank, has just announced a 10 fold jump in its monetary gold holdings. The central bank, known as Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) in Hungarian, made the announcement in Budapest, Hungary’s capital. The details of Hungary’s dramatic new gold purchase are as follows: Before this month,...

Keith Weiner, CEO & Founder of Monetary Metals, gives insights into the seldom understood dynamics leading to the pathology of currency market manipulation by central banks.

Keith Weiner, CEO & Founder of Monetary Metals, gives insights into the seldom understood dynamics leading to the pathology of currency market manipulation by central banks.

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.13% at 1.1449 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 17(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Led by a dramatic recovery in US stocks, global equities are moving higher today. Before last week, decline, the US stock market lacked breadth, but not only did the S&P 500 and NASDAQ post their biggest advance in several...

The plans foresee continued government subsidies to ensure animals’ well-being. The main Swiss business federation has released its recommendations for the government’s sensitive reforms of the agriculture sector. Farmers’ groups reacted with cautious approval. Economiesuisseexternal link gave its appraisal of the government’s 2022 agricultural reform plans on Monday, an appraisal that mostly centred around the...

The decline in the global equity market is the most serious since the February and March spill. In this Great Graphic, the white line is the S&P 500. With the setback, it is up a little more than 8% for the year. It managed to recover fully from the sell-off earlier in the year. The fuchsia line is the MSCI World Index of developed countries. It is up 1.25% year-to-date, and it never managed to take out the high set...