SNB & CHF

A report by The Boston Consulting Group highlights the size of Switzerland’s personal offshore wealth management sector. ©-Valeriya-Potapova-_-Dreamstime.com_ - Click to enlarge Total personal offshore wealth grew by 6% to reach US$8.2 trillion in 2017. US$2.3 trillion (28%) of this was managed in Switzerland. The top three offshore centres: Switzerland ($2.3 trillion), Hong Kong ($1.1 trillion) and Singapore ($0.9...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.40% to 1.1533 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 18(see more posts on EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is rising against most of the major and emerging market currencies. The prospects of escalating trade tensions and the divergence of policy that was confirmed by the major central banks are disrupting the markets. Norway’s...

All three of the major central banks met last week and confirmed that monetary policy would continue to diverge for at least another year.  The clarity of the trajectory of monetary policy reduces the impact of high-frequency economic data. There are three major disruptive forces the make for a challenging investment climate just the same: the US policy mix, trade tensions, and immigration. The mix of tighter monetary...

Summary US-China trade tensions are rising. Pakistan devalued the rupee for a third time since December. Bulgaria will seek to join the eurozone banking union and ERM-2 simultaneously. The National Bank of Hungary appears to have tilted more hawkish. Newly elected Egyptian President El-Sisi shuffled his cabinet. Argentina has a new central bank chief after Federico Sturzenegger resigned. Chile central bank signaled...

Bad Hair Day Produces Positive Divergences On Friday the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China was apparently escalated by a notch to the next level, at least verbally. The Trump administration announced a list of tariffs that are supposed to come into force in three week’s time and China clicked back by announcing retaliatory action. In effect, the US government said: take that China, we will now really hurt...

L’histoire de la construction de l’Union européenne est avant tout une histoire d’endettement public. La preuve en un graphique: Le volume cumulée d’endettement de l’UE atteint en 2017 le chiffre respectable de 12, 46664 billions d’euros (à ne pas confondre avec le billion américain!). Cela revient à  un endettement cumulé de 12 466 640 000 000 euros, soit 12 trillions d’euros (référence de mesure US) Maintenant, la...

Switzerland still attracts a lot of wealth The stock market boom boosted personal financial wealth around the globe by 12% last year – to the benefit of Switzerland. It is still the world’s biggest centre for managing offshore wealth at $2.3 trillion (CHF2.3 trillion). Figures revealed in a Boston Consulting Group reportexternal link published on Thursday put the country ahead of Hong Kong ($1.1 trillion) and Singapore...

The bubbles in assets are supported by the invisible bubble in greed, euphoria and credulity. Well, folks, here we go again: we have a double-bubble economy in housing and stocks, and a third difficult-to-chart bubble in greed, euphoria and credulity. Feast your eyes on Housing Bubble #2, a.k.a. the Echo Bubble: S&P/Case-Shiller 2000-2018 - Click to enlarge Here’s the S&P 500 stock index (SPX): no bubble...

The number of registered unemployed in Switzerland dropped by 9% in May 2018 to a rate of 2.4%, down from 2.7% in April, according to a report by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). The rate in May 2018 was 22% lower than in May 2017. ©-Sculpies-_-Dreamstime.com_ - Click to enlarge Switzerland’s unemployment hasn’t been this low since 2008. In March 2018, SECO changed the way it calculates unemployment...

© Lovelyday12 | Dreamstime.com Yesterday, Switzerland’s National Council, or parliament, voted 95 to 94, with 3 abstentions, to introduce quotas for the management and boards of quoted companies. Boards will be required to have 30% women and management teams 20%. The rules could affect 250 companies. At the same time the quotas will not come with sanctions. Companies would have to explain why the quotas had not been met...