SNB & CHF

© Iurii Konoval | Dreamstime Call it “dirty money” if you wish, because there’s about CHF 3 million in gold and silver found each year in Swiss sewage. But no one is going to get rich, according to a just-published report by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag). Recovering the estimated CHF 1.5 million in gold, and the same in silver, that passes through Swiss wastewater each year,...

– London house prices fall in September: first time in eight years– High-end London property fell by 3.2% in year– House sales down by over a very large one-third – Global Real Estate Bubble Index – see table– Brexit, rising inflation and political uncertainty causing many buyers to back away from market– U.K. housing stock worth record £6.8 trillion, almost 1.5 times value of LSE and more than the value of all the gold...

Ahead of tomorrow’s payroll report the narrative is being set that it will be weak because of Harvey and Irma. Historically, major storms have had a negative effect on the labor market. Just as auto sales were up sharply in September very likely because of the hurricane(s) and could remain that way for several months, payrolls could be weak for the same reasons and the same timeframe. That said, we can’t pretend as if...

Cryptic Pronouncements If a world conflagration, God forbid, should break out during the Trump Administration, its genesis will not be too hard to discover: the thin-skinned, immature, shallow, doofus who currently resides in the Oval Office! The commander-in-chief – a potential source of radiation? - Click to enlarge This past week, the Donald has continued his bellicose talk with both veiled and explicit threats...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.06% to 1.1507 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar’s advance faltered before the weekend after rise average hourly earnings and a new cyclical low in unemployment and underemployment initially fueled greenback buying. There is no doubt the data was skewed by the storms, though...

Andreas Marquart and Philipp Bagus (see their mises.org author pages here and here) were recently interviewed about their new book by the Austrian Economics Center. Unfortunately for English-language readers, the book is only available in German. Nevertheless, the interview offers some valuable insights.  Mr. Marquart, Mr. Bagus, you have released your new book „Wir schaffen das – alleine!” (“We can do it – alone!”)...

What the Federal Reserve is actually whining about is not low inflation–it’s that high inflation isn’t pushing wages higher like it’s supposed to. It’s not exactly a secret that real-world inflation is a lot higher than the official rates–the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Personal Consumption Expenditures PCE). As many observers have pointed out, there are two primary flaws in the official measures of inflation: 1....

Unemployment Rate (not seasonally adjusted) Berne, 10 October 2017 – Registered unemployment in September 2017 – According to the SECO surveys, 133,169 unemployed persons were registered at the regional employment services centers (RAV) at the end of September 2017, 2,409 less than in the previous month. The unemployment rate remained at 3.0% in the reporting month. Compared to the previous month, unemployment fell by...

USD/CHF EUR/CHF EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge EUR/JPY [embedded content] EUR/JPY with Technical Indicators, October 10(see more posts on EUR/JPY, ) - Click to enlarge EUR/AUD [embedded content] EUR/AUD with Technical Indicators, October 10(see more posts on eur/aud, ) - Click to enlarge USD/CHF [embedded content]...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Where the Good Things Go Many gold bugs make an implicit assumption. Gold is good, therefore it will go up. This is tempting but wrong (ignoring that gold does not go anywhere, it’s the dollar that goes down). One error is in thinking that now you have discovered a truth, everyone else will see it quickly. And there is a...