SNB & CHF

US imports rose 9% year-over-year (NSA) in March 2017, after being flat in February and up 12% in January. For the quarter overall, imports rose 7.3%, a rate that is slightly more than the 2013-14 comparison. The difference, however, is simply the price of oil. Removing petroleum, imports rose instead 6.3% in March and just 4% for the first quarter overall. The value of inbound crude oil expanded by more than 70% for...

Swiss Franc The Swiss franc was the weakest of the majors. Its 1.7% fall was the largest in six months. Over the past month, the euro has rallied strongly against the Swiss franc. The 3.2% rally has seen the euro reach heights not see since last September. Thanks to the win of the pro-euro Macro, FX traders went long Euro and short CHF. The euro rose up to 1.0980. How long this momentum will last is still the question,...

A warm welcome – the Google reception in Zurich A new ranking shows the best firms to work for in Switzerland – with Google topping the large companies for a third time in a row. Important to employees in all categories: a respectful and motivational work culture. In all, 29 companies were awarded Best Workplaces in Switzerland in the Great Place to Work® Award Ceremony in Zurich on Thursday evening. The results were...

20 Minutes. On Friday, Easyjet added a 14th aircraft to its Geneva-based fleet. The new Airbus A320 will allow it to add new destinations. © Tommy Beattie | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge The new aircraft will create 36 new jobs on top of the current 500 at the airline’s Geneva base, Thomas Haagensen, Easyjet’s director of northern Europe, told Le Matin Dimanche. Last year, the airline flew 900,000 more people from...

Summary Moon Jae-in was elected president of South Korea Philippine President Duterte named Nestor Espenilla as central bank governor Nigerian President Buhari traveled to London for a follow-up to the initial medical visit earlier this year Market expectations for 2018 inflation in Brazil rose for the first time in more than a year Peru’s central bank unexpectedly started the easing cycle with a 25 bp cut to 4.0%...

Summary: US TWI has appreciated a little since the end of Q1. The euro and sterling’s strength are exceptions to the rule. The dollar has edged up against the currencies of the US top four trading partners here in Q2. In early Asia today, the euro reached its highest level against the dollar since the US election last November.  Sterling was near seven-month highs.  It is primarily because of the strength of...

The Wrong Approach This question is no longer moot. As the world moves inexorably towards the use of metallic money, interest on gold and silver will return with it. This raises an important question. Which interest rate will be higher? It’s instructive to explore a wrong, but popular, view. I call it the purchasing power paradigm. In this view, the value of money — its purchasing power —is 1/P (where P is the price...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, May 12(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF The pound to Swiss Franc rate has broken 1.30 this week as sterling has risen and investors confidence over the outlook for politics in the Eurozone increased. The election of Emmanuel Macron has removed the uncertainty over the increase in Europe of right-wing parties which could have threatened the...

With Monday’s financial media blasting reports about the VIX collapse to levels not seen in 24 years, going all the way back to 1993, it is worth remembering that the near record low volatility collapse of 1993 did not end well either for stocks, or for bonds, with the great 1994 bond tantrum.  Reminding us of that, and of broader implications for the cross-asset space, is SocGen’s Kit Juckes with his overnight note,...

Asbestos being removed from a Zurich tower block in 2003 (Keystone) Despite a lack of progress to limit products such as asbestos and the herbicide paraquat, Switzerland is largely pleased with the results of a summit on chemicals and hazardous waste held in Geneva. “We obtained much more than we expected,” Franz Perrez, the head of international affairs at the Federal Environment Office, told the Swiss News Agency on...