SNB & CHF

Any currency is only truly “backed by gold” if it is convertible to gold. There is something intuitively appealing about the idea of a gold-backed currency -money backed by the tangible value of gold, i.e. “the gold standard.” Instead of intrinsically worthless paper money (fiat currency), gold-backed money would have real, enduring value-it would be “hard currency”, i.e. sound money, because it would be convertible to...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, February 22(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF The pound has made good gains against the Swiss Franc this morning with rates for GBP CHF now sitting at 1.2650 for this pair. The pound seems to have found support as the Brexit bill is still expected to pass through the House of Lords next week when the bill comes under additional scrutiny. There is a...

  See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Fundamental Developments Last week, the prices of the metals mostly moved sideways. There was a rise on Thursday but it corrected back to basically unchanged on Friday. This will again be a brief Report, as Monday was a holiday in the US. Below, we will show the only true picture of the gold and silver supply and demand...

Frank Holmes joins Lawrie Williams, Koos Jansen and many others in questioning the “official” Chinese gold demand numbers. Real gold demand is likely much higher than the official numbers by Frank Holmes Inflation just got another jolt, rising as much as 2.5 percent year-over-year in January, the highest such rate since March 2012. Led by higher gasoline, rent and health care costs, consumer prices have now advanced...

Independent enterprises are a source of political and financial independence–and any independent class is dangerous to the ruling elites. Just as the “war on drugs” criminalized and destroyed large swaths of African-American and Latino communities, the “war on cash” will further criminalize the few remaining avenues to financial independence and freedom. The introduction of “entitlement” welfare in the 1960s generated a...

It is largely irrelevant, but still the political theater is fascinating. As is now standard operating procedure, whatever comes out of the Trump administration immediately is conferred as the standard for awful. This is not my own determination, mind you, but that of the mainstream, whatever that is these days. And so it is with the first set of budget figures that include very robust growth projections, a point of...

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 increases, while REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. On the other side, a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade partners decided to...

Swiss Franc Switzerland Trade Balance, Jan 2017(see more posts on Switzerland Trade Balance, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF The pound to Swiss Franc rate has been in the main driven by sterling weakness which is weighing on the performance of the pound which has been in the main negative but we have lately seen the pound higher. This is mainly due to some clarity over the Brexit and just what...

Russia Gold Buying Returns – Adds Substantial One Million Ounces To Reserves In January Russia gold buying returned in January with the Russian central bank buying a very large 1 million ounces or 37 metric tonnes of gold bullion. The increase in the gold reserves came after Russia did not buy a single ounce in December – a move seen as potentially a signal or an olive branch to the U.S. and the incoming Trump...

Summary: Many are discussing a possible head-and-shoulders pattern in the Dollar Index. We are skeptical as other technical signals do not confirm. We recognize scope for disappointment over the border tax and the next batch of employment data, but European politics is the present driver and may not be alleviated soon. Here is the chart nearly everyone is discussing.  The Dollar Index appears to be carving...