SNB & CHF

The Swiss consumption indicator by UBS shows improvements. The indicator is still distant from the highs in 2012. At the time stronger growth in Emerging Markets and the weaker franc helped the Swiss economy. UBS consumption indicator printed 1.38 in June, pointing to subdued growth in Swiss private consumption in recent months. Relatively weak growth in employment was much to blame for the lackluster number, however...

There is no magic formula to make it to the top in the world of dance. One thing that's for certain, is that it needs innate talent and relentless hard work. The Zurich Dance Academy trains young dancers with an all-round approach that has brought the school international acclaim. (Carlo Pisani, swissinfo.ch)    Diana Georgia Ionescu from Romania and Michele Esposito from Italy have a few things in common: they are both 17-year-olds for whom dance is their life, but they don’t have wealthy...

The Antidote Something needs to be said. We are against the existence of irredeemable paper currency, central banking and central planning, cronyism, socialized losses and privatized gains, counterfeit credit, wealth transfers and bailouts, and welfare both corporate and personal. When we write to debunk the conspiracy theories that say manipulation is keeping gold from hitting $5,000 (one speaker here at Freedom Fest...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 25(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The global capital markets are subdued today; a dearth of fresh news and tomorrow’s FOMC meeting are making for light activity and limited price movement. The US dollar is little changed against most of the major currencies. The net change on the day through most of the European...

An employee packages cigarettes in Switzerland (Keystone) In Switzerland, 21% of the adult population on average are daily smokers, according to a report from the World Health Organisation. That is firmly in line with average rates of current smoking among adults globally, which have declined to 21% in 2015 down from 24% in 2007. But among high-income countries like Switzerland, there’s a striking gender difference: the...

Commercial Property Market Is Inflated and May Burst Again Dublin property investors had better hope that Brexit happens soon. They should also hope that it’s not just a ‘hard’ Brexit, but a granite Brexit — a Brexit that’s as hard as possible. They should be betting on the buffoonery of Boris Johnson, down on both knees praying for a massive barney between Davis and Barnier. A granite Brexit might prompt the migration...

Any nation-state that meets these four requirements is fully exposed to a global loss of faith in its economy, debt, balance of payments and currency. There’s an entire sub-industry in journalism devoted to the idea that China is poised to replace the U.S. as the “global empire” / hegemon. This notion of global empire being something like a baton that gets passed from nation-state to nation-state is seriously...

The Looming Last Gasp of Indoctrination? The inevitable collapse of the student loan “market” and with it the take-down of many higher educational institutions will be one of the happiest and much needed events to look forward to in the coming months/years.  Whether the student loan bubble bursts on its own or implodes due to a general economic collapse, does not matter as long as higher education is dealt a death...

Head of the Financial Markets Division of the Dutch central bank, Aerdt Houben, stated in an interview for newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad published in October 2016 that releasing a bar list of the Dutch official gold reserves “would cost hundreds of thousands of euros”. In this post we’ll expose this is virtually impossible – the costs to publish the bar list should be close to zero – and speculate about the far...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.17% to 1.1009 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 24(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The euro made a marginal new high in early Asia, but participants rightly drew cautious ahead of the flash eurozone PMI. The flash PMI was softer than expected, and although the composite fell to six monthly lows, it is more a...