SNB & CHF

Meet Céline Marti : the police officer from Geneva who is representing Haïti in the world ski championship in St Moritz. (RTS/swissinfo.ch) She snagged 61st place out of 74 in the qualifications for the giant slalom on Monday. Marti, who gave her impressive performance after just three full months of intensive training, proudly wore the colours of Haïti – her country of origin – to compete against some of the world’s best skiers. It’s the very first world championship for the 37-year-old,...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, February 15(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF The pound to Swiss Franc exchange rate remains in a volatile position susceptible to risks of deterioration from outside global events. The Franc being a safe haven currency leaves it at the mercy of some international events which can cause a flight to safety as investors use the Franc’s stability and...

Up until the 1980s tens of thousands of people in Switzerland, like the homeless and prostitutes, were locked away for 'reeducation', without appearing before a court. That's according to the interim report of a commission of experts. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) --- swissinfo.ch is the international branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Its role is to report on Switzerland and to provide a Swiss perspective on international events. For more articles, interviews and videos visit...

One in three marriages in Switzerland is binational, according to federal statistics. Swiss public television asked couples from two different cultures about their lives together, the unexpected surprises and the challenges. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) --- swissinfo.ch is the international branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Its role is to report on Switzerland and to provide a Swiss perspective on international events. For more articles, interviews and videos visit swissinfo.ch or...

For 2016 international merchandise trade statistics point out China has net imported roughly 1,300 tonnes of gold, down 17 % from 2015. The importance of measuring gold imports into the Chinese domestic gold market – which are prohibited from being exported – is to come to the best understanding on the division of above ground reserves in and outside the Chinese domestic market.  Kindly be advised to have read my...

 See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Silver Is Pushed Up Again This week, the prices of the metals moved up on Monday. Then the gold price went sideways for the rest of the week, but the silver price jumped on Friday. Is this the rocket ship to $50? Will Trump’s stimulus plan push up the price of silver? Or just push silver speculators to push up the price,...

In the middle of 1919, the United States was beset by a great many imbalances. Having just conducted a wartime economy, almost everything before then had been absorbed by the World War I effort. With fiscal restraint subsumed by national emergency, inflation was the central condition. Given that the Federal Reserve was by then merely a few years old, no one was quite sure what to do about it. Chairman of the Federal...

President Trump hinted at the end of last week that the Administration’s tax proposals would be aired in the next two or three weeks. This seems to be a signal of its inclusion in his address to both houses of Congress on February 28. This is not quite a State of the Union speech, but similar and precisely what Obama did in February 2009. Taxes are complicated. Much of the discussion so far has been on the border...

Summary: Don’t expect a deal between Greece and its official creditors until late spring or early summer. Grexit is still not a particularly likely scenario. It was the European governments not Greece which put other taxpayers’ skin in the game. Freud warned that unresolved psychological conflicts might be repressed but they keep returning. So too with Greece debt problems.  A new crisis is at hand.  Investor...

Submitted by Thorstein Polleit via The Mises Institute, The US is by far the biggest economy in the world. Its financial markets — be it equity, bonds or derivatives markets — are the largest and most liquid. The Greenback is the most important transaction currency. Many currencies in the world — be it the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the British pound or the Swiss franc — have actually been built upon the US dollar. The...