SNB & CHF

Summary: Data has already been reported. Trends reversed in the last two weeks. US jobs data may disappoint. It will take a few more weeks to lift some of the uncertainty hanging over the markets. There are four things investors should know as the New Year begins. First, it has already begun with several PMI reports already reported. Second, in the last two week of the December, the trends that dominated Q4...

Stock Markets EM FX was a mixed bag over the past week. Dollar softness vs. the majors allowed some in EM to gain traction, with ZAR and PEN the biggest gainers since Christmas. On the other hand, ARS TRY, and INR were the biggest losers. With markets coming back to life, we expect EM to remain broadly under pressure as the same major investment themes remain in place. Stock Markets Emerging Markets December 19...

  Stock Markets In the last week of the year, the Swiss Market Index deepened its loss for the year as banks continued lower on low trading volumes. The SMI is set to end 2016 with an annual loss of 6.8% as banking and pharmaceutical giants pulled the index down in a year of turbulent trading. A volatile 2016 started with a brutal equity sell off as investors dumped global stocks on fears of an accelerating economic slowdown in China and the slumping price of oil.  The...

Swiss Franc Currency Index With last Friday’s break-down of the dollar, the Swiss Franc index could recover a bit. Its loss over December is now 1%. But the dollar index had a gain of 2%. Trade-weighted index Swiss Franc, December 30(see more posts on Swiss Franc Index, ) Source: FT.com - Click to enlarge   Swiss Franc Currency Index (3 years) The Swiss Franc index is the trade-weighted currency...

Why am I hopeful? the Status Quo is devolving, and a better way of living lies just beyond the corrupt, wasteful, ruinous consumerist debt/financial tyranny we now inhabit. Readers often ask me to post something hopeful, and I understand why: doom-and-gloom gets tiresome. Human beings need hope just as they need oxygen, and the destruction of the Status Quo via over-reach and internal contradictions doesn’t leave much...

India’s Currency Ban – Part VIII India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, announced on 8th November 2016 that Rs 500 (~$7.50) and Rs 1,000 (~$15) banknotes would no longer be legal tender. Linked are Part-I, Part-II, Part-III, Part-IV, Part-V, Part-VI and Part-VII, which provide updates on the demonetization saga and how Modi is acting as a catalyst to hasten the rapid degradation of India and what remains of its...

Conjuring Up Visions Today’s a day for considering new hopes, new dreams, and new hallucinations.  The New Year is here, after all.  Now is the time to turn over a new leaf and start afresh. Naturally, 2017 will be the year you get exactly what’s coming to you. Both good and bad.  But what else will happen? Here we begin by closing our eyes and slowing our breath.  We let our mind role back into the gray matter of our...

  What Have You Done for Me Lately? Swing voters are a fickle bunch.  One election they vote Democrat.  The next they vote Republican. For they have no particular ideology or political philosophy to base their judgment upon. Swing VotersSwing Voters - Click to enlarge Humphrey-Hawkins Act: Fed’s Dual Mandate The Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978 expanded the Fed’s job, charging it with maintaining full employment, too....

Not only will Fed policy not fix what’s broken, it will actively make the structural problems worse. Yesterday I described the conditions that render the U.S. ungovernable. Here is a chart of why the U.S. economy will also be ungovernable. Longtime readers are acquainted with the S-curve model of expansion, maturity, stagnation and decline. This is why the economy will be ungovernable: all the financial gambits that...

A variety of forces will disrupt or obsolete existing modes of production and the social order. Though no one can foretell the future, it is self-evident that the status quo—dependent as it is on cheap oil and fast-expanding debt—is unsustainable. So what will trigger the collapse of the status quo, and what lies beyond when the current arrangements break down?  Can we predict how-when-where with any accuracy? All...