SNB & CHF

After seven years on top, Swisscom has been beaten by Sunrise. The German telecommunications expert and magazine publisher, connect.de and its partner P3, travelled roughly 7,000 km by car around Switzerland testing Swiss mobile networks. Tests were also made while walking and on trains. The results were published on Tuesday. © Hai Huy Ton That | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge Out of a possible 1,000 points,...

A Market Gripped by Fear The Indian Prime Minister announced on 8th November 2016 that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes would no longer be legal tender. Linked are Part-I, Part-II and Part-III updates on the rapidly encroaching police state. The economic and social mess that Modi has created is unprecedented. It will go down in history as an epitome of naivety and arrogance due to Modi’s self-centered desire to increase...

Can the current iteration of global capitalism be reformed, or is it poised to be replaced by some other mode of production? Judging by the mainstream media, the most pressing problems facing capitalism are 1) income inequality, the basis of Thomas Piketty’s bestseller Capital in the Twenty First Century, and 2) the failure of laissez-faire markets to regulate their excesses, a common critique encapsulated by Paul...

Bad Monday Some Monday mornings are better than others.  Others are worse than some.  For one Amazon employee, this past Monday morning was particularly bad. No doubt, the poor fellow would have been better off he’d called in sick to work.  Such a simple decision would have saved him from extreme agony.  But, unfortunately, he showed up at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters and put on a public and painful display of...

Summary: USD had a large rally in November. We had been looking for a short and shallow pullback. Here are thoughts about what would signal an outright correction.   The Federal Reserve’s real broad trade weighted dollar index rose 2.3% in November.  This is the largest monthly advance since September 2011.   This is the measure that officials and economists use to try to assess how the currency movement impact...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, December 02(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ). - Click to enlarge Federal Reserve The capital markets are finishing the week amid speculation that the driving forces of the past three weeks are ebbing.  Global equities and the dollar may be snapping three-week advances.  The issue is whether it is a consolidation or trend change.   The former is a more prudent assumption until...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, December 02(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ). - Click to enlarge Federal Reserve The capital markets are finishing the week amid speculation that the driving forces of the past three weeks are ebbing.  Global equities and the dollar may be snapping three-week advances.  The issue is whether it is a consolidation or trend change.   The former is a more prudent assumption until...

United States The US dollar has slipped lower in response to the jobs data, but quickly recovered. The details are mixed, but is unlikely to change views on the outlook for Fed policy. The headline job creation was in line with expectations at 178k. Job growth of the back two months were shaved by 2k, concentrated in October. U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, November 2016(see more posts on U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, ) Source:...

United States The US dollar has slipped lower in response to the jobs data, but quickly recovered. The details are mixed, but is unlikely to change views on the outlook for Fed policy. The headline job creation was in line with expectations at 178k. Job growth of the back two months were shaved by 2k, concentrated in October. U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, November 2016(see more posts on U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, ) Source:...

SMI Investors appear to be staying on the sidelines this week ahead of the weekend’s Italian referendum. Swiss stocks are set to finish the week lower, underperforming global equities as food giant Nestle and pharmaceutical heavyweights Roche and Novartis drag the index down. SMI Index, December 02 - Click to enlarge Economic Data It’s been a volatile trading week across financial markets. Oil prices jumped almost...