SNB & CHF

Nestle SA forecast the slowest full-year sales growth in more than a decade as food companies worldwide struggle against consumer resistance to price increases. Revenue will gain about 3.5 percent on an organic basis in 2016, the Vevey, Switzerland-based maker of Nespresso coffee said Thursday, abandoning a goal for an increase of about 4.2 percent. Growth in the consumer-goods industry is “relatively fragile,” Chief...

Summary: The hangover from the debt crisis and secular stagnation are the two main explanatory models for the low growth and low interest rates. Anew Fed paper brings the focus back to demographics. If true, warns of a protracted period of slow growth, low interest rates. There are two main interpretative frameworks that seek to explain the slow growth and low interest rates. The first is associated with...

The U.S. peasantry has been stripmined exactly like the powerless colonial peasantry in the old colonial model. In my latest interview with Max Keiser, Max asked a question of fundamental importance: (I paraphrase, as the interview has not yet been posted): now that the current iteration of capitalism has occupied every corner of the globe, where can it expand to for its “growth”? We all know how old-fashioned...

Swiss Franc The EUR/CHF ended the evening at 1.0810. The question is if the SNB was intervening or not. We are convinced that the “new floor” is the area between 1.08 and 1.0850. Hence there should be stronger interventions going on. EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, October 21 2016(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ). - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is firm especially against the European complex and emerging...

Submitted by Koos Jansen from Bullionstar.com Gold supply and demand data published by all primary consultancy firms is incomplete and misleading. The data falsely presents gold to be more of a commodity than a currency, having caused deep misconceptions with respect to the metal’s trading characteristics and price formation. Numerous consultancy firms around the world, for example Thomson Reuters GFMS, Metals Focus,...

Summary: DB and Italian bank stocks have been moving in tandem. They suffer from fundamentally different problems. The euro has been selling off as the bank shares rebound. European banks may not be the main driver of the investment climate, but their challenges are not resolved.  Investors have focused on two country’s banks recently. Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Italian banks more generally. This Great...

SMI The Swiss Market Index is set to finish the week largely unchanged while global stocks gain on positive US third quarter earnings results, favourable central bank statements and a rallying oil price. SMI Index, October 22. - Click to enlarge Economic Data The S&P 500 saw its biggest advance since September on Wednesday after US banking giants Citigroup, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo all posted...

This afternoon I had the privilege of being on Bloomberg TV, with anchors Scarlet Fu and Matt Miller. I was joined by an old market friend Bob Sinche. We had a lively discussion (what did you expect?) on two issues. The first was on the ECB. At his press conference earlier today, Draghi indicated that the question of extending QE and tapering was not discussed.  Bob argued that this was disingenuous. Of course it is...

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 EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, October 20 2016(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ). - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF rates have fallen dramatically over the past month, as Sterling continues to find itself under pressure against the major currencies. However, despite these losses it is not all doom and gloom for those clients holding GBP, as Tuesday’s positive spike for the Pound proved. Currency does not move in a...