SNB & CHF

Lastly, a brief word about next week.  I will not post my usual piece on macro considerations on Sunday.  Here, though, is a brief thumbnail sketch of the top five things I will be watching:   1.  Yellen at Jackson Hole at the end of next week:  To the extent that she shares her assessment of the economy, I would expect to largely echo the broad sentiment expressed by NY Fed President Dudley. Click to enlarge. 2....

18.08.2016 09:15  – FSO, Labour Force (0353-1607-60) Swiss Labour Force Survey in 2nd quarter 2016: labour supply 1.6% increase in number of employed persons; unemployment rate based on ILO definition rises slightly to 4.3% Neuchâtel, 18.08.2016 (FSO) – The number of employed persons in Switzerland rose by 1.6% between the 2nd quarter 2015 and the 2nd quarter 2016. During the same period, the unemployment rate as...

What happens if the Deep State pursues the usual pathological path of increasing repression? The system it feeds on decays and collapses. Catch-22 (from the 1961 novel set in World War II Catch-22) has several shades of meaning (bureaucratic absurdity, for example), but at heart it is a self-referential paradox: you must be insane to be excused from flying your mission, but requesting to be excused by reason of...

EM ended last week on a soft note.  Fed tightening expectations were buffeted first by hawkish Dudley comments and then by the more balanced FOMC minutes.   On net, the markets adjusted the odds for tightening by year-end a little higher from the previous week, and stand at the highest odds since the Brexit vote.  Yet despite the strong jobs data in June and July, odds of a move on September 21 or November 2 are...

Arguably one of the easier calls for us to make after 37 years in power was that President dos Santos would find ways of affording himself another 5 years in. Like any ‘effective’ leader, Mr. Santos made sure the final deal to do just that was stitched up long before the Party Congress formally convenes in Luanda, with a lower level MPLA ‘Central Committee’ already rubber stamping his name in mid-August. That also...

Swiss Franc Currency Index The Swiss Franc index gained nearly 3% last week, while the dollar index lost over 2%. This gives a total gain of 5%. Swiss Franc Index (see more posts on Swiss Franc Index) Click to enlarge. Swiss Franc Currency Index (3 years) The Swiss Franc index is the trade-weighted currency performance (see the currency basket) On a three years interval, the Swiss Franc had a weak performance....

Summer doldrums continue to depress speculative activity in the currency futures market.  In the CFTC Commitment of Traders reporting week ending August 16 speculators made small adjustments to gross currency positions.  There was only one change more than 6k contracts. The Aussie bulls added 9.4k contracts to their gross long position, lifting it to 68.9k contracts. Of the other 15 gross positions we track, there...

Swiss Franc: In the real effective exchange rate calculation, the PPI plays an important role. The Swiss producer price index fell by 0.8% YoY, while the German one is down 2.0%. Thismeans that in 2016 the CHF overvaluation is rising, when compared to the major Swiss trading partner Germany. The values for 2015 were -6% for the Swiss and -2.5% for Germany, the CHF overvaluation was reduced. Click to enlarge. Source...

Last weekend, when we reported that Germany’s Raiffeisenbank Gmund am Tegernsee – a community bank in southern Germany – said it would start charging retail clients a fee of 0.4% on deposits of more than €100,000 we said that “now that a German banks has finally breached the retail depositor NIRP barrier, expect many more banks to follow.” Not even a week later, not one but two large banks have done just that....

There are many precious metals refineries throughout the world, some local to their domestic markets, and some international, even global in scale. Many but by no means all of these refineries are on the Good Delivery Lists of gold and/or silver. These lists are maintained by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) and they identify accredited refineries of large (wholesale) gold and silver bars that continue to...