SNB & CHF

[unable to retrieve full-text content]It’s a sign the world is getting used to negative interest rates when what once seemed bizarre starts looking like the norm. Consider Switzerland, where more and more companies are taking out insurance policies to protect their cash hoards from theft or damage.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Disappointing industrial output figures from Germany and UK are helping stabilize the US dollar after yesterday's shellacking. Investors have been fickle about the prospects for a rate hike this month, and the unexpected dramatic slide in the service spurred a downgrading of such expectations, and a flight out of the dollar. It was not simply a quest for yields, though that was part of it. Surely the yen and euro's strength is not a function of superior...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A UBS Group AG unit was found by a federal judge to have violated some contracts with mortgage-backed securities trusts that hold loans, putting it at risk of having to buy back more loans or pay damages in a $2 billion lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel Tuesday ruled that UBS Real Estate Securities Inc. had breached warranties on 13 of 20 loans in the trusts that were introduced into evidence in a three-week trial in Manhattan in May.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The oft repeated generalization about the dominance of low paying jobs is not true for the last few years. This does note refute the disparity of wealth and income in the US. There is a restructuring taking place that favors educated and skilled workers.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Each quarter, the SECO estimates the GDP and its components. The main purpose of these estimations is to provide data that allow for an assessment of the cyclical development of the main macroeconomic aggregats in a timely adequate and credible manner.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The US dollar is trading heavily against most of the major and emerging market currencies. However, the losses are modest, and the greenback remains within recent ranges. The Antipodean and Scandi bloc currencies are performing best.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]ISM showed unexpected weakness in Aug non-mfg PMI. Markit measure slipped but not as much as ISM. Odds of a Sept Fed hike slip to about 15%. Watch trendline in Dollar Index near 94.45.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]If asked what's intrinsic to human happiness, most people in consumer societies will offer up answers such as money, status, a nice house, etc. But as Sebastian Junger observes in his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, what's actually intrinsic to human happiness is: meaningful relationships within a community (i.e. a tribe); opportunities to contribute to the group and to be appreciated; being competent at useful tasks and opportunities for...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]We often look at parts of the CPI. For example food inflation is relevant in emerging markets or poorer people in developed nations. Food inflation in Switzerland has risen by 1.3% YoY compared to 0.2% in the U.S., and 1.4% in the eurozone and 1.1% in neighbour Germany. Rents are up +0.2% YoY. Existing Swiss rents are bound to interest rates; therefore they cannot follow the Swiss real estate boom yet.

The writer J.R.R. Tolkien was so impressed by the beauty of nature during a visit to Switzerland, that he incorporated some of the things he experienced in his classic novels, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. (rts/swissinfo.ch/jh) In 1911, when John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was 19, he travelled from Interlaken to Zermatt with a group of 11 companions, and saw the Aletsch glacier, the Lauterbrunnen waterfalls and the Swiss Alpine peaks, all of which were reproduced in his own drawings in his...