SNB & CHF

Overview:  The mostly consolidative week for the US dollar continues. Most for the G10 currencies are +/- about 0.25% today and only a slightly wider range for the week. The odds of a Fed rate cut in March is virtually unchanged on the week at around 75%. The JP Morgan Emerging Market Currency Index is practically flat on the day and week. The Russian ruble and Mexican peso lead today's advancers, while eastern and central European currencies are laggards. The...

Financial intermediaries, including card schemes and issuing banks, are playing a critical role in the use and promotion of new payment methods in Switzerland. A 2023 research by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) revealed that the rules and standards set by these intermediaries are impacting usage and frequency of contactless payments. The findings, shared in a new report titled “Consumer adoption and use of financial technology: “tap and go” payments”, are based on an...

The phrase "great replacement" has been increasingly thrown around by both conservatives and progressives in recent years. Conservatives claim the "great replacement theory" explains deliberate efforts by regime operatives to replace non-Hispanic whites with various groups of Hispanics and non-whites. Progressives, on the other hand, claim it is all a racist conspiracy theory.  I won't bore you with the details of the present political debate, but the idea that one...

In response to the Israeli assault on Gaza, the Houthis (Ansarallah) of Yemen have retaliated by launching at least six drone attacks directed at Israel and attacking Western ships passing through the Red Sea. By the looks of it, their attacks have been quite successful thus far: Israel’s Eilat port alone has seen an 85 percent drop in shipping activity. To the United States, these actions of resistance and support of the Palestinian cause only present another...

🗞️3 news stories from Switzerland this week: 📺 Swiss public television has decided to stop broadcasting films starring French actor, Gérard Depardieu: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/explainer--swiss-television-s-blacklisting-of-g%C3%A9rard-depardieu/49109480 🚫 The Swiss government has announced that it will enforce a new definition of rape in July: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/from-coercion-to--no-means-no---switzerland-updates-its-definition-of-rape/49119364 🐺 Dead Swiss wolf...

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop discuss immigration. While many libertarians have adopted an absolutist open borders position on immigration, there are a number of other factors that should be considered. Ryan and Tho look at the case of small states and the issues raised by government intervention. "Why Open Borders Don't Work for Small Countries" by Ryan McMaken: Mises.org/RR_168_A "Mises on Nationalism, the Right of...

Investieren unterscheidet sich grundlegend vom bloßen Spekulieren oder dem Hoffen auf schnelle Gewinne, wie man sie vielleicht in einem Casino erwarten könnte. Es geht vielmehr darum, durchdachte und informierte Entscheidungen zu treffen, die auf einer langfristigen Perspektive und einem Verständnis des Marktes basieren. Für Neulinge in der Welt der Finanzen kann dies eine Herausforderung darstellen, aber mit den richtigen Werkzeugen und Kenntnissen ist es ein...

Whenever an economy falls into a recession, many economists point out that the economic slump means there will be idle capital and labor. Resources that could be employed are now unemployed because the economic slump has softened aggregate demand for goods and services. So-called experts believe the government must increase the overall demand in the economy since stronger demand will permit idle resources to be employed again. Hence, many economists recommend that...

Overview: Stocks and bonds are trading higher, and the dollar is narrowly mixed ahead of the December US CPI report. Most of the large bourses in Asia Pacific advanced, led by Japan to new 30-year-plus highs. Hong Kong's Hang Seng snapped seven-day slide to post its first gain of 2024. Europe's Stoxx 600 is up about 0.33%, to recoup most of its losses in the past two sessions. US index futures enjoy a modest upside bias. Benchmark 10-year yields in Europe are off...

“Who controls the past now, controls the future. Who controls the present now, controls the past.” That is from “Testify,” a song by newly minted rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Famers Rage against the Machine. I don’t know if Phillip W. Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research is fan enough to be familiar with that, but I bet he knows the original source: George Orwell’s 1984. Whether or not it informed a recent study he coauthored is unclear, but that line has...