SNB & CHF

Everything seems to be lining up perfectly for individual investors with Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy making a debt ceiling deal. In fact, a sentiment poll reflects an ebullient investor class. According to an Investors Intelligence article titled "Assume the Positioning" (reprinted in Almost Daily Grant’s, June 1, 2023), “Just 23.3 percent of respondents are bearish on stocks, the lowest since January 2022, [when] the market scaled the summit of the everything...

Overview: The UK surprised with higher-than-expected consumer inflation and budget deficit, and the odds of a 50 bp hike tomorrow edged higher. Sterling has been sold on the news and is the weakest of the G10 currencies, off about 0.5%. The dollar is mixed with the euro, Swedish krona, Canadian dollar, and Swiss franc posting small gains. Emerging market currencies are lower, including the Chinese yuan, which is at new lows since last November. The Mexican peso,...

Most people agree that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Some would even argue that we are closer now than we were in those fateful days, when Soviet missiles in Cuba almost triggered a nuclear war between the US and the USSR. In those days we were told that we were in a life-or-death struggle with Communism and thus could not cede a square foot of territory or the dominoes would fall one-by-one until the “Reds” ruled...

While many believe that technology is key to a growing economy, technology is useless without entrepreneurship, which develops uses for technology. Original Article: "Technology Is Meaningless without Entrepreneurship" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

There is a sea change in how society views false accusations of sexual abuse. And it’s about time. The lawsuit John C. Depp, II v. Amber Laura Heard (2022) points to this transformation. Depp and Heard sued each other for defamation with “actual malice” over public accusations of domestic violence (DV) during their marriage; Heard also sued Depp’s attorney for making false statements. Unlike an earlier case brought by Depp in the United Kingdom, the American jury...

US trade deficits seem to be expanding, placing pressure on the dollar. However, central banks around the world are just as irresponsible as the Fed, masking the relative devaluation of US money. Original Article: "US Trade Deficits Are Growing Larger. Or Are They?" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.—Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan California continues to attack businesses and entrepreneurial freedom. Leviathan has awakened, this time with Assembly Bill 257, promoting a state-controlled trade union for all restaurant workers. Current United States secretary of labor Marty Walsh has left and become head of the National Hockey League’s...

Overview: The market continues to resist the Fed's signal that another 50 bp of hikes may be necessary to ensure inflation is headed toward its target. Previously, the market had rate cuts priced in, and it took some time for the Fed's push back to be accepted. The market converged with the Fed, and this helped the dollar recover. We suspect a similar pattern to play out again. The market does not have even one of the two Fed hikes discounted. As it moves in this...

Since 1960, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 78 times, according to Bloomberg. The process of increasing the debt limit has become so regular that markets barely worry about it. Furthermore, as the 2011 debt ceiling crisis showed, the impact on asset prices happened mostly in emerging economies. In 2011, Turkish and Indian debt were the most negatively impacted, while Treasuries rose. Politicians believe that raising the debt ceiling is a social policy and that...

While F.A. Hayek's famous 1945 essay effectively critiques the "perfect information" hypothesis, it is an inadequate explanation of the issue of economic calculation. Original Article: "The Market Process Is Not a Knowledge Problem" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter