SNB & CHF

The crypto sector appears to be suffering an existential crisis, shedding jobs, client funds and credibility. Switzerland looks to have escaped with a glancing blow – if industry data is anything to go by. The collapse of the Terra stablecoin and the FTX crypto exchange last year sent negative ripples across the globe. Big name crypto firms such as the Coinbase and Huobi exchanges, Silvergate bank and Genesis are laying off large chunks of staff. That’s to avoid the...

In 2011, the Federal Reserve invented new accounting methods for itself so that it could never legally go bankrupt. As explained by Robert Murphy, the Federal Reserve redefined its losses so as to ensure its balance sheet never shows insolvency. As Bank of America’s Priya Misra put it at the time: As a result, any future losses the Fed may incur will now show up as a negative liability (negative interest due to Treasury) as opposed to a reduction in Fed capital,...

Ludwig von Mises’s book The Theory of Money and Credit is a masterwork of monetary theory. Despite being written in the early twentieth century, its arguments and conclusions are still valid and interesting today. Mises describes five characteristics that are vital to the function of money: marketability, durability, fungibility, trustworthiness, and convenience. The history of money is straightforward. Markets developed and expanded as long as the private sector...

The US may already be in recession. Truly ugly data across-the-board confirm the end of "inflation" for all the wrong (bad) reasons. But why wasn't the public told ahead of time? Markets had priced exactly what we are now seeing, yet officials dismissed those warnings because they don't really know what they are doing. Eurodollar University's Money & Macro Analysis Global system hyperventilating...

Overview: The BOJ defied speculation and stuck to its current policy, which saw the yen sell-off sharply. The dollar rallied about 3.4 yen before falling back. The greenback is broadly lower against the other G10 currencies. However, for the fifth consecutive session, the euro has stalled around $1.0870. While UK headline inflation softened, mostly due to fuel, core prices were unchanged, and this may have helped sterling extend its recent gains to almost $1.2365....

The Swiss town of Davos is famous for mountain slopes, winter sports and the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. But did you know that it also attracts scientists and doctors from all over the world? In this six-part video series, SWI swissinfo.ch journalists Sara Ibrahim and Michele Andina take you on a journey to discover five of Davos’s research institutes. In this first episode, they take you to the AO Davos Courses, a two-week training congress for surgeons learning to...

Those who know Wall Street lore sometimes recall that Fed chairman William Miller—Paul Volcker’s immediate predecessor—joked that most Americans believed the Federal Reserve was either an Indian reservation, a wildlife preserve, or a brand of whiskey. The Fed, of course, is none of those things, but there’s also one other thing the Federal Reserve is not: an actual bank. It is simply a government agency that does bank-like things. It’s easy to see why many people...

China's Q4 and December 2022 macro data is in and it made a lot of people giddy with excitement. Even though the numbers were awful, they weren't as awful as feared. Is this a sign the Chinese economic giant is awakening in the nick of time to save us all from bad recession? A huge development in one global curve provides an answer. Eurodollar University's Money & Macro Analysis Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIP https://www.eurodollar.university...

Gold stayed stable amid widespread volatility in 2022, and with global uncertainty still running high more investors are considering adding the yellow metal to their portfolios. But where is the best place to start? Keith Weiner of Monetary Metals breaks down the basics, explaining what investors need to know about investing in physical gold, gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs), gold stocks and gold futures. "I think everybody should have some (gold)," he said. "It's not...

Overview: With the market nearly ruling out a 50 bp hike by the Federal Reserve on February 1, the interest rate adjustment appears to have largely run its course. This may be helping to ease the selling pressure on the greenback. The general tone today is one of consolidation. There is a modest risk-off bias today. Although Japanese stocks advanced, China, Hong Kong, and South Korean equities slipped lower. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is snapping a four-day advance, and US...