SNB & CHF

One of history’s greatest ironies is that gold detractors refer to the metal as the barbarous relic. In fact, the abandonment of gold has put civilization as we know it at risk of extinction. The gold coin standard that had served Western economies so brilliantly throughout most of the nineteenth century hit a brick wall in 1914 and was never able to recover, or so the story goes. As the Great War began, Europe turned from prosperity to destruction, or more...

In his 1922 book, Gemeinwirtschaft, Ludwig von Mises unmasks the intellectual distortion that is social Darwinism. Based on determining the dynamics of socialization through the principle of the division of labor, Mises shows that society is cooperative; that peace, not war, is the father of human progress. Socialization Mises believes socialization proceeds through expansion and deepening. Through societal expansion, people are increasingly drawn into the system of...

Sound money, in the form of physical gold and silver, look to be ending the year on a bullish footing. Meanwhile, things are looking positive on the sound money public policy front as well, thanks to some big wins at the state level in 2022 combined with renewed enthusiasm among our legislative allies as we head into the 2023 legislative season. Looking back on 2022, one reality has emerged: Sound money is clearly a winning issue at the state level. At a time of...

The clueless technocrats are about to discover that unfairness and exploitation can’t be measured like revenues and profits, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real. Economists and financial pundits tend to make a catastrophically flawed assumption. They tend to believe the technocratic myth that all human behavior boils down to financial incentives, data and metrics, as if all people make decisions based on interest rates, tax breaks and greed, the desire to maximize...

Context is huge. That goes for the $80 trillion in forex swaps as well as the several trillion which just "disappeared" from the Federal Reserve's Z1 data during Q3. Where ROW should be providing US$s to Americans, instead consistent with what we've seen of markets (you know, volatility), more evidence for heavy dollar shortages thus heavier curve inversions. Eurodollar University's Money & Macro Analysis...

Legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway vice-chair Charles Munger recently stated: “The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy.” I think this perfectly encapsulates our current investing era. In a day and age where social media has replaced not only traditional news media but human interaction, where influencers and gamers are top career aspirations for the nation’s youth, where artists (content creators) are paid by the number of followers, likes, and...

Energy is a highly regulated industry across the world. There is less debate about the need for government control when it comes to the oil and gas sector. The arguments that most people accept for government intervention in energy, whether in the name of energy access, national security, or climate change mitigation, all share the same general premise: that energy is too important to be left to the whims of the free market. But this year, the world has been thrust...

Overview: There are two themes today. First, there has been a modest bout of profit-taking on Chinese stocks (and yuan) after last week’s surge. Second, the ahead of the five G10 central bank meeting this week a series of market-sensitive economic reports, a consolidative tone is seen in most of the capital markets. Most of the large bourses in the Asia Pacific region fell, led by a 2.2% loss in Hong Kong and 3% loss in its index of mainland shares. Europe’s Stoxx...

It is a huge week for major central bank policy announcements, where downshifts are expected from the Fed, ECB, BoE, SNB. Heading into the announcements, US CPI will help shape expectations. MON: UK GDP Estimate (Oct), Chinese M2/New Yuan Loans (Nov). TUE: OPEC MOMR; BoE Financial Stability Report; German CPI Final (Nov), UK Unemployment Rate (Oct)/Claimant Count (Nov), EZ ZEW (Dec), US CPI (Nov), Japanese Tankan (Q4), New Zealand Current Account (Q3). WED: FOMC...

Bank Syz has collaborated with Taurus to launch its new digital asset offer Syz Crypto. It will cover the safekeeping and trading of digital assets to the Bank’s private, professional and institutional clients. Concretely, the Bank has integrated Taurus-PROTECT, a technology that allows the custody of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, tokenized securities as well as NFTs and Taurus-EXPLORER for the connectivity to >15 blockchain protocols, including Bitcoin...