SNB & CHF

(On vacation for the rest of the month.  Going to Portugal.  Commentary will resume on June 1.   Good luck to us all.)The market is a fickle mistress. The major central banks were judged to be behind the inflation curve. Much teeth-gashing, finger-pointing. Federal Reserve Chair Powell was blamed for denying that a 75 bp hike was under consideration. Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda was blamed for keeping the 0.25% cap on the 10-year Japanese Government Bond yield....

Jeffrey Snider, Head of Global Research at Alhambra Investments. He is not an economist, which is probably why he's been able to develop a working model of the global monetary system. His research is unique and informative in ways an economist would never consider. He joins us to discuss his thoughts on inflation/deflation and our current economic state. website: https://alhambrapartners.com/author/jsnider/ https://www.realclearmarkets.com/authors/jeffrey_snider/...

Der Cryptomarkt zeigte diese Woche wieder sein hässliches Gesicht. Die Preis-Volatilität hat in der Vergangenheit viele Investoren reich gemacht. Wer zum richtigen Zeitpunkt in einen Low Cap Altcoin investierte, konnte über Nacht Millionär werden. Doch das Beispiel Luna zeigt auch, dass man ebenso alles verlieren kann, wenn man nicht zum richtigen Zeitpunkt aus einem Altcoin aussteigt. Crypto News: Luna kollabiert innerhalb von wenigen TagenZu Beginn der Woche...

Gold is doing what it is supposed to do! Equity markets are tumbling, “NASDAQ 100 Rout Erases $1.5 Trillion in Market Value in 3 Days” reads one Bloomberg headline. The big names such as Apple lost over US$225 billion, Microsoft almost US$200 billion, Amazon and Tesla each lost US$175 billion market value over the three trading days from May 4 to May 9. Bonds are also declining in value as yields are rising. The market selloff has been the most extreme in the tech...

It isn’t just the vast difference between Chinese consumer prices and those in the US or Europe, China’s CPI has been categorically distinct from China’s PPI, too. That distance hints at the real problem which the whole is just now beginning to confront, having been lulled into an inflationary illusion made up from all these things. To start with, yesterday China’s NBS reported the index for its consumer prices rose 2.1% year-over-year in April 2022. That’s up from...

Inflation is so high in America that we’re now supposed to believe that inflation is “moderating” if it doesn’t go above 8.5 percent. That, at least, was the message in much of the speculation yesterday around what April’s CPI inflation numbers would show. Much of the “consensus” was that inflation would come in around 8 percent, and that inflation overall had peaked and is therefore moderating. It’s too early to know if inflation has peaked, but one thing if for...

The Swiss government is committed to the rapid expansion of a 5G network. © Keystone / Peter Klaunzer Swiss opinion over the expansion of the 5G telecommunications network is still split down the middle, according to the latest survey on the subject. The Swiss government is convinced that the new technology poses minimal health risks and is committed to the rapid erection of 7,500 5G antennae. Some 42.5% of adults support this strategy, but 41.7% are against,...

Last month was the 89th anniversary of one of America’s biggest blunders on her descent from honest, sound money into weaponized political money: Executive Order 6102. Signed on April 5, 1933, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt required all persons holding more than five ounces of gold to deliver their “gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates, now owned by them to a Federal Reserve Bank, branch or agency, or to any member bank of the Federal...

Too much government spending and loose monetary policy lead to rising prices combined with falling economic growth rates. All Keynesian roads lead to stagflation. It is the result of economic mismanagement. Again and again, the belief has been proven wrong that central bankers could guarantee the so-called price stability and that fiscal policy could prevent economic downturns. The present crisis is one more piece of evidence that interventionist monetary and fiscal...

Maybe last Friday’s pretty awful payroll report shouldn’t have been surprising; though, to be fair, just calling it awful will be surprising to most people. Confusion surrounds the figures for good reason, though there truly is no reason for the misunderstanding itself. Apart from Economists and “central bankers” who’d rather everyone look elsewhere for the real problem. The Establishment Survey was right in the (statistical) zone, so for most of the public the...