SNB & CHF

“If you can’t hold it in your hand, you don’t own it.” That’s one of the most common refrains we hear from gold and silver investors. And while there is a kernel of truth in this saying, investing by these words alone could prove a costly mistake. This popular phrase conflates and entangles two different concepts. Gold owned for emergency use or as a financial insurance policy Gold owned for investment purposes In this article, we’ll untangle those ideas and offer a...

Most experts tend to assess the strength of an economy in terms of real gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP framework looks at the value of final goods and services produced during a particular time interval, usually a quarter or a year. The GDP is formed as the summation of consumer outlays on goods and services; outlays by businesses on plants, machinery, and inventories; outlays by government; and exports less imports. An increase in consumer outlays, businesses...

The dollar was high and going higher. Emerging markets had been seriously complaining. In one, the top central banker for India outright warned, “dollar funding has evaporated.” The TIC data supported his view, with full-blown negative months, net selling from afar that’s historically akin to what was coming out of India and the rest of the world. China was cutting its RRR multiple times. This was all following May 29, 2018, too, a day in the global “bond market”...

Nikki Böhler is a young Swiss internet campaigner who is part of a growing community seeking to shape the digital transformation of society. The 29-year-old wants people to become more aware of the importance of their personal online data and of the traces they leave behind on the internet. But she also wants to improve data transparency so that existing, anonymised data can be used for the common good. Her video portrait is the first in the “Digital offensive” series by...

. (Birmingham, AL, USA – January 10, 2022) – Alabama currently exempts precious metals from state sales tax, however this exemption is set to expire in 2022. A senator in the Yellowhammer State hopes to extend this popular exemption. Introduced by Senator Tim Melson (1-R), and supported by the Sound Money Defense League, Senate Bill 13 maintains current law by extending the existing sales tax exemption on the purchases of precious metals purchases If Senate Bill 13...

Major banks, like UBS, are coming under increasing pressure to clean up their investments. Keystone / Ennio Leanza As businesses were gearing up for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, one of Europe’s larger banks released an update on how it planned to do its bit to combat global warming. Switzerland’s UBS group said it had become a founding member of the new Net Zero Banking Alliance, a UN-convened club of mostly western banks committed to decarbonising...

PayPal arbeitet weiter an seinem Vorstoß in den Cryptomarkt. Vor allem in den USA ist man mit der Implementierung von Cryptocoins in das gesamte Online-Zahlungssystem weit fortgeschritten. Somit war es wohl nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis man seinen eigenen Cryptocoin in Betracht ziehen würde. Crypto News: PayPal arbeitet an eigenem Stablecoin PayPal wird es vielen Cryptobörsen gleichtun und einen eigenen Utility Token kreieren. Dieser wird ein Stablecoin sein, der...

Try to find a developing-world kleptocracy in which the top few collect more than 97% of the income from capital. There aren’t any that top the USA, the world’s most extreme kleptocracy. We’re Number 1. Imagine a town of 1,000 adults and their dependents in which one person holds the vast majority of wealth and political influence. Would that qualify as a democracy? Now imagine that 100 of the 1,000 adults own 90% of all the wealth, collect 97% of all the income from...

Turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays rose in the retail sector by 5.4% in nominal terms in November 2021 compared with the previous year. Seasonally adjusted, nominal turnover rose by 1.4% compared with the previous month. These are provisional findings from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Real turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays rose in the retail sector by 5.8% in November 2021 compared with the previous year. Real growth takes inflation...

The Swiss central bank has again profited from its interventions in the foreign exchange markets. © Keystone / Ti-press / Alessandro Crinari The Swiss National Bank (SNB) expects to post a profit of CHF26 billion ($28 billion) for 2021, a windfall made exclusively from its growing foreign currency holdings. The central bank will likely distribute CHF6 billion to the confederation and cantons under the terms of a profit-sharing agreementExternal link that was made...