SNB & CHF

A dirty secret of congressional military spending is that when the government allocates billions in spending, unnecessary, wasteful, and parochial interests quickly find their way into the legislation. Original Article: A dirty secret of congressional military spending is that when the government allocates billions in spending, unnecessary, wasteful, and parochial interests quickly find their way into the legislation. That’s part of the reason President Trump...

An update to an antibody study conducted by HUG and UNIGE suggests that 22% of Geneva’s population had been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus by December 2020. The study which began earlier in the year, and involved 2,072 people, suggests the number of people infected has doubled since June 2020 when 11% of the study sample tested positive for antibodies. © Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com The latest results suggest the official number of cases significantly...

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade partners decided to spend more. This is partially...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.22% to 1.0824 . FX Rates Overview: The prospects of a UK-EU deal and US stimulus continue to underwrite risk appetites and weigh on the dollar. Equity markets are moving higher. Led by Australia and China, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose to new record highs, while Dow Jones Stoxx 600 in Europe is at its best level since February. US shares are also trading higher. Bond markets are quiet, with European yields paring yesterday’s...

© Denis Linine | Dreamstime.com On 16 December 2020, Switzerland’s Council of States, the nation’s upper house, accepted a 2021 budget deeply in the red following its acceptance last week by the National Council. In 2021, Switzerland’s federal government plans to collect CHF 75.8 billion while spending CHF 81.9 billion, plunging the budget CHF 6.1 billion into the red. The pandemic has significantly increased spending. Spending in 2021 is expected to be 8.8% higher...

© Leigh Prather | Dreamstime.com Mistrust of vaccines against Covid-19 continues to rise in Switzerland, according to a recently published survey. A survey run in Switzerland at the end of October 2020, found that only 49% were prepared to take a Covid-19 vaccine, a percentage significantly lower than the 62% recorded in a similar survey in April 2020. Of the other 51%, 25% said they would not take a vaccine for Covid-19 and 26% said they did not know whether they...

Extremes become more extreme right up until they reverse, a reversal no one believes possible here in the waning days of 2020. The absolutely last thing anyone expects is a collapse of all the asset bubbles, i.e. a deflation of assets that reverses the full 20 years of bubble-utopia since 2000. The consensus is universal: assets will continue to loft ever higher, forever and ever, because the Fed has our back, i.e. central banks will create trillions out of thin...

In November, money supply growth rate was essentially unchanged from October and remains near September’s all-time high. The stabilization we find in money-supply growth in recent months comes after eight months of record-breaking growth in the US which came in the wake of unprecedented quantitative easing, central bank asset purchases, and various stimulus packages. Historically, the growth rate has never been higher than what we’ve seen this year, with the 1970s...

Swiss ski resorts are open for Christmas despite pressure from neighbouring countries on Switzerland to close its pistes until the latest coronavirus wave passes. Germany, Italy and France pushed for Swiss resorts to close until January but Switzerland is reluctant to further damage a sector worth billions to their economies. From December 22, all ski resorts will have to prove they have met strict safety standards to obtain cantonal permits to remain open. swissinfo.ch is the...

Switzerland ranks well on flexible working and good digital connections that allow people to work from home. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott Switzerland is among the countries best equipped to withstand the effects of the global pandemic, although no nation has emerged unscathed, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). The Alpine country does well on several of the indicators used in a WEF report released Wednesday in Geneva. Replacing its usual annual Global...