SNB & CHF

The SNB’s monetary policy is geared to counteracting upward pressure on the Swiss franc against the Euro.  (© Keystone / Ti-press / Alessandro Crinari) The Swiss National Bank’s negative interest rates, introduced five years ago, are having an increasingly significant economic and social impact. But despite criticism, the SNB does not want to remove them. It considers the measure necessary to stop the Swiss franc appreciating too much. Why were negative interest...

A common retort to the claim that in voluntary exchange both parties expect to become better off (or they wouldn’t do it) is that exchanges are seldom, if ever, a matter of horizontal, equal exchange of values. Instead, any such interaction between people is ultimately a matter of their exercising power over one another. The implication, and often explicitly stated conclusion, is that there is no voluntariness, that exploitation is always present, that one party...

The US dollar’s surge alongside gold has eclipsed the equity market rally as the key development in the capital markets. Even the traditional seemingly safe-haven yen was no match for the greenback. The dollar appeared to have been rolling over in Q4 19, as the sentiment surveys in Europe improved, Japanese officials seemingly thought the economy could withstand a sales tax increase, and data suggested the Chinese economy was gaining some traction. However, 2020 has...

The still-growing impact of the coronavirus should keep EM and risk sentiment under pressure this week.  The weekend G20 meeting in Saudi Arabia acknowledged the risks to the global economy and said participants agreed on a “menu of policy options.” However, the G20 offered little specific in terms of a coordinated policy response.  AMERICAS Mexico reports mid-February CPI Monday, which is expected to rise 3.56% y/y vs. 3.18% in mid-January. If so, inflation would...

Crypto employee Hans Bühler, left, after being released from an Iranian prison in 1993. He had been accused of spying. (Keystone / Str) The man tasked with investigating the Crypto spying affair for the Swiss government doesn’t have direct access to all the relevant documents. Niklaus Oberholzer, formerly a federal judge, must ask the federal authorities whenever he wants to access sensitive files. The Federal Council (executive branch), which appointed Oberholzer,...

© Wimseyed | Dreamstime.com Swiss Post has said it will no longer accept packages addressed to China, according to Tribune de Genève. Because of the covid-19 virus, airlines have stopped or drastically reduced flights to China. This fall in air traffic has reduced postal service capacity to China by two thirds. Mail can still be sent if it is marked urgent, however delivery times cannot be guaranteed. Denmark, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Spain and...

The SDX platform promises to drastically reduce the time it takes to trade assets. (Keystone / Walter Bieri) The Swiss stock exchange is offering strategic partners a stake of up to 30% in its new digital assets trading platform. The SDX digital exchange hopes to launch by the end of this year, trading digital shares, bonds and other assets on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform. Project leader Thomas Zeeb told swissinfo.ch that SIX Group, which runs the...

Being a member of the institutional “elite” means never having to say you’re sorry; or even admit that you have no idea what you are doing. For Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi’s retirement from the European Central Bank could not have come at a more opportune moment. Fresh off the Argentina debacle, she failed herself upward to an even better gig. Lagarde had staked a lot on the organization’s largest ever rescue plan. It was a show of force meant to shore up...

During the early 1990s, as the world of the old Soviet Bloc was rapidly falling apart, Murray Rothbard saw it all for what it was: a trend of mass decentralization and secession unfolding before the world’s eyes. The old Warsaw Pact states of Poland, Hungary, and others won de facto independence for the first time in decades. Other groups began to demand full blown de jure secession as well. Rothbard approved of this, and he set to work encouraging the secessionists...

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