SNB & CHF

The Used Goods Question Retail sales in several countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland continue to fall or they remain steady for years. In the United States they have strongly risen recently. We should remind readers, that used goods sold via Ebay or similar, are not contained in this statistics. Still they create economic value for the purchases. By mentality, Swiss, Germans or Japanese pay more attention so...

SWI swissinfo.ch is part of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), swissinfo’s parent company, announced on Thursday a series of belt-tightening measures, including the elimination of 250 full-time positions over the next four years. The SBC is initiating a four-year savings and redeployment programme aimed at saving CHF100 million ($100 million), which will be re-invested across...

US President Trump is intent on disrupting the post-WWII arrangement that prioritized and ideological conflict over economic rivalries. Last week, it was reported that Trump told his counterparts at the G7 summit that NATO was as bad as NAFTA. NATO’s annual meeting is July 12. Trump seeks a realignment of alliances and appears to prefer the illiberal forces that arisen in recent years. The US Ambassador to Germany was...

Summary PBOC fixed USD/CNY at the highest level since December 14. Bank Indonesia delivered a larger than expected 50 bp to 5.25%. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov survived a second no-confidence vote this year. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected but with sweeping new powers. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and UAE are reportedly in talks to help stabilize Bahrain. The South African Reserve Bank...

After crossing below $6,000 for the 4th time in a week yesterday, Bitcoin surged overnight – jumping by as much as 10% at one point, the most in 3 months. BTC/USD, Daily Jun 2018(see more posts on BTC-USD, ) - Click to enlarge The 10% surge is a notable outlier after weeks of constant downward pressure, but we note it’s already fading modestly along with the rest of cryptos. Rest of Cryptos Price Change -...

More banks turned a profit last year than in 2016 Switzerland lost a total of nine banks in 2017 bringing the total to 253. Around 20 years ago the country boasted more than 400 banks. According to the annual “Banks in Switzerland” report released by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on Thursday, only one foreign bank opened a Swiss branch last year. The number of people working for banks also declined. Staff numbers in...

A gold bond is debt obligation that is denominated in gold, with interest and principal paid in gold. As I will explain below, it’s a way for the issuer to pay off its debt in full, and there are other advantages. Sometimes, I find that it’s helpful to show a picture of what I’m talking about. At the Harvard Club in New York, an old gold bond is hanging on the wall among other memorabilia. This is a gold bond bought by...

The banking industry must send out a clear message that it is committed to consistently prevent and detect financial crimes, wrote the researches. Swiss financial institutions and public authorities must do more to prevent organised crime and money laundering within the financial system, a study by the consulting firm KPMG published on Tuesday has found. The authors of the study called “Clarity on Crime in Financial...

I missed durable goods last month for scheduling reasons, which was a shame given that May is the month each year for benchmark revisions to the series. Since new estimates under the latest revisions were released today, it seems an appropriate time to revisit the topic of data bias, and why that matters. What happens with durable goods (or any data for that matter, the process is largely the same) is that the Census...

Bitcoin has tumbled back below $6,000 in early Asia trading and the rest of the crypto space is following suit. No imediate catalyst for the move – aside from technical pressure – but tougher AML rules in South Korea and US Congress being told Bitcoin is a threat to the US election may have sparked it earlier in the week and this is follow-through. Bitcoin can’t catch a bid off the weekend’s $6,000 slump… BTC/USD,...