SNB & CHF

Charles Hugh Smith talks about the disparity in the government’s CPI index that states the cost of living is less than 2% per year when reality is different.

We have upgraded our growth projection for this year and next. There are upside risks to our forecast that the ECB will start hiking rates in Q3 2019. Taking account of stronger growth momentum, the carryover effect and upward revisions to past data, we have upgraded our euro area annual GDP growth forecasts to 2.3% both in 2017 and 2018. Our forecasts remain consistent with a very gradual slowdown in the quarterly...

Neuchâtel, 12.12.2017 (FSO) – For several years the average Swiss farmer has been working well over 60 hours per week. With their off-farm jobs, part-time farmers also work long hours. From 2010 to 2016, however, the hours worked fell by one hour per week. Over the same period, farms greatly increased the direct sale of farm products (+60%). Despite the long working hours, in many cases it is very likely that a family...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.06% to 1.1633 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 13(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge GBP / CHF Since the end of August the pound has been making inroads against the Swiss Franc and recovering from the dramatic drop in exchange rates since the Brexit vote over 18 months ago. GBPCHF has gained 8 cents in 4 months. To put this into...

The regional carrier is based in Lugano in southern Switzerland. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Swiss regional carrier Darwin Airline has been forced to concede bankruptcy after a period of serious financial problems. Its plight will cause further headaches for the airport of Lugano in southern Switzerland, where it is based. A fortnight after seeing its fleet grounded by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation,...

The timing just never seems to fall in our favor. If we had had this conversation ten years ago as would have been appropriate, then this evolution might have fell perfectly in our collective laps. Just as the global financial system, really the international, interbank monetary system of the eurodollar, was crashing all around us, the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain was hard coded. Within it contained very...

China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported last week that the official manufacturing PMI for that country rose from 51.6 in October to 51.8 in November. Since “analysts” were expecting 51.4 (Reuters poll of Economists) it was taken as a positive sign. The same was largely true for the official non-manufacturing PMI, rising like its counterpart here from 54.3 the month prior to 54.8 last month. China Manufacturing...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.15% to 1.1651 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 12(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Trends The US dollar is trading with a lower bias against most of the major and emerging market currencies. The upside surprise in Sweden’s inflation is helped the krona recover from its recent slide. It is the strongest of the majors, gaining...

A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security has found that 49 countries violated sanctions on North Korea to varying degrees between March 2014 and September 2017. You will find more statistics at Statista 13 governments including Cuba, Egypt, Iran and Syria were involved in military violations, which as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, includes either receiving military training from North...

One of the most notable events in Russia’s precious metals market calendar is the annual “Russian Bullion Market” conference. Formerly known as the Russian Bullion Awards, this conference, now in its 10th year, took place this year on Friday 24 November in Moscow. Among the speakers lined up, the most notable inclusion was probably Sergey Shvetsov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s central bank, the Bank of Russia. In...