SNB & CHF

I had the privilege to join Alix Steel, the Bloomberg anchor, and Laird Landmann from TCW on the set earlier today. Here is the link to the 2.5-minute clip. The issue is the dollar’s outlook. The greenback had looked to be on the verge of breaking out higher before the US President expressed disapproval with the Fed rate hikes and, then the following day, aggressively accused the EU and China of manipulating their...

The nation’s premier corporate profit engines / social media giants are the ideal platforms for undermining the U.S. via the sowing of disintegration. Whether it’s stated or not, one source of the inchoate outrage triggered by Russian-sourced purchases of adverts on Facebook in 2016 (i.e. “meddling in our election”) is the sense that the U.S. is sacrosanct due to our innate moral goodness and our Imperial Project: never...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.24% to 1.1609 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 23(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin told G20 finance ministers and central bankers that President Trump was not trying to interfere in the foreign exchange market or encroach upon the Federal Reserve’s independence. Trump’s comments and tweets...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Quantity Theory Revisited The price of gold fell another ten bucks and that of silver another 28 cents. Perspective: if you’re waiting for the right moment to buy, the market is offering you a better deal than it did last week (literally, the price of gold is a 7.2% discount to the fundamental vs. 4.6% last week). If you...

Labour rules are a major sticking point in trade talks between Switzerland and the European Union. Swiss authorities sanction on average ten companies per day for violating wage protection rules, according to official figures. That corresponds to 19,200 fines in the span of five years. NZZ am Sonntag external linkpublished these figures on Sunday on the basis of a list compiled by the State Secretariat for Economic...

It was supposed to be a quiet week. The economic data and event calendar was light. There were three features, and none would likely disrupt the markets much. Eurozone The first two are in Europe. The eurozone flash PMI for July, the first insight into how Q3 has begun. The PMI is expected to paint a mostly steady economic activity. The June composite PMI rose for the first time since January, and it is forecast to be...

Stock Markets EM FX saw some violent swings last week, due in large part to some unhelpful official comments Friday. BRL and TRY were the best performers last week, while RUB and CLP were the worst. When all is said and done, however, we think Fed policy remains unaffected and so we remain negative on EM FX. Also, global trade tensions remain high after Trump threatened tariffs on all Chinese imports entering the US....

Crypto-blockchain technologies are leveraging the potential of computers and the web for direct political-social innovation. We’re accustomed to three basic templates for system-wide solutions or improvements: 1. an individual “builds a better mousetrap” and starts a company to exploit this competitive advantage; 2. a company invents something that spawns a new industry (the photocopier, the web browser, for example)...

The 1MDB scandal has seen billions disappear from the sovereign wealth fund. The Swiss financial regulator has concluded its investigations into the Malaysian 1MDB scandal by finding Rothschild Bank AG and one of its subsidiaries in serious breach of anti-money laundering regulations. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) said on Friday that it has appointed an auditor to make sure the bank and its...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Regulated to Death The price of gold fell $13, and that of silver $0.23. Perspective: if you’re waiting for the right moment to buy, the market now offers you a better than it did last week. If you wanted to sell, this wasn’t a good week to wait. Which is your intention, and why? Obviously, last week the sellers were more...