SNB & CHF

Copper vs. Oil The Q1 2018 meeting of the Incrementum Fund’s Advisory Board took place on January 24, about one week before the recent market turmoil began. In a way it is funny that this group of contrarians who are well known for their skeptical stance on the risk asset bubble, didn’t really discuss the stock market much on this occasion. Of course there was little to add to what was already talked about extensively...

The scope of this note is to present a score card for Emerging Market (EM)currencies, designed to assess the attractiveness of a given currency over the coming 12 months. The scorecard (see chart), constructed using a rules – based methodology, suggests that the Russian rubble and the Brazilian real are currently among the most attractive EM currencies. EM FX scorecard - Click to enlarge Construction of the EM FX...

Financial writer Charles Hugh Smith sees one very big problem coming at us, and that is a dramatic loss in buying power of the U.S. dollar, but it’s not just the dollar. According to Smith, “All these currencies, there is nothing backing the currencies except the government’s force. That’s the yen, the euro, the dollar and the Chinese yuan. They are all going to have a catastrophic drop against real assets because they are all based on too much leverage, too much debt, too much money...

French unemployment fell surprisingly fast in Q4 2017, to a new cyclical low. France registered the largest drop in unemployment in about ten years in Q4 2017. In metropolitan France, the number of unemployed fell by 205,000 to 2.5 million people, pushing the ILO unemployment rate down to 8.6% of the labour force (-0.7pp), its lowest level since Q1 2009. The improvement was broad based across age groups and worker...

Swiss government accounts closed with a surplus of CHF2.8 billion ($3 billion) for 2017, compared with a forecast deficit of CHF250 million, Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said at a press conference in Bern on Wednesday. This was due mainly to higher-than-estimated tax revenues. The surplus would have been even higher, at CHF4.8 billion, had it not been for an accounting provision of CHF2 billion. The real surplus of...

– Sovereign wealth funds investing in gold for long term returns – PwC – Gold has outperformed equities and bonds over the long term – PwC Research – Gold is up 6.7% and 6.8% per annum over 10 and 20 year periods; Stocks and bonds returned less than 5.2% respectively over same period (see PwC table) – From 1971 to 2016 (45 years), “gold real returns were approximately 10% while inflation increased 4%” – Gold also...

Summary The National Stock Exchange of India will end all licensing agreements and stop offering live prices overseas. Philippine central bank cut reserve requirements for commercial banks. Egypt cut rates for the first time since 2015. Israeli police recommended that Prime Minister Netanyahu be charged. South Africa President Zuma resigned before a no confidence vote was held. Brazil President Temer will issue a...

Actions and Reactions Down markets, like up markets, are both dazzling and delightful. The shock and awe of near back-to-back 1,000 point Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) free-falls is indeed spectacular. There are many reasons to revel in it.  Today we shall share a few. To begin, losing money in a multi-day stock market dump is no fun at all.  We’d rather get our teeth drilled by a dentist.  Still, a rapid...

La grande nouvelle du jour est que Apple aurait vendu plus de montrer dans le monde que toute l’horlogerie suisse réunie. Ces chiffres sont tout de même à relativiser fortement, car ils sont le fruit d’analyse de marché, diffusés par le CEO de Apple lui-même…. Source: http://www.fhs.swiss/fre/origins.html - Click to enlarge En rouge, l’industrie horlogère suisse dans sa totalité face à Apple en bleu. Ainsi,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.13% to 1.1513 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Nearly all the major currencies have risen at least two percent against the US dollar this week. The Canadian dollar is an exception. It has risen one percent this week ahead of today’s local session. Sterling is becoming another...