SNB & CHF

Summary: No impact from the latest North Korean missile test. Polls suggest Tories still ahead for the June 8 election. Prospects of an Italian election this year weighed on Italian stocks and bonds. The markets of the world’s two largest economies, the US and China were closed on Monday, May 29.    As one would expect, capital markets were mostly quiet. Even the launch of another ballistic missile test by...

Labors with No Fruits It’s been a long row to hoe for most workers during the first 17 years of the new millennium.  The soil’s been hard and rocky.  The rewards for one’s toils have been bleak. For many, laboriously dragging a push plow’s dull blade across the land has hardly scratched enough of a rut in the ground to plant a pitiful row of string beans.  What’s more, any bean sprouts that broke through the stony...

What do we call a status quo in which “emergency measures” have become permanent props? A failure. The “emergency” responses to the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-09 are, eight years on, permanent fixtures. Everyone knows what would happen if the deficit spending, money-printing, zero interest rates, shadow banking, asset purchases by central banks and all the rest of the Keynesian Cult’s program stopped: the status...

The Swiss consumption indicator by UBS shows improvements. The indicator is still distant from the highs in 2012. At the time stronger growth in Emerging Markets and the weaker franc helped the Swiss economy. The UBS consumption indicator stood at 1.48 points in April, indicating average private consumption growth. The improved mood in the retail sector supported the indicator, while a decline in new car...

On this holiday weekend known here in the U.S. as Memorial Day, I would like to make a slight turn in the narrative that many give little to no attention too, yet, is one of the most important underlying principles or fundamentals which helped shape, lift, mold, sustain, and create one of the world’s greatest economic powerhouses bar none. That “turn” is in remembering: The liberty to create, and own, one’s own...

Swiss Franc The euro is lower at 1.0901 (-0.11%). EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, May 30(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge FX Rates With the backdrop of US interest rates unable to get much traction, despite the strong probability of another Fed rate hike in a couple of weeks, the third since last November election, the US dollar mixed today. The chief story today, though, is not the greenback but the...

Could robots stop Swiss manufacturing draining abroad? - Click to enlarge The strong franc continues to scare off foreign investors to Switzerland, while at the same time driving Swiss manufacturing abroad. These are the findings of the latest annual Ernst & Young foreign direct investment (FDI) survey released on Friday. FDI is the amount of money invested by firms overseas, in the shape of factories, offices,...

As much as a third of this year's Swiss apple crop may have been damaged in a late April frost - Click to enlargeAn unusual end-of-April frost is expected to cost Swiss fruit producers some CHF100 million ($102 million) in damages and as much as three-quarters of their crop this year. “We are talking about historic crop losses,” said Hubert Zufferey of the Swiss fruit growers’ association on Wednesday. Switzerland’s...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Numeraire Extraordinaire The price of gold went up $12 last week, and that of silver $0.50. That’s not bad for gold and silver owners, and not good for the vast majority who are all-in on the dollar (though they don’t think of it that way). Since we began publishing this Supply and Demand Report four and a half years...

On March 24, 2009, then US President Barack Obama gave a prime time televised press conference whose subject was quite obviously the economy and markets. The US and global economy was at that moment trying to work through the worst conditions since the 1930’s and nobody really had any idea what that would mean. As President, Obama’s main task was not to deliver specifics about auto lending or the inner workings at...