SNB & CHF

The Census Bureau reported earlier today that US imports of foreign goods jumped 9.9% year-over-year in October. That is the second largest increase since February 2012, just less than the 12% import growth recorded for January earlier this year. US Imports, Jan 2007 - 2017 - Click to enlarge In both monthly cases, however, the almost normal rates of increase which would have at least suggested moving closer to a...

  The Gift that Keeps on Giving Every year a certain stock market phenomenon is said to recur, anticipated with excitement by investors: the Santa Claus rally. It is held that stock prices typically rise quite frequently and particularly strongly just before the turn of the year. I want to show you the Santa Claus rally in the German DAX Index as an example. Price moves are often exaggerated in the German stock market,...

© Kevkhiev Yury | Dreamstime This week EU Finance ministers came out with a list of countries it thinks don’t measure up to its definition of good tax behaviour. There are two categories: blacklist and so-called “grey list”. Black is bad and grey is heading toward good, but not yet there. Switzerland is on the “grey list”. To stay off the list, countries must have fair tax rules, which are defined as not offering...

Like any other market, there are many opinions on what a currency ought to be worth relative to others. With certain currencies, that spectrum of opinions is fairly narrow. As an example, for the world’s most traded currency – the U.S. dollar – the majority of opinions currently fall in a range from the dollar being 2% to 11% overvalued, according to organizations such as the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bank of...

Summary China eased curbs on coal use for heating in the northern provinces to cope with colder weather. Poland announced a cabinet shuffle. Poland’s lower house approved the controversial judicial reform bill. President Trump announced that the US recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Brazil COPOM was more dovish than expected after cutting rates 50 bp to 7.0%. Chile central bank cut its 2017 and 2018 inflation...

Bailins Coming In EU – 114 Italian Banks Have NP Loans Exceeding Tangible Assets – Italy opposes ECB proposal that holds banks to firm deadlines for writing down bad loans – Italy’s banks weighed down under €318bn of bad loans – New ECB rules could ‘derail’ any recovery in Italy’s financial system – Draft proposal requires banks to provision fully for loans that turn sour from 2018 – ECB insists banks have better...

Eternal Spendathon The Senate just passed a 500-page tax reform bill. Assuming it lives up to its promise, it will cut taxes on corporations and individuals. Predictably, the Left hates it and the Right loves it. I am writing to argue why the Right should hate it (no, not for the reason the Left does, a desire to get the rich). US Federal Debt, 1970 - 2017The Federal debtberg has grown beyond all measure since...

« Beaucoup d’emprunteurs ne se rendent pas compte qu’en concluant le contrat, ils acceptent que leur hypothèque soit transmise à des tiers. […] Les clauses de transmission de l’hypothèque à des tiers sont pratique courante, comme il ressort de nos prises de renseignement auprès [d’UBS,] Credit Suisse, Banque cantonale de Zurich et Raiffeisen. » (TagesAnzeiger, 10.03.2014) Le 23 septembre 2011, le Conseil fédéral...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.21% to 1.1679 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 08(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Sufficient progress will be judged to have been made, and negotiations of the separation between the UK and EU will be allowed to enter the second stage. The formal decision will be made at next week’s EU summit. To be sure, “sufficient...

- Click to enlarge Les paradis fiscaux lovés au coeur de l’UE, de l’Asie et des Etats-Unis d’Amérique sont occultés… L’analyse vire à la farce! Après avoir étudié la situation de 92 pays en matière de lutte contre l’évasion fiscale, l’Union européenne n’en retient donc que 17 sur sa liste noire des paradis fiscaux. Parmi ces États dits « non-coopératifs » on trouve, entre autres, le Panama, la Tunisie, les...