SNB & CHF

  Keeping it Simple We recently (on Thursday last week to be precise) put together a few gold-related charts based on the “keep it simple” principle. The annual Incrementum “In Gold We Trust” report is going to be published shortly and contains a quite thorough technical analysis section, so we will keep this brief and just discuss a few things that have caught our eye. So what is the “conundrum”? We will get to that...

The Barry Foundation celebrated the arrival of two St Bernard litters at the end of March. The dogs were traditionally used to rescue people from avalanches in the mountains, but were later bred at the foundation in western-Switzerland which was set up to preserve the place of the dog in Swiss culture. (SRF, swissinfo.ch) At the beginning of June the puppies, each already weighing about 12kg, will leave the foundation to join their new owners. --- swissinfo.ch is the international branch of...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.01% to 1.0883 CHF. EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, June 01(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is mostly firmer against the major currencies.  It is consolidating yesterday’s losses more than staging much of a recovery.  Even sterling, where a YouGov poll has the Tory lead at three percentage points, down from seven previously, is above yesterday’s...

Companies have been spending money thinking of ways to cope with the strong franc - Click to enlarge Swiss companies invested record volumes in research and development (R&D) in 2015, despite the franc exploding in value at the start of that year. The private sector was responsible for most of the CHF22 billion ($22.6 billion) R&D spending in 2015, according to official figures released on Monday. This was an...

Do you think silver is poised to go higher? I sure do. That’s because I’m watching what is going on in the world’s silver ETFs. I’m also watching the mountain of forces that are piling up to push the metal higher. Look at this chart. It shows all the metal held by the world’s physical silver ETFs (black line). And all the metal held by the world’s physical gold ETFs (blue line) … Gold And Silver Prices, May 2016 - May...

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation is bogus on a number of fronts, a reality I’ve covered a number of times: though the heavily gamed official CPI is under 2% for the past four years, the real rate is 7% to 12%, depending on whether you happen to live in locales with soaring rents/housing and healthcare costs. The Burrito Index: Consumer Prices Have Soared 160% Since 2001 (August 1, 2016) Revealing the...

The Used Goods Question Retail sales in several countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland continue to fall or they remain steady for years. In the United States they have strongly risen recently. We should remind readers, that used goods sold via Ebay or similar, are not contained in this statistics. Still they create economic value for the purchases. By mentality, Swiss, Germans or Japanese pay more attention so...

Switzerland’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.3 % in the first quarter of 2017*. Private consumption growth expanded only slightly, while government consumption rose moderately. Following the previous quarter’s fall, investment in construction and equipment increased. The trade balance contributed notably to overall GDP growth. On the production side, growth was largely driven by manufacturing, while service...

Swiss Franc The euro is lower at 1.0885 (-0.18%). EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, May 31(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF Corbyn gains on the Tories. Theresa May calling a snap general selection seemed to be a wise move while the opposition was so weak. With a Tory victory seeming almost inevitable at that point Sterling strengthened against the majority of major currencies. This is due to a...

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...