SNB & CHF

The BIS in its quarterly review published yesterday included a reference to the eurodollar market (thanks to M. Daya for pointing it out). The central bank to central banks, as the outfit is often called, is one of the few official institutions that have taken a more objective position with regard to the global money system. Of the very few who can identify eurodollars, or have even heard of them, the BIS while not...

The Economist magazine placed Switzerland first in a recent ranking of currency manipulators. According to the analysis, China, commonly thought of as the world’s champion at keeping its currency’s value artificially low, appears to be doing the opposite: actively trying to push the value of its currency up. On the other hand, Switzerland that has been working hardest to artificially devalue its money. © Ginasanders |...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, March 07(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF The pound has continued to gradually slide lower against the Swiss Franc with rates for this pair falling to 1.2350. GBP CHF is particularly week on two counts: The safe haven status of the Swiss Franc and Brexit. Sterling continues to remain under a degree of pressure as the Brexit uncertainty continues to...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango.  Bitcoin Mania The price of gold has been rising, but perhaps not enough to suit the hot money. Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin has shot up even faster. From $412, one year ago, to $1290 on Friday, it has gained over 200% (and, unlike gold, we can say that Bitcoin went up — it’s a speculative asset that goes up and down...

  Blow-Off Pattern Recognition As noted in Part 1, historically, blow-patterns in stock markets share many characteristics.  One of them is a shifting monetary backdrop, which becomes more hostile just as prices begin to rise at an accelerated pace, the other is the psychological backdrop to the move, which entails growing pressure on the remaining skeptics and helps investors to rationalize their exposure to...

The ISM Manufacturing PMI registered 57.7 in February 2017, the highest value since August 2014 (revised). It was just slightly less than that peak in the 2014 “reflation” cycle. Given these comparisons, economic narratives have been spun further than even the past few years where “strong” was anything but. The ISM’s gauge of orders increased to the highest level in just over three years, while an index of production...

  The Swiss National Bank (SNB) reports a profit of CHF 24.5 billion for the year 2016 (2015: loss of CHF 23.3 billion). The profit on foreign currency positions amounted to CHF 19.4 billion. A valuation gain of CHF 3.9 billion was recorded on gold holdings. The profit on Swiss franc positions was CHF 1.6 billion. For the financial year just ended, the SNB has set the allocation to the provisions for currency reserves at CHF 4.6 billion. After taking into account the...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, March 06(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar’s pre-weekend pullback was extended in early European turnover but appeared to quickly run out of steam. The prospect of a constructive US employment report at the end of the week, especially given the steady decline in weekly initial jobless claims to new cyclical lows, underscores the...

On 9 February 2017, the Deutsche Bundesbank issued an update on its extremely long-drawn-out gold repatriation program, an update in which it claimed to have transferred 111 tonnes of gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to Germany during 2016, while also transferring an additional 105 tonnes of gold from the Banque de France in Paris to Germany during the same time-period. Following these assumed gold bar...

  Defying Expectations Why is the stock market seemingly so utterly oblivious to the potential dangers and in some respects quite obvious fundamental problems the global economy faces? Why in particular does this happen at a time when valuations are already extremely stretched? Questions along these lines are raised increasingly often by our correspondents lately. One could be smug about it and say “it’s all...