SNB & CHF

It’s your choice, America–you can keep your cartels and the captured government that enables and protects them, or you can fix what’s broken and unaffordable. If there is any goal that might attract support from across the political spectrum, it’s creating more fulltime jobs in the U.S. But this laudable goal is dead-on-arrival (DOA) unless we first fix these four things. Why is job growth stagnating? Many point to...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, February 13(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF Pound to Swiss Franc exchange rates provide strong beginning to the week Pound to Swiss Franc exchange rates have enjoyed a strong boost to begin the week, after what had been a disheartening end to the week for many Franc buyers. The Pound has regularly suffered on Friday’s since the Referendum, with...

On Friday, after it emerged that as part of Marine Le Pen’s strategic vision for France, should she win, is a return to the French franc as well as redenomination of some €1.7 billion in French (non-international law) bonds, both rating agencies and economists sounded the alarm, warning it would “amount to the largest sovereign default on record, nearly 10 times larger than the €200bn Greek debt restructuring in 2012,...

My new book,Political Economy of Tomorrowhas just been published, and it is available on Amazon. The book is not so much of a sequel to my first book,Making Sense of the Dollar. There is very little about the foreign exchange market in the new book.  However,  it is not wholly new cloth either.  There is a journalist-cum-presidential adviser at the turn of the 20th century, Charles Conant, that I introduce in the first...

The cruelest part, perhaps, of this economic condition globally is how it plays against type. In all prior cycles, economies of all kinds and orientations all over the globe would go into recession and then bounce right of it once at the bottom. It was often difficult to see the bottom, of course, but once recovery happened there was no arguing against it. Since the Great “Recession”, which was global, no matter what...

Headlines Week February 13, 2017 Recently inflation rose more quickly in the euro zone, but this was mostly caused by a temporary oil price effect. Therefore the ECB might be dovish for a longer period than the SNB. Consumer price inflation will decide who is more dovish. Ultimately inflation will depend on the two key parameters wages and rents. Rents will rise first in Switzerland, while the Euro zone has downwards...

Swiss Franc Speculators were net short CHF in January 2015, shortly before the end of the peg, with 26.4K contracts. Then again in December 2015, when they expected a Fed rate hike, with 25.5K contracts. The biggest short CHF, however, happened in June 2007, when speculators were net short 80K contracts. Shortly after, the U.S. subprime crisis started. The carry trade against CHF collapsed. The...

Summary: Trump has moderated in several areas, he is being checked in others, and less impactful in others. This will underscore the focus on Yellen’s testimony this week. At same time, many will be reluctant to short the dollar ahead of the tax reform plans that may be unveiled in Trump’s upcoming speech to Congress. There is a lull in the maelstrom launched by the Trump Administration.  His ban on...

Stock Markets EM FX ended last week on a firm note. Falling US rates allowed many foreign currencies to gain some traction. This week, a heavy US data slate is likely to test the market’s convictions on the Fed, with January PPI, CPI, IP, and retail sales all being reported. Yellen also testifies before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. Stock Markets Emerging Markets February 08 Source: economist.com - Click...

  Swiss Franc Currency Index The major information about the Swiss economy since the beginning of the year were: New record in exports and in the trade surplus, albeit mostly driven by a few sectors: pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Considerable improvement of the consumer sentiment Improvement of the UBS consumption indicator. While in 2015, the trade surplus still expanded, we see clear tendencies that in 2017 the...