SNB & CHF

SMI The Swiss Market Index is set to finish the week notably weaker along with global equity markets as fears around global monetary policy hit sentiment ahead of key meetings by the Bank of Japan and US Federal Reserve next week. The SMI did manage to outperform its European peers thanks to its heavy weighting towards more defensive pharmaceuticals and consumer staples sectors.   Economic Data Global equity markets...

Strange diversion of conditional inflation forecasts: At the ECB Meeting Draghi expected inflation to rebound to 1.2% next year and 1.6% in 2018.The SNB, however, predicts 2017 inflation at 0.2% and 2018 at 0.6%. YoY CPI Inflation in Germany is at 0.4%, in France 0.3%, in Italy and Spain near or under zero. Switzerland sits on a real estate bubble that sooner or later will translate into rents and prices. Rents in...

Swiss Franc As happened very often, traders expected more the SNB monetary assessment. And, as usually, the franc finally appreciated because the SNB did not act. Click to enlarge. FX Rates Looking at the diary, today is the most important day of the week. The Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank meet. The UK reports retail sales. EMU reports CPI figures. The US reports retail sales, industrial output, and...

  A Small and Lonely Group PARIS – It’s back to Europe. Back to school. Back to work. Let’s begin by bringing new readers into the discussion… and by reminding old readers (and ourselves) where we stand. US economic growth: average annual GDP growth over time spans ranging from 120 to 10 years (left hand side) and the 20 year moving average of annual GDP growth since 1967. Note that the bump in the 70 year average is...

The MSM has forsaken its duty in a democracy and is a disgrace to investigative, unbiased journalism. The mainstream media bet the farm on Hillary Clinton, confident that their dismissal of every skeptical inquiry as a “conspiracy” would guarantee her victory. It now appears they have lost their bet. Let’s do something radical and be honest for a moment: the mainstream media has smoothed the path to Hillary’s...

Criminalizing Cash Money sometimes goes “full politics”. Take poor Kenneth Rogoff at Harvard. He wants a dollar with a voter registration card, a U.S. flag on its windshield, and a handgun in its belt – the kind of money that supports the Establishment and votes for Hillary. Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal under the headline “The Sinister Side of Cash”, he noted that: “Paper currency, especially large...

Swiss Franc Swiss ZEW expectations came in better than expected. The value was +2.7 instead of expected negative value. Switzerland ZEW Expectations (see more posts on Switzerland ZEW Expectations, )Switzerland ZEW Expectations. Click to enlarge. FX Rates The US dollar advanced yesterday and is in narrow ranges with a mostly softer bias today. The exception is the Japanese yen. Japanese press have reported that...

The crisis in the global luxury-goods industry deepened after Hermes International SCA abandoned a long-standing forecast and Richemont predicted a profit plunge that Chairman Johann Rupert deemed unacceptable. Cartier in Hong Kong © Bankoo | Dreamstime.com Richemont, the maker of Cartier jewelry, said first-half operating profit will probably decline about 45 percent and warned it may have to deepen cost cuts. Kelly...

Summary: Net migration of Mexicans into the US has fallen for a decade. The surge in Mexican migration into the US followed on the heels of NAFTA. Although Trump has bounced in the polls, and some see this as negative for the peso, rising US interest rates and the slide in oil price are more important drivers. There has been much discussion in the US presidential campaign about immigration, especially from...

Submitted by Christoph Gisiger via Finanz und Wirtschaft, Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, postulates to get rid of cash. In his opinion, killing big bills would hamper organized crime and make negative interest more effective. Kenneth Rogoff makes a provocative proposal. One of the most influential economists on the planet, he wants to phase out cash. «Paper currency lies at...