SNB & CHF

  Net Lines It’s that dreaded day after Independence Day. The weather is gorgeous and I don’t really feel like trading either. The thought of just phoning it in had occurred to me, but as the new month just rolled over I thought I may as well take another peek at our monthly charts. Which uncovered quite some interesting perspectives that I’m eager to share. But no worries – we’re keeping it light and easy...

Summary Sterling has fallen to $1.3050. Two real estate funds have suspended trading (liquidation). Constitutional crisis over who has authority to trigger Article 50 may have begun. Sterling is continuing to move lower. It has tested the $1.3050 area in the North American morning, having been under pressure through the Asian session and the European morning.  That the UK economy is slowing down, materially, as...

  A Growing Bullish Chorus – With Somewhat Muted Enthusiasm A few days ago a well-known mainstream investment house (which shall remain nameless) informed the world that it now expects the gold price to reach “$1,500 by early 2017”. Our first thought was: “Now they tell us!”. You won’t be surprised to learn that the same house not too long ago had its eyes firmly fixed in the opposite direction. Why are we telling you...

05.07.2016 09:15  – FSO, Tourism (0353-1606-80) Tourism accommodation statistics in May 2016 Increase in overnight stays during May 2016 Neuchâtel, 05.07.2016 (FSO) – The Swiss hotel industry registered 2.7 million overnight stays in May 2016, which corresponds to a growth of 1.3% (+35,000 overnight stays) compared with May 2015. Domestic visitors recorded 1.1 million overnight stays, representing an increase of 1.9%...

A hi-ho silver moment… Photo credit: Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance Going Parabolic From Wednesday through Friday, the price of silver spiked massively. It ended the week about $2 higher than the previous week. The last time we recall silver price action like this was about 3 years ago, in August 2013. That one week, the price rose about $2.50. Before that was a week in August 2012, with a price gain of about...

Restless Peasants First, a few quick words on Brexit.  Being the always positive and optimistic person that I am (big grin), I see one very positive outcome of Brexit – it is a revolution without bloodshed. For once, I’m not digressing.  Brexit has a lot of parallels with housing affordability in the US.  Brexit is a clear illustration of how politicians, policy makers and the establishment have lost touch with the...

Interventions:The SNB intervenes for 6.3 bn francs in the week ending last Friday, the week one after Brexit. Already on Day One , the SNB intervened for an estimated 3-4 bn francs This is once again the a new weekly high since the end of the EUR/CHF peg in January 2015. Seven billion sight deposits come from Swiss banks, when fearful investors moved their money on Swiss bank accounts. FX: Unexpectedly for us, the SNB...

This post is motivated by recent headlines suggesting that the Chinese yuan has depreciated in recent days. Here’s an example: China’s yuan weakens to 5-1/2 low as c.bank tolerates depreciation This headline is completely inaccurate – the Chinese yuan has been appreciating in recent days. So that’s one problem I’d like to fix. I’d like to see the media start reporting accurate data on exchange rates, so that we know...

Monday July 4: Five things the markets are talking about Happy 4th of July! Stateside, this is a holiday shortened trading week, one that will be dominated by two fundamental events – Wednesday’s FOMC minutes and Friday’s non-farm payroll (NFP) report for June. With no surprises expected in the minutes, both dealers and investors have very much priced out any possibility of a U.S rate hike occurring within the next...

It never ceases to amaze how vastly different the investment styles of gold paper vs physical traders are: while we have documented previously how the latter tend to buy progressively more the lower the price (as traditional “buy low, buy more lower” investing would suggest), “investors” in gold paper-derivatives such as ETFs and ETPs are quite the opposite: in fact, they rarely buy until someone else is buying and...