SNB & CHF

Intel Employees Get RIF’d Dark storm clouds gather along the economic horizon.  They multiply ominously with each passing day.  The recovery, weak as it has been, has run for nearly seven years.  Now it appears to be sputtering and stalling out. Intel (INTC), monthly. The stock has performed fairly well since 2009 (most stocks have), but has yet to regain its bubble peak made 16 years ago. Its recent earnings report (“beating expectations”, natch) reminded us strongly of the accounting...

  Buy Low, Sell High? It is an old truism and everybody has surely heard it more than once. If you want to make money in the stock market, you’re supposed to buy low and sell high. Simple, right? As Bill Bonner once related, this is how a stock market advisor in Germany explained the process to him: Thirty years ago, at an investment conference, there was a scalawag analyst from Germany. He showed a chart where a stock had gone up steadily for 10 years. He pointed to the bottom, left...

(here is a draft of my monthly column for a Chinese paper) The US dollar has had a rough few months.  It has fallen against most major and emerging market currencies this year.  A critical issue for global investors and policymakers is whether the dollar’s uptrend is over, or is this just a respite.  Much is at stake with the answer. The variability of exchange rates could account for a third of the total return of a basket of international equities and twice as much for a basket of...

(from my colleague Dr. Win Thin)China’s central bank may be leaning less dovish Turkey has a new central bank governor Argentina issued external debt for the first time since it defaulted 15 years ago Brazil's lower house voted to impeach President Rousseff by a 367-137 vote In the EM equity space, Russia (+2.7%), Indonesia (+1.9%), and UAE (+1.8%) have outperformed this week, while China (-3.0%), Taiwan (-1.9%), and Hungary (-1.2%) have underperformed. To put this in better context, MSCI...

Equity markets are seeing this week's gains trimmed after the S&P 500 fell 0.5% yesterday, recording its biggest loss in two weeks.  Disappointing earnings in some tech leaders spurred profit-taking, The US 10-year Treasuries are consolidating the week's nine basis point increase in yields after nearing 1.90% yesterday.  Asian bonds yields tracked US Treasury yields higher while European bonds are narrowly mixed as they consolidate yesterday's increase.   The US dollar recovered from...

  Lost From the Get-Go There must be some dark corner of Hell warming up for modern, mainstream economists. They helped bring on the worst bubble ever… with their theories of efficient markets and modern portfolio management. They failed to see it for what it was. Then, when trouble came, they made it worse. But instead of atoning in a dank cell, these same economists strut onto the stage to congratulate themselves. Keynes, Photo via MIT Press The scalawag himself. Keynes provided...

The following observations are drawn from the weekly report of Japan’s Ministry of Finance unless noted otherwise.  We use the weekly data instead of monthly to identify changes of trend earlier.  We use simple convention of the week by the last rather than the first day. That means that the report for the week ending April 1 is the first week of April.  To smooth out the volatility, we will often refer to a four-week average. The latest MOF report was released earlier today.   1....

One of Switzerland's biggest supermarkets, Coop, now features a completely new type of lettuce with roots attached, grown not in a field but in a trough. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) --- swissinfo.ch is the international branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Its role is to report on Switzerland and to provide a Swiss perspective on international events. For more articles, interviews and videos visit swissinfo.ch or subscribe to our YouTube channel: Website: http://www.swissinfo.ch...

The ECB meeting is the session’s highlight.  In recognition of the risk that ECB President Draghi expresses displeasure with the premature tightening of financial conditions through the exchange rate channel is encouraged a modest bout of euro selling.  The single currency has drifted back toward the lows seen at the start of the week near $1.1275.   The euro has held above last week’s lows, which were set April 14 near $1.1235.  A retracement target of the euro’s gains since March 10 ECB...

21.04.2016 09:15  – FSO, Demography and Migration (0353-1604-10) Provisional results on population change in 2015 The population is growing and ageing: Grew by 1.1% in 2015 Neuchâtel, 21.04.2016 (FSO) – Switzerland’s population grew by 1.1% in 2015. This trend is the result of net migration and natural growth which are both positive. The population continues to age, in particular Swiss nationals. These are some of the provisional results from the Federal Statistical Office’s Population and...