SNB & CHF

As I write this, another catastrophic hurricane barrels towards Florida, and I can only imagine not only the natural damage left in its wake, but the hopelessness many will feel when they realize the very agencies tasked to respond are not much more than political appointments, and far too inept to grasp the gravity of the task at hand. In the aftermath of a catastrophic event, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is tasked with coordinating relief efforts....

USD/CHF gains ground to near 0.8575 in Wednesday’s early European session.  Reduced bets of a jumbo Fed rate cut in November support the USD ahead of the FOMC Minutes.  The escalating Middle East geopolitical tensions might cap the pair’s upside.  The USD/CHF pair trades on a stronger note to around 0.8575 during the early European session on Wednesday. The firmer US Dollar (USD) amid diminishing odds for more aggressive rate cuts by the...

Two weeks ago, Hurricane Helene slammed into the Deep South and parts of Appalachia, bringing devastating floods to a region often spared from strong hurricanes. A variety of factors combined to make Helene an especially dangerous storm. First, it formed over the Gulf of Mexico, where waters tend to be warmer than the Atlantic. Second, the globe is currently experiencing a transition to La Niña conditions where unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Pacific bring...

Smoking causes around 9,500 deaths in Switzerland every year and 8 million worldwide. Keystone / Anthony Anex Listen to the article Listening the article Toggle language...

Most readers of my weekly column already favor a libertarian society, with either a strictly limited government or no government at all. They realize what a disaster the state has been. What are the philosophical foundations of this outlook? There are many possible answers, but in this column, I’m going to discuss three of the most important of these, the way Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe address this issue. I’m not going to take a stand...

A definition of “projection” is when one baselessly accuses others of doing something unsavory, immoral, or illegal that he is actually doing. For example, a thief who, without proof, accuses others of being thieves. This is what socialists do when they call their intellectual and political opponents “fascists” or compare them to Hitler. Fascism is socialism, as Lew Rockwell recently reminded us in an essay entitled “National Socialism Was Socialist.” Socialists...

Holcim acquires insulation materials company OX Engineered Products Keystone-SDA Listen to the article Listening the article Toggle language selector...

“[L]iberty…is an act of faith in God and in His works.”This is how Frédéric Bastiat—a French economist known for his pioneering libertarian economic thought—concludes The Law, his most famous work. Reading his various writings and pamphlets, we can very often notice a recurring mention of God, or at least of a Creator, and of the morality that today we call “Judeo-Christian”; however, this faith found in his works can be found just as often in his life. This article...

Overview: The US dollar is mixed but is mostly consolidating. The Australian dollar is a notable exception. The lack of new fiscal initiatives from China weighed on the Aussie, which is off for the fourth consecutive session. The other dollar-bloc currencies have also seen the recent losses extended. On the other hand, the Japanese yen and euro enjoy a firmer bias. After a dreadful drop in factory order, German industrial production surprised to the upside (2.9% vs....

When most people hear the word “risk,” they think about wild market swings, scary headlines, and losing money overnight, but Howard Marks, Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of Oaktree Capital Management, takes a different approach. In his new video series How to Think About Risk, Marks digs deep into what risk is and how investors should handle it. Spoiler alert: It’s not just about volatility. The CFA Institute recently summarized the video stream, but I wanted to...