SNB & CHF

Overview: Central banks are committed to combatting inflation even as the economies weaken. This is taking a toll on investor sentiment and is dragging down equities. Outside of China, where the PMI confirms a recovery, and India, where most large bourses in the region were off 1-2%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 snapped a three-day rally yesterday with a 0.65% decline. Near midday, its loss today is approaching 2%. US futures are 1.5%-2.0% lower. Bond yields are falling. The...

Aufgrund der westlichen Sanktionen verändert sich die weltweite Finanzwelt. Neben der Ukraine ist davon vor allem Russland selbst betroffen. Nun hat die russische Regierung angekündigt, die Mehrwertsteuer für Crypto-Unternehmen in vielen Bereichen auszusetzen. Crypto News: Russland setzt Mehrwertsteuer für Crypto-Firmen ausAktuell liegt die Steuer auf digitale Assets im Land bei 20 Prozent. Doch durch die Sanktionen des Westens gegen Russland wurde man nun im Kreml...

The COVID-19 crisis continued to have a major impact on the tourism sector in 2021. After the shock of 2020, there was still no return to the pre-pandemic situation. The number of people travelling remained well below 2019 levels. Revenue (foreign visitors to Switzerland) in the tourism balance increased to CHF 10.1 billion, standing at 43.9% below its 2019 level. At the same time, expenditure (Swiss residents travelling abroad) rose by 13.4% but remained 43% below...

It’s not just the flood of never-ending inventory. That’s a huge and growing problem, sure, as the chickens of last year’s short-termism overordering finally come home to their retailer roost. Being stuck with too many goods isn’t necessarily fatal to the global and domestic manufacturing sectors. The scale of the burden is one key worry, though equally so is demand. When the orders were placed during last year, companies appear to have fully bought into (literally)...

Real wages are falling, inflation is at a 40-year high, and the Atlanta Fed predicts we’ll find GDP growth at zero for the second quarter. Meanwhile, both the yield curve and money-supply growth point to recession.  But when it comes to the latest data on home prices, there’s still no sign of any deflation or even moderation. For example, the latest Case-Shiller home price data shows home prices surged above 20 percent year-over-year in April, marking yet another...

Cars in Zurich. From the point of view of the environment and climate alone, transport caused an estimated CHF6 billion of damage in 2019 © Keystone / Gaetan Bally Negative costs on third parties caused by transport in Switzerland amounted to CHF14 billion ($14.7 billion) in 2019. The damage mainly affects the environment and climate, but also health. The Federal Office for Spatial Development said in a reportExternal link on Tuesday that traffic in Switzerland...

The average card-carrying Austrian would say that the Federal Reserve is creating money by the bale, with evidence being Consumer Price Index prints of 8.6 percent per the Bureau of Labor Statistics or over 15 percent per John Williams’s shadowstats.com computation based on the way the government calculated CPI back in 1980. Surely, at best, the US dollar is only the cleanest dirty shirt in the currency laundry basket. But Uncle Sam’s dollar continues to strengthen...

Overview: The sharp sell-off in US equities yesterday, led by tech, is weighing on today’s activity. Most of the large Asia Pacific markets excluding Japan and India lost more than 1% today. The three-day rally in Europe’s Stoxx 600 is being snapped today. US futures are posting small losses. The US 10-year yield is little changed around 3.17%, while European benchmarks are narrowly mixed, with the periphery doing better than the core. The dollar is enjoying a firmer...

A comprehensive report by the Federal Reserve - the Financial Accounts of the US - reveals that there has been no material change in rate of money creation. Not in the US (on par with an incrementally increasing but still PATHETIC 2007-21 trend), not in the rest of the world (equal to 2007-21 garbage rates). ----EP. 256 REFERENCES---- The Everything Data’s (Z1) Verdict: Not Inflation, Only More Of The Same: https://bit.ly/3QOKllW Alhambra Investments Blog: https://bit.ly/3wh01G2...

Health Savings Accounts (HSA) for retired folks. Isn’t that a novel idea? But it’s being considered in Congress—The Health Savings for Seniors Act, H.R. 3796. As it stands right now, the only people eligible for an HSA are those aged 65 years and younger who have a high-deductible health insurance plan meaning you have to pay $1,400 out-of-pocket for an individual or $2,800 for a family before the insurance plan pays anything. You get to deduct your contributions to...