SNB & CHF

Around 10% of Swiss homes are equipped with air-conditioning systems. Istvan Balogh / Alamy Stock Photo More intense and frequent heatwaves have caused demand for air conditioning to skyrocket, even in temperate countries like Switzerland. But there is a catch: the cooler the buildings, the warmer the planet. This summer will be hotter than usual. That’s according to a forecast made by the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MeteoSwiss) at the end of May,...

Am 27. Juni 2022 publizierte der Nachrichtendienst des Bundes (NDB) seinen Bericht “Sicherheit Schweiz 2022” (PDF). Seit ein paar Jahren wird darin ein “Lageradar” aufgeführt, der “für die Schweiz relevanten Bedrohungen” aufzeigt. Je weiter ins Zentrum ein Strahl reicht, desto relevanter ist die Bedrohung für die Schweiz durch dieses Thema. Für das Jahr 2022 hat der NDB drei “Brennpunkte” ausgemacht : Konventioneller Krieg in Europa Russland Migrationsrisiken...

The pool of Swiss IT specialists is almost dry © Keystone / Christian Beutler The Swiss economy has recovered well from the Covid-19 crisis, but despite the free movement of people agreement with the EU, some sectors are struggling to recruit qualified staff, says a government report. The unemployment rate in spring 2022 returned to its pre-pandemic level for both Swiss and foreign employees, according to the 18th report of the Observatory on the Free Movement of...

Marc Chandler is being interviewed by Dale Pinkert during the F.A.C.E. webinar. Marc believes this Fed tightening cycle ends by the end of this year. He also pointed out small declines in hours worked. He sees continued softening of the economy. Subscribe to attend for FREE using the following link: http://bit.ly/2WhbchO

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.14% to 0.9906 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 8(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge Overview: News that former Prime Minister Abe was assassinated while campaigning in Japan ahead of the weekend election shocked the nation and world. The immediate market impact looks minimal. Asia Pacific equities mostly advanced. Chinese stocks were the main exception and generally underperformed the...

Something has happened which has not occurred since 2009. The silver basis—our measure of abundance of the metal to the market—has gone way under the gold basis. This means silver is less abundant to the market than gold. Here is the picture. The blue line is the ratio of the gold basis to the silver basis (and red is the ratio of the gold cobasis—scarcity—to the silver cobasis). This condition has not occurred in recent years, because the trend has been a rising...

It’s easy to see why, according to a new Harris poll, 71 percent of Americans said they do not want Joe Biden to run for re-election. As Americans face record gas prices and the highest inflation in 40 years, President Biden admits he could not care less. His Administration is committed to fight a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine and Americans just need to suck it up. Last week a New York Times reporter asked Biden how long he expects Americans to pay record...

It would be very irritating to have a rally suck in all the bears salivating for a crash from a bear-market rally peak and then decimate the shorts with a rally that soars rather than collapses to new lows. As a contrarian, I’m always squinting at the consensus and wondering if it is really that easy to be right.Now that everyone is bearish for reasons we all know–global recession, a hot war, energy scarcities and stagflation– I’m thinking, you know what would be...

Even before high inflation hit people’s pockets many Swiss households were over extended. In 2020, almost one in six residents lived in a household with debt arrears, according to data released this week by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com The most common overdue payments were taxes (7.5%), health insurance premiums (5.5%), phone bills (4.1%), utility bills (3.4%), credit cards and other loans (2.7%) and rent or mortgage payments...

Authorities have raised the spectre of winter rationing, should supplies be disrupted. © Keystone / Christian Beutler The president of the Swissgas industry platform says Switzerland is not aware of how fragile the situation is and that “it would not take much” to lead to a winter shortage. André Dosé told the External linkNeue Zürcher ZeitungExternal link (NZZ) newspaper on Thursday that looming gas shortages elsewhere in Europe and exploding prices amounted to a...