SNB & CHF

It is costing more to live and be, so naturally people are looking for who it is they need to blame. Maybe figure out some way to stop it. You know and feel for the basics since everyone’s perceptions begin with costs of just living. This is what makes the subject of inflation so difficult, even more so in the era of QE. Money printing, duh. By clarifying the situation – demonstrating over and over how there is no money printing therefore there can’t be inflation –...

Overview: The US dollar is trading with a lower bias ahead of the September CPI report due early in the North American session. Long-term yields softened yesterday and slipped further today, leaving the US 10-year yield near 1.56%.  European benchmark yields are 3-4 bp lower. The shorter-end of the US coupon curve, the two-year yield is firmer. Equities are enjoying a slightly better tone, though Japan, Taiwan, and Australia’s markets traded heavily in the Asia...

Monetary Metals CEO Keith Weiner was back on the Palisades Gold Radio podcast being interviewed by Tom Bodrovics. Keith revealed one key feature that gold has, which bitcoin does not. [embedded content] First, Keith discusses how economists and experts tend to say the strangest things and most of their statements don’t pass basic scrutiny, what Keith calls the “sniff test”. Gold has been accumulated for the last 5000 years. As a result physical scarcity is not...

It was one of those signals which mattered more than the seemingly trivial details surrounding the affair. The name MF Global doesn’t mean very much these days, but for a time in late 2011 it came to represent outright fear. Some were even declaring it the next “Lehman.” While the “bank” did eventually fail, and the implications of it came to be systemic, those overly melodramatic descriptions actually served to downplay the event in public imagination. The world...

In September the city of Lausanne introduced a 30km/h speed limit on 122 streets between 10pm-6am to reduce noise pollution – a Swiss first. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott Most Swiss residents would be in favour of a 30 kilometre (18 miles) per hour speed limit in urban areas, a survey has found. A poll by the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BPA), published on TuesdayExternal link, found that 52% of respondents support a 30km/h speed limit on city streets. An...

Entrepreneurship is a method, and it’s also a mindset. Fabrice Testa has written a book that brilliantly integrates the two: he calls the integration “Super Entrepreneurship,” and his book title is therefore Super Entrepreneurship Decoded (Mises.org/E4B_139_Book). He has the appropriate credentials as a proven super-entrepreneur who has created and nurtured numerous great companies (and successfully sold a couple of them). Fabrice knows the true meaning of the...

The Swiss population has voted in favour of banning face coverings, in a vote known as the 'burka ban', in March 2021. They had already voted in favour of banning the construction of minarets in November 2009. What is it like to grow up, and live, as a Muslim in Switzerland? Muslims are the third largest religious community in the small Alpine nation. Despite this, its members say they still face discriminations because they believe in Islam. We met Maymunah in Bern: the young Muslim...

Marc Chandler from Bannockburn Global Forex discusses the breakout in the USDJPY and how the JPY could weaken further into a new “range” from the 110.00-115.00. For those traders looking for more, you may want to listen in. Also, could the “carry trade” be coming back? And he also talks about what rate expectations are saying about central banks globally, like the FOMC, BOE and BOC and does that fit what the central banks are really doing? Global Financial Markets...

Overview:  A weak close in US equity trading yesterday and the widening of China's "cultural revolution" for a two-month investigation of the financial sector stopped a three-day advance in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index.  China, South Korea, and Taiwan saw more than a 1% decline in their major indices.  All the major indices weakened.  South Korea's Kospi fell to a new marginal low for the year and took the won with it.  The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 in Europe is off around...

Switzerland’s economic conditions make it attractive for financial flows from developing countries © Keystone / Gaetan Bally It’s an economist’s conundrum: global capital, instead of flowing from rich countries to poor countries, actually moves in the other direction. Each year hundreds of billions of dollars leave developing countries and land in the coffers of rich countries like Switzerland. An “unprecedented” $160 billion (CHF149 billion) – about the same amount...