SNB & CHF

In this episode I am joined by Jeff Snider, Head of Global Investment Research at Alhambra Investments. We discussed why the biggest problem we are facing today is a dollar shortage, the makeup and history of the Eurodollar system, the tensions inherent to being the issuer of the global reserve currency, wealth inequality, his thoughts on inflation vs deflation, and finally the growth of the crypto ecosystem. --- Blockworks' upcoming conference Bretton Woods: The Realignment, is a 250...

With digital payments picking up pace across the globe, social media giant Facebook is extending its payment services to online retailers. Shopify has become the first e-commerce platform to sign up for Facebook Pay. This will allow Shopify merchants to offer Facebook Pay as a payment option during checkout, eliminating the need to re-enter payment information for every transaction. Prior to this, Facebook Pay, which was launched in 2019, was available for its main...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.18% to 1.0837 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 21(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The biggest rally in US equities in four months has helped stabilize global shares today. In the Asia Pacific region, Japan, China, and Australian markets advanced. Led by information technology and consumer discretionary sectors, Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is up around 1.35% near the...

Farmers are now getting lower prices for their crop even though a living wage premium was introduced. Keystone / Legnan Koula Farmers in Ivory Coast – the world’s largest cocoa-producing nation – are getting less for their cocoa despite the introduction of a payment that aims to secure them a living wage. The West African nation of Ivory Coast accounts for around 45% of the world’s cocoa production that brings in export revenue of $3.5 billion (CHF3.2 billion) a...

Back on February 23, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell stopped by (in a virtual, Zoom sense) the Senate Banking Committee to testify as required by law. In the Q&A portion, he was asked the following by Montana’s Senator Steve Daines: SENATOR DAINES. I just was looking at the T bill chart and noticing since the 1st of February, the one month rates have dropped in half from 0.06 to today 0.03, two months went from 0.07, to 0.02. We’re starting to get into that...

So go ahead and say whatever you want around all your networked devices, but don’t be surprised if bad things start happening. I received another “Our Terms Have Changed” email from a Big Tech quasi-monopoly, and for a change I actually read this one. It was a revelation on multiple fronts. I’m reprinting it here for your reading pleasure: We wanted to let you know that we recently updated our Conditions of Use. What hasn’t changed: Your use constitutes your...

Now and then, it pays to take a step back to get a broader perspective on things, to look beyond the daily financial news, to see through the short-term ups and downs in the market to find out what is really at the heart of the matter. If we do that, we will not miss the fact that we are living in the age of fiat currencies, a world in which basically everything bears their fingerprints: the economic and financial system, politics—even people’s cultural norms,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.16% to 1.0846 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 20(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The capital markets have begun stabilizing after yesterday’s dramatic moves. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index did, though, see follow-through selling, and the third consecutive loss saw the benchmark close below its 200-day moving average for the first time in a year. Europe’s Dow Jones...

Big US banks released their 2Q earnings last week. The figures were good thanks to robust growth in investment-banking income as well as a drop in loan-loss provisions. But banks also reported that wage costs were beginning to rise, and while a booming housing market has boosted mortgage-loan business, the renewed retreat in long-term yields has been a drag on interest income. In the main, however, the message from US banks is that business is good as a strong...

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade partners decided to spend more. This is partially...