SNB & CHF

With all eyes on Washington DC, today, everyone should instead be focused on Europe. As we’ve written for nearly three years now, for nearly three years Europe has been at the unfortunate forefront of Euro$ #4. We could argue about whether coming out of GFC2 back in March pushed everything into a Reflation #4 – possible – or if this is still just one three-yearlong squeeze of a global dollar shortage. Either way, Europe gets at it first. In 2018, what had been...

Swiss-US trade has been booming in recent years. Would it be better for the Alpine country to stick with the current set-up or trust in a potentially more conciliatory new American president?   Swiss business with the US has never been better. Exports from Switzerland rose by a fifth between 2017 and the end of last year. Half of this trade was from the pharmaceutical and chemical sector. Precision tools, machinery and electrical manufacturing also saw trade with...

A woman living in a southern Swiss town noticed that people around her felt isolated and wanted to connect and share things but didn't know how. So she created the "smart village": a virtual town square. Monica Rush Solcà from the Italian-speaking region of Ticino set up a platform where people can meet and share things. The concept was later used in other towns in the region, with group members hosting events to advertise the service. --- swissinfo.ch is the...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.05% to 1.0682 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, November 4(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Initially, the markets built on Tuesday’s price action, but as soon as a few counties in Florida indicated that it was not going to be the “blue wave,” risk came off, and it was most evident in the bond and currency markets. Equities rallied in the Asia Pacific area, and all but Hong...

Image from Zerohedge The global coronavirus pandemic has accelerated several troubling trends already in force. Among them are exponential debt growth, rising dependency on government, and scaled-up central bank interventions into markets and the economy. Central bankers now appear poised to embark on their biggest power play ever. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, in coordination with the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), is...

03.11.2020 – The consumer price index (CPI) remained stable in October 2020 compared with the previous month, remaining at 101.2 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was –0.6% compared with the same month of the previous year. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The stability of the index compared with the previous month is the result of opposing trends that counterbalanced each other overall. Prices for clothing and footwear increased,...

© Erik Lattwein | Dreamstime.com On Sunday 1 November 2020, Geneva’s government announced the canton would go into semi-lockdown. Bars, restaurants and non-essential businesses in Geneva are set to close at 7pm on Monday 2 November 2020. Schools will remain open. Faced with surge in cases and a steep rise in hospitalisations, the government of Geneva decided to introduce stricter measures to stem the spread of the virus. Between mid-October and 1 November 2020, the...

Regardless of who holds the office, America’s Imperial Project and its Imperial Presidency are due for a grand reckoning. While elections and party politics generate the emotions and headlines, the truly consequential change in American governance has been the ascendancy of the Imperial Presidency over the past 75 years, since the end of World War II. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the Constitution grants the President extraordinary but temporary powers...

The two-day FOMC meeting starts tomorrow and wraps up Thursday afternoon. While no policy changes are expected, we highlight what the Fed may or may not do. We expect a dovish hold, with Powell underscoring the growing downside risks facing the US economy in Q4. While we are confident about our call for this meeting, the medium-term outlook will remain highly uncertain until we get a firm result from the US elections and a better grasp of how the pandemic will impact...

[A selection from Nation, State, and Economy. Editor’s note: When Mises refers to “liberals” or “liberalism” he means the ideology of laissez-faire, sometimes now called “classical liberalism.”] Marxism sees the coming of socialism as an inescapable necessity. Even if one were willing to grant the correctness of this opinion, one still would by no means be bound to embrace socialism. It may be that despite everything we cannot escape socialism, yet whoever considers...