SNB & CHF

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links) Many people are saying that I make FIRE and early retirement look too simple. And many people are falling into the trap of believing that retiring early is easy. I want to delve into that important subject. For me, retiring early is simple, there is no doubt. However, it is not easy! The difference is fundamental. And there are no secrets to getting to FIRE. You need to focus your efforts on that goal. And...

A computer image of the planned underground logistics network. Cargo sous terrain Goods that are normally trucked on busy Swiss roads are a step closer to travelling underground on driverless vehicles after an ambitious cargo project got a first legislative go-ahead. Born in London, Simon is a multimedia journalist who has worked for www.swissinfo.ch since 2006. He speaks French, German and Spanish and covers the United Nations and other international...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.06% to 1.0966 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 03(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Market participants appear to be biding their time ahead of tomorrow’s US jobs report as they digest recent developments. The dollar is firmer, equities are mixed, and benchmark bond yields are a little firmer. China and Hong Kong shares continue their recent underperformance, while...

On 23 December 2021, a 90-year old resident of Luzern, was the first person in Switzerland to be vaccinated against Covid-19. In the roughly 5 months since then, more than 3 million people in Switzerland have received at least one dose of vaccine, representing around 36% of the population. © Alexey Novikov | Dreamstime.com By 1 June 2021, 1.75 million (20% of the population) were fully vaccinated and a further 1.32 million (15% of the population) were partially...

For about 1 in 4, Social Security provides at least 90 percent of their income. How many retired workers are getting less than $1,000 per month in Social Security benefits? The question came up and I was curious enough to find the answer, and download the data into an Excel spreadsheet which I saved as a PDF that you can review here. Note that this data is for the 46.5 million retired workers only, and does not include benefits paid to survivors, spouses,...

The prices of the metals hit their lows by the end of April. Gold traded for around $1,685, and is now over $1,900. Silver was around $24, and is now over $28. These are big moves (though of course nothing like bitcoin). Both metals are subject to the persistent belief that their prices are greatly suppressed. But right now, silver is widely believed to be in a global shortage. We have explained this as a shortage of retail products, most especially one-ounce silver...

[This article is part of the Understanding Money Mechanics series, by Robert P. Murphy. The series will be published as a book in 2021.] In chapter 7 we summarized some of the major changes in how central banks have operated since the 2008 financial crisis. In the present chapter, we detail some of the even more recent changes in Federal Reserve operations since the onset of the coronavirus panic in March 2020. Size of the Fed’s Balance Sheet The most obvious change...

Zurich-based FQX secures $4.7M in seed funding to scale their revolutionary eNoteTM infrastructure. Earlybird led the round with participation of SIX Fintech Ventures, the non-strategic corporate venture arm of SIX, and the unicorn founder Carsten Thoma. FQX is radically facilitating trade finance & money markets by using eNotesTM, a disruptive short-term financing & payment instrument. In essence, an eNoteTM is an unconditional promise to pay a specific sum...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.13% to 1.0965 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 02(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The US dollar is enjoying broad, even if not large, gains today following yesterday’s recovery from three-year lows against sterling and four-year lows against the Canadian dollar. The greenback is firmer against all the major currencies. The Australian and New Zealand dollars the...

Today, airplanes account for 2-3% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but their share has been growing rapidly and is expected to triple by 2050. © Keystone / Christian Beutler The Swiss aviation sector, which includes Swiss International Air Lines and Zurich Airport, has pledged to slash CO2 emissions and make flying net zero by 2050. On Tuesday, Zurich, Geneva and Basel airports, together with SWISS, Easyjet, and the umbrella organisation Swiss Business...