SNB & CHF

Are stocks “cheap,” or is this just another bullish “rationalization.” Such was the suggestion by the consistently bullish Brian Wesbury of First Trust in a research note entitled “Yes, Stocks Are Cheap.” To wit: “The Fed remains highly accommodative, there are trillions of dollars of cash on the sidelines, vaccines have reached over 50% of Americans, and the economy is expanding rapidly. Some valuations have been stretched, but the market as a whole remains...

Monday, April 26, marked World IP Day. In cooperation with the Property Rights Alliance (PRA), the Austrian Economics Center celebrated it by signing its annual coalition letter, addressed to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Director-General Daren Tang. Property rights benefit businesses, both big and small, start-ups or companies with a long tradition. This, in turn, enriches society as a whole. The COVID-19 pandemic has cost us too much. As a response...

The difference between physical gold investing and ETF investing was stark in the first quarter 2021 according to the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends data released last week. Before focusing in on investment demand below a few notes on overall gold demand in the first quarter. Total gold demand in the first quarter of 2021 was down 4%. However, because gold production and gold demand (jewellery, bar and coin etc.) are decentralized around the globe, and no...

Start your FREE trial today for the latest macro & financial market analysis from 50+ researchers and access to our Slack chat room: https://macrohive.com/become-a-member/?add-to-cart=6305 _________________________________________________________________________ Jeff is Head of Global Investment Research for Alhambra Investment Partners. He started his career in portfolio management and equity research before focusing on broad investment research since the 2000s. In this podcast, we...

A Swiss pensioners' cycling group at Solothurn, Switzerland, on July 26, 2018. © Keystone / Christian Beutler Around half of all people stop working before the official retirement age in Switzerland, according to new federal data. This content was published on May 4, 2021 - 13:32 May 4, 2021 - 13:32 RTS/sb On Tuesday, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported External linkthat in 2019 between 40-50% of people started receiving their pension from their...

Sentiment amongst Swiss households is improving. The results of the April survey show that expectations regarding general economic development in particular are becoming more positive. The likelihood of households making major purchases has also risen. Download press release Consumer sentiment back to pre-crisis level(PDF, 2 pages, 257...

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,Recently, my colleague, Egon von Greyerz, and I had some unabashed yet blunt fun calling out the staggering levels of open hypocrisy and policy desperation unleashed by former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan.Poor Alan was an easy target of what I described as the “patient zero” of the reckless interest rate suppression and unbridled monetary expansion policies of the Fed which have always led to equally reckless...

--- In both North Korea and Switzerland, the omnipresence of high mountains most probably affects the national psyche. An exhibition at the Alpine Museum in Bern investigates the similarities and differences between the two mountain nations, focusing not on politics but on people. swissinfo.ch is the international branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Its role is to report on Switzerland and to provide a Swiss perspective on international events. For more articles,...

The bureaucrat is not only a government employee. He is, under a democratic constitution, at the same time a voter and as such a part of the sovereign, his employer. He is in a peculiar position: he is both employer and employee. And his pecuniary interest as employee towers above his interest as employer, as he gets much more from the public funds than he contributes to them. This double relationship becomes more important as the people on the government’s payroll...

Authored by Nick Dunbar of Risky FinanceWhen the family office Archegos Capital abruptly imploded in late March, prompting $50 billion in block trades and $10 billion in losses at Credit Suisse, Nomura, UBS and Morgan Stanley, many bank analysts were taken by surprise. Last week, many of these analysts sounded frustrated listening to Credit Suisse’s earnings call in which senior management skirted round without giving any real detail about the disaster.“Do you think...