SNB & CHF

Roughly a weekand a-half has passed since Credit Suisse gated funds containing $10BN in assets packaged by Greensill, the troubled financial innovator that suckered in former British PM David Cameron, SoftBank and legions of clients and investors with its stated mission to “democratize” supply-chain finance. Now that the trade finance emperor has fallen (having filed for administration earlier this week), Credit Suisse is starting the arduous process of convincing...

The Swiss narrowly voted in favour of a free trade deal with Indonesia on Sunday. Will future agreements also have to win popular support? It’s rare that the people get to decide the fate of a free trade deal – it’s only happened twice in the last half century in Switzerland. The vote was less about trade and more about palm oil, which has become synonymous with deforestation and the decimation of wildlife like the Orangutan. I asked my colleague Anand...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.39% to 1.1078 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, March 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Fear that yesterday’s reversals represent little more than one-day wonders is contributing to the overall consolidative tone today. Most equity markets in the Asia Pacific region and Europe edged higher. China’s stocks tumbled yesterday, despite reports of official assistance, were...

Social Security is an important part of almost every retirement plan, whether you’ve saved enough or not. That’s why it’s important to know as much about your Social Security situation as possible. And you don’t want to wait until you’re about to retire to gather the facts and take appropriate steps. Social Security planning needs to start 5 years before your target retirement date. Check your estimated benefit amount The easiest way to check Social Security’s...

Investors like to short bonds, even Treasuries, as much as they might stocks and their ilk. It should be no surprise that profit-maximizing speculators will seek the best risk-adjusted returns wherever and whenever they might perceive them. If one, or a whole bunch, has to first “borrow” a security the one doesn’t own in order to sell something at a high price betting the price to go down, you can likewise bet there’s someone out there in the financial landscape more...

On the fourteenth of October 2020, Antal E. Fekete, the Hungarian-Canadian economist who saw himself as a monetary theorist following the tradition of Carl Menger, died in Budapest. Behind him was an eventful and fruitful life which was quite typical of the crazy last century. His experiences eventually filled Fekete with dark forebodings for the current century. We can only hope that this crazy year won’t become characteristic of an entire era, as his year of birth...

Bob discusses three separate items all related to nonviolence: (1) Gene Sharp’s work, (2) Bob’s old dream of how to topple a tyrant, and (3) the winners of the Louis CK contest. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: Gene Sharp’s book, From Dictatorship to Democracy The trailer for the documentary “How to Start a Revolution” Sharp’s list of 198 methods of nonviolent action The original Louis CK clip that inspired Bob’s contest For more information,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.22% to 1.1067 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, March 9(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: It is not clear the trigger, but risk-taking appetites rebounded smartly today after the NASDAQ completed a more than 10% pullback from its highs yesterday. Ironically, the Dow Jones Industrials set new record highs yesterday too. Most equity markets in the Asia Pacific region rallied....

Manufacturing constraints, not logistics, are holding up distribution of vaccines. Keystone / Zoltan Mathe More than half of adults in rich countries will still be waiting to receive a first dose of coronavirus vaccine in 15 months’ time, the head of a logistics group distributing jabs has warned. Detlef Trefzger, chief executive of Kuehne+Nagel, one of the world’s largest haulage companies, said: “This already is fast. This sounds shocking for some people, but we...

Swiss foreign trade in salt has plummeted since 2010. Over the past ten years, exports have plunged 91% to 6,084 tonnes and imports by 69%. In 2019 and 2020, the amount of salt imported was greater than that exported, a phenomenon that had not occurred since 2009. In 2020, salt exports totaled 6,084 tonnes, one eleventh from their 2010 level, or down 91% over the decade. They had not reached such a low level since 1991. Imports, for their part, have plummeted by...