SNB & CHF

According to modern portfolio theory (MPT), financial asset prices always fully reflect all available and relevant information, and any adjustment to new information is virtually instantaneous. Thus, asset prices respond only to the unexpected part of information since the expected portion is already embedded in prices. For example, if the central bank raises interest rates by 0.5 percent, and if market participants anticipated this action, asset prices will reflect...

Last week, a video clip of Francis Fukuyama went viral. In the clip, the political scientist called freedom of speech and a marketplace of ideas “18th century notions that really have been belied (or shown to be false) by a lot of what’s happened in recent decades.” Fukuyama then reflects on how a censorship regime could be enacted in the United States. But the question then becomes, how do you actually regulate content that you think is noxious, harmful, and the...

A Swiss banker has pleaded guilty to tax offences in the United States. Between 2008 and 2014, he allegedly helped wealthy US clients hide their assets from the US authorities in accounts at Zurich-based Ihag Privatbank. Share Facebook Twitter E-mail Print Copy link The former head of the Zurich-based Allied Finance Trust, a subsidiary of the Liechtenstein-based Allied Finance Group, and his “co-conspirators” transferred more than $60 million (CHF51.4 million)...

Outside of the pandemic defined as 2020 and 2021, this past quarter was the 5th best quarter for nominal GDP in the last 25 years. It was the best real growth quarter since Q2 and Q3 of 2014. The last 12 months has been  mostly about services, here are the biggest contributors to YoY GDP: Consumption of Services Consumption of Goods Lower imports Government Non-residential investment in structures Intellectual property Q2 to Q3, we saw an acceleration in goods...

Tis was a poor number. The headline dropped from -5.9 to -10.5. The more eye popping number was the Index for New Orders which dropped from 1.3 to -25.6. I hate to say it, the diffusion index for new orders has never gone below 21 without an accompanying recession; that is until 2023. This is the 4th reading in the last 13 months below 21. These regional manufacturing surveys have been relatively poor since the middle of 2022. To date, it hasn’t mattered. Its as if...

Share: The Swiss Franc is testing further high ground against the US Dollar on Thursday. Risk appetite is cranking up after US inflation data tips lower. US Dollar declines across the board ahead of the holiday market wrap. The USD/CHF slipped through the 0.8600 handle on Thursday as broader markets push over the US Dollar (USD), bolstering...

read aloud pause X Switzerland’s parliament has finalised the 2024 budget after agreeing to a CHF10 million cut on humanitarian funding. Share Facebook Twitter E-mail Print Copy link On Thursday, the House of Representatives and the Senate chambers cleared up the last budget disagreements. The last sticking point was whether to retain or cut Swiss funding for the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).+ Budget: extraordinary spending...

Project Tourbillon, an initiative led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub Swiss Centre and supported by the Swiss National Bank (SNB), explored the feasibility of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), finding that it is possible to implement a CBDC design that provides anonymity to the payer and which is scalable and secure. In a new report released in November 2023, BIS shares details of the project, outlining findings of their...

Join 2024's Virtual Mises University for only $45—or join free for Mises Institute Members (use your promo code on the back of your Membership card).  For almost thirty years, Mises Institute scholars have presented at Mises University, a world-class, week-long, intensive event in Austrian Economics. Virtual Mises University is the online component of this seminar for students, professionals, business people, and absolutely anyone, anywhere, who is interested in the...

There are many reasons to support the breaking up states into smaller pieces. This is done via secession, and acts of secession produce smaller states. All else being equal, smaller states tend to be richer and they tend to have lower taxes. They tend to exercise less power over the resident population—because it's easier for people to escape smaller states than larger ones. Moreover, setting these tangible and practical considerations aside, secession may also be...