SNB & CHF

In 2019, we wrote about how corporate share repurchases, or “stock buybacks,” had accounted for nearly all buying in the market. A year later, that significant support for asset prices has reversed. While markets have certainly been on a tear this year, due to massive amounts of Federal Stimulus, it has been an advance solely on valuation expansion. While the decline in 2020 earnings was no surprise given the pandemic, earnings were already declining in 2019. The...

The foreign exchange market sees an average daily turnover of something on the magnitude of $6.6 trillion a day.  In a week, the turnover is sufficient to more than cover world trade for a year.  It is the largest of the capital markets.  Trends in the currency market can last for years. A little more than a year ago, we concluded that the dollar’s third significant rally since the end of Bretton Woods was over and that a cyclical dollar decline was at hand.  Yet the...

Switzerland joins at least ten European countries, including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium, which have said they are taking measures to prevent people arriving from Britain Keystone / Neil Hall Switzerland has joined other European countries in suspending flights from the United Kingdom and South Africa after reports of a fast-spreading new coronavirus strain. “Due to the new epidemiological situation in Britain and South Africa, the Federal...

The 2020 election failed to live up to the projections of many pollsters and Democratic strategists . The predicted landslide failed to materialize, and the Democrats lost seats in the House. This means in 2022 the Democrats will be defending a razor-thin majority in the House—a majority they’re almost certain to lose in a mid-term election if Biden is the final victor. The Democrats did well. But not that well. Nonetheless, Nancy Pelosi, in the days following the...

[Editor’s Note: This is a selection from “On Political Power and Personal Liberty in The Prince and The Discourses” from the spring 2014 issue of Social Research.] Although liberty is a recurring concern in Machiavelli’s writings, there is no consensus regarding either the definition of the concept or its relevance for his overall political thought. One direction of Machiavellian interpretation that has gained prominence in recent decades has focused on the concept...

© Pressmaster | Dreamstime.com Restaurants and cafés will progressively close once more across French-speaking Switzerland starting in the canton of Jura on Tuesday 22 December 2020. On 18 December 2020, Switzerland’s Federal Council decided to close restaurants, bars, cultural venues and sports and leisure facilities from 22 December 2020. However, exceptions were allowed in cantons with R-numbers (reproduction rates) below 1 and 7-day infection rates below the...

Some Swiss ski resorts are open for Christmas despite pressure from neighbouring countries on Switzerland to close its pistes until the latest coronavirus wave passes. Germany, Italy and France pushed for Swiss resorts to close until January but Switzerland is reluctant to further damage a sector worth billions to their economies. From December 22, all ski resorts will have to prove they have met strict safety standards to obtain cantonal permits to remain open. --- swissinfo.ch is the...

Swiss couple Helene and Thomas Stohr run their own bakery in Massachusetts. Every day, they produce an array of Swiss and European treats, including croissants, jelly doughnuts and braided bread. From a young age, the Stohrs dreamed of seeing the world, so they left Lucerne for North America 20 years ago. Thomas, a professional baker, worked in Canada and the US for various eateries, including Mövenpick, while Helene looked after their sons Tobias and Nicolas. The push to launch their...

Thomas Gottstein became the new CEO at Credit Suisse in February 2020. Keystone / Ennio Leanza The chief executive of Credit Suisse has vowed the bank will start 2021 with a “clean slate” after a torrid year that began with a damaging corporate spying scandal and was punctuated by embarrassing fallout from legacy compliance and lending failures. Thomas Gottstein, who replaced the ousted Tidjane Thiam in February as head of Switzerland’s second-largest lender, told...

[From “The Exhaustion of the Reserve Fund” in Human Action, chap. 36.] The idea underlying all interventionist policies is that the higher income and wealth of the more affluent part of the population is a fund which can be freely used for the improvement of the conditions of the less prosperous. The essence of the interventionist policy is to take from one group to give to another. It is confiscation and distribution. Every measure is ultimately justified by...