SNB & CHF

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.05% to 1.0717 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 26(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The surging virus ravaging large parts of Europe and the United States is fanning concerns over the economic implications as new social restrictions and curfews are announced in several countries. US additional fiscal support remains elusive as aid for states and local governments...

© Dnaveh | Dreamstime.com Land use is strictly governed in Switzerland. However, a new initiative, which aims to increase construction restrictions further, recently gathered enough signatures to qualify for a a popular vote. The initiative, dubbed the countryside initiative, was officially registered after gathering 104,487 valid signatures, more than the 100,000 that must be collected within 100 days to qualify for a referendum. The federal law on land management...

EM FX took advantage once again of broad dollar weakness. Most EM currencies were up last week against the dollar, with the only exceptions being ARS, TRY, INR, THB, PEN, and MYR. We expect the dollar to remain under pressure this week and so EM should remain bid. However, the growing spread of the virus in Europe and the US supports our view that Asia is likely to continue outperforming. AMERICAS Chile held a referendum Sunday on whether to draft a new constitution....

Bob unveils a new series in which he explains and then evaluates apparent contradictions in the way free-market libertarians handle certain issues. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: Bastiat’s “Petition of the Candlemakers” Bob’s article on price gouging For more information, see BobMurphyShow.com. The Bob Murphy Show is also available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and via RSS. You Might Also Like...

The belief that central banks printing currency can “buy/fix” everything that’s broken, lost or scarce is the ultimate in denial, fantasy and magical thinking. Let’s revisit the pandemic projection chart I prepared on February 2, 2020, nine days after authorities publicly acknowledged the Covid virus outbreak in China. Wave 2 shown on the chart is now underway with a vengeance and next up is Global Depression. . This projection was based on two well-known...

© Martinmark | Dreamstime.com On Sunday 25 October 2020, Geneva’s HUG hospital issued a call for volunteers as the number of Covid-19 patients rises rapidly. The hospital seeks medical, care and administrative volunteers to bolster and relieve their staff. In addition, they seek those who might have recently retired or who are on leave. Bertrand Levrat, the hospital’s chief, said that it’s highly likely that the hospital’s peak number of 550 Covid-19 patients reached...

© Axel Bueckert | Dreamstime.com Today, Germany announced it had added Switzerland to its list of Covid-19 risk countries, effective from 24 October 2020. Until now only certain Swiss cantons were on Germany’s list. The Robert Koch Institut, Germany’s health authority, advises German residents against non-essential travel to Switzerland. Other new additions to Germany’s list include Liechtenstein, Ireland, Poland, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and much...

They should be drooling over the prospects of a clearing path toward normality. The pain and disaster of 2020’s economic hole receding into a more pleasant 2021 which would have been in position to conceivably pay it all back before any long run damage. Getting back to just even with February instead is becoming a distant probability, the kind of non-transitory shortfall with which we’ve grown far too accustomed. Therefore, “they” now salivate (reported to be...

Part II of II Outlook and wider impact As showcased during the debates and in the entire campaign rhetoric, politicians in the US but also in Europe, are solely focused on promoting solutions that only serve to paper over the problems and address the symptoms of the disease. From “covid checks” to rent relief, and everything in between, all their proposed “fixes” are only providing some temporary breathing room to those millions of citizens affected by the economic...

Just over half of respondents to a survey said a repair label would play a decisive role in the purchase of an electronic product. © Keystone / Adrian Reusser No less than 98% of people polled by a consumer protection alliance are in favour of a labelling system that evaluates the repairability of electronic and household appliances. Most of them were also prepared to pay more for a product that offered specific repair guarantees. A vast majority of survey...