SNB & CHF

https://rebrand.ly/rawealthpartners1 Join Now Things Change: Charles Hugh Smith , Keyword "Doing more of what's hollowed out our economy and society" is a slippery path to ruin. Things change, supposedly immutable systems crumble and delusions die. That's the lay of the land in the The Empire of Uncertainty I described yesterday. It's difficult not to be reminded of the Antonine Plague of 165 AD that crippled the Western Roman Empire. The exact nature of the virus that struck...

© Simon Kadula | Dreamstime.com The number of recorded Covid-19 cases in Switzerland has declined over the last 12 days. Over the most recent 14 days, the number of recorded cases per 100,000 in Switzerland was 59, below the figure of 60 used by the Swiss health authorities to define a region as high risk. 12 days ago on 20 September, the same rate was 67 per 100,000. The French-speaking canton of Vaud, Switzerland’s most recent Covid-19 hotspot, has recently seen...

Sixth formers use Lego Mindstorms to make robots at a school in Glarus, Switzerland, on May 17, 2018. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally The Alpine nation has slipped one place to sixth in the “World Digital Competitiveness ranking” compiled by the Lausanne-based IMD business school. The United States and Singapore came first and second in the ranking, which analyses how well economies employ digital technologies. They were followed by Denmark, Sweden and Hong Kong, IMD said...

[embedded content] Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun and Alhambra’s Bob Williams look at data from the past month and discuss what it means for the economy. You Might Also Like Monthly Market Monitor – July 2020 Most Long-Term Trends Have Not Changed. A lot has changed over the last 4 months since the COVID virus started to impact the global economy. Asia was infected first with China at ground zero. Their economy...

After falling in July and August, the US dollar strengthened against most of the major currencies in September.  The dramatic pullback in equities seemed to have undergirded the yen’s resilience, which gained a net 0.25% against the dollar.  However, the dollar’s broadly firmer tone appears corrective and consolidative in nature and coincided with the downturn in equities, especially high flying US tech shares.  Risk assets, in general, succumbed to profit-taking...

The best-case scenario is those who love their “great city” will accept the daunting reality that even greatness can go bankrupt. Two recent essays pin each end of the “urban exodus” spectrum. James Altucher’s sensationalized NYC Is Dead Forever, Here’s Why focuses on the technological improvements in bandwidth that enable digital-economy types to work from anywhere, and the destabilizing threat of rising crime. In his telling, both will drive an accelerating urban...

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, former vice president Biden attempted to paint Donald Trump as the bad-on-crime candidate when he claimed that crime had gone down during the Obama administration but increased during Trump’s term. Whether or not this is a plausible claim depends on how one looks at the data. And given that law enforcement and criminal prosecutions for street crime are generally a state and local matter, it’s unclear why any president ought to be...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.03% to 1.0784 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 2(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Before a US election, there is often speculation of a last-minute game-changing development. News earlier today that the US President and his wife have tested positive for the Covid virus has injected a new unknown into not only the US election but the markets as well. Many centers in...

01.10.2020 – The consumer price index (CPI) remained stable in September 2020 compared with the previous month, reaching 101.2 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was –0.8% compared with the same month of the previous year. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The stability of the index compared with the previous month is the result of opposing trends that counterbalanced each other overall. Prices for international package holidays...

01.10.2020 – Turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays rose in the retail sector by 1.6% in nominal terms in August 2020 compared with the previous year. Seasonally adjusted, nominal turnover fell by 2.1% compared with the previous month. These are provisional findings from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Real turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays rose in the retail sector by 2.5% in August 2020 compared with the previous year. Real growth takes...