SNB & CHF

USD/CHF extends recovery from mid-January lows. A ten-week-old falling trend line, short-term horizontal resistance area will challenge the pair’s latest pullback. The pair’s break of yearly low can push the bears towards late-2018 lows. USD/CHF takes the bids to 0.9700 during the pre-European session on Wednesday. That said, 21-day EMA limits the pair’s immediate upside amid the bullish MACD signals. Even if the pair manages to clear the 0.9700 mark on a daily...

© Vitezslav Vylicil | Dreamstime.com The tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) has unveiled plans to cut jobs at its sites in Lausanne and Neuchâtel. A total of around 265 jobs are likely to go. Most of them will be transferred to the UK, Portugal and Poland. The company has opened formal processes in both cantons and those affected will be informed between now and the end of March 2020, it said. The company said its restructuring plans are part of its...

Rolling over in credit stats, particularly business debt, is never a good thing for an economy. As noted yesterday, in Europe it’s not definite yet but sure is pronounced. The pattern is pretty clear even if we don’t ultimately know how it will play out from here. The process of reversing is at least already happening and so we are left to hope that there is some powerful enough positive force (a real force rather than imaginary, therefore disqualifying the ECB)...

[This article is excerpted from chapter 14 of Human Action.] It is generally believed that economists, in dealing with the problems of a market economy, are quite unrealistic in assuming that all men are always eager to gain the highest attainable advantage. They construct, it is said, the image of a perfectly selfish and rationalistic being for whom nothing counts but profit. Such a homo economicus may be a likeness of stock jobbers and speculators. But the immense...

Please visit our website www.macrovoices.com to register your free account to gain access to supporting materials. Go to : http://bit.ly/2Sg4W54 for Jeff's chartbook

The dollar continues to climb; one of side-effects of the virus has been a swelling of the amount of negative yielding debt globally The US primary season got off to a rocky start for the Democrats During the North American session, December factory orders will be reported; the US economy remains strong The UK reported January construction PMI The RBA held rates at 0.75%, as expected; Korea January CPI came in hot at 1.5% y/y The dollar is mixed against the majors as...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.21% to 1.0701 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 4(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The combination of the rally in US shares yesterday and the continued efforts of China to inject liquidity helped lift sentiment today. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index snapped an eight-day slide, and many markets jumped more than 1%. Led by energy and materials, Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx...

© Chernetskaya | Dreamstime.com In 2018, the percentage of the population in Switzerland living below the poverty line fell from 8.2% (2017) to 7.9%, returning to the same level as it was in 2010. Most affected by poverty were those aged under 18 (9.6%) and those aged over 64 (13.7%). Single parent families (19.3%), those without tertiary education (12.7%) and those without Swiss citizenship (11.6%) were more likely to have incomes low enough to place them below the...

If we accept what is known about the virus, then logic, science and probabilities all suggest we brace for impact. Here’s a summary of what is known or credibly estimated about the 2019-nCoV virus as of January 31, 2019: 1. A statistical study from highly credentialed Chinese academics estimates the virus has an RO (R-naught) of slightly over 4, meaning every carrier infects four other people on average. This is very high. Run-of-the-mill flu viruses average about...

The headline was unambiguous: ” Brexit Is Done: The U.K. Has Left the European Union .” As of January 31, The European Union (Withdrawal) Act of 2018 has become law and the United Kingdom has begun the withdrawal process from the European Union. The transition process will continue throughout 2020 as the UK and EU governments negotiate the nature of the future relationship between the UK and the EU. Now that the British exit from the European Union is a legal...