SNB & CHF

The coronavirus began during December, but in its early stages no one knew a thing about it. It wasn’t until January 1 that health authorities in China closed the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market after initially determining some wild animals sold there might have been the source of a pneumonia-like outbreak. On January 5, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued a statement saying it wasn’t SARS or MERS, and that the spreading disease would be probed. In other...

via Bloomberg Gold climbed for a fourth day as investors weighed the unfolding coronavirus crisis, including a stark warning from the head of the World Health Organization about the potential for more cases beyond China and signs the disease is spreading in the key Asian trading hub of Singapore. Prices rose as the death toll from the outbreak topped 900 and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus voiced concern over the spread from people with no travel...

Today’s brand of the left-leaning politician is all about substituting what sounds good for what actually works. Modern politics, whether in the US or Europe, is about taking a chainsaw to everything that produced even a modicum of success to appease the deities espousing progressive orthodoxy. There is no better example of this than fossil fuels, an energy source that has lifted us out of destitution and darkness, and given us incredible wealth that the world had...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.15% to 1.0675 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 11(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Investors are taking solace from reports indicating that the increase in the new coronavirus at ground zero (Hubei) is slowing. After the S&P 500 reversed early losses yesterday to close at new record highs helped keep the bullish sentiment intact. Benchmarks in Hong Kong, South...

10.02.2020 – The consumer price index (CPI) fell by 0.2% in January 2020 compared with the previous month, reach-ing 101.5 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was +0.2% compared with the same month of the previous year. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The decrease of 0.2% compared with the previous month can be explained by several factors including falling prices for clothing and footwear due to seasonal sales. The prices for...

Urs Rohner, VR-Präsident der Credit Suisse. Bild: ZVG Nach der Absetzung von Tidjan Thiam als operativer Chef der Credit Suisse wurde von verschiedenen Seiten auch gefordert, dass VR-Präsident Urs Rohner bereits auf die kommende Generalversammlung hin seinen Hut nimmt, so etwa vom Stimmrechtsberater Ethos. Rohner will sich aber an der kommenden GV von Ende April für ein letztes Jahr noch einmal wählen lassen. Im Jahr 2021 sollte er dann altershalber zurücktreten. Die...

Ending the limited quarantine and falsely proclaiming China safe for visitors and business travelers will only re-introduce the virus to workplaces and infect foreigners. China faces an inescapably fatal dilemma: to save its economy from collapse, China’s leadership must end the quarantines soon and declare China “safe for travel and open for business” to the rest of the world. But since 5+ million people left Wuhan to go home for New Years, dispersing throughout...

We knew German Industrial Production for December 2019 was going to be ugly given what deStatis had reported for factory orders yesterday. In all likelihood, Germany’s industrial economy ended last year sinking and maybe too quickly. What was actually reported, however, exceeded every pessimistic guess and expectation – by a lot. IP absolutely plummeted in the final month of 2019. Compared to the prior December, the index was down an alarming 6.7%. Minus seven...

A common issue with economists and political economists from left to right is that they misunderstand the market economy as simply being a set of production processes. We see this in Lenin’s statement that the Soviet Union should be run like one big factory. We see it in market socialists from Frederic Taylor to Oskar Lange attempting to respond to (and resolve) Mises’s argument that socialist economic calculation is impossible. And we see the same thing in the...

The coronavirus death toll is just over 900, exceeding the SARS epidemic; the dollar remains firm President Trump will unveil his budget proposal for FY2021 beginning October 1 today The faltering eurozone economy comes just as political uncertainty is picking up in Germany Norway inflation spiked in January; Turkish local rates spiked after regulators cut the FX swap limits for local banks Japan reported December current account data; China January CPI came in at...