SNB & CHF

Overview: The assassination attempt on former President Trump has injected a new dynamic as his chances of being re-elected appear to have risen. There are a few trades that seem to benefit from a second term:  steepening yield curve, weaker Mexican peso, and stronger crypto. The dollar initially strengthened as the market's initially responded, while Tokyo markets were closed for Marine Day. As North American activity is about to begin, the dollar is mostly little...

This weekend a wannabe-assassin tried to kill former President Donald Trump, injuring him and two others and killing another man: Core Comperatore, who shielded his wife and daughter from gun fire. The man responsible is reported to be Thomas Matthew Crooks, who missed Trump’s head by mere inches. Crooks shot from atop a building to Trump’s right, somehow not being halted by the Secret Service. Tensions have been high since seeing it as a gross act of violence from...

After the first presidential debate on June 27, 2024, the media did something no one suspected: they began running headlines questioning President Biden’s mental capacity. CNN named its first analysis, titled “Biden’s disastrous debate pitches his reelection bid into crisis.” The author claimed that “objectively, Biden produced the weakest performance since John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon started the tradition of televised debates in 1960.”In the same analysis, the...

Many claim the problem with fractional reserve banking is that it loans money into existence. It does, but under normal circumstances the money created by commercial banks disappears when loans are repaid or defaulted on, which therefore doesn’t create a permanent inflation of the money supply. Government intervention, however, converts temporary money into permanent money through bailouts like TARP. They purchase loans that would have been defaulted on, preventing...

Slowing US jobs growth, the third consecutive rise in the unemployment rate, and the softer than expected CPI are a watershed. Although the Federal Reserve will not cut rates when it meets at the end of the month, Chair Powell will likely lay the groundwork for a cut in September. Indeed, the Fed funds future market has priced in slightly more than a 25 bp cut. The deteriorating economic conditions dragged US two-and 10-year yields to their lowest in around three...

After the recent election in France, the mainstream media is jubilant at the defeat of the far-right coalition. Polls up until election day predicted a likely win for the right-wing National Rally and its allies. This was not the case. While the National Rally won the most vote share, due to strategic voting and election runoffs, the right-wing coalition won third place in the National Assembly. Macron’s centrist coalition, Ensemble, won second place, with the...

My wife and I comprised an “Oreo family” at one time. We were the filling between raising children and helping parents age. The Kids are good, they are happy, and have satisfying careers that fit their talents. All our parents have passed.As our parents aged, one with Alzheimer’s and another with Lewie Body Syndrome, we shared parents on the dementia spectrum. We shared the collective grief and dismay of watching our parents pass with extraordinarily little...

A quotation from Die Transvaler in 1958, cited by Walter E. Williams in his book “South Africa’s War Against Capitalism,” illustrates a widespread misunderstanding about the nature and purpose of the laws of economics. The political choice to be made by Afrikaner nationalists during the apartheid years was whether to pay a price in terms of economic progress by rejecting free markets, freedom of association and contractual freedom as a trade-off necessary to...

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order....

In a previous article, I explored the absurdity of intellectual property, the unfair and inefficient monopoly privilege it confers on those savvy enough to play the legal system well. By being nonscarce, nonrivalrous objects like ideas or sound waves strung together in a specific order, they can’t be property economically speaking. Nobody can “own” vibrations or reasonably punish me for using your grandmother’s recipe for meat stew. (This is also the reason cultural...