Tag Archives: Editor’s Choice

Investec Switzerland. Swiss watch exports plunged 16 percent in October, the biggest monthly drop in seven years, as demand weakened in almost every major market for Rolex and Omega timepieces. © Oleg Palchyk | Dreamstime.com Shipments fell to 1.68 billion francs ($1.7 billion), the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said in a statement Tuesday. The decline was much greater than expected and was made worse because October was the weakest month of last year, according to...

Investec Switzerland. Switzerland risks becoming dependent on electricity imports as its citizens prepare for a plebiscite on whether to hasten its exit from nuclear power. Liebstadt nuclear power station_© Gregory Perkins | Dreamstime.com The nation faces losing a third of domestic supplies and becoming a net buyer of power if it opts to start closing its five nuclear plants as early as next year. The Swiss will vote on Sunday and the anti-nuclear proposal has a slender...

According to a recent report by the bank Credit Suisse, the Swiss are worth more on average than the residents of any other nation. The bank’s annual Global Wealth Report calculates average net worth per Swiss adult to be US$ 561,900 (CHF 567,500). Switzerland’s combined personal wealth of US$ 3.5 trillion represents 1.4% of the global total, while the nation’s population represents 0.1% of the global total. © Astra490 | Dreamstime.com Australia in second place, was well behind Switzerland...

Investec Switzerland. Swiss stocks continued to rise this week, in line with other global stocks thanks to a strong performance from financials which gained as investors weighted the prospects of higher interest rates in the US. © Steve Allen | Dreamstime.com Stocks in the financial sector advanced after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the US central bank is close to lifting interest rates as the economy continues to strengthen and signaled her intention to remain...

Le Matin. After nearly ten years of European Union opposition to preferential company tax deals, Switzerland’s government agreed in 2014 to do away with such arrangements. Under current rules Swiss cantons can offer preferential tax rates to certain companies, mostly multinationals with most of their activity abroad. In Geneva, these special rates mean certain companies pay tax at a rate of 11.7%, while all others must pay 24.2%. © Andrey Popov | Dreamstime.com The first step in the reform is...

Investec Switzerland. According to Reuters, following an investigation, China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) said, it found out that Tetra Pak violated some provisions in China’s anti-trust law and will impose a fine of 668 million yuan ($97 million) on Tetra Pak for “abuse of dominant market position”. Tetra Pak crumpled The Shanghai Daily said, SAIC found that Tetra Pak had broken anti-monopoly regulations such as abusing its monopolistic status to...

Investec Switzerland. The Swiss National Bank, which has the lowest interest rate among the world’s major central banks, may be done cutting. © Valeriya Potapova | Dreamstime.com SNB President Thomas Jordan and his fellow policy makers will keep the deposit rate unchanged at minus 0.75 percent until at least the end of the first quarter of 2019, according to the median forecast in Bloomberg’s monthly survey of economists. That would mean ignoring the International Monetary...

Swisscom’s fixed line (remember those) customers will be given the option of blocking unwanted calls from 28 November. The service will be free and can be activated by checking a box online or by calling the Swisscom hotline (0800 800 800). Sunrise and UPC are expected to follow Swisscom by mid 2017, according to 24 Heures. © Marcovarro | Dreamstime.com The new system automatically filters out unwanted sales calls. There is a catch however. It will also filter out anonymous and unidentifiable...

Last Friday, the federal Swiss tax office published the latest statistics covering the wealth and earnings of the nation’s more than 5 million tax payers – Switzerland has wealth tax, so net worth is included in tax returns. The highest percentage of the very wealthiest (CHF 10 million plus) lived in Schwyz. Geneva also made the top five cantons in this category. Freienbach in Schwyz source_wikipedia_Roland zh The 2013 figures published last Friday show, from 2010 to 2013, the total net worth...

Investec Switzerland. A rally in pharmaceutical and banking shares helped boost the Swiss Market Index this week as investors weighed the prospect of a Trump’ presidency in the United States. © Chriscintron | Dreamstime.com Stocks in the healthcare sector jumped after Donald Trump’s victory as drug pricing reforms, proposed by Hillary Clinton, are now unlikely to materialize.  Pharma heavyweights Roche and Novartis helped drive the SMI to outperform global stocks by a...