Tag Archives: Editor’s Choice

All of the votes have been counted. 51.9% of the votes were for “leave”. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, said in an announcement, that EU law will continue to apply to the UK until the nation formally leaves the club, including rules on free movement of people. © Lucian Milasan | Dreamstime.com David Cameron said in a speech that he’d like to assure British citizens abroad and EU citizens in the UK that there would be no immediate changes. He also announced his resignation and...

All of the votes have been counted. 51.9% of the votes were for “leave”. Voter turnout was 72.2%. Voting was divided. Scotland (62.0% remain) and Northern Ireland (55.8% remain) voted too stay, while England (53.4% leave) and Wales (52.5% leave) voted to leave. © Donfiore | Dreamstime.com In the markets, the pound dropped as low as 1.32 US dollars, 1.20 Euros and 1.29 Swiss francs according to Reuters. By around 9:00 am the pound had moved from these lows to 1.37 US dollars, 1.24 Euros and...

Swiss cantons have very different tax bases, tax rates and costs. To even things up, and temper tax rate competition between cantons that jockey to attract the wealthiest residents with the lowest tax rates, Switzerland has a system known as la péréquation financière nationale in French, or Finanzausgleich in German, which requires “rich” cantons to give money to “poor” cantons. Yesterday, the Swiss federal government published the numbers for 2017. In 2017, the top three payers will...

Swiss cantons have very different tax bases, tax rates and costs. To even things up, and temper tax rate competition between cantons that jockey to attract the wealthiest residents with the lowest tax rates, Switzerland has a system known as la péréquation financière nationale in French, or Finanzausgleich in German, which requires “rich” cantons to give money to “poor” cantons. Yesterday, the Swiss federal government...

Investec Switzerland. At least one Brexit warning light is still flashing red. While the pound has rallied in recent days and bookmakers have shortened their odds on a win for “Remain” in Thursday’s U.K.’s European Union referendum, the Swiss franc is still about 0.4 percent from the 2016 high it reached last week. © Sergey Kuzmin | Dreamstime.com The Swiss currency, traditionally sought by investors in times of market stress, climbed as the “Leave” campaign gained ground in...

Investec Switzerland. The Swiss Market Index (SMI) is set to post one of its largest falls since February this week as growing uncertainty around the result of Britain’s referendum on its membership of the 28-nation European Union bloc led to a global sell-off of company shares. © Evgenyi Gromov | Dreamstime.com Stocks around the world tumbled and demand for safe haven assets sent sovereign bond yields to record lows as new opinion polls fueled anxiety that the UK will...

Investec Switzerland. Brexit backers who hold Switzerland as a model for the U.K. outside the European Union won’t find much support from British expatriates living in Geneva. Attending a British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce event addressed by the head of the “Leave” campaign recently at Geneva’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, most said the idea that Bern is free of the long arm of Brussels is a myth. © Neil Harrison | Dreamstime.com While the 41,000 Britons living in Switzerland...

Investec Switzerland. Three years after Lloyds Banking Group Plc sold its private bank in Geneva, the only signs of life at the now-empty building are piles of cigarette butts and nutshells lying on its dirty window ledges. The riverside offices at Place de Bel-Air are a short walk away from the remaining private banks, hedge-fund managers and luxury-goods stores in the heart of the Swiss city. The locked entrance, where millionaire clients used to come and go, is a reminder...

Investec Switzerland. Swiss Market Index (SMI) is set to close lower this week, underperforming global stocks after a stronger Swiss franc hurt domestic firms and Brexit fears weighed on investor sentiment. © James53145 | Dreamstime.com On the other side of the Atlantic, the S&P 500, an index which tracks the share prices of the top 500 US companies,  hit a seven-month high after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen painted a mostly upbeat picture of the economy on...

Investec Switzerland. Foreign-exchange traders, bracing for chaos on the night of Britain’s European Union referendum, are preparing to fall back on techniques perfected before the era of computerized transactions. © Lucian Milasan | Dreamstime.com Banks are ready to draw on lessons learned after some electronic platforms failed during the storm of volatility that followed the Swiss National Bank’s shock decision to remove its currency cap last year. One key failsafe as the...