Tag Archives: Featured

I was on the Jay Taylor Show again, to talk about the the Swiss franc. No, the headline was not of my choosing. Adam Caroll gave a Ted Talk about how people behave differently when money isn’t real. And gets into a discussion of how kids will click to spend on their parents’ phones without any real appreciation for what it costs. It’s called “When money isn’t real“. Real being the paper dollar, and unreal being a...

Inflation is unlikely to be a constraint on central bank’s policy. The headline consumer price index (CPI) in China picked up slightly in September, rising by 2.5% year-over-year (y-o-y) compared with 2.3% in August, driven by higher food price and fuel prices. Excluding food and energy, core inflation in China actually eased to 1.7% y-o-y in September from 2.0% in August. Looking forward, we see some moderate upward...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.07% at 1.1436 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 18(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Asian equities were lower, led by a nearly 3% drop in Shanghai, while European shares shrugged it off and the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is up about 0.4% in late morning turnover. The S&P 500 is off by about 0.25%. Global bond yields...

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade...

Construction workers meeting before a rally in Bellinzona, canton Ticino. Some 3,000 construction workers staged a strike in southern Switzerland on Monday to protest changes in the industry, including disputes around the retirement age of 60. Further action is planned in Geneva on Tuesday. The strikes in canton Ticino were jointly called by the Unia, Syna, and OCST trade unions, who claimed that business leaders were...

Q. The UK voted in s referendum to leave the EU in June 2016. It will happen at the end of March 2019. What is the status of the negotiations? A: It had been hoped that the two sides would be close enough to allow a special summit to be called next month to finalize an agreement. This seems a bit premature, but an agreement still seems likely shortly.  There are two stumbling blocks. The first is the Irish border. The...

The calendar last month hadn’t yet run out on US Industrial Production as it had for US Retail Sales. The hurricane interruption of 2017 for industry unlike consumer spending extended into last September. Therefore, the base comparison for 2018 is against that artificial low. As such, US IP rose by 5.1% year-over-year last month. That’s the largest gain since 2010. While that may be, over the last five months American...

In one of the most profound developments in the central bank gold market for a long time, the Hungarian National Bank, Hungary’s central bank, has just announced a 10 fold jump in its monetary gold holdings. The central bank, known as Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) in Hungarian, made the announcement in Budapest, Hungary’s capital. The details of Hungary’s dramatic new gold purchase are as follows: Before this month,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.13% at 1.1449 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 17(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Led by a dramatic recovery in US stocks, global equities are moving higher today. Before last week, decline, the US stock market lacked breadth, but not only did the S&P 500 and NASDAQ post their biggest advance in several...

The plans foresee continued government subsidies to ensure animals’ well-being. The main Swiss business federation has released its recommendations for the government’s sensitive reforms of the agriculture sector. Farmers’ groups reacted with cautious approval. Economiesuisseexternal link gave its appraisal of the government’s 2022 agricultural reform plans on Monday, an appraisal that mostly centred around the...