Tag Archives: Featured

In 2017, the BLS estimates that just 861k Americans were added to the official labor force, the denominator, of course, for the unemployment rate. That’s out of an increase of 1.4 million in the Civilian Non-Institutional Population, the overall prospective pool of workers. Both of those rises were about half the rate experienced in 2016. While population growth slowed last year, it produced, apparently, an almost...

According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), consumer prices in Switzerland remained broadly stable at 0.8% y-o-y in December, in line with consensus expectations, meaning that Swiss inflation stayed at its highest rate in almost seven years at the end of 2017. Core inflation (headline CPI excluding food, beverages, tobacco, seasonal products, energy and fuels) rose slightly from 0.6% y-o-y in November to...

- Click to enlarge Confederation and cantons to receive distribution of at least CHF 2 billion According to provisional calculations, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will report a profit in the order of CHF 54 billion for the 2017 financial year. The profit on foreign currency positions amounted to CHF 49 billion. A valuation gain of CHF 3 billion was recorded on gold holdings. The net result on Swiss franc positions...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.31% to 1.1725 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 09(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar’s upside correction that began before the weekend has been extended in Asia and Europe today. The main exception is the Japanese yen. The yen’s modest gains have been registered despite the firmness in US rates and continued...

Beginning of Post: See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Fundamental Developments In this New Year’s holiday shortened week, the price of gold moved up again, another $16 and silver another 29 cents. Or we should rather say the dollar moved down 0.03mg gold and 0.03 grams silver. It will make those who borrow to short the dollar happy… Let’s take a look at...

The German group Zalando is now the number one e-commerce company in Switzerland (Keystone) Switzerland’s retail sector failed to profit from a weaker franc and improving economy last year and business remains sluggish, according to a Credit Suisse report. Retail sales increased by 0.1% in 2017 after two years’ decline, Credit Suisse noted in its annual industry surveyexternal link published on Tuesday. Retailers were...

Unemployment Rate (not seasonally adjusted) Registered unemployment in December 2017 – According to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) surveys, 146,654 unemployed people were enrolled at the Regional Employment Centers (RAV) at the end of December 2017, 9,337 more than in the previous month. The unemployment rate rose from 3.1% in November 2017 to 3.3% in the month under review. Compared to the same...

The Used Goods Question Retail sales in several countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland continue to fall or they remain steady for years. In the United States they have strongly risen recently. We should remind readers, that used goods sold via Ebay or similar, are not contained in this statistics. Still they create economic value for the purchases. By mentality, Swiss, Germans or Japanese pay more attention so...

Avant-propos: Le texte de la conférence de M Jordan de  2011 semble ne plus être disponible sur le net. Du coup, nous le publions ici malgré le Copyright. Ce genre de documents doit être connu du grand public, puisqu’il est le garant de cette institution privée (société anonyme cotée en bourse, soumise à une loi fédérale. L’actionnariat est réparti ainsi: https://www.snb.ch/fr/iabout/snb/org/id/snb_org_stock ), qu’est...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.04% to 1.1753 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 08(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is enjoying modest but broad-based gains after trading firmly at the end of last week despite the slightly disappointing jobs report. The dollar’s upticks are understood to be corrective in nature. The Canadian dollar appears...