Tag Archives: Featured

Once a business is established, there are many ongoing administrative tasks required by law. The main ones are covered in this article. The first few relate to employees and the rest to taxation and other essential administrative tasks. 1. Social insurance taxes Businesses that employ people, including independents, must pay social insurance taxes. These are administered by compensation funds and rates vary slightly by...

Why Eurodollars Might Be Key to the Market Sell-Off (Podcast) There’s a huge market out there that doesn’t get much attention: Eurodollars. These have nothing to do with the euro-dollar exchange rate. Instead, eurodollars are U.S. dollar-denominated deposits at foreign banks and overseas branches of American banks. They’re effectively a source of dollars that operates outside the control of the U.S., and have at...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.18% at 1.1425 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, November 01(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: It appears that month-end considerations deterred the dollar selling that the technical indicators warned was coming and as the new month starts, the dollar is offered. It is weaker against all the major currencies and most of the...

1 November 2018 – The consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.2% in October 2018 compared with the previous month, reaching 102.1 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was 1.1% compared with the same month of the previous year. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The 0.2% increase compared with the previous month can be explained by several factors including rising prices for heating oil...

High-level distillation of the drivers of selected currencies. - Click to enlarge US Dollar Jobs data ahead of the weekend should recover after a storm depressed the September jobs growth. The base effect will allow earnings to show a strong year-over-year gain. The FOMC meets next week. A 25 bp rate hike in December remains the most likely scenario despite the heightened volatility in the stock market. With the...

“Angry masons from Neuchâtel” reads the sign. Following strikes in Ticino and Geneva earlier this month, 1,500 construction workers have continued the protest in French-speaking Switzerland. According to the labour unions, more than 1,500 workers from cantons Freiburg, Neuchâtel, Valais and Jura put their tools down on Tuesday. About 80% of construction sites in the canton of Neuchâtel were shut down – an impressive...

Upon the precipice of the Great “Recession”, US workers were cushioned to some extent by what economists call sticky wages. Before the Great Depression, as well as during it, companies would attempt to deal with looming economic contraction by cutting pay rates before workers. Nowadays, the intent is reversed; businesses will try to keep core workers by keeping pay rates as steady as possible while instead shedding...

(by Reuters from BOSTON, LBMA) The price of gold is expected to rise to $1,532 an ounce by October next year, delegates to the London Bullion Market Association’s (LBMA) annual gathering predicted on Tuesday. A poll of delegates at the LBMA conference in Boston also predicted higher prices in a year’s time for silver, platinum and palladium. Spot gold has had a difficult few months, falling from a high of $1,366.07 in...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.19% at 1.1378 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 31(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: After sliding hard this month, equities continue to stabilize into month-end. All of the equity markets in Asia-Pacific rallied with the help of a solid close in the US. European bourses are higher too as the Dow Jones Stoxx 600...

The increasing volatility of SNB Earnings Annual results are not really definite. Given that the SNB accumulates foreign currencies with interventions, they have huge swings. But the SNB may lose 50 billion in one year and win 60 billion in the next year or vice verse. Good years of the Credit Cycle This trend was stopped in 2016, even without the need for a cap on the franc. But one should consider that we are in...