Tag Archives: Featured

While growth in France rebounded, Italy stalled in Q3. Our full-year forecast for the euro area remains unchanged but is clearly at risk. According to initial estimates, growth in the euro area slowed in Q3 to 0.2% q-o-q (quarter on quarter) from 0.4% in Q2. These latest GDP results were below consensus expectations and our own forecast. This was the weakest quarterly growth figure for the euro area since Q2 2014 and...

Slabs of beef hang inside a lorry in Buenos Aires, Swiss farmers fear a deal with the Mercosur countries would result in cheap meat flooding the Swiss market. (Keystone) A coalition of Swiss farming organisations, consumers and NGOs says it is in favour of a free trade agreement between Switzerland and the four Mercosur countries: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. But it is demanding binding criteria concerning...

The desire to improve our social standing is natural. What’s unnatural is the toxicity of doing so through social media. It seems self-evident that the divisiveness that characterizes this juncture of American history is manifesting profound social and economic disorders that have little to do with politics. In this context, social media isn’t the source of the fire, it’s more like the gasoline that’s being tossed on...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.09% at 1.1401 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 30(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: First, reports suggested that if China refused to make any trade concessions, the Trump-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the G20 meeting next month would not take the issue up. Fair enough. Then, new reports indicated that the White was...

The KOF Economic Barometer fell in October after having risen in the previous month. At 100.1 points, the barometer is now as good as on its long-term average of 100.0. Since May of this year, the KOF Economic Barometer has thus been fluctuating around its long-term average. The Swiss economy is therefore in the coming months likely to grow with average rates. In October, the KOF Economic Barometer fell...

Radiologists are some of the best medical earners (Keystone) The salaries of self-employed doctors in Switzerland are around a third higher than previously thought, according to a study by the Federal Office of Public Health. The median wage is CHF257,000 ($258,000). However, certain specialists can earn considerably more: neurosurgeons, for example, take home a median salary of CHF697,000 and gastroenterologists...

The value of local control and local capital far exceed the pathetic “savings” reaped from shoddy commoditized goods. What do we make of an economy in which a handful of bubblicious urban areas are magnets for jobs and capital while rural communities have been hollowed out? The short answer is that this progression of urbanization has been one of the core dynamics of civilization for thousands of years: opportunities...

Pegging cryptocurrencies to traditional currencies is seen by some to be the answer to price volatility. Cryptoasset trading platform Smart Valor plans to launch a new cryptocurrency pegged to the Swiss franc. The CHFt coin will join a growing list of so-called ‘stable coins’ designed to dampen the huge price swings of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, which limits their everyday use. Smart Valor said on Monday that it...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.08% at 1.1379 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 29(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The Dollar index is trading within last Friday’s trading ranges. The year’s high, set on August 15, was just shy of 97.00. The euro continues to straddle the $1.14 level but is spending more time in Europe below there. There is a 1.5 bln euro...

There is a popular notion, at least among American libertarians and gold bugs. The idea is that people will one day “get woke”, and suddenly realize that the dollar is bad / unbacked / fiat / unsound / Ponzi / other countries don’t like it / <insert favorite bugaboo here>. When they do, they will repudiate it. That is, sell all their dollars to buy consumer goods (i.e. hyperinflation), gold, and/or whatever other...