Tag Archives: Featured

© Bernhard Richter _ Dreamstime.com Starting in September 2018, health insurance premiums in excess of 12% of income in the canton of Vaud will be covered by the government. From the beginning of 2019, this percentage will be reduced to 10%, increasing the number of people who qualify and the size of the subsidies, according to the newspaper Le Matin. The new system will replace the current system of health insurance...

The euro recorded the low for the year so far on August 15 near $1.13. We had been anticipating a corrective phase for a couple days before the low was recorded. Recall that the previous Friday, August 10, all the major currencies, but the Japanese yen and Canadian dollar were beyond their Bollinger Bands. The euro recovered toward $1.1735 on August 28, stopping shy of our initial objective of $1.1750. Yet through the...

Melting glaciers can provide a windfall of water for hydropower plants, such as Zervreila (pictured) in Graubünden. Although rapidly melting glaciers provide a temporary boost to Swiss hydropower production, their disappearance does not pose a threat, finds a study from the University of Lausanne. Forecasts predict that glacier melt will slow down between 2070 and 2090. But “fears of a threat to power generation are...

Unemployment Rate (not seasonally adjusted) Registered unemployment in August 2018 – According to SECO surveys, at the end of August 2018, 107,893 unemployed people were enrolled in the Regional Employment Centers (RAV), 1,841 more than in the previous month. The unemployment rate remained at 2.4% in the month under review. Compared to the same month of the previous year, unemployment fell by 27,685 people (-20.4%)....

United States The 201k rise in US non-farm payrolls edged above the median forecasts, but the 50k downward revision to the past two-months removes the gloss. It is the first August report in seven years that the initial estimate was above the Bloomberg median. U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, Sep 2013 - Sep 2018(see more posts on U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, ) Source: investing.com - Click to enlarge The most important part of the...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.26% at 1.1185 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, September 7(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The euro’s resilience strikes us as a potentially important reflection of market psychology. Last week’s high was set near $1.1735, and the high for August was a little higher at nearly $1.1745. The euro has not been above $1.1750 since the...

The transaction underpins Novartis’s strategy of achieving sustainable and profitable growth in the US in the long term. Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis announced the divestment of its dermatology and generic tablet portfolios of Sandoz US to India’s Aurobindo Pharma for a $900 million (CHF870 million) cash payment. A possible performance-related payment of $100 million could be added to the purchase price, the...

If the world’s economies still need central bank life support to survive, they aren’t healthy–they’re barely clinging to life. The “recovery”/Bull Market is in its 10th year, and yet central banks are still tiptoeing around as if the tiniest misstep will cause the whole shebang to shatter: what are they so afraid of? The cognitive dissonance / crazy-making is off the charts: On the one hand, central banks are still...

  Maurice Jackson Speaks with Jayant Bhandari About Emerging Market Currencies, the Trade War, US Foreign Policy and More Maurice Jackson of Proven & Probable has recently conducted a new interview with our friend and occasional contributor to this site, Jayant Bhandari, who is inter alia the host of the annual Capitalism and Morality seminar. Maurice Jackson (left) and Jayant Bhandari (right) A wide range of...

The Swiss economy once again recorded dynamic growth in the 2nd quarter of 2018. GDP (+0.7%) expanded at an above-average rate for the fifth quarter in a row. This expansion was largely supported by manufacturing, which has been experiencing a remarkable upturn since spring of 2017. Exports of goods increased accordingly. Switzerland’s GDP grew by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter of 2018, after 1.0% (revised) in the previous...