Tag Archives: Featured

While Switzerland remains in the top five with the same other four countries in this year’s IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, it slipped from second to fifth place. ©-Kevkhiev-Yury-_-Dreamstime.com_ - Click to enlarge The United States rose from fourth to first, second and third places went to Hong Kong and Singapore, and fourth place to the Netherlands. America’s comeback was due to its economic performance and...

Industrial Production in the United States rose 3.5% year-over-year in April 2018, down slightly from a revised 3.7% rise in March. US Industrial Production, Jan 2006 - May 2018(see more posts on U.S. Industrial Production, ) - Click to enlarge Since accelerating to 3.4% growth back in November 2017, US industry has failed to experience much beyond that clear hurricane-related boost. IP for prior months,...

Gold Looks A Better Investment Than UK Property Dominic Frisby of Money Week looks at the historical relationship between UK house prices and gold (including some great charts), and concludes that your money is better off in the yellow metal than bricks and mortar. Today we return to a subject that has been a favourite of mine over the years: UK house prices – but with a twist. We don’t consider them in the debased,...

A look at different scenarios for the ECB’s exit from quantitative easing and its expected rate hiking cycle. Our baseline scenario for ECB normalisation still holds. We expect QE to end in December 2018 and a first rate hike in September 2019. The ECB is likely to wait until its 26 July meeting to make its decisions on QE and forward guidance. Still, downside risks have risen to the point where another open-ended QE...

Swiss Franc The Euro is down by 0.63% to 1.1545 CHF. This is the fifth day in sequence that the Swiss Franc appreciated. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 25(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Italian stocks are flat, while most European bourses are higher, with the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 up 0.5% in late morning turnover in Europe. The benchmark is lead by real estate,...

The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne ranked 63 countries for competitiveness. (Keystone) Switzerland has dropped from second to fifth place in an annual ranking of the world’s most competitive economies, whilst the United States have moved up three places to the top. Switzerland’s fall is due mainly to “a slowdown in exports, job growth and international investment”, says the...

Only small scale systems can sustainably impose “skin in the game”– consequences, accountability and oversight. Several conversations I had at the recent Peak Prosperity conference in Sonoma, CA sparked an insight into why societies and economies thrive or fail: It All Boils Down to Scale. In a conversation with a Peak Prosperity member who goes by MemeMonkey, MemeMonkey pointed out that social / economic organizations...

Voting with their Feet A couple of recent articles have once more made the case, at least implicitly, for political decentralization as the only viable path which will begin to solve the seemingly insurmountable political, economic, and social crises which the Western world now faces. Fracture lines – tax and regulatory competition allows people to “vote with their feet” – and they certainly do. - Click to enlarge In...

Euro area flash PMI indices failed to stabilise in May. Details were somewhat less worrying than headline numbers and overall still consistent with a broad-based economic expansion, if only at a slower pace than last year. Our forecast of 2.3% GDP growth in 2018 still holds, but the balance of risks is now clearly tilted to the downside in sharp contrast with the situation prevailing a few months ago. The deterioration...

Swiss Franc The Euro is down by 0.34% to 1.1601 CHF. This is the fifth day in sequence that the Swiss Franc appreciated. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 24(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is pulling back after recording new highs for the year against the euro and sterling. The greenback is lower against nearly all the major currencies, but the...