Tag Archives: Featured

In February 2018, the KOF Economic Barometer rose by 0.4 points to a new reading of 108.0. After the previous month’s decline, it thus stabilised its position on a level clearly above its long-term average. This indicates that in the near future the Swiss economy should continue to grow at rates above average. In February 2018, the KOF Economic Barometer climbed from 107.6 in January (revised up from 106.9) by 0.4...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Object of Speculation The prices of the metals fell last week, $22 and $0.24 respectively. It’s an odd thing, isn’t it? Each group of traders knows how gold “should” react to a particular type of news. But they all want the same thing — they want gold to go up. And when it doesn’t, many hesitate to buy. Or even sell. This...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.19% to 1.1504 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 28(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Many market participants think they heard Fed Chair Powell give a fairly strong signal that he favored a more aggressive course. The implied yield on the December Eurodollar futures rose five basis points to 1.535%. The December Fed...

This Great Graphic from Bloomberg shows the net large speculative positioning in the 10-year note futures over the past five years. They began last year with a huge next short position of more than 400k contracts. By May-June, the speculators had reversed themselves and were net long over 350k contracts. In the middle of December 2017, the net position was short again and peaked in early February near 327.5k contracts....

Swiss sugar is facing stiff competition from European imports (Keystone) The Swiss sugar industry is facing stiff competition from Europe and is calling for political measures to save the industry. At a press conference in Bern on Friday, industry representatives warned that the scrapping of European quotas had flooded the Swiss market with cheap European products. The Swiss Farmer’s Unionexternal link (USP), Swiss...

New home sales were down sharply again in January 2018. For the second straight month, the level of purchase activity fell substantially despite what are otherwise always described as robust or even booming economic conditions. Like the sales of existing homes, the sales of newly constructed units should be both moving upward as well as being significantly more than stuck at this low level. Construction and sale...

There was a broad-based setback in euro area business surveys in February, whether in terms of country or of sector. The Flash composite PMI slipped to 57.5 in February from 58.8 in January. The month-to-month dip was the biggest since 2014. National business surveys painted a similar picture. In Germany, the Ifo business climate index dropped by 2.2 points to 115.4 in February, from an all-time high of 117.6 in...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.29% to 1.1517 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 27(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The capital markets seem unusually subdued. The US dollar is mostly slightly firmer, except against the euro and Swiss franc among the majors. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index managed to eke out a small gain (0.2%), for a third advancing...

Barry Callebaut released the all new Ruby chocolate flavour last year (Barry Callebaut) - Click to enlarge Despite a decline in domestic consumption, sales of Swiss chocolate grew by 3.1% in 2017 thanks to foreign demand. On Thursday, the Federation of Swiss Chocolate Manufacturers (Chocosuisse) reported total sales of CHF1.85 billion ($1.98 billion) for the year. The volume of chocolate sold also increased...

. Switzerland continues to attract large volumes of cross-border workers, notably in the Lake Geneva region and around the city of Basel. At the end of last year, 318,002 people were crossing the border each day to work in Switzerland, according to data published by the Federal Statistics Officeexternal link on Friday. This is an increase of 1.7% compared with December 2016. As in previous years, the Lake Geneva region...