Tag Archives: Featured

Stans, Nidwalden. The canton offers the lowest corporation tax (10.1%) in Switzerland, and takes second place in the global ranking. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Switzerland remains an attractive tax destination for both companies and top earners in 2017, according to a survey of major global business locations published on Wednesday. But it warned planned US tax reform will increase competition. The BAK...

‘Digital Gold’ Bitcoin Flight To Safe Haven Physical Gold – Latest bitcoin, crypto crash causes gold coin and bar demand to surge– Bitcoin down 40% from high, Ripple down 50% and Ethereum down 30%– Ripple and ‘Digital gold’ Bitcoin fall past key psychological price levels– $300bn wiped from cryptocurrency fortunes in just 36 hours– New research says that there is ‘Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem’– Savvy...

La révolution numérique est une réalité qui envahit tous les jours plus les sphères publiques et privées…. Qu’en est-il du commerce de détails? Les visuels ci-dessous nous montrent d’abord que certaines habitudes d’achats dans les commerces traditionnels sont maintenues. C’est d’autant plus vrai que cette présentation, que nous offre Bloomberg, n’inclut pas les achats de voitures et de nourriture. Il est donc probable...

In the NZZ, Peter Fischer reports that SNB president Thomas Jordan rejects the Vollgeld initiative and stops short of endorsing the ‘reserves for all’ proposal. … wehrt sich die Nationalbank auch gegen Vorschläge aus akademischen Kreisen, die von der Nationalbank fordern, nicht mehr nur Banken, sondern auch direkt den Schweizer Bürgern elektronisches Zentralbankgeld zur Verfügung zu stellen. Am einfachsten ginge dies,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.04% to 1.1766 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 17(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates After a shallow bounce in Asia and Europe yesterday, the dollar slipped lower in North American yesterday. Asia was happy to extend those dollar losses, and the greenback was pushed to marginal new lower in Asia, but has come back in the...

The combination of a falling dollar and rising US interest rates has sparked a concern never far from the surface about the foreign demand for US Treasuries. Moreover, as the Fed’s balance sheet shrinks, investors will have to step up their purchases. This Great Graphic was created by the Institute of International Finance (IIF). It is drawn from the US TIC data that tracks foreign holdings of US Treasuries. The most...

The Mother of All Blow-Offs We didn’t really plan on writing about investor sentiment again so soon, but last week a few articles in the financial press caught our eye and after reviewing the data, we thought it would be a good idea to post a brief update. When positioning and sentiment reach levels that were never seen before after the market has gone through a blow-off move for more than a year, it may well be that...

Consumer confidence has been sky-high for some time now, with the major indices tracking various definitions of it at or just near highs not seen since the dot-com era. Economists place a lot of emphasis on confidence in all its forms, including that of consumers, and there is good reason for them to do so; or there was in the past. Spending and consumer sentiment used to track each other very closely and in terms of...

For the fourth quarter as a whole, Chinese exports rose by just less than 10% year-over-year. That’s the highest quarterly rate in more than three years, up from 6.3% and 6.0% in Q2 2017 and Q3, respectively. That acceleration is, predictably, being celebrated as a meaningful leap in global economic fortunes. Instead, it highlights China’s grand predicament, one that country just cannot seem to escape. China Exports,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.19% to 1.1783 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates After extending its recent slide yesterday, which the US markets were on holiday, the dollar is firmer against all the major currencies and most of the emerging market currencies.  There does not seem to be macroeconomic developments...