Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.45% to 1.1735 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 12(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates There is one main story today and it is the euro’s surge. The euro began the week consolidating it recent gains a heavier bias, but the record of last month’s ECB meeting surprised the market with its seeming willingness to change the...
Read More »Is the BOJ Tapering?
The G3 central banks are in flux. The Federal Reserve is gradually raising rates and allowing the balance sheet to shrink by not fully reinvesting the maturing proceeds. The ECB will purchase half as many bonds in the first nine months of 2018 as it did in the last nine months of 2017. While some observers are talking about a rate hike late this year, it seems highly unlikely. The ECB has been clear that the...
Read More »Trump to attend WEF gathering in Davos
US President Donald Trump attends the College Football Playoff National Championship game between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 8, 2018 (marketing) United States President Donald Trump plans to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland later this month, his spokeswoman said on Tuesday. In a statement, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House...
Read More »Switzerland has more job vacancies than jobseekers
Speaking to Tages-Anzeiger, Cornel Müller, director of marketing at x28, Switzerland’s largest job search aggregator, said there was a large jump in the number of jobs available in Switzerland compared to one year ago. © Hongqi Zhang (aka Michael Zhang) _ Dreamstime.com At the end of 2017, 178,000 vacant posts were advertised, 22,000 more than at the end of 2016. The meta search company, which aggregates job ads...
Read More »World is $233 Trillion In Debt: UK Personal Debt At New Record
The World is $233 Trillion In Debt: It’s Time to Rebalance To Gold – Record level global debt level hit $233 trillion in Q3 2017– World’s per capita debt now more than $30,000– UK personal debts climbed to the highest level since credit crunch, reaching more than £200bn– US consumer credit highest jump in 2 years by 8.8% in November to $3.83 trillion– BofE warn UK banks could incur £30bn of losses if interest rates and...
Read More »The Conspicuous Rush To Import
According to the Census Bureau, US companies have been importing foreign goods at a relentless pace. In estimates released last week, seasonally-adjusted US imports jumped to $204 billion in November 2017. That’s a record high finally surpassing the $200 billion mark for the first time, as well as the peaks for both 2014 and 2007. US Trade Balance, Jan 2014 - 2018(see more posts on U.S. Trade Balance, ) - Click to...
Read More »Dividendes de la BNS: le compte n’y est pas
La Banque nationale suisse s’attend à un bénéfice de 54 milliards de francs pour l’exercice 2017. Celui-ci résulte de: Un gain de 49 milliards de francs sur ses positions en monnaies étrangères. D’une plus-value de 3 milliards de francs sur l’or. D’un bénéfice de 2 milliards de francs sur ses positions en franc. Nous attendrons les chiffres définitifs à fin 2017 avant de nous lancer dans une analyse. Mais nous pouvons...
Read More »FX Daily, January 11: Capital Markets Calmer, Greenback Consolidates
Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.45% to 1.1735 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 11(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates As market participants were just getting their sea legs back after the start of the year, it was hit by a one-two punch of ideas that BOJ policy was turning less accommodative and that Chinese officials were wary of adding to their Treasury...
Read More »Cool Video: Bloomberg TV Clip on Central Banks
- Click to enlarge I joined Alix Steel and David Westin on the Bloomberg set earlier today. Click here for the link. In the roughly 2.5 minute clip, we talk about the US and and the monetary cycle in Europe. In the US, Q4 was another quarter of above trend growth. The Atlanta Fed says the economy is tracking 2.7%, while the NY Fed puts it at 4.0%. To my way of thinking about the situation, many observers seem to be...
Read More »Number of unemployed in Switzerland drops by 4 percents
There were more vacancies advertised at the unemployment office than the year before (Keystone) The Swiss unemployment rate fell from 3.3% in 2016 to 3.2% in 2017, according to figures released by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) on Tuesday. In terms of actual numbers, 143,142 people were registered as unemployed, a decrease of 6,175 compared with the year before. The fall was particularly marked in the...
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