Tag Archives: Featured

– Palladium prices surge to new record high over $1,100/oz today – Palladium surges past record nominal price seen in 2001 after 55% surge in 2017– Best-performing precious metal and commodity of 2017 is palladium – Palladium prices top platinum prices for first time in 16 years– Strong Chinese car demand and switch from diesel to petrol cars sees demand surge– Supply crunch as six year supply deficit & 2017...

Our earlier articles on bitcoin discuss the crypto asset as a currency and a commodity. Both papers focused on the consequences of bitcoin’s defining feature: the asymptotic supply limit of 21 million coins. This gives it an unusual juxtaposition of demand uncertainty and supply certainty (as well as inelasticity). As a currency, it gives rise to a tension between its use as a store of value and as medium of exchange....

The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) was established a long time ago in the maelstrom of World War II budgetary as well as wartime conflagration. That made sense. To fight all over the world, the government required creative help in figuring out how to sell an amount of bonds it hadn’t needed (in proportional terms) since the Civil War. A twenty-person committee made up of money dealer bank professionals...

It’s A Wonderful Life Is A Wonderful Lesson To Hold Gold Outside of The Banking System – Christmas film serves as reminder that savings are not guaranteed protection by banks – Savers are today more exposed to banking risks than ever before – Gold and silver investment reduce exposure to counterparty risks seen in financial system – Basket of Christmas goods has climbed since 2016 thanks to 11% climb in gold price...

Unlocked boxes: Swiss banking secrecy is not what it used to be. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Switzerland’s highest court has ruled against the transfer of details of third parties such as bank employees or solicitors in cases of information handovers involving tax dodgers. Wednesday’s ruling by the Federal Court upheld an earlier decision in a case brought by a US expat in Switzerland who disputed the...

Summary Tensions on the Korean peninsula appear to be easing. Relations between Pakistan and the US have worsened. The Philippine central bank is tilting more hawkish. The ANC may consider removing Zuma from the presidency at the January 10 meeting of its National Executive Committee. Turkish banker Atilla was convicted of helping Iran evade US financial sanctions. Argentina sold $9 bln of dollar-denominated external...

Central banks are now trapped. In a nutshell, central banks are promising to “normalize” their monetary policy extremes in 2018. Nice, but there’s a problem: you can’t “normalize” markets that are now entirely dependent on extremes of monetary stimulus. Attempts to “normalize” will break the markets and the financial system. Let’s start with the core dynamic of the global economy and nosebleed-valuation markets:...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.04% to 1.1753 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 05(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates As the US dollar finished last year, so too did it begin the New Year, and after extending its losses, the bears have paused. Technical factors had been stretched, but it appears to have been old-fashioned macroeconomic considerations to...

United States The headline US non-farm payrolls disappointed, rising by 148k instead of the consensus of 180k-200k. However, the other details were largely as expected and are unlikely to change views about the trajectory of Fed policy or the general direction of markets. It is a very much steady as she goes story. The headline miss is not really made up for by the upward revision in the November series from 228k to...

Keen to ride the digital wave: Switzerland is attracting many fintech startups (Keystone) - Click to enlarge The year 2017 saw a record number of businesses created in Switzerland, many of them centred in the booming ‘crypto valley’ region, according to online platform startups.ch. Some 43,416 businesses were created, said the information and advisory websiteexternal link, an increase of 5% on 2016 and an...