Tag Archives: Featured

  Swiss Franc Currency Index The Swiss Franc index recovered this week against the dollar index. The franc improved against both dollar and euro, given that the SNB was not dovish enough, Trade-weighted index Swiss Franc, March 18(see more posts on Swiss Franc Index, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge Swiss Franc Currency Index (3 years) The Swiss Franc index is the trade-weighted currency...

There has always been something like Newton’s third law observed in the business cycles of the US and other developed economies. In what is, or was, essentially symmetry, there had been until 2008 considerable correlation between the size, scope, and speed of any recovery and its antecedent downturn, or even slowdown. The relationship was so striking that it moved Milton Friedman to finally publish in 1993 his plucking...

Summary: Nearly half of OPEC’s intended cuts are being offset by an increase in US output. The contango rewards the accumulation of inventories. The drop in oil prices probably weighs more on European reflation story than the US. Oil prices are lower for the seventh consecutive session.   Light sweet crude prices had fallen 10.3% over the past two weeks, and with today’s losses are off another 1.6% already...

Retail sales comparisons were for February 2017 skewed by the extra day in February 2016. With the leap year February 29th a part of the base effect, the estimated growth rates (NSA) for this February are to some degree better than they appear. Seasonally-adjusted retail sales were in the latest estimates essentially flat when compared to the prior month (January). That leaves too much guesswork to draw any hard...

Trump vs. the Deep State If there had been any doubt that the land of the free and home of the brave is now a totalitarian society, the revelations that its Chief Executive Officer has been spied upon while campaigning for that office and during his brief tenure as president should now be allayed. President Trump joins the very crowded list of opponents of the American State which includes the Tea Party, tax resistors,...

20 Minutes. Swiss post has said it will deliver the first packages by air this summer. The first deliveries will be made between two medical laboratories on the southern side of the Alps. Swiss Post Drone - Click to enlarge . Test flights were conducted in the canton of Bern last year. Now Swiss Post is ready to make commercial deliveries starting in Lugano. The two medical labs, one kilometre apart, belong to the...

  Onward vs. Upward Something both unwanted and unexpected has tormented western economies in the 21st century.  Gross domestic product (GDP) has moderated onward while government debt has spiked upward.  Orthodox economists continue to be flummoxed by what has transpired. What happened to the miracle? The Keynesian wet dream of an unfettered fiat debt money system has been realized, and debt has been duly expanded at...

Summay The PBOC increased the rates it charges for OMO and MLF by 10 bp. Indian Prime Minister Modi’s BJP won elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Czech central bank broached the possibility of a koruna cap exit later than mid-2017. Kuwait became the first OPEC member to call for extended output cuts. Moody’s raised the outlook on Brazil’s Ba2 rating from negative to stable. Brazilian prosecutor Janot has given the...

According to Alan Greenspan in a speech delivered at Stanford University in September 1997, monetary policy in the United States had been shed of M1 by late 1982. The Fed has never been explicit about exactly when, or even why, monetary policy changed dramatically in the 1980’s to a regime of pure interest rate targeting of the federal funds rate. In those days, transparency was no virtue but rather it was widely...

24 Heures. On Monday the franc went as low as 1.0825 to the euro, the lowest since early December last year. © Yulan | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge According to some experts, the weaker franc can be partly explained by the market activities of the Swiss National Bank (SNB). The cantonal bank of Thurgau said that the SNB appeared to be targeting a weaker franc ahead of the Dutch elections on Wednesday. Adding that...