Tag Archives: Featured

© Perry Toone | Dreamstime.com According to an article in Tribune de Genève, some cigarette vendors are desperately searching for supplies of the drug to meet demand. Recently kiosques in Geneva started selling low strength cannabis like they sell cigarettes. Some kiosque owners are over the moon, while others desperately search for a supplier. One vendor told Tribune de Genève: “I don’t have any. For three days people...

James Rickards: Long-Term Forecast For $10,000 Gold James Rickards, geopolitical and monetary expert and best selling author of the ‘The New Case for Gold’ has written an interesting piece for the Daily Reckoning on why he believes gold will reach $10,000 in the long term. Gold in USD Adjusted for Inflation 1970-2017 – Macrotrends.net He warns of the many systemic and geopolitical risks including the EU elections, from...

To my mind, “reflation” has always proceeded under false pretenses. This goes for more than just the latest version, as we witnessed the same incongruity in each of the prior three. The trend is grounded in mere hope more than rational analysis, largely because I think human nature demands it. We are conditioned to believe especially in the 21st century that the worst kinds of things are either unrealistic or apply to...

To my mind, “reflation” has always proceeded under false pretenses. This goes for more than just the latest version, as we witnessed the same incongruity in each of the prior three. The trend is grounded in mere hope more than rational analysis, largely because I think human nature demands it. We are conditioned to believe especially in the 21st century that the worst kinds of things are either unrealistic or apply to...

Unemployment Rate (not seasonally adjusted) Registered unemployment in February 2017 – According to the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO) surveys, 159’809 unemployed persons were registered at the Regional Employment Centers (RAV) at the end of February 2017, 4’657 less than in the previous month. The unemployment rate thus fell from 3.7% in January 2017 to 3.6% in the reporting month.  Switzerland...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, March 09(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge GBP / CHF The cost of hedging against major currency fluctuations between the Swiss Franc and the Euro hit it’s highest level in 2 months yesterday, as fears over impending French elections have investors worried. The far-right political parties in France are seeing their highest levels of...

© Tomnex | Dreamstime.com According to the European Patents Office (EPO), once again Switzerland topped the per capita patents ranking in 2016, with 892 applications per million inhabitants. Second and third places went to the Netherlands (405) and Sweden (360), followed by Denmark (334) and Finland (331). The first non-European country was Japan in ninth place (166), well above the EU average of 122. The EPO published...

Summary: Populism-Nationalism is not sweeping the world. The populist-nationalist party in the Netherlands will most likely not be a member of the next govt. There is little appetite for a referendum on EU. Nexit may be a clever slogan, but is highly improbable. The conventional narrative is that a wave of populism-nationalism is a sweep in the US and Europe. This is not as obviously true as many seem to...

US trade statistics dramatically improved in January 2017, though questions remain as to interpreting by how much. On the export side, US exports of goods rose 8.7% year-over-year (NSA). While that was the highest growth rate since 2012, there is part symmetry to account for some of it. Exports in the latter half of 2015 and for that first month of 2016 were contracting at double digit rates, the base effects of the...

The Swiss National Bank will have difficulties to weaken the Swiss Franc, because she is obliged to maintain her mandate, the avoidance of inflation. Already in January 2015, she gave up, because continuing interventions – at the excessively high euro rate of 1.20 – could have endangered her inflation mandate. Therefore we expect that EUR/CHF moves towards parity, for more read here. Year on year inflation was 0.6%...