Tag Archives: Featured

Nearly all (99.6%) of all businesses in Switzerland are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (Keystone) One in four small and medium-sized Swiss firms (SMEs) suffers due to a serious lack of qualified staff, a new Credit Suisse survey reveals. The economic situation in Switzerland is generally favourable to most SMEs, which are slightly more optimistic about the future than they were last year, a Credit Suisse...

Summary: North American traders began the week by selling dollars. Euro is testing a downtrend off the year’s high. DXY is testing its uptrend. After consolidating in the Asian session and European morning, the euro has been bid higher in North America.  It is testing a downtrend line, drawn off the year’s high set in early August near $1.1910, as depicted in this Great Graphic, composed on Bloomberg. It is met the...

Why are profit margins persistently high? With decent earnings this quarter, corporate profits as a % of GDP will approach (maybe exceed) 10% again. That is abnormally high compared to the period 1960 to 2000. Margins actually started to rise in the mid-80s but really accelerated after 2000 and outside of the 2008 crisis have remained high. Why? What changed in 2000 to elevate corporate profits so much? Is this just...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.04% to 1.1389 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, August 23(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates A mixed US dollar will greet the North American participants today. It is softer against the euro and yen, but firmer against the dollar-bloc currencies. Among the emerging market currencies, the eastern and central European currencies are...

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin visits Fort Knox Gold Later tweeted ‘Glad gold is safe!’ Only the third Treasury Secretary to visit the fortified vault, last visit was 1948 Last Congressional visit was 1974 Speculation over existence of gold in Fort Knox is rife Concerns over Federal Reserves lack of interest in carrying to an audit on gold Gold was last counted in 1953, nine years before Mnuchin was born Mnuchin...

Robots are used a lot in industry (Keystone) - Click to enlarge The Swiss Business Federation (economiesuisse) rejects imposing a so-called robot tax on companies to make up for lost income taxes as workers are gradually replaced by machines. Rather than focusing on a robot tax, Switzerland should encourage the development of a faster internet network and cooperation between business and Swiss research institutes,...

At a stormy shareholders meeting in April, Tidjane Thiam, CEO of Switzerland's second biggest bank Credit Suisse, faced a revolt from shareholders over compensation and management bonuses for its top managers despite financial losses (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Shareholder rebellion over executive pay at Credit Suisse earlier this year is just one example of growing dissent by Swiss company owners. While annual...

The Fed voted for the first federal funds increase in almost a decade on December 15, 2015. It was the official end of ZIRP, and though taking so many additional years to happen, to many it marked the start of recovery. The yield on the 2-year Treasury Note was 98 bps that day. A lot has happened between now and then, including three additional “rate hikes” dating back to December 2016, the last in June 2017. The yield...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Fundamental Developments Last week he price of gold was up nine bucks, and that of silver 6 cents. These small changes mask the relatively big drop on Tuesday—$13 in gold and $0.48 in silver — and recovery the rest of the week. The gains above previous week occurred on Thursday. Speculators have lately warmed up to...

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade...