Tag Archives: Featured

The backbone of China’s internal economy has been its ghost cities, but not as they may be ghost towns now, rather in how little time they might take to fill up. If the lag was relatively small because of restored growth, more would be needed and the Chinese building economy rolling ever onward. “Reflationary” prices were often Chinese prices of just that perceived process. The perceptions of a possible “hard landing”...

If we stop counting zombies, we’re already in recession. How shocked would you be if it was announced that the U.S. had just entered a recession, that is, a period in which gross domestic product (GDP) declines (when adjusted for inflation) for two or more quarters? Would you really be surprised to discover that the eight-year long “recovery,” the weakest on record, had finally rolled over into recession? Anyone with...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.43% to 1.1397 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, August 15(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates NY Fed President Dudley appears to have stolen any potential thunder in the July FOMC minutes that will be released tomorrow. While we put more emphasis on today’s US retail sales data and the August Fed surveys, many others argued that the...

Contraint à l’exil pour des raisons que je n’aurais jamais cru possibles, je foule aujourd’hui une terre dont les particularités sautent aux yeux du Français que je suis. Tout d’abord, j’ai posé mon regard sur un paysage naturel où les nombreux sites se marient avec une agriculture dont la France a perdu jusqu’au souvenir. Ici, pas de monoculture subventionnée par l’Union Européenne : les champs sont restés des...

Of the economic releases of the past two weeks the one that got the most attention was the employment report. That report is seen by many market analysts as one of the most important and of course the Fed puts a lot of emphasis on it so the press spends an inordinate amount of time dissecting it. I don’t waste much time on it myself because it is subject to large revisions and has little predictive capability. In...

© Denis Linine | Dreamstime According to various newspapers, Swiss Rail placed an advert on a job portal at ETH, a university in Zurich, offering work to cunning vixens, “schlaue Füchsinnen” in German. Successful applicants need to dress up as foxes, including fox tails, and run around train stations with posters informing travellers of alternative train connections. 20 Minutes reported that a Swiss Rail spokesperson...

The Producer Price Index (PPI) or officially named “Producer and Import Price Index” describes the changes in prices for producers and importers. For us it is interesting because it is used in the formula for the Real Effective Exchange Rate. When producers and importers profit on lower price changes when compared to other countries, then the Swiss Franc reduces its overvaluation. The Swiss PPI values of -6% in 2015...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.64% to 1.1425 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, August 14(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The lack of new antagonisms over the weekend between the US and North Korea has prompted the markets to react accordingly.  Already before the weekend, we detected some signs that at least some market participants had begun looking past...

FX Despite the tensions between Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the EUR/CHF only depreciated to a low of 1.1284. Headlines Week August 14, 2017 On June 27, Draghi told the audience at the annual ECB Forum that transitory factors were holding back inflation. This has boosted the euro against both USD and CHF. Our opinion, however, is that this “transition” is very long, possibly comparable to the Japanese...

Accounts of the financial crisis leave out the story of the secretive deals between banks that kept the show on the road. How long can the system be propped up for? - Click to enlarge It is a decade since the first tremors of what would become the Great Financial Crisis began to convulse global markets. Across the world from China and South Korea, to Ukraine, Greece, Brexit Britain and Trump’s America it has shaken...