Tag Archives: Featured

Swiss Franc Speculators were net short CHF in January 2015, shortly before the end of the peg, with 26.4K contracts. Then again in December 2015, when they expected a Fed rate hike, with 25.5K contracts. The biggest short CHF, however, happened in June 2007, when speculators were net short 80K contracts. Shortly after, the U.S. subprime crisis started. The carry trade against CHF collapsed. The...

Summary: The technical and fundamental case for the euro has weakened. Rate differentials have begun moving back in the US favor. France’s Macron and Japan’s Abe have sunk in the polls lower than Trump. The release of the US employment data before the weekend ushers in a three-week period before the Jackson Hole confab at the end of the month that will start the new phase. In September, the FOMC is likely to...

Stock Markets EM FX appears to be rolling over (see our recent piece “Is EM FX Finally Turning?”). Technical indicators are stretched as many EM currencies bump up against strong resistance levels. Strong US jobs data is bringing Fed tightening back into focus. We think ZAR could be shaping up to be the canary in a coalmine.  It was -3% vs. USD last week and by far the worst in EM. Stock Markets Emerging Markets,...

Swiss Franc vs USD and EUR The Swiss Franc entered the second week of stronger losses. While the euro gained 4% last week, the dollar appreciated against the Swiss Franc by 2% during this week. The euro could add another percent in the last days. The EUR/CHF reached 1.1521 after the strong US job figures. Finally, however the euro fell to 1.1451 for two reasons: Profit taking at the end of the week and secondly that...

A little while back I was part of a small exchange of views on twitter. It was about Italy. I was arguing against a claim that Italy’s woes are all about its past fiscal excesses. It is not just about about Italy’s legacy. It is true that Italy runs a primary budget surplus. The primary budget surplus has averaged in excess of  2% for nearly two decades. Over this period, Italy debt has soared. I took exception with a...

© Shaunwilkinson – Dreamstime If you have ever wondered how much employees in Switzerland get paid you can check with the online tool Salarium, created by the Swiss government. The information is compiled from a database of numbers from a salary survey done in 2014. After entering five required bits of information: region, business sector, occupation, professional position and working hours, the tool calculates the...

Gold consolidates on 2.5% gain in July as the dollar has fifth monthly decline Trump administration and vicious “civil war” politics casting shadow over America and impacting dollar All eyes on non farm payrolls today for further signs of  weakness in U.S. economy Gold recovers from 1.7% decline in June as dollar falls Gold outperforms stocks and benchmark S&P 500 YTD Gold gains 10.8% versus 10.6% gain for S&P...

The Gotthard, the world’s longest train tunnel, was opened to passenger trains last December. (Keystone) About 2.3 million rail passengers have travelled through the new transalpine tunnel in Switzerland over the past eight months, an increase of 30% compared with same period a year ago. On average, 10,400 people cross the Gotthard base tunnel in central Switzerland every day, according to the Federal Railways. Some...

It is often said that the market for US Treasuries is the deepest and most liquid in the world. While that’s true, we have to be careful about what it is we are talking about. There is no single US Treasury market, and often differences can be striking. The most prominent example was, of course, October 15, 2014. In truth, the liquidity side of cash market UST’s has been diminished since around 2013. Largely as a...

SNB to launch survey on payment methods in 2017 The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is this year conducting a survey on payment methods for the first time. Over the coming months, 2,000 people resident in Switzerland will be asked about their habits regarding the use of payment methods. The aim of the survey is to obtain representative information on the Swiss population’s use of various payment methods and to identify any...