Tag Archives: Featured

The Swiss National Bank carried out foreign exchange interventions totaling 67.1B Swiss francs in 2016 in order to counter “an undesired tightening of monetary conditions,” the central bank disclosed in its annual report. That was down from 86.1B francs in 2015, when the SNB intervened heavily at the start of the year following its decision to remove a cap on the franc’s value against the euro. SNB Sight Deposits...

Summary: Swiss policymakers consider their domestic currency (the franc, or CHF) to be significantly overvalued. Measures taken by the Swiss National Bank seem to corroborate this stance, holding its nominal overnight rates well into negative territory. Considering where the Fed and ECB are in their policy cycles and where the SNB is in its cycle, the USD and EUR are likely to appreciate against the CHF. The CHF...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, March 23(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge FX Rates The gains the US dollar scored last month have been largely unwound against the major currencies. The dollar’s losses against the yen are a bit greater, and it returned to levels not seen late last November. The down draft in the dollar appears part of a larger development in the capital markets that has...

China’s central bank, unlike other central banks, is constantly active almost never resting. Because it is always in motion, the PBOC can seem to be “adding” liquidity at the very same time it might be “draining” it. Its specific actions should never be interpreted as standalone procedures related solely to some unknown policy stance. That is particularly true given that we know what their stance is and has been –...

The last time oil inventory grew at anywhere close to this pace was during each of the last two selloffs, the first in late 2014/early 2015 and the second following about a year after. Those events were relatively easy to explain in terms of both price and fundamentals, though the mainstream managed to screw it up anyway (“supply glut”). By and large, the massive contango of the futures curve that showed up as a result...

Change to a more comprehensive and up-to-date methodology The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is putting the Swiss franc exchange rate indices it calculates and publishes on a new footing. The adjustment allows the Swiss economy’s competitive and trading relationships to be replicated in a more comprehensive and up-to-date way. The new indices, too, show that the Swiss franc is significantly overvalued. The SNB exchange rate...

Summary: Pivot still taking place, but without TPP, more militaristic. President Trump seems a little less confrontational toward China. China is unlikely to be cited as a currency manipulator in next month’s Treasury report. The Obama Administration tried restarting US-Russian relations with little success. The inability to secure the European flank weakened the pivot to Asia. The Trans-Pacific Partnership...

– Peak gold – Biggest gold story not being reported– Gold ‘Mining Zombie Apocalypse’ caused miners to slash exploration budgets– Decline in gold production at world’s top 10 gold mining companies – Byron King– “No new big mines being built in the world today” – Glencore CEO Glasenberg– Primary global gold output declined in 2016 – Thomson Reuters via Mining.com– 2016 was first year of fall in mine production since 2008–...

– Peak gold – Biggest gold story not being reported– Gold ‘Mining Zombie Apocalypse’ caused miners to slash exploration budgets– Decline in gold production at world’s top 10 gold mining companies – Byron King– “No new big mines being built in the world today” – Glencore CEO Glasenberg– Primary global gold output declined in 2016 – Thomson Reuters via Mining.com– 2016 was first year of fall in mine production since 2008–...

It may just be that in life you have to get used to disappointment. Though not for lack of trying, I have spent a great deal of time over the years intending to piece together exactly what happened on days like October 15, 2014. The official explanation is an obvious whitewash, one so haphazard that I doubt it will ever be referred to again outside of ridicule. So much changed after that one day, a buying panic in the...