Tag Archives: Featured

Overview In the third quarter of 2016, the current account surplus amounted to CHF 21 billion. This was CHF 2 billion less than in the year -back quarter. As a result of lower receipts from direct investment, the receipts surplus in primary income (labour and investment income) declined by CHF 4 billion to CHF 1 billion. The surplus of receipts from trade in goods increased by CHF 2 billion to CHF 17 billion, while the...

In this article from Bloomberg, the authors assume that a country must continue producing the goods that it used to produce. But with time watches get assembled in China or other Asian countries. And the Swiss focus now on more sophisticated goods: The Swiss trade balance have seen in recent years a massive shift towards chemicals and pharamceuticals. The number of watches Switzerland exports is on track to reach the...

Swiss Franc EURCHF - Euro Swiss Franc December 21(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge The pound has tailed off from its recent high against the Swiss Franc over the last couple of weeks with rates for GBP CHF sitting at 1.27 for this pair. The pound seems to have climbed as far as it can against most of the major currencies with the current economic and political factors at...

Summary: Yen is up slightly this year on an effective trade weighted basis. The euro has gained about 1% this year on an effective trade weighted basis. Sterling’s decline has been significant on an effective basis. The yuan’s decline looks to have corrected overshoot and is still holding an 11-year uptrend on the BIS real effective basis. As investors and traders, we are familiar with the developments in the...

  Financialization Genius BALTIMORE – When we left you last time, we were in the middle of describing the crooked hind leg of crony capitalism. We used billionaire businessman Wilbur Ross – Donald Trump’s pick for the Department of Commerce – for illustration purposes. Not that there is anything wrong with Mr. Ross. He plays the game, just as everyone else does. He’s particularly good at it. But today, we’ll look at...

Around 80 people were gathered at the Islamic center on Monday evening (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Police say the man responsible for the shooting incident at the Zurich Islamic Centre on Monday evening was a 24-year-old Swiss with Ghanaian roots. They said there appears to be no link to radical groups. The man’s motive for the mosque shooting and a separate murder on Sunday remains unclear. Three worshippers at the...

Swiss Franc EURCHF - Euro Swiss Franc, December 20(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The yen’s incredible ride this year has been recapitulated in recent days. Consider that before last weekend; the US dollar reached a little above JPY118.40. At its extreme yesterday, the dollar fell to JPY116.55.  Today it reached traded near JPY118.25 in the European morning, where...

The Swiss National Bank uses a strange formula on the basis of economic growth for the provisions for FX losses. It would be much easier to connect this number to the size of the balance sheet, for example 10% of the balance sheet. The risks of losses are particularly high, because FX rates are very volatile and nearly all SNB investments are in foreign currency. From the press release: Allocation of CHF 4.6 billion...

© Jorisvo | Dreamstime.com After three years of uncertainty, Switzerland may just have solved its immigration dispute with the European Union. Lawmakers in Bern on Friday passed a bill designed to curb EU immigration by giving locals a head start on filling job vacancies. By supporting the measure — which sidesteps quotas — they aim to prevent a deeper dispute that could cost the country crucial trade deals. “In the...

Swiss direct investment abroad Companies domiciled in Switzerland invested CHF 100 billion abroad, compared with disinvestment of CHF 1 billion the year before. Thus, Swiss direct investment abroad was significantly above the average for the past ten years. At CHF 54 billion, over half of the investment was made by finance and holding companies (2014: CHF 3 billion). Substantial fluctuations in direct investment by...