Tag Archives: Featured

Bank Syz has collaborated with Taurus to launch its new digital asset offer Syz Crypto. It will cover the safekeeping and trading of digital assets to the Bank’s private, professional and institutional clients. Concretely, the Bank has integrated Taurus-PROTECT, a technology that allows the custody of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, tokenized securities as well as NFTs and Taurus-EXPLORER for the connectivity to >15 blockchain protocols, including Bitcoin...

That’s how things fall apart: insiders know but keep their mouths shut, outsiders are clueless, and the decay that started slowly gathers momentum as the last of the experienced and competent workforce burns out, quits or retires. Outsiders are shocked when things fall apart. Insiders are amazed the duct-tape held this long.The erosion of critical skills and institutional knowledge is invisible to outsiders, while everyone inside who saw the unstoppable decay...

The G10 currencies traded with a heavier bias against the dollar last week. The Swiss franc was the sole exception, and it edged up about 0.25%. The thwarted putsch in Germany and the relaxation of vaccine and quarantine protocols in China were notable developments. The weakness in European and American equities and oil helped account for the underperformance of the Norwegian krone and Canadian dollar. At the same time, the recovery in US 10-year yields after a more...

Half of the G10 central banks meet in the week ahead. The Fed is first on December 14, and the ECB, BOE, Swiss National Bank, and Norway's Norges Bank meet the following day. Before turning a thumbnail sketch of the central banks, let us look at the November US CPI, which will be reported as the Fed's two-day meeting gets underway on December 13. The terms of the debate have shifted. It is no longer about when US inflation will peak but how fast it will come down....

At least since 2008, the financial world has been in a financial spiral caused by central banks’ growing monetary impression. As a consequence, key economic concepts (e.g., that business cycles are caused by credit expansion, and higher prices by monetary expansion) started to be considered just “old ideas” and their defenders prophets of the apocalypse. Some economists, especially the modern monetary theory (MMT) defenders, attempted to substitute these ideas with...

There are many mistakes in the G7 agreement to put a cap on Russian oil. The first one is that it does not hurt Russia at all. The agreed cap, at $60 a barrel, is higher than the current Urals price, above the five-year average of the quoted price and higher than Rosneft’s average netback price. According to Reuters, “the G7 price cap will allow non-EU countries to continue importing seaborne Russian crude oil, but it will prohibit shipping, insurance, and...

The Federal Reserve is sowing the seeds for its central bank digital currency (CBDC). It may seem that the purpose of a CBDC is to facilitate transactions and enhance economic activity, but CBDCs are mainly about more government control over individuals. If a CBDC were implemented, the central bank would have access to all transactions in addition to being capable of freezing accounts. It may seem dystopian—something that only totalitarian governments would do—but...

Overview: The easing of vaccination, quarantine, and some travel protocols related to Covid in China (and Hong Kong) continues to draw funds back into Chinese stocks, wherever they trade. The Hang Seng rose 2.3% today to close the week with a nearly 6.6% advance. The index of mainland companies that trade there rose 2.5% on the day for a7.3% weekly gain. The CSI 300 of mainland shares rose 1% today and almost 3.3% for the week. Japan’s 1% gain today ensured a gain...

Parliamentarians were split on how to divide the tax revenues © Keystone / Ti-press / Alessandro Crinari Switzerland’s 26 cantons will receive 75% of the additional revenue from the minimum taxation of large companies, the government 25%. On Tuesday the House of Representatives agreed with the Senate on the proposal to tax all companies with a turnover of more than €750 million (CHF740 million) at 15%, in line with a reform decided by the OECD and the G20. This...

Around half of retired taxpayers have gross assets of more than CHF300,000 Keystone / Stephan Scheuer Many retirees in Switzerland can continue to put money aside, with a majority also willing to bequeath the money they have saved. Specifically, 34% of the people surveyed in Switzerland aged 65 and over are building up assets instead of reducing them, according to a Swiss Life survey published on Wednesday. Some 44% said they spent about as much as they receive. The...