Tag Archives: Featured

The bank is situated at Zurich’s prestigious Bahnhofstrasse. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally Quintet Private Bank says it is closing its Swiss arm just 16 months after opening. The Qatari-owned private bank took over Bank am Bellevue last year. The Luxembourg-based private bank is closing its Swiss business, which employs 87 people, according to a statement on Tuesday. It is unclear whether the closure will happen via a wind-down or sale. The private bank, which opened in...

The Berlin “housing crisis” has, of course, many causes. But most, if not all of them, are government made. Unfortunately, however, people blame “capitalists” for their plight. Original Article: “Berliners in 2021 Want to Expropriate Private Housing” On September 6, 2021, the city-state of Berlin, Germany’s capital, held a referendum: voters in Berlin had to decide whether thousands of housing units owned by “large real estate firms” should be nationalized. 56.4...

Warum Geld seinen Wert nicht vom Staat erhält Warum hat der Geldschein in unserer Tasche einen Wert? Einigen Kommentatoren zufolge hat Geld einen Wert, weil die Regierung, die an der Macht ist, dies sagt. Für andere ist der Wert des Geldes auf die gesellschaftliche Konvention zurückzuführen. Dies bedeutet, dass Geld einen Wert hat, weil es akzeptiert wird, und warum wird es akzeptiert? … weil es akzeptiert wird! Offensichtlich ist dies keine gute Erklärung dafür,...

Checking a Covid certificate in a Lausanne café in September Keystone / Laurent Gillieron While most Swiss hotels and restaurants are critical of the need to show a Covid certificate, overall small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) do not perceive it as a disadvantage. A survey of 201 SMEs in German-speaking Switzerland found that 58% of managers in the hotel and catering industry described the consequences of the certificate as negative to very negative. Since...

There was never really any answer given by the Chinese Communists for why their own export data diverged so much from other import estimates gathered by its largest trading partners. Ostensibly different sides of the same thing, it’s not like anyone asked Xi Jinping to weigh in; they report what numbers they have and consider them authoritative. However, the United States’ Census Bureau’s tallies of China-made goods entering this country used to track very closely...

This week’s episode of the Gold Exchange Podcast explores the idea of profits, and why it matters how you get them. Much of the financial world has confused the idea of profit with price appreciation. Or as we like to say, they confuse investment with speculation. Investment is deploying capital productively in a business for a yield. Speculation is betting one’s capital on an asset price rising. There’s a reason why this confusion exists. Central Banks have...

In assessing the trajectory of Fed policy the market is discounting, we prefer using the Fed funds futures contracts over the Eurodollar futures.  The Fed funds settle at the average effective rate, while the Eurodollar futures contracts are three-month deposit rates.  The Fed funds futures seem to be implying aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve, which as of less than a month ago, half of whom did not expect a rate hike would be appropriate next year.  The...

14.10.2021 – The Producer and Import Price Index rose in September 2021 by 0.2% compared with the previous month, reaching 104.1 points (December 2020 = 100). In particular, basic metals and semi-finished metal products as well as petroleum and natural gas saw higher prices. Compared with September 2020, the price level of the whole range of domestic and imported products rose by 4.5%. These are the results from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). In particular,...

China’s high-yield bond crisis continued last week, with yields on the ICE BofA index of Chinese high-yield US dollar bonds moving above 18% at one stage last week, the highest level in a decade. Further nervousness was caused by one real-estate issuer’s decision not to reimburse USD200 mn of offshore bonds–despite having USD4 bn in cash on its balance sheet. This suggests the company in question favours domestic investors and its own cash needs over its offshore...

GESDA’s radar anticipates that in five years advances in artificial intelligence could uncover patterns in brain data that offer new insights into consciousness. Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi A Geneva-based foundation has created a tool mapping out major scientific breakthroughs that could help decision makers and civil society prepare for their impact. The digital tool offers an overview of 216 future scientific breakthroughs expected over the next 25 years. Nearly...