Tag Archives: Featured

(The regular analysis will resume after the New Year.  In the meantime, look for several occasional thematic posts over the next couple of weeks.  Here is to a healthy and happy New Year!).  The dollar recovered from the bout of profit-taking seen after the FOMC largely confirmed market expectations to post a weekly advance against all the major and most emerging market currencies.  The omicron variant continues to sweep across the world, and efforts in large parts...

Rival UBS’s wealth business has left Credit Suisse trailing in the past couple of years. © Keystone / Ennio Leanza Credit Suisse has hired the former chief executive of Australian finance group AMP to run its revamped wealth management division, as the Swiss lender tries to win market share from its domestic rival UBS. Francesco De Ferrari, who worked for Credit Suisse between 2002 and 2018, left AMP in June after a tough two years running the Australian wealth...

That was fast. Just yesterday I said watch out for when the oil curve flips from backwardation to contango. When it does, that’s not a good sign. Generally speaking, it means something has changed with regard to future expectations, at least one of demand, supply, or also money/liquidity. Contango is a projected imbalance which leaves the global system facing realistic prospects of being overwhelmed with too much oil. Back during 2014’s crude crash, Economists and...

Otmar Issing – ehemaliger Chef-Volkswirt der EZB – und Klaus Masuch  – Principal Adviser in der EZB – haben am 9. Oktober in der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung zu „Vorsicht vor dem Bitcoin“ geraten. Anlass ist ein neues Gesetz, das es deutschen Investmentfonds erlaubt in Bitcoin anzulegen. Die Autoren verweisen auch auf einen weiteren kritischen Beitrag zu Bitcoin der EZB-Mitarbeiter Ulrich Bindseil und Jürgen Schaaf mit dem Titel „Nicht von Bitcoin narren lassen“....

Not surprisingly, both houses of Congress approved another increase in the debt ceiling and have sent the bill to President Biden, who will most assuredly sign it. The bill raises the debt ceiling to $31.5 trillion. This debt ceiling is expected to last through the upcoming mid-term elections so that incumbent elected officials don’t have to deal with it in their campaigns for reelection. Here’s my prediction: None of the mainstream commentators who were screaming...

Are we smart enough to keep our oh-so-easily conjured riches? If we continue to believe that doing more of what’s failed spectacularly will deliver permanently expanding riches, then the answer is no. Near the end of his monumental 400+-page analysis of the notion that alternative energy sources can replace hydrocarbon fuels, (Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet), Thomas Murphy discusses the really big picture: mass extinction events and species’ role in...

Earlier this year, the bank, which was set up in 1965, announced it is ceasing private banking. Headquartered in Zurich, the bank has had subsidiaries in Geneva, Hongkong and Singapore as well as representations in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and London. © Keystone/Ennio Leanza A Swiss court has found the Zurich-based Falcon Private Bank guilty of money-laundering offences. The Federal Criminal CourtExternal link on Wednesday ordered the Abu Dhabi-owned bankExternal link to pay...

If the Senate follows the House of Representatives's lead and passes the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act (HR 550), Americans who do not get the recommended number of covid vaccines can look forward to receiving a text like this: “This is Dr. Anthony Fauci. According to government records you have not yet received your monthly covid booster shot. Until you prove you are following vaccine protocols, your vaccine passport will be revoked, resulting in loss...

When Ronald Reagan officially announced his candidacy for president of the United States in November 1979, he called for the establishment of a large free trade zone encompassing the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Not surprisingly, the so-called free trade agreement better known as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) resembled the usual “managed trade” that falls much more into the category of what Randall Holcombe calls “political capitalism.” Politics has a...

The official retirement age for women will be put at 65 in line with that of men in Switzerland under the reform approved by parliament but opposed by trade unions and the political left. Keystone/Gaetan Bally Parliament has approved a major reform of the Swiss pension system, including a controversial rise in the retirement age for women. The overhaul also foresees financial compensation – staggered over nine years for women directly affected by the change – as well...