Tag Archives: Featured

© Sam Wordley | Dreamstime.com In 2019, the poverty line in Switzerland was CHF 27,348 (US$ 30,500) for a single person and CHF 47,712 (US$ 53,200) for a couple with two young children. The figures are calculated by SKOS based on the cost of living in Switzerland. People with incomes below these levels in Switzerland are considered to by living in poverty. In 2019, 8.7% of Switzerland’s population was living on less that these amounts, up 0.8 percentage points from...

Most people think in terms of purchasing power: how much can one’s cash buy? In this week’s episode, CEO Keith Weiner & John Flaherty discuss an alternate perspective. Instead of spending your capital, what if you invested it to earn a return? What can that return buy? Along the way you’ll learn: The concept of yield purchasing power & its impact on investing decisions How the Fed keeps us stuck in the purchasing power paradigm The perverse incentives...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.25% to 1.0854 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 19(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The bond and equity markets are trying to stabilize ahead of the weekend. The dollar remains under pressure. In the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong, China, and South Korean markets advanced, but most markets could not overcome the profit-taking pressures. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600...

An infographic shows the process of applying for an eID on the website of e-ID Switzerland, a committee in support of the eID Law opposed by a referendum. The popular vote is scheduled for March 7, 2021. © Keystone / Christian Beutler The eID is billed as a long-overdue key to the digital world, a single access point for services provided by a range of public and private-sector organisations. But the model proposed by Switzerland – being put to a nationwide...

19.02.2021 – Secondary sector production declined 3.1% in 4th quarter 2020 in comparison with the same quarter a year earlier. Turnover fell by 4.4%. For 2020 as a whole which was shaped by the Covid 19 pandemic, there were strong decreases in production (-3.3%) and turnover (-5.2%). The last time such losses were observed in production figures was in 2009, a year affected by the financial crisis. This is shown by provisional results from the Federal Statistical...

Bitcoin’s recent price surge has accelerated institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies leading to institutional investor pouring an estimated US$26 billion into bitcoin over the past eight months, an analysis by SNGLR Group shows. In its second report part of the Digital Asset Briefing series, the Swiss tech firm looks at the latest developments and trends in cryptocurrencies and digital assets, arguing that bitcoin’s current rally has led to renewed interest in...

It’s worth taking a look at a couple of extremes, and the putting each into wider context of inflation/deflation. As you no doubt surmise, only one is receiving much mainstream attention. The other continues to be overshadowed by…anything else. To begin with, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that US import prices were up on annual basis for the first time in some time. Rising in January 2021 by 0.9% year-over-year, this was actually the fastest...

For seventy-plus years, the case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt has vexed people of a libertarian bent. His policies, extending war socialism based on Mussolini’s economic structure, expanded the American state to an unthinkable extent and prolonged the Great Depression through the horrific World War II. Normalcy did not return until after his wartime controls were repealed and the budget was cut. Lasting economic recovery began in 1948. And the guy who made all that...

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade partners decided to spend more. This is partially...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.14% to 1.0831 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 18(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The bout of profit-taking in equities continued today, and most markets in Asia Pacific and Europe are lower. China’s markets re-opened but struggled to sustain early gains. However, the Shanghai Composite rose by about 0.5%, and a smaller increase was recorded in Taiwan and an even...