Tag Archives: Featured

01.07.2021 – Turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays rose in the retail sector by 2.3% in nominal terms in May 2021 compared with the previous year. Seasonally adjusted, nominal turnover fell by 1.9% compared with the previous month. These are provisional findings from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Real turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays rose in the retail sector by 2.8% in May 2021 compared with the previous year. Real growth takes...

Switzerland looks set to choose the US option over European competitors following months of intense lobbying. Keystone / Giuseppe Lami The Swiss government wants to upgrade the country’s air defence system by buying 36 F-35A fighter aircraft from United States manufacturer Lockheed Martin and five Patriot surface-to-air missile units from another US firm Raytheon. The Federal Council (governing body) will ask parliament to approve the dual purchase on the basis that...

The Fed’s “choice” is as illusory as the “wealth” the Fed has created with its perfection of moral hazard. The belief that the Federal Reserve possesses god-like powers and wisdom would be comical if it wasn’t so deeply tragic, for the Fed doesn’t even have a plan, much less wisdom. All the Fed has is an incoherent jumble of expedient, panic-driven “saves” it cobbled together in the 2008-2009 Global Financial Meltdown that it had made inevitable. The irony is the...

It is widely held that the central bank is a key factor in the determination of interest rates. By popular thinking, the Fed influences the short-term interest rates by influencing monetary liquidity in the markets. Through the injection of liquidity, the Fed pushes short-term interest rates lower. Conversely, by withdrawing liquidity, the Fed exerts an upward pressure on the short-term interest rates. Popular thinking also suggests that long-term rates are the...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.03% to 1.0959 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 30(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The dollar is finishing the quarter on firm footing, gaining against most of the major currencies today. The euro is straddling the $1.1900 area, having begun the month above $1.22. Sterling has tested the $1.38 area. It had traded at a three-year high near $1.4250 at the start of the...

The Lifeline of Markets- Liquidity Defined We recently read an analogy in which the author compares the current state of asset prices to an airplane flying at 50,000 feet. Unfortunately, we cannot find the article and provide a link. The gist is market valuations are flying at an abnormally high altitude. While our market plane cannot sustain such heights in the long run, there is little reason to suspect it will fall from the sky either. Many investors are writing...

The operators of Germany’s main stock exchange appear committed to merging cryptocurrencies into mainstream finance. Keystone / Boris Roessler The operators of Germany’s main stock exchange have paid more than CHF100 million ($108 million) for a majority stake in Swiss cryptocurrency service provider Crypto Finance. The move reflects a growing trend of traditional financial institutions gearing themselves up for an anticipated growth in the trade of digital financial...

Back at the end of May, Germany’s statistical accounting agency (deStatis) added another one to the inflationary inferno raging across the mainstream media. According to its flash calculations, German consumer prices last month had increased by the fastest rate in 13 years. Even using the European “harmonized” methodology (Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices, or HICP), inflation had reached 2.4% year-over-year which was the highest since 2012. Europe HICP and...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.03% to 1.0959 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 29(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Fear that the new mutation of the covid virus will slow the global recovery has sent ripples across the global capital markets. The foreign exchange market has the clearest reaction, and the dollar is bid. The dollar-bloc and Norwegian krone lead the currencies lower, while the yen is...

Some companies gave their CEOs pay rises even though the firms were losing money Keystone / Edgar R. Schoepal While the Covid-19 pandemic has caused existential hardship for many employees, CEOs and shareholders have “shamelessly helped themselves”, according to a union study. “The pay gap remains wide open at a very high level,” trade union Unia wrote in its annual pay gap studyExternal link published on Tuesday. The average ratio between the highest and lowest...