Tag Archives: Featured

The FOMC delivered a dovish hold, as we expected; we get our first look at Q4 GDP; Fed manufacturing surveys for January will continue to roll out; weekly jobless claims data will be closely watched The vaccination gap between the UK and the US vs. Europe continues to wide, and grievances against suppliers are getting worse; Germany January CPI will be reported; if inflation risks were rising , ECB officials wouldn’t be so concerned about the strong euro and its...

Global confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 100 million this week. There is no denying that the coronavirus pandemic has caused tremendous hardship and loss. To mitigate new cases climbing further, stricter lockdown and travel restrictions are being announced and implemented, with the curfew in the Netherlands as an example. Lock-down fatigue, as evidenced by the riots against this implemented curfew, is growing. Through it all, hope is on the horizon as vaccine...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.02% to 1.0764 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 28(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The steepest loss in US equities since last October is rippling through the capital markets in the form of de-risking. The rout is not over, and the S&P 500 is poised to gap lower.  Many of the largest markets in the Asia Pacific region were off around 2%. The nearly 1% loss in...

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...

That’s how Neofeudal systems collapse: the tax donkeys and debt-serfs finally rebel and start demanding the $50 trillion river of capital take a new course. The Great American Middle Class has stood meekly by while the New Nobility stripmined $50 trillion from the middle and working classes. As this RAND report documents, $50 trillion has been siphoned from labor and the lower 90% of the workforce to the New Nobility and their technocrat lackeys who own the vast...

Within a day of the inauguration, the Biden administration issues a bevy of new executive orders designed to please a variety of the Democratic Party’s core special-interest groups. Among these was an executive order curtailing oil and gas leasing on federal and tribal lands. But a problem quickly presented itself: many tribes earn a significant amount of income through oil and gas drilling on their lands. These operations also provide jobs for tribal members. The...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.27% to 1.075 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 27(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Risk appetites seem subdued even if GameStop’s surge draws attention. Asia Pacific equities mostly slipped lower, and profit-taking was seen in Hong Kong and Seoul, which are off to an incredibly strong start to the year. Small gains were reported in Tokyo, Beijing, and Taipei....

Britain is keen to maintain the City of London’s attractiveness as a global financial centre Keystone / Facundo Arrizabalaga Britain and Switzerland will press on with plans to strike a trade deal for their vast financial services industries, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday ahead of talks with his Swiss counterpart. The Treasury said the virtual discussions with Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer would focus on the goal of “a...

Der Tribut, den das Coronavirus gefordert hat, war hoch. Aber eine neue Studie hat herausgefunden, dass die kollektive Reaktion auf das Virus letztendlich mehr Leben fordern könnte als das Virus selbst. In einer neuen Studie des National Bureau for Economic Research kommen Forscher der Harvard University, der Johns Hopkins University und der Duke University zu dem Schluss, dass die Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der Virusausbreitung in den nächsten 15 Jahren zu 890.000...

Bruno Manser talking about the plight of the Penan in 1994 Keystone / Str The diaries of Bruno Manser, a Swiss environmental and human rights activist, have been donated to the Museum der Kulturen in Basel. The ethnologist became known far beyond the borders of Basel for his passionate but also perilous commitment to the Penan people of Borneo and the threatened tropical forests they called home. Manser went missing in 2000 and was officially declared dead in 2005....