Tag Archives: Featured

March 15 was when it all began to come down. Not the stock market; that had been in freefall already, beset by the rolling destruction of fire sale liquidations emanating out of the repo market (collateral side first). No matter what the Federal Reserve did or announced, there was no stopping the runaway devastation. It wasn’t until the middle of March that the first major shutdown orders began to appear – on Twitter feeds – and these weren’t the total lockdowns...

What is the Bitcoin Halving and What Might it Mean for the Price Watch “THE BITCOIN HALVING REVISITED – With Ann Rhefn” [embedded content] You Might Also Like Das Internet – die dezentrale (R)Evolution Menschen werden durch unterschiedliche Motive angetrieben. Die einen sehen das höchste Glück in der Ansammlung von materiellen Werten, und andere sind von geistigen Werten angetrieben. Eine Idee kann genauso...

As I’ve said, it is a threefold failure of statistical models. The first being those which showed the economy was in good to great shape at the start of this thing. Widely used and even more widely cited, thanks to Jay Powell and his 2019 rate cuts plus “repo” operations the calculations suggested the system was robust. Because of this set of numbers, officials here as well as elsewhere around the world chose the most extreme form of pandemic mitigations, trusting...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.38% to 1.0545 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 30(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Equities continue to recover even as deep economic contractions are reported. Yesterday, the US said Q1 GDP contracted at an annualized pace of 4.8%, while the eurozone reported today that output fell 3.8% quarter-over-quarter in Q1. Hong Kong and South Korea were closed, but the rest...

30.04.2020 – Turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays fell in the retail sector by 6.2% in nominal terms in March 2020 compared with the previous year. Seasonally adjusted, nominal turnover fell by 6.0% compared with the previous month. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, turnover slumped markedly in some sectors. These are provisional findings from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Real turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays fell in the retail sector...

Thanks to technology, journalist Sibilla Bondolfi was able to work in the region that she was researching: the Alps. (swissinfo.ch) A longform report that we published last autumn has been shortlisted for the Swiss Press Award. The nomination is an honour for our team. Can people in Switzerland really live and work wherever they want on account of the digital revolution? Even in the mountains? A longform multimedia report by SWI swissinfo.ch has the answer. Published...

© Marekusz | Dreamstime.com A team of economic experts working for the Swiss government forecasts a 6.7% fall in GDP and unemployment to rise to 3.9% in Switzerland in 2020. If these predictions prove right, it will be the biggest slump in economic activity since 1975. The Covid-19 outbreak has forced many companies in hospitality, retail, culture and leisure to restrict or completely suspend their business activities, triggering an abrupt fall in output and private...

By Dara O’Sullivan, Derrick Leonard, and Ilan Solot As the week commences, a few markets such as Sri Lanka and Philippines are extending their lockdown periods while others such as Nigeria and Kenya continue to experience USD liquidity issues. Please see comments below. Sri Lanka: The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) was expected to resume operations on April 27 but, due to an uptick in Covid-19 cases, the exchange remains closed until May 4. Foreign exchange trading is...

Key Takeaways and Actionable Insights Consider these findings from a 2017 report from the G20 Global Partnership For Financial Inclusion, titled Alternative Data: Transforming SME Finance. Access to financing remains one of the most significant constraints for the survival, growth, and productivity of micro, small and medium enterprises (SME’s). Digital SME finance, using alternative data, offers an extraordinary opportunity for addressing…this problem. The...

With its $700 billion bond-buying expansion in response to the COVID crisis, the Federal Reserve has thrust itself into the limelight. Like a sixteen-year-old with a credit card, the Fed is salivating over what money-printing powers it shall seize next. How is the prudent investor to respond? First, what the Fed’s already done: pushed interest rates to zero and expanded into “unlimited” buying of assets, now reaching to corporate bonds and local government bonds....