[caption id="attachment_439311" align="alignleft" width="400"] SNB chairman Thomas Jordan said the central bank will continue to defend the franc. (Keystone / Marcel Bieri)[/caption] The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has kept interest rates unchanged at -0.75% but is easing the burden on commercial banks. The SNB said on Thursday that it is also intervening on the foreign exchange markets to keep the franc from appreciating too far, too fast. The SNB’s...
Read More »Shortage of hospital beds in Ticino as virus toll rises
Efforts are underway to provide additional medical devices and beds in intensive care units in Ticino. (Keystone/Alessandro Crinari) The Swiss health authorities have raised alarm over the limited care facilities in one of its regions hardest hit by the coronavirus epidemic. “The situation in Ticino is dramatic,” said Daniel Koch of the Federal Office of Public Health at a news conference on Thursday. He said it was foreseeable that the hospitals in canton Ticino,...
Read More »Banks lobby regulators to relax post-crisis rules
The grounding of the fleets of many airlines is symptomatic of the crisis. (© Keystone / Christian Beutler) The global banking industry is demanding regulators relax or delay a raft of post-crisis rules on everything from capital and liquidity to accounting and climate change, which they argue are hampering their ability to respond to the coronavirus crisis. Executives have launched the globally co-ordinated push to convince supervisors including the Bank of...
Read More »Stagnation Never Looked So Good: A Peak Ahead
Forward-looking data is starting to trickle in. Germany has been a main area of interest for us right from the beginning, and by beginning I mean Euro$ #4 rather than just COVID-19. What has happened to the German economy has ended up happening everywhere else, a true bellwether especially manufacturing and industry. The latest sentiment figures from ZEW as well as IFO are sobering. Taking the former first, it had been quite buoyant last year on the false...
Read More »Auf einmal habe gefühlt alle Investoren ihre Eier verloren? ??
An der Börse wirds heiss und die Panik verbreitet sich, Panikverkäufe sind mittlerweile an der Tagesordnung. Wir können bereits von einem Crash sprechen, ausgelöst vom Coronavirus. Es ist für viele so auch mich der erste Crash den wir aktiv investiert miterleben. Wir müssen diese Situation nutzen um möglichst viel zu lernen. Was ist mit den Investoren los? Wo sind die langfristigen Buy & Hold Investoren geblieben, auf einmal versucht sich jeder im Markettiming...
Read More »A crisis is a terrible thing to waste – Part I
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” -Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2010. Only a couple of weeks ago, if anyone told you that your entire country would be basically shutting down, that events and public gatherings would be outlawed, that you’d be looking at empty shelves in your local supermarket and that the global stock market would...
Read More »FX Daily, March 20: Markets Ending the Week on Better Note
Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.08% to 1.0531 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, March 20(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Dramatic price action continues but in the other direction. Stocks and bonds have rallied strongly, and the US dollar is snapping a strong advance with a sharp and broad setback. The immediate trigger is hard to identify. Some accounts linking it to fears that the California shutdown...
Read More »Monetary policy assessment of 19 March 2020
Swiss National Bank maintains expansionary monetary policy, raises negative interest exemption threshold, and is examining additional steps Coronavirus is posing exceptionally large challenges for Switzerland, both socially and economically. Uncertainty has risen considerably worldwide, and the outlook both for the global economy and for Switzerland has worsened markedly. The Swiss franc is even more highly valued, and the world’s financial markets are under strong...
Read More »Geldpolitik – Trotz Corona-Krise: Schweizerische Nationalbank lässt Leitzins unverändert
Die Schweizerische Nationalbank belässt den Leitzins auf dem seit mehr fünf Jahren geltenden Rekordtief von minus 0,75 Prozent. Das gab die SNB am Donnerstag nach ihrer geldpolitischen Lagebeurteilung bekannt. Das dreiköpfige SNB-Direktorium um Notenbankchef Thomas Jordan setzt neben den Negativzinsen auf Eingriffe am Devisenmarkt, um einer starken Aufwertung des Franken entgegenzusteuern. Auf diese Interventionen will die SNB verstärkt setzen. Der Franken gilt unter...
Read More »SNB hat 2019 wieder stärker am Devisenmarkt interveniert
Die SNB hat 2019 wieder mehr Fremdwährungen gekauft. Die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB) hat im vergangen Jahr Fremdwährungen im Gegenwert von insgesamt 13,2 Mrd. Franken gekauft, wie sie in ihrem am Donnerstag veröffentlichten Geschäftsbericht 2019 schreibt. Das ist eine deutliche Zunahme gegenüber dem Vorjahr, in dem lediglich 2,3 Mrd. Franken für Devisenkäufe aufgewendet wurden. Grund für die verstärkte Intervention war der sich ab Mai 2019 wieder deutlich...
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