Tag Archives: Featured

◆ Stock markets around the world are collapsing today as the financial and economic implications of the impact of the pandemic on already massively indebted companies and governments is realised. ◆ Investors are liquidating en masse risk assets from equities to industrial commodities, while gold has held its ground. ◆ The FTSE 100 is down 5.8% in early trade, while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 plunged 6.8% the CAC 40 tumbled 6.5% and Dublin’s ISEQ index collapsed another...

Modern monetary theory, or MMT, has been getting a lot of attention lately, often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough. However, there is absolutely nothing new about it. The very basis of the theory, the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and that therefore deficits don’t matter, actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist Michael Kalecki (1899–1970). MMT as a Centralization Tool  MMT says that the national debt means that...

Der SMI ist heute morgen teilweise über 6% abgesackt. (Bild: Shutterstock.com/Pavel Ignatov) Die Aktienmärkte erlebten heute erneut einen schwarzen Tag mit Rekordverlusten: Der SMI stürzte um -9,64% auf 8270 Punkte ab, der Euro STOXX 50 um sage und schreibe -12,4% und der DAX tauchte ebenfalls zweistellig um -12,24%. Der Dow Jones lag kurz nach 18 Uhr mit -9,3% ebenfalls im tiefroten Bereich. Bereits am Morgen hatten die Börsen mit einem Kurssturz auf das...

Employees at the greatest risk are those who don’t have the luxury to work from home. (Keystone / Matteo Bazzi) Our regular analysis of what the biggest global companies in Switzerland are up to. This week: responsible business in an epidemic, child labour on coffee farms, and Responsible Business debate. What has made multinational companies in Switzerland so successful is exactly what is making them particularly vulnerable in a global epidemic. In the Financial...

Binningen – source: Wikipedia The coronavirus has claimed its fourth victim in Switzerland. A 54 year old man died yesterday in Binningen hospital in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, according to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). The man attended an evangelical church gathering of 2,000 people held between 17 and 24 February 2020 in the French city of Mulhouse. Several other cases of infection have been linked to the same gathering. The man, who had been in...

This is how the budget process in Washington begins. Step one: the president submits his budget to Congress. Step two: Congress puts the president’s budget in a drawer somewhere and forgets about it. Step three: Congress passes a budget it likes instead. This reality, however, has been conveniently ignored in recent weeks. Some pundits and politicians have claimed that Donald Trump “gutted the CDC.” Trump has been busy “slashing the government agencies” that combat...

President Trump spoke to the nation last night and did little to calm markets; reports suggest that the Democrats are working on a bill Fed easing expectations are intensifying The ECB decision will be out at 845 AM ET; over the past 17 ECB decision days, the euro has finished lower in 11 of them Reports suggest the Bank of Japan is “likely to strengthen stimulus” next week; Australia announced details of its AUD17.6 bln stimulus plan The dollar is broadly firmer...

USD/CHF holds onto recovery gains from 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level. 50% of Fibonacci retracement, January month low on the bulls’ radars. Sellers can take entry below 0.9320. USD/CHF adds 0.22% to its previous recovery, currently crossing 10-day SMA, while trading near 0.9460 during the early Friday. The pair manages to remain positive beyond 23.6% Fibonacci retracement of its fall from November 2019. As a result, buyers can aim for further upside beyond a...

Switzerland’s government and health officials presented a coronavirus update yesterday. Key elements of the presentation are set out below. [embedded content]The full coronavirus press update can be viewed above in German. Closing borders is now pointless Patrick Mathys, who is leading the coronavirus response at the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), said epidemiologically that closing the borders would achieve nothing and would not slow the spread of the...

IT IS BAD enough when individuals stockpile pasta and toilet paper. It is worse when governments put a protective ring around medical equipment. As the covid-19 pandemic leads to a rush for medical gear, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that supplies of respirators and medical masks will not keep up with demand, and soon global stocks of gowns and goggles will be insufficient too. Some governments are erecting trade barriers to safeguard their...