Tag Archives: Featured

Earlier today, Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) confirmed the country’s economy is in recession. Updating its estimate for Q4 GDP, year-over-year output declined by 0.5% rather than -0.3% as first thought. On a quarterly basis, GDP was down for the second consecutive quarter which mainstream convention treats as a technical recession. On a yearly basis, it was actually the third straight. Nothing seems to have changed as 2019 drew to...

Historically the first two months of a new global virus have been a good opportunity to buy stocks. Markets behave a bit like in a small recession. But recessions is the moment when stock investors make money. Long-Term Profits Decide One should still remember that even if short-term profits decline,only the expected long-term profits finally decide about share prices. And there the virus does not have an influence. Virus Symptoms and Symptoms of Declining...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.16% to 1.0601 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 26(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The warning by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention that Americans should prepare for an outbreak of Covid-19 sent the S&P 500 tumbling to an 11-week low and the 10-year Treasury yield to a record low near 1.30%. The volatility of the S&P (VIX) jumped to its...

Federal Railways has the personal data of some 3.7 million commuters. (SRF-SWI) Swiss Federal Railways is coming under fire for using the personal data of commuters for advertising purposes. The data commissioner and a watchdog group have sounded the alarm bell as the volume of data being harnessed grows. Thanks to the increasing digitisation of its services, the Federal Railways now has customer names, addresses, age, sex, telephone numbers, photos, details of trips...

USD/CHF holds onto losses amid fears of coronavirus outbreak. Soft coronavirus statistics from China fail to counter widespread disease data from the rest of the globe. China’s ability to meet phase-one deal terms seem to gain a little appreciation among traders. The US New Home Sales, Swiss ZEW Survey can offer intermediate moves. USD/CHF flashes 0.03% loss while trading around 0.9760 during early Wednesday. In doing so, the quote declines for the fourth day in a...

When Mario Draghi sat down for his scheduled press conference on April 4, 2012, it was a key moment and he knew it. The ECB had finished up the second of its “massive” LTRO auctions only weeks before. Draghi was still relatively new to the job, having taken over for Jean-Claude Trichet the prior November amidst substantial turmoil. The non-standard “flood of liquidity” was an about-face from his predecessor (who had been raising rates in 2011 before the wheels...

Below is a non-exhaustive list of medium- and long-term implications from the Covid-19. We discuss the yuan, China’s competitiveness, its position in the global production chains, the impact on the Phase One trade deal, and rising financial stability risks. Globally, the virus will bring about a new wave of fiscal spending and revive the discussions about the limits of monetary policy. Lastly, we are concerned that the virus may provide further momentum for the...

IGTV interviewed Mark O’Byrne, Research Director at GoldCore about the outlook for gold and silver bullion. He is bullish on both precious metals in the medium and long term. The fundamentals are very strong with strong central bank demand and ETF gold holdings reaching an all time record high due to deepening political and economic risks. Silver at $18/oz and one eightieth of the price of gold is fundamentally undervalued and at some stage it will surge in value to...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is in a state of crisis. When it comes to trade negotiations among large states like the US, India, and China, the WTO has been shown to be an organization that is largely irrelevant. Despite grandiose dreams of a global trade organization that would enforce global bureaucrats’ broad vision for multilateral trade agreements, the world looks more and more like it neither wants nor needs an organization like the WTO. CNBC reports...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.27% to 1.0592 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 25(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Yesterday’s bloodletting in global equities has calmed, but investors remain on edge. Despite all the concerns that the markets were under-appreciating the implications of the new coronavirus, there is a sense that yesterday’s moves were in excess.  Japanese markets, which were...