Tag Archives: Featured

If you want to understand how the economy is being transformed, look at the intersection of Big Tech, financialization and the central state. The two dynamics transforming the economy–technology and financialization–are intertwined yet widely viewed as unrelated. Critics and proponents of each largely ignore the other dynamic: critics of institutionalized fraud and other manifestations of financialization implicitly...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.12% at 1.1275 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 21(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Equities are paring some of their recent losses. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index is posting its first back-to-back gain in a month, led by a more than 1% rally in China. Heightened prospects for an Australian rate cut in a few weeks helped...

There is a drumbeat pounding on a monetary issue, which is now rising into a crescendo. The issue is: China might sell its holdings of Treasury bonds—well over $1 trillion—and crash the Treasury bond market. Since the interest rate is inverse to the bond price, a crash of the price would be a skyrocket of the rate. The US government would face spiraling costs of servicing its debt, and quickly collapse into bankruptcy....

Swiss voters largely accepted on Sunday a reform of the corporate tax system that will scrap preferential treatment for multinational firms. The result also means a financial boost for the country’s ailing pension system. Two years after voters rejected a similar idea to overhaul corporate tax rules, the issue – this time linked controversially to pensions – received a clear thumbs-up. Final figures showed 64.4% of...

The S&P 500 recorded a key reversal on May 1, and the end of the tariff truce ensured follow-through selling. With today’s early losses, it is off nearly 3.5% this month. In my brief chat with Stuart Varney at Fox Business, I suggest that the stretched technical condition left the market vulnerable to a “buy in May and go away” scenario. There was some suggestion that comments by Atlanta’s Fed’s Bostic playing down...

Preliminary estimates show that Japanese GDP surprised to the upside by a significant amount. According to Japan’s Cabinet Office, Real GDP expanded by 0.5% (seasonally-adjusted) in the first quarter of 2019 from the last quarter of 2018. That’s an annual rate of +2.1%. Most analysts had been expecting around a 0.2% contraction, which would’ve been the third quarterly minus out of the last five. Japan Real GDP,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.11% at 1.1261 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 20(see more posts on EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Encouraged by the election results, investors bid up Indian and Australian currencies and equities. Japan offered a pleasant surprise by reporting the world’s third-largest economy expanded in Q1. Most other equity markets in Asia...

The strategic objective is to integrate China into the world economy. The liberal international solution was trade, investment flows, and cultural exchanges. The rise of nationalism and China’s own willingness to flaunt the international rules are defeating the strategy. President Trump may suggest that China would prefer to negotiate with his main Democrat rival 18-months away from the election, by both Pelosi and...

„Verschwörung gegen die Schweiz?“ „Rekord-Wette von Spekulanten gegen Schweizer Franken.“ „Zur Zeit läuft die bisher grösste Währungs-Wette gegen den Schweizer Franken.“ So jüngst in Blick und Handelszeitung. Von 4 Milliarden Franken Short-Positionen gegen den Franken an der Börse in Chicago ist da die Rede. Und: Es seien dies Wetten auf die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB). Deren Chef Thomas Jordan habe beteuert, die...

© Olena Yakobchuk | Dreamstime.com Employees Switzerland, an organisation representing Swiss workers, is resigned to the idea of raising the retirement age, according to Swiss broadcaster RTS. Speaking to the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, Stefan Studer, director of the association, said raising the retirement age is inevitable because of the financial difficulties facing Switzerland’s state pension system, known as the...