Tag Archives: Featured

When Geneva’s finances make the news it is typically bad. At the end of 2016, the canton had debts of CHF 12.5 billion, equal to 153% of its income. In January 2018, the rating agency Standard and Poors gave Geneva a negative outlook citing risks related to the canton’s poorly funded public pension scheme. © Sam74100 | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge This time the news is good. The CHF 80 million budget deficit...

The logo at this Swiss petrol station is clean, but the Shell name is linked to two criminal investigations involving Swiss bank accounts. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Royal Dutch Shell has filed a criminal complaint against a former employee it suspects of stashing kickbacks from the sale of a Nigerian oil field in Swiss bank accounts. The energy company is already being investigated over another deal...

“Stars Are Slowly Aligning For Gold” – Frisby – Gold ends March with a third-quarterly gain, a feat not seen since 2011 – Impressive gains seen despite tightening of monetary policy from Federal Reserve – Frisby – gold is set to break through technical resistance of $1,360 – Gold’s safe haven role back in focus with Trump trade wars and increasing geopolitical tensions – Now is opportune time for investors to buy gold,...

SPX Trendline Battle, Relative Strength in RUT We reviewed the daily charts after yesterday’s close and noticed that the Russell 2000 Index, the NYA and transportation stocks all exhibited relative strength (the same holds actually for the DJIA), particularly vs. the FANG/NDX group. This is happening just as the SPX is battling with an extremely important trendline. As we pointed out before, relative strength in the...

Petroplus went bankrupt after banks pulled the plug on financing (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Climate fund payments made to now-bankrupt Swiss oil refiner Petroplus cannot be reclaimed by creditors as they constituted a business arrangement that brought benefits to contributors as opposed to a gift. This ruling from Zurich’s highest court has stopped a CH15 million ($16 million) claim in its tracks, barring...

– US needs to borrow almost $300 billion this week alone – This is the largest debt issuance since 2008 financial crisis – Trump threatens trade war with its biggest creditor – China – Bond auctions have seen weak demand due to large supply and trade war concerns – $20 trillion mark reached in early September 2017; $1 trillion added in just 6 months – US total national debt level now exceeds $21.05 trillion and is...

– Eurozone threatened by trade wars, Italy and major political and economic instability – Trade war holds a clear and present danger to stability and economic prospects – Italy represents major source of potential disruption for the currency union – Financial markets fail to reflect the “eurozone time-bomb” in Italy – Financial volatility concerns in Brussels & warning of ‘sharp correction’ on horizon – Euro and...

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is credited with being the first central bank to adopt a formal inflation target. Following last year’s election, the central bank’s mandate has been modified to include full employment. To be sure this was a political decision, and one that initially saw the New Zealand dollar retreat. The dual mandate that originated with the Fed has been questioned in the US, but Congress has shown...

A Word on 1987 Analogies – Why Even Bother? As our friend Dimitri Speck noted in his recent update, the chart pattern of the SPX continues to follow famous crash antecedents quite closely, but obviously not precisely. In particular, the decisive trendline break was rejected for the moment. If the market were to follow the 1987 analog with precision, it would already have crashed this week. Nevertheless, we wanted to...

France’s public deficit fell to 2.6% of GDP in 2017 according to INSEE’s preliminary assessment, down from 3.4% in 2016 and below the 3% threshold for the first time since 2007. The outcome was better than the government’s estimate of a 2.9% deficit. If confirmed, France will exit the Excessive Deficit Procedure that the European Commission opened in 2009. France’s budget balance ended up about EUR10bn above the level...