Tag Archives: Featured

  The increasing volatility of SNB Earnings Annual results are not really definite. Given that the SNB accumulates foreign currencies with interventions, they have huge swings. But the SNB may lose 50 billion in one year and win 60 billion in the next year or vice verse. Good years of the Credit Cycle: Rising Bond and Stock Prices until 2017 Until 2017, the SNB was able to profit on a secular tendency where both stock...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.39% at 1.1288 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Equities, bonds and the dollar are consolidating the moves seen earlier this week. This means equities are trading heavy and bonds firmer. The euro is paring gains that carried it to its best level (~$1.1570) since mid-October. After...

SNB US Stock Holdings In the third quarter of 2018, the hedge fund known as the Swiss National Bank did something it had not done in years: it sold stocks. As we showed in November, the overall value of the SNB’s US listed long holdings rose by over $2 billion to $90 billion, but all of this was due to the price appreciation as the central bank sold around $7bn of equities in Q3. This compares to purchases during 1H18...

After a negative 2018, developments in Italy and indirect ECB support will help define the road ahead for European corporate bonds. Last year was a difficult one for euro credit, with both the ICE Bank of America Merrill Lynch (ICE BofAML) investment grade (IG) and high yield (HY) indices posting negative total returns. This was entirely due to wider credit spreads, as medium-term German government bonds yields fell...

SNB President Thomas Jordan looks back on a weak annual results following a bumper year in 2017. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) says it expects to report a loss of about CHF15 billion ($15.3 billion) for 2018, mainly because of a weak performance of foreign currency positions. In a report on provisional annual calculations, the SNB said on Wednesday that the federal and cantonal authorities would nonetheless still...

After a horrible December and a rough start to the year, as if manna from Heaven the clouds parted and everything seemed good again. Not 2019 this was early February 2015. If there was a birth date for Janet Yellen’s “transitory” canard it surely came within this window. It didn’t matter that currencies had crashed and oil, too, or that central banks had been drawn into the fray in very unexpected ways. Actually it...

“We’re experiencing a slowdown,” says Blackrock fund manager Global Allocation Fund adding to gold exposure through ETFs Gold “has had a very consistent record of helping mitigate equity risk when volatility is rising” Gold bullion has been a “store of value for a very long time” by Bloomberg News Gold may extend gains as global growth slows, equity market volatility remains elevated and the Federal Reserve is expected...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.08% at 1.1233 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 9(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Global equities have extended the New Year rally. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced for the fifth consecutive session and the 10th in the past 11. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 in Europe is rising for the second consecutive session,...

- Click to enlarge The global head of Fitch’s sovereign ratings warned that the continued US government shutdown could jeopardize the AAA-status the rating agency grants America. It spurred little market reaction (and for good reason). First, the rating cut is not imminent, though some of the headlines suggest otherwise. Fitch’s McCormack though was clear: ” If the shutdown continues to March 1 and the debt ceiling...

09.01.2019 – The consumer price index (CPI) fell by 0.3% in December 2018 compared with the previous month, reaching 101.5 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was 0.7% compared with the same month of the previous year. The average annual inflation reached 0.9% in 2018. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The average annual inflation for 2018 corresponds to the rate of change between the...