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R & D expenses of the Confederation at record high 12 July 2018 (FSO) – In 2017, the Confederation spent 2.2 billion Swiss francs on research and experimental development (R & D), an increase of 7% compared to the last survey in 2015. The biggest share of this record amount was R & D contributions for research activities. At the same time, federal R & D personnel fell by 4% to 875 full-time...

The real battle isn’t between a cartoonish vision or a dystopian nightmare–it’s between decentralized ownership and control of these technologies and centralized ownership and control. The hype about artificial intelligence (AI) and its cousins Big Data and Machine Learning is ubiquitous, and largely unexamined. AI is going to change the world by freeing humankind from most of its labors, etc. etc. etc. Let’s start by...

Some older employees fear being axed from the workplace because they cost to much to employ. A lobby group representing the interests of older workers has launched a people’s initiative to reform the occupational pension system to reduce the incentive for employers to sack people once they pass the age of 50. The Workfair 50+external link group announced on Tuesday its intention of forcing a nationwide vote on the...

A survey of central banks and sovereign wealth funds by Invesco sheds light on their investment plans. The traditional separation of markets and the state may be helpful for ideological arguments, but the real situation is more complicated. Central banks and their investment vehicles (sovereign wealth funds) are market participants. In some activities, such as custodian, central banks compete with the private sector....

We’re in the endgame of financialization and globalization, and it won’t be pretty for all the hostages of corporate profits. Though you won’t read about it in the mainstream corporate media, the nation is now hostage to outsized corporate profits. The economy and society at large are now totally dependent on soaring corporate profits and the speculative bubbles they fuel, and this renders us all hostages: “Make a move...

A Beginning Shift in Gold Fundamentals A previously outright bearish fundamental backdrop for gold has recently become slightly more favorable. Ironically, the arrival of this somewhat more favorable situation was greeted by a pullback in physical demand and a decline in the gold price, after both had defied bearish fundamentals for many months by remaining stubbornly firm. The eternal popularity contest… - Click to...

Sure, it’s been a bad year for investors, with the S&P posting the smallest of gains in the first half (all of which thanks to tech stocks) after several hair-raising, monthly incidents including February’s vol-spike, April’s real yield scare, May’s Emerging Market massacre and June’s trade war fears as shown in the following Citi chart… … but it’s hardly been apocalyptic: in fact, most of the shocks that took...

Traffic jam in Geneva: bad for the environment, bad for the nation's wallet. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge A government study has found that the so-called ‘external costs’ of various modes of transport collectively increased by almost CHF1 billion during the period 2010-2015. For walkers and cyclists, however, benefits outweigh the costs. The study, published on Thursdayexternal link by the Federal Office for Spatial...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Race to the Bottom Last week the price of gold fell $17, and that of silver $0.30. Why? We can tell you about the fundamentals. We can show charts of the basis. But we can’t get into the heads of the sellers. We can say that in the mainstream view, the dollar is rising. The dollar, in their view, is not measured in gold...

Pictet Wealth Management’s latest positioning across asset classes and investment themes. Asset Allocation On a tactical, rolling three-to-six-month basis, we are tilting away from a bullish to a neutral stance on developed-market equities as trade and political frictions are rising. That said, we remain more upbeat on their prospects after the summer. Recent sell-offs have vindicated our cautiousness regarding...