Tag Archives: newsletter

The Swiss National Bank is the process of issuing new bank notes. A new 50 franc note hit the streets last year. Now it is the new 20 franc note’s turn. Officially launched today, it will enter circulation on 17 May 2017. A photograph of the note was posted on Facebook by Bilan: The new red note, designed around the theme of light, has a few secrets. It can be be washed without losing any of its colour, so you don’t...

The arrest of a suspected Swiss spy in Germany has raised questions about what roles the Swiss secret service, the state public prosecutor and UBS bank played in the affair. The 54-year-old man, known as Daniel M, is accused of spying on the German tax authorities to find out who sold stolen Swiss banking data. His arrest more than a week ago has prompted a diplomatic...

Endangered Recovery As we noted in a recent corporate debt update on occasion of the troubles Neiman-Marcus finds itself in (see “Cracks in Ponzi Finance Land”), problems are set to emerge among high-yield borrowers in the US retail sector this year. This happens just as similar problems among low-rated borrowers in the oil sector were mitigated by the rally in oil prices since early 2016. The recovery in the oil...

US imports rose 9% year-over-year (NSA) in March 2017, after being flat in February and up 12% in January. For the quarter overall, imports rose 7.3%, a rate that is slightly more than the 2013-14 comparison. The difference, however, is simply the price of oil. Removing petroleum, imports rose instead 6.3% in March and just 4% for the first quarter overall. The value of inbound crude oil expanded by more than 70% for...

A warm welcome – the Google reception in Zurich A new ranking shows the best firms to work for in Switzerland – with Google topping the large companies for a third time in a row. Important to employees in all categories: a respectful and motivational work culture. In all, 29 companies were awarded Best Workplaces in Switzerland in the Great Place to Work® Award Ceremony in Zurich on Thursday evening. The results were...

20 Minutes. On Friday, Easyjet added a 14th aircraft to its Geneva-based fleet. The new Airbus A320 will allow it to add new destinations. © Tommy Beattie | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge The new aircraft will create 36 new jobs on top of the current 500 at the airline’s Geneva base, Thomas Haagensen, Easyjet’s director of northern Europe, told Le Matin Dimanche. Last year, the airline flew 900,000 more people from...

Summary Moon Jae-in was elected president of South Korea Philippine President Duterte named Nestor Espenilla as central bank governor Nigerian President Buhari traveled to London for a follow-up to the initial medical visit earlier this year Market expectations for 2018 inflation in Brazil rose for the first time in more than a year Peru’s central bank unexpectedly started the easing cycle with a 25 bp cut to 4.0%...

Summary: US TWI has appreciated a little since the end of Q1. The euro and sterling’s strength are exceptions to the rule. The dollar has edged up against the currencies of the US top four trading partners here in Q2. In early Asia today, the euro reached its highest level against the dollar since the US election last November.  Sterling was near seven-month highs.  It is primarily because of the strength of...

The Wrong Approach This question is no longer moot. As the world moves inexorably towards the use of metallic money, interest on gold and silver will return with it. This raises an important question. Which interest rate will be higher? It’s instructive to explore a wrong, but popular, view. I call it the purchasing power paradigm. In this view, the value of money — its purchasing power —is 1/P (where P is the price...

Von Zürich aus soll künftig der Markt Schweiz/Österreich bearbeitet werden Der US-amerikanische Vermögensverwalter PineBridge Investments eröffnet 2017 in Zürich eine Niederlassung. Grund für die physische Präsenz in der Schweiz sei die "signifikant gewachsene" Kundenbasis in der Schweiz. Diese wolle man nun vor Ort adäquat betreuen können, lässt Klaus Schuster, Head of Business Development...