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Summary: The euro fell every day last week against the Swiss franc. Italian political anxiety is the key development. Speculators in the futures market got caught leaning the wrong way. The Swiss National Bank’s decision in January 2015 to remove the cap on the Swiss franc (floor on the euro) that it has set at CHF1.20 is seared into the memory of a generation of foreign exchange participants. It is not...

The acceleration of non-linear consequences will surprise the brainwashed, loving-their-servitude mainstream media. Linear correlations are intuitive: if GDP declines 2% in the next recession, and employment declines 2%, we get it: the scale and size of the decline aligns. In a linear correlation, we’d expect sales to drop by about 2%, businesses closing their doors to increase by about 2%, profits to notch down by...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Gold Lending and Arbitrage There was no rise in the purchasing power of gold this week. The price of gold fell $22, and that of silver $0.19. One question that comes up is why is the fundamental price so far above the market price? Starting in January, the fundamental price began to move up sharply, and the move...

More than two months after the general election, the Italian political impasse seems close to being broken, with the League and the Five Star Movement (M5S) likely to form a government. M5S and the League together have a majority in both the upper and lower houses. After several document leaks this week, a final common programme was published today. The document needs the approval of party members. The focus will shift...

Switzerland’s government is working hard to find ways to fix a looming state pension shortfall. © Sang Lei | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge Two politicians in the canton of Fribourg have decided to seek savings by attempting to cut lifetime government pensions granted after short stints in the job, according to the newspaper 20 Minutes. In some Swiss cantons, government leaders can work for several years and leave...

USD/CHF The USDCHF pair reaches the key support 0.9955 now, and as we mentioned in our last report, breaking this level will confirm completing the double top pattern that appears on the chart, to rally towards our negative targets that begin at 0.9900 and extend to 0.9850. Therefore, we will continue to suggest the bearish trend supported by the negative pressure formed by the EMA50, unless the price managed to rally...

Stock Markets EM FX ended Friday on a weak note and extended the slide. For the week as a whole, the best EM performers were PHP, TWD, and SGD while the worst were ARS, ZAR, and TRY. With US rates continuing to move higher, we believe selling pressures on EM FX will remain in play this week. Our recently updated EM Vulnerability Table supports our view that divergences within EM will remain. Stock Markets Emerging...

There are a lot of reasons why interest rates may have risen recently. The federal government is expected to post a larger deficit this year – and in future years – due to the tax cuts. Further exacerbating those concerns is the ongoing shrinkage of the Fed’s balance sheet. Increased supply and potentially decreased demand is not a recipe for higher prices. In addition, there is some fear that the ongoing trade...

Moribund Meandering Earlier this week, the USD gold price was pushed rather unceremoniously off its perch above the $1300 level, where it had been comfortably ensconced all year after its usual seasonal rally around the turn of the year. For a while it seemed as though the $1,300 level may actually hold, but persistent US dollar strength nixed that idea. Previously many observers (too many?) expected gold to finally...

Italian asset markets continue to fare better than many expected. The political uncertainty following the March election has been followed by confidence that the Five Star Movement and the (Northern) League will be able to put together a government in the coming days. If so, Italy would have taken half the time Germany did to cobble a government together after inconclusive elections. Politics makes for...