Tag Archives: newsletter

  Il n’y a rien à defender – by Vidocq Il n’y a rien à defender – There is nothing to defend Personne n’a lu ce qui a été écrit. – Nobody read what was written. Personne n’a pensé avant d’agir, comme la plupart des gens de nos jours. – No one thought before acting, like most people nowadays. L’homme que tu pends est l’homme que tu as fait, pas l’homme que tu tiens. – The man you hang is the man you made, not the man...

Lately, one of my biggest duds of a call has been for the yield curve to steepen. Sure, I have all sorts of fancy reasons why it should steepen, but reality glares back at me in black and white on my P&L run. Sometimes fighting with the market is an exercise in futility. Now I know many of your eyes glaze over when I start talking about different parts of the yield curve flattening or steepening, but I urge you to...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.19% to 1.1589 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 20(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US Senate approved a budget resolution that is a necessary step toward using a parliamentary maneuver that prevents the Democrats to block tax reform by filibuster. This has helped spur dollar gains against all the major currencies...

German operator Flixbus was fined as passengers were using its international route for cheap transport within Switzerland The Swiss cabinet is not in favour of liberalising the Swiss transport market by allowing foreign coach firms to offer inter-city services within Switzerland. In a report released on Thursday, the seven-member body said it is not keen on going beyond the current legal framework, as it deems the...

A Big Reference Chart Collection Our friends at Incrementum have created a special treat for gold aficionados, based on the 2017 “In Gold We Trust Report”. Not everybody has the time to read a 160 page report, even if it would be quite worthwhile to do so. As we always mention when it is published, it is a highly useful reference work, even if one doesn’t get around to reading all of it (and selective reading is...

Industrial Production rose 1.6% year-over-year in September 2017. That’s up from 1.2% growth in August, both months perhaps affected to some degree by hurricanes. The lack of growth and momentum, however, clearly predated the storms. The seasonally-adjusted index for IP peaked in April 2017, and has been lower ever since. This pattern, the disappointment this year is one we see replicated nearly everywhere on both sides...

Discounting the Present Value of Future Income Last week, we discussed the ongoing fall of dividend, and especially earnings, yields. This Report is not a stock letter, and we make no stock market predictions. We talk about this phenomenon to make a different point. The discount rate has fallen to a very low level indeed. Discount in stocks is how you assess the present-day value of earnings expected to occur in the...

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade...

Discover all of the new Swiss notes on mobile devices - Click to enlarge The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is releasing an updated version of ‘Swiss Banknotes’, an app for mobile devices designed to help the public familiarise themselves with the new banknotes.The popular app, which has been downloaded over 70,000 times, now also showcases the new 10-franc note. It can be downloaded free of  charge from the Apple...

– Brexit UK vulnerable as gold bar exports distort UK trade figures – Britain’s gold exports worth more than any other physical export – Gold accounted for more than one in ten pounds of UK exports in July 2017– UK’s stock of wealth has collapsed from a surplus of £469bn to a net deficit of £22bn – ONS error– Brexiteers argue majority of trade is outside EU, this is due to large London gold exports– Single gold bar...