Tag Archives: newsletter

Jenisch has driven performance under difficult circumstances at Sika - Click to enlarge The markets have welcomed Lafarge Holcim’s choice of chief executive to guide the company out of a reputational hole. Jan Jenisch, who will take over in October, has experienced difficult situations having spent the last two and a half years driving up Sika’s results against the backdrop of a shareholder civil war. Investors...

There is no change to the risk budget this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between risk assets and bonds is unchanged at 50/50. There are, however, changes within the asset classes. We are reducing the equity allocation and raising the allocation to REITs.  Based on the bond markets there has been little change in the growth and inflation outlook since the last asset allocation update. Based on...

Swiss Labour Force Survey 1th quarter 2017: labour supply First quarter 2017: Employment rate increases by 0.6 percent. Unemployment rate according to ILO is 5.3 percent Neuchâtel, 19.05.2017 (FSO) – The number of employed persons in Switzerland rose by 0.6% between the 1st quarters of 2016 and 2017. During the same period, the unemployment rate as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) remained stable...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, May 24(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF Labour gains ground The Conservatives were in a very strong position following the election announcement. A snap election historically causes the currency in question to weaken, but on this occasion the opposite occurred. A Torie victory is deemed to be positive for the UK economy. Investor confidence grew and...

© Lisavan | Dreamstime.com A recent report classifies 570,000 people in Switzerland as poor. This number represents 7% of the population, and relates to 2015. In 2014, the same percentage was 6.6%. The report, which looks only at income, defines as poor a single person with income less than CHF 2,239 per month or a family of four with income below CHF 3,984 per month. Data from the survey of 7,500 households, around...

Summary: The dollar’s downside momentum faded today, but it has not shown that it has legs. Watch 96.45 in the DXY and $1.3055 in sterling. The US 2-year note yield is low, given expectations for overnight money. The US premium needs to widen. The US dollar’s downside momentum faded today. While one should not read much into it, it could be an early sign that the market has discounted the recent news stream,...

The Basel-based firm employs 120,000 people worldwide. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has announced that it plans to cut 500 jobs at its Basel headquarters in Switzerland over the next 18 months. It says it will also create 350 new posts, mostly in its biotech business. Novartis said in a statement on Thursday that it planned to cut up to 500 jobs in the Basel area or to relocate workers to other sites over the...

Tech is the umbrella word for all things fashionable to invest in right now. Take the recent flotation of Snap Inc. (parent company of teen and narcissists’ favourite app SnapChat), everyone wanted in on the $20 billion flotation. Snap is likely a sign of a tech bubble that will cost a lot of savers and investors huge amounts of money … again. Before putting your savings into the likes of SnapInc we think there are some...

The rebound in commodity prices is not difficult to understand, perhaps even sympathize with. With everything so depressed early last year, if it turned out to be no big deal in the end then there was a killing to be made. That’s what markets are supposed to do, entice those with liquidity to buy when there is blood in the streets. And if those speculators turn out to be wrong, then we are all much the wiser for their...

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...