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In der gestrigen Ausgabe der NZZ am Sonntag wird Nobelpreisträger Paul Krugman zitiert, wie er den Mindestkurs der SNB und deren Negativzinsen lobt. Die Negativzinsen seien ein „wertvolles Experiment“ meint er und „bedankt“ sich dafür sogar bei der SNB. „Die Schweiz eruiert neues Territorium. Aus akademischer Sicht liebe ich das.“ Die SNB hat sich also zum Versuchskaninchen der internationalen...

The US Dollar Index has been trending higher since early May.  This Great Graphic, created on Bloomberg shows, that it has been successfully tested several times. It appears set to be re-tested in the coming days.  It comes in near 94.80 today and rises a little more than two ticks a day to finish the week near 94.90. Technical indicators, like the RSI, MACDs, and Slow Stochastics suggest there is reasonably good...

The governed are ready for a period of retrenchment, consolidation and diplomatic solutions to unwinnable conflicts, as imperfect as the peace might be to hawks. Are you open to a somewhat unconventional perspective on this election? If so, read on. If you’re absolutely confident you know all there is know about this election (good vs evil, Democrat vs. Republican, etc.), well then let’s compare notes in five years and...

Submitted by ‘Kevnice’ via ForeignByNature.com, In April 2012, I returned to Switzerland – my country of birth – to commence a new phase of my adult life. Naturally, one of the first steps to undertake when establishing oneself in a new country is to open a bank account. I went down to the local Raiffeisen bank branch in the village of Aesch, Luzern, where my relatives and ancestors had lived and worked as farmers for...

Swiss Franc The EUR/CHF accelerated its decline since yesterday’s strong Swiss trade balance data. The second reason was certainly the Fed decided to keep rates unchanged. We know that the Swiss Franc has similar “counter-dollar” status as gold. Click to enlarge. Japan Much of what the Bank of Japan announced today had been largely leaked. While there was a sizeable response in the asset markets, the dollar’s...

In a report published by SECO, a group of economy experts working for Switzerland’s federal government, says it anticipates an acceleration in economic growth in Switzerland from 0.8% in 2015 to 1.5% in 2016 and 1.9% in 2017. Along side this they expect unemployment to rise from 3.3% in 2015, to an annual average of 3.6% in 2016, before falling again to 3.4% in 2017. However, they also see risks. © Flynt |...

A question worth asking considering the rather large amount of them knocking about at the moment. According to JPM, the total universe of government bonds traded with a negative yield was $3.6tr last week or 16 per cent of the JPM Global Government Bond Index. It’s an answer in itself, really. Anyway, here’s a list of those willing/ forced to buy those negative yielding government bonds from JPM’s Niko...

Swiss watch exports fell in August as demand weakened from Japan to the U.S., extending the industry’s slump to fourteen months. The Swiss watch industry is strongly correlated with the growth in Asia. While the chemical and pharmaceutical industry (the “Basel companies”) export a lot into the United States. The firmer is currently weakening, while the latter profits on the stronger dollar and “Obamacare demand”. As...

I consider it self-evident that we are in the third and final stage of self-serving Imperial decay. Here is the current context of the discussion of Imperial lifecycles: the U.S. defense budget is roughly the same size as the rest of the world’s defense spending combined => Luttwak describes the first stage of expansion thusly: “With brutal simplicity, it might be said that with the first system the Romans of...

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 increases, while REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. On the other side, a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade partners decided to...