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© Perry Toone | Dreamstime.com According to an article in Tribune de Genève, some cigarette vendors are desperately searching for supplies of the drug to meet demand. Recently kiosques in Geneva started selling low strength cannabis like they sell cigarettes. Some kiosque owners are over the moon, while others desperately search for a supplier. One vendor told Tribune de Genève: “I don’t have any. For three days people...

James Rickards: Long-Term Forecast For $10,000 Gold James Rickards, geopolitical and monetary expert and best selling author of the ‘The New Case for Gold’ has written an interesting piece for the Daily Reckoning on why he believes gold will reach $10,000 in the long term. Gold in USD Adjusted for Inflation 1970-2017 – Macrotrends.net He warns of the many systemic and geopolitical risks including the EU elections, from...

To my mind, “reflation” has always proceeded under false pretenses. This goes for more than just the latest version, as we witnessed the same incongruity in each of the prior three. The trend is grounded in mere hope more than rational analysis, largely because I think human nature demands it. We are conditioned to believe especially in the 21st century that the worst kinds of things are either unrealistic or apply to...

To my mind, “reflation” has always proceeded under false pretenses. This goes for more than just the latest version, as we witnessed the same incongruity in each of the prior three. The trend is grounded in mere hope more than rational analysis, largely because I think human nature demands it. We are conditioned to believe especially in the 21st century that the worst kinds of things are either unrealistic or apply to...

The BIS in its quarterly review published yesterday included a reference to the eurodollar market (thanks to M. Daya for pointing it out). The central bank to central banks, as the outfit is often called, is one of the few official institutions that have taken a more objective position with regard to the global money system. Of the very few who can identify eurodollars, or have even heard of them, the BIS while not...

Headlines Week March 06, 2017 We were arguing in the last weeks, that the EUR/CHF is trending towards parity. There are three reasons: Continuing SNB interventions Strengthening Swiss local demand, as also visible in the GDP release. Speculators increase their dollar shorts against Euro and reduce them against CHF. Point 3 was not fulfilled last week. FX Last week:The EUR/CHF remained around 1.0650, the level where the...

Swiss Franc Speculators were net short CHF in January 2015, shortly before the end of the peg, with 26.4K contracts. Then again in December 2015, when they expected a Fed rate hike, with 25.5K contracts. The biggest short CHF, however, happened in June 2007, when speculators were net short 80K contracts. Shortly after, the U.S. subprime crisis started. The carry trade against CHF collapsed. The...

The week ahead features the ECB meeting and the US February jobs report. The Reserve Bank of Australia meets, Europe reports industrial production, Japan reports January current account figures, and China reports its latest inflation and lending figures. We frame this week’s discussion of the drivers in terms of four sets of questions and offer some tentative answers. United States What is the significance of the...

Stock Markets EM FX was mostly softer last week, though it ended the week firmer, buoyed by outsized MXN gains Friday.  The Fed is sending very strong signals for a March hike, which should keep EM FX on its back foot.  However, with the March 15 FOMC embargo coming into effect, there will be no Fed speakers after Kashkari on Monday.  Jobs data on Friday will be the highlight, but given the Fed’s signals, we do not...

© Lianna2013 | Dreamstime.com One year after Switzerland’s Council of States (upper house) voted in favour of controlling lobbyists’ access to parliament, the draft proposed implementation plan has been rejected by the commission in charge of it. Back in March 2016, the Council of States voted in favour of a parliamentary initiative put forward by state councillor Didier Berberat calling for those accessing parliament...