Tag Archives: newsletter

Click to see the video. About a dozen hours after it became clear that a slight majority of the British voters favored leaving the UK, the Financial Times’ John Authers visited me at Brown Brothers Harriman  to discuss the initial implications.  The situation is very fluid and there are many moving pieces.  In Chinese, the characters for crisis are “danger” and “opportunity.”  The danger component is the first cut...

Mohamed El-Erian says the global economy is at a crossroads. ‘Investors cannot rely on correlations as a risk mitigator,’ he says Investors shouldn’t underestimate the role of cash in their portfolios said Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz Global Investors. At a breakfast meeting with reporters on Monday, the former Pacific Investment Management Company chief executive said central bank asset...

On the Swiss Franc: The data shows that the Net positioning in the Swiss Franc barely changed, as of June 21, when compared to the previous week. The CFTC reporting week ending June 21 covers the day FOMC and BOJ meetings and ends two days before the UK referendum. The overarching theme was the reduction of exposure.  This is not measured by net positions but by gross positions. Of the eight currencies we track,...

EUR/CHF The Euro-Swiss remained nearly stable at the begin of the week. It peaked shortly before the Brexit referendum, when traders were anticipating a yes. It found its trough when the No was published. We showed the obvious SNB intervention that started at 7.45 am. on Friday. FX Rates June 20 to June 24, 2016 click to enlarge, Source Yahoo Finance USD/CHF After being nearly stable during the week, the dollar...

SNB interventions During the Brexit turmoil on Friday, the Swiss National Bank has intervened in markets. Just after they got into the office, at 7.45 am CET, they started the interventions. Apparently the Singapore office did not have a mandate to do interventions. The central bank drove the EUR/CHF price from a low of 1.0646 towards 1.08. FX traders might have moved it higher to 1.0850. We do not think that the...

Electoral workers prepared a polling station for the referendum on the European Union in north London. Credit Neil Hall/Reuters To help explain why the British voted to leave the European Union, look to Switzerland. The famously neutral Swiss rejected membership in the European Economic Area, a potential steppingstone to the European Union, in a 1992 referendum, but Switzerland didn’t formally withdraw its dormant...

“Some market and economic volatility can be expected as this process unfolds,” Carney said in a televised statement in London after the referendum result. His comments followed Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement that he will step down this year, which will inject political uncertainty into an already volatile period. His full announcement is below and his statement can be found here: [embedded content]...

  A Glorious Day What a glorious day for Britain and anyone among you who continues to believe in the ideas of liberty, freedom, and sovereign democratic rule. The British people have cast their vote and I have never ever felt so relieved about having been wrong. Against all expectations, the leave camp somehow managed to push the referendum across the center line, with 51.9% of voters counted electing to leave the...

  Dark Social Mood Tsunami Washes Ashore Early this morning one might have been forgiven for thinking that Japan had probably just been hit by another tsunami. The Nikkei was down 1,300 points, the yen briefly soared above par. Gold had intermittently gained 100 smackers – if memory serves, the biggest nominal intra-day gain ever recorded (with the possible exception of one or two days in early 1980). Here is a...

SNB interventions During the Brexit turmoil on Friday, the Swiss National Bank has intervened in markets. Just after they got into the office, at 7.45 am CET, they started the interventions. Apparently the Singapore office did not have a mandate to do interventions. The central bank drove the EUR/CHF price from a low of 1.0646 towards 1.08. FX traders might have moved it higher to 1.0850. We do not think that the...