Tag Archives: newsletter

A Sudden Turn for the Worse Freddie Mac HQ – a strange time for posting losses Photo via nytstyle.com Freddie Mac posted a loss of $354 million this quarter, versus a $2.16 billion gain the previous quarter.  Fannie Mae did slightly better with net earnings of $1.1 billion, which were still substantially down from $2.5 billion the previous quarter though. Instead of delving into the entrails of the financial statements, I would like to ask a broader question:  Why is Freddie reporting...

“At the end of the day, negative interest rates are taxes in sheep’s clothing. Few economists would ever claim that raising taxes on households will stimulate spending. So why would they think negative interest rates will?” Those are the shocking words of St.Louis Fed Director of Research Christopher Waller whose brief note today will be required reading for everyone at The Bank of Japan, The ECB and every other central banker on the verge of NIRP… If you pick up any principles of...

09.05.2016 09:15  – FSO, Prices (0353-1604-90) Swiss Consumer Price Index in April 2016 Consumer prices increase by 0.3% Neuchâtel, 09.05.2016 (FSO) – The Swiss Consumer Price Index increased by 0.3% in April 2016 compared with the previous month, reaching 100.4 points (December 2015=100). Inflation was -0.4% in comparison with the same month in the previous year. These are the findings of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Download this press release (pdf, 129 KB) Bericht CD Bund...

Swiss Consumer Price Index in April 2016 For the second time in a row prices in Switzerland increased by 0.3% against the previous month. Inflation was -0.4% against last year. Still in 2015 inflation was mostly around -1.5% y/y. Will this rising price tendency continue? It will be surely a problem for the SNB. They might need a stronger franc to keep inflation in check. The Swiss asset price bubble has not found yet its way into higher rents. Switzerland has pretty strict...

The SNB increased the equities share from 18% to 20% in Q1/2016. Purchases focused on US equities.It raised holdings in U.S. Equities 32 percent in the first Q1 2016, from $41.3 billion at the end of last year. The S&P 500 rose 0.8 percent over that period. This makes obvious that the central bank goes higher risk. The first risk is the risk on equities, the second one is the dollar that is currently quite expensive. Main Positions: Swiss National Bank, 2007-2013 Still in 2009, the...

The key issue facing the foreign exchange market is whether the modicum of strength the US dollar demonstrated last week is the beginning of a sustainable move.  It is possible that the market is again at a juncture in which the price action will drive the narrative rather than the other way around.  A move above JPY108 and a decline in the euro below $1.1350 signal a start to a broader dollar recovery that may have begun last week with impressive gains against the dollar-bloc. The RBA’s...

There is a paradox of capitalism, we’ve reached a point where those at the top, have an unlimited budget to maintain the status quo, increase their wealth, and develop an ever increasing sophisticated toolbox to manage empire and maintain their dominance.  As we explain in Splitting Pennies – this is no where more obvious than Forex.  The last 100 years we’ve seen capitalism evolve brightly.  Industries that shouldn’t be industries, now employ millions of workers. Paradigm shift,...

Speculators in the futures market continued to pare short foreign currency positions but were cautious about expanding long positions in the CFTC reporting week ending May 3.  In fact, two of the three largest adjustments were the cutting of gross long Japanese yen and Australian dollar positions. Yen Speculators took profits on 11.8k contracts of gross long yen positions, leaving 85.6k contracts still long.  It was the second consecutive week that gross long yen positions were...

The US dollar rose against all the major currencies last week. The importance of the price action does not lie with the magnitude or the breadth of the advance. Instead, the two takeaway technical observations are 1) the seemingly one-way market for euro and yen ended and 2) the dollar-bloc currencies appear to have put in at least a medium-term top. We hasten to note that the fundamental developments have not shifted a more dollar-friendly near-term direction.  Investors,  judging from...

  What Do The Swiss Know That We Don’t? Claudio Grass, Managing Director of Global Gold in Switzerland, was recently invited to speak with Dr. Ron Paul at the Liberty Report. The discussion revolved around the decentralized Swiss political system, libertarianism, the European Union and cultural Marxism. Readers may recall that Claudio has recently done some research on the origins of “political correctness” as a method of thought control (see “Cultural Marxism and the Birth of Modern...