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Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.06% to 1.09 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The ECB meeting and the US May CPI report is at hand. The US dollar is consolidating at a higher level against most of the major currencies. Softer than expected, inflation readings are weighing on the Scandis, which are bearing the brunt. The US 10-year yield closed below 1.50% for...

Swiss chocolate makers have struggled to eradicate child labour in the hazelnut supply chain originating in the Black Sea region of Turkey. Dominique Soguel The world has witnessed the first rise in child labour in 20 years and the coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions more minors into the same fate, the United Nations said on Thursday. Swiss multinationals from food giant Nestlé to mining titans Glencore and Trafigura have struggled to eradicate child labour...

By the end of May 2021, the percentage of Switzerland’s workforce registered as out of work had fallen to 3.1%, down from 3.3% in April 2021. © Rafael Ben Ari | Dreamstime.com The figures are based on those registered as unemployed at regional employment centres and exclude many of those that have been out of for more than two years and have exhausted their rights to collect unemployment benefits. Many measures of unemployment, such as the one recommended by the...

Inflation is more than just any old touchy subject in an age overflowing with crude, visceral debates up and down the spectrum reaching into every corner of life. It is about life itself, and not just quality. When the prices of the goods (or services) you absolutely depend upon go up, your entire world becomes that much more difficult. For those at the “bottom”, that much more unbearable (hello Communism!) The real issue in that situation isn’t that narrow slice of...

The increase in the growth rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has fueled concerns that if the rising trend were to continue the Fed is likely to tighten its interest rate stance. Observe that the yearly growth rate in the CPI climbed to 4.2 percent in April from 2.6 percent in March and 0.3 percent in April 2020. We hold that because of massive increases in the money supply, it is likely that the growth momentum of prices is going to follow a rising trend....

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.08% to 1.0904 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 09(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Falling US yields weigh on the US dollar. The 10-year Treasury yield is flirting with the 1.50% mark, and the greenback is trading heavily against all the major and most emerging market currencies. European and the Asia Pacific benchmark yields are lower as well. The JP Morgan...

You have probably heard of the 4% rule if you are interested in early retirement. This rule states that if you withdraw 4% of your portfolio every year, you can sustain your withdrawals for 30 years. But do you know where it comes from? If you have read a lot about it, you probably heard about the Trinity Study. This study is where it all started. But do you know what the Trinity Study is? Probably not. A lot of things people are saying about the Trinity Study are...

On 4 June 2021, Swissmedic, Switzerland’s drug approval authority, announced it was extending authorisation of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to 12-15 year olds. © Irina Zharkova | Dreamstime.com The vaccine, also known under the brand name Comirnaty®, has had temporary ordinary authorisation for use in Switzerland on people aged 16 or over since 19 December 2020. Swissmedic started looking at approving the vaccine for use on younger people on 7 May 2021 and reviewed...

We’re getting a real-world economics lesson in rip-your-face-off increases in prices, and the tuition is about to go up–way up. Inflation will be transitory, blah-blah-blah–I beg to differ, for these reasons. There are numerous structural sources of inflation, which I define as prices rise while the quality and quantity of goods and services remain the same or diminish. Since the word inflation is so loaded, let’s use the more neutral (and more accurate) term...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.20% to 1.0916 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 08(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The capital markets appear to be in a holding pattern ahead of this week’s big events, including the US CPI and the ECB meeting. Equities are little changed but with a heavier bias evident. Most of the large bourses in the Asia Pacific region were lower, except Australia, which eked...