Tag Archives: newsletter

Boris Collardi accepts the rebuke Keystone / Steffen Schmidt Former Julius Bär CEO Boris Collardi has had his knuckles rapped by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) following an investigation into money laundering. Collardi, who is now a partner at Geneva-based bank Pictet, says he has accepted the reprimand, which is related to the FINMA investigation into alleged corruption, particularly in connection with the Venezuelan state oil company...

Our analysis of what the biggest global companies in Switzerland are up to. This week: corporate funding in politics, diamond billionaire on trial and high hopes for the economy. The siege at the US Capitol has caused Swiss companies to think twice about their associations with political parties in the US. But it isn’t the only place where Swiss companies are being dragged into politics and forced to choose between values and their bottom line. Earlier this week,...

President-elect Biden will be inaugurated and becomes the 46th President of the United States at noon; he will hit the ground running by announcing a raft of executive orders upon taking office; Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing was revealing; Canada and Brazil are expected to keep rates unchanged Italian political tensions appear to have calmed; German government announced a hardening of mobility restrictions; UK reported December CPI BOJ began its two-day...

Allow me to translate the risible claims of Jay Powell and Janet Yellen that their stimulus policies haven’t boosted wealth inequality to the moon: “Let them eat cake.” The euphoria of ever greater monetary and fiscal stimulus overlooks the diminishing returns and higher risks generated by near-exponential increases in stimulus. I prepared a chart that graphically displays the extraordinary increases in stimulus and the declining results in the primary goals of...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.05% to 1.0768 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 20(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Global equities are moving higher today. Led by continued strong buying of Hong Kong shares, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose to new highs. The Hang Seng is up 6% this year and is approaching the 2019 record high.  Australia’s shares set a new record today. Japan and Taiwan bucked...

Vaccine rollout is advancing at snail pace in the European Union. At the same time, countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel are moving quickly to get large parts of the population vaccinated as promptly as possible. As Europe debates the success or failure of its vaccine policy, some countries want to be one step ahead and discuss the possibility of so-called vaccine passports. The concept is straightforward: those who have been...

The meltdown has crashed the currency, prompted a sovereign default and doomed at least half the population to poverty, prompting protests. Keystone / Wael Hamzeh The Swiss attorney general’s office has requested legal assistance from Lebanon in the context of a probe into “aggravated money laundering” and possible embezzlement tied to the Lebanese central bank, Reuters reports from Beirut. The probe is looking at money transfers by Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor...

Are you familiar with the GoldNewsletter podcast? They boast over 200 episodes on the topics of investment, economics, and geopolitics. This week, hosts Fergus Hodgson & Brien Lundin interviewed Monetary Metals’ CEO Keith Weiner on the topic of falling interest rates and how cheap borrowing comes at the expense of capital productivity. [embedded content] Did you enjoy this episode? Subscribe to the GoldNewsletter podcast via...

Students use cell phones to carry out online learning amid the Covid-19 pandemic in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, October 20, 2020. Keystone / Hotli Simanjuntak Infectious diseases, extreme weather events and cybersecurity problems pose key threats to society in the next two years, the World Economic Forum (WEF) warns. The Covid-19 pandemic looks set to have a lasting impact in the next ten years. “In 2020 we saw the effects of ignoring preparation and ignoring long-term...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.07% to 1.0754 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 19(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The animal spirits are on the march today. Equities are mostly higher, peripheral European bonds are firm, and the dollar is mostly softer. After posting the first back-to-back decline this year, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index bounced back today, led by a 2.7% gain in Hong Kong...