Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.13% to 1.0953 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 26(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Daily Overview: The decline in US rates and the doves at the ECB pushing back against the need to reduce bond purchases next month have seen European bond yields unwind most of this month’s gain. The inability of US shares to hold on to early gains yesterday did not deter the Asia Pacific and...
Read More »Taper Is Coming: Got Bonds?
Taper Is Coming: Got Bonds? The solid economic recovery and easing of COVID restrictions lead us to believe a tapering of QE may not be far off. Further supporting our opinion, inflation has fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and employment is improving rapidly. On top of that are whispers from within the Fed questioning financial stability given extreme asset valuations driven to some degree by excessive QE. Most importantly, various Fed members are starting to...
Read More »COVID in India
India’s experience with the COVID pandemic was particularly unpleasant… [PT] - Click to enlarge Scavengers Out in Full Force I have just returned from a visit to my family in India. It was hard to escape. To get to the US from India, I needed a COVID test. The Indian government has seriously restricted who can provide COVID testing, treatment, and vaccination. Private doctors and hospitals that are not approved face brutal legal consequences if they provide COVID...
Read More »ETC Group Lists Physically Backed Ethereum and Litecoin Crypto ETCs on SIX
- Click to enlarge ETC Group, a specialist provider of digital asset-backed securities, has announced that it will list its physically backed Ethereum and Litecoin cryptocurrency ETCs on the Swiss Stock Exchange SIX. The listing of ETHetc (ETC Group’s Physical Ethereum ETC) and LTCetc (ETC Group´s Physical Litecoin ETC) in USD, CHF and GBP, follows the success of its first Bitcoin based product which is the BTCetc (ETC Group Physical Bitcoin ETC), which was...
Read More »The Real Estate Boom in Vegas Is More Frenzied Than Ever
In Las Vegas, asset price inflation is combining with rising prices on building materials to create a real estate bubble of remarkable proportions. Original Article: “The Real Estate Boom in Vegas Is More Frenzied Than Ever” Summerlin, the suburb of west Las Vegas creeping ever closer to the mountains, looks to be crowded with fully paved streets, streetlights, block walls, and blue top lots. With lumber, labor, and other materials in short supply, home...
Read More »FOMO Is Loco
We can also posit a general rule that those who inherit wealth and succumb to FOMO are eventually less wealthy while those who are wealthy and take a pass on FOMO / hoarding at the top of the manic frenzy increase their wealth.Judging by the panic buying of everything from homes to yachts to lumber futures, it seems the world has run out of everything except newly issued central bank trillions, and so the logical response is FOMO (fear of missing out) and hoarding:...
Read More »Swiss central banker wary of excessive inflation
Jordan, shown at a news conference last year, warns of neglecting the risks of inflation. Keystone/Anthony Anex The Swiss National Bank (SNB) can expand its balance sheet further if needed, says chairman of the board Thomas Jordan. “A big balance sheet is per se no problem. We can expand the balance sheet further, if monetary policy so requires,” he told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper in an interview published on Saturday. The SNB’s holdings of foreign exchange...
Read More »FX Daily, May 25: Softer Yields Weigh on the Greenback
Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.17% to 1.0976 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 25(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The decline in US 10-year rates to two-week lows below 1.59% is helping rebuild bullish enthusiasm for stocks and weighing on the US dollar. The NASDAQ reached two-week highs yesterday, and almost all the large markets in the Asia Pacific region rose, though India struggled. Europe’s...
Read More »Switzerland and WHO launch global pathogen BioHub
Alain Berset, right, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a bilateral meeting in Geneva on Monday to sign a memo of understanding on the BioHub Initiative Keystone / Laurent Gillieron Switzerland and the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed to launch the first WHO BioHub Facility. This will enhance the rapid sharing of viruses and other pathogens between laboratories and partners globally. Under the agreement, signed at the 74th World Health Assembly in...
Read More »U.S. Hypocrisy on Display on Belarus
U.S. officials are shocked and outraged over the forced landing of a passenger airliner in Belarus. The airliner contained a passenger named Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old man who was traveling from Greece to Lithuania. Protasevich is a Belarusian dissident who is playing a major role in the fight against Belarus’s brutal dictator Aleksandr G. Lukashenko. Fearing imminent arrest, Protasevich fled the country in 2019. He has been continuing the fight against...
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