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Will UBS and Credit Suisse, here in Zurich’s Paradeplatz, become more than neighbours? Keystone Shares of Credit Suisse and UBS moved to the top of SMI stocks on Monday morning after a media report said the Swiss banks were planning a merger. The chairmen of UBS Group and Credit Suisse Group were exploring a potential merger to create one of Europe’s largest banks, wrote Inside Paradeplatz, citing unidentified people inside the two lenders. The project, nicknamed...

© Frankposz | Dreamstime.com On 11 September 2020, Switzerland’s federal government announced that people entering Switzerland after spending time in regions next to the country’s national borders will be exempted from mandatory quarantine requirements should those regions end up with high rates of infection. Cross-border worker are already exempted from quarantine requirements. The announcement marks a significant shift away from the current system which requires...

Since it’s sell-off from it’s early August high, gold has been stuck in an ever decreasing range. Having had a remarkable rally to an intra-day high of $2,078 on the 7th of August Gold has traded sideways and consolidated. This has been viewed by many market commentators as a healthy pause in gold’s bull rally as when markets go parabolic they tend to retrace just as fast. The underlying rationale for owning gold has not change over the last month and some would say...

The gentle ridges of the Jura mountain range are suitable for the installation of wind turbines (here the Mont-Crosin park, in the Bernese Jura), but most projects are now at a standstill. © Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott For a decade, wind energy in Switzerland has been stalled. Opponents have used every possible means to stop projects. At the end of September, one community will vote on the future of this kind of energy. Power derived from wind is already...

One day short of one year ago, on September 16, 2019, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported its updated monthly estimates for the Big 3 accounts. Industrial Production (IP) is a closely-watched indicator as it is relatively decent proxy for the entire goods economy around the world. Retail Sales in the post-Euro$ #2 context give us a sense of the Chinese economy’s persistent struggle to try to “rebalance” without the pre-2008 boost China had obtained...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.19% to 1.0755 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, September 15(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The capital markets are relatively quiet so far today as the FOMC meeting gets underway. Equity markets in the Asia Pacific region, but Japan and Australia advanced, and the regional benchmark rose for the fourth consecutive session. European stocks are a little firmer. The...

© Octavian Lazar | Dreamstime.com A report published this week places Switzerland fourth on a list of countries best positioned to make an economic rebound after the coronavirus downturn. The analysis looks at overall health resilience, pre-existing structural strengths and weaknesses in 122 countries. The top four nations are Finland, Norway, Germany and Switzerland. These countries combine world class governance with high levels of social capital and high social...

In the early days of the coronavirus crisis, the rationale given for lockdowns was that it was necessary to stay at home for “fifteen days to slow the spread.” The idea was that social distancing was necessary so that hospitals and other healthcare resources would not be overwhelmed. However, by the summer of 2020, whether by design or not, it became common to hear media pundits, politicians, and even some scientists either imply or outright claim that social...

There is no oil in the CPI’s consumer basket, yet oil prices largely determine the rate by which overall consumer prices are increasing (or not). WTI sets the baseline which then becomes the price of motor fuel (gasoline) becoming the energy segment. As energy goes, so do headline CPI measurements. CPI Changes on Energy, 1995-2020 - Click to enlarge And that’s a huge problem…if you are Jay Powell. We’ve been making a big deal out of him making a huge deal out of...

The US Dollar Index has lost 10 percent from its March highs and many press comments have started to speculate about the likely collapse of the US dollar as world reserve currency due to this weakness. These wild speculations need to be debunked. The US dollar year-to-date (August 2020) has strengthened relative to 96 out of 146 currencies in the Bloomberg universe. In fact, the US Fed Trade-Weighted Broad Dollar Index has strengthened by 2.3 percent in the same...