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Swiss lawmakers have been tasked with getting the new furniture to fit into the financial and corporate landscape. (© Keystone / Gaetan Bally) The Swiss parliament will soon get to grips with merging the current financial system with new blockchain architecture. This is a bit like refitting your whole house to make sure the swanky new furniture and fittings blend in. Switzerland has deliberately chosen to not to tear the whole house down and build it again in a new...

Whereas inflation is expected to be dormant next year, our expectation of real GDP growth of just 1.3% in the US in 2020 could put upward pressure on equity volatility. Since monetary policy tends to lead volatility by two and a half years, the Fed’s turn toward quantitative tightening in 2017 is also continuing to exert upward pressure on volatility levels for now. But there are also countervailing forces at work. Although there is not a perfect correlation,...

© Bigapplestock | Dreamstime.com At 30 September 2019, Switzerland had 79,000 job vacancies and 225,000 unemployed workers. This combination of unemployment and job vacancies can largely be explained by two things. The first is frictional unemployment, the period spent in between jobs. This typically increases when there is a lot of job changing. The second is a skills mismatch. Employers cannot find the skills they need among those seeking work. A recent report by...

On Thursday, only one return trip from Paris to Basel is planned (Keystone) A national strike in France is causing severe disruptions to high-speed TGV rail traffic between Paris and Switzerland. Swiss Federal Railways issued an advisory discouraging travel along this route from December 5 to 8. Only one TGV train will operate between France and Switzerland on Thursday. The disruption began on Wednesday afternoon with several trains from Paris cancelled, including...

The evidence continues to pile up for increasing slack in the US economy. While that doesn’t necessarily mean there is a recession looming, it sure doesn’t help in that regard. Besides, more slack after ten years of it is the real story. The Federal Reserve’s favorite inflation measure in October 2019 stood at 1.31%, matching February for the lowest in several years. Despite constantly referencing a tight labor market and its fabulous unemployment rate, broad...

For US importers, October is their month. And it makes perfect sense how it would be. With the Christmas season about to kick into full swing each and every November, the time for retailers to stock up in hearty anticipation is in the weeks beforehand. The goods, a good many future Christmas presents, find themselves in transit from all over the world during the month of October. For the Census Bureau’s trade data, that means this is the month that shines above...

It has now become commonplace for politicians and media pundits to casually assert that "everyone" — to use Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's term — is now working more and more hours — and perhaps two or three jobs — just to attain the most basic, near-subsistence standard of living. This is repeated time and time again, usually without context or supporting evidence. Never mind, for example, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports only around 5 percent...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.26% to 1.0977 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 6(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Asia Pacific equities closed higher today, with India being a notable exception. Hong Kong and South Korea led with 1% rallies. For the week, the MSCI index for the region advanced to snap a three-week decline.  European and US bourses have not fared as well. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600...

Neutral US Treasuries. We expect the US 10-year yield to fall towards 1.3% in H1 as US growth falters and the US Federal Reserve starts signalling additional rate cuts. However, continued monetary easing and election promises (i.e. fiscal stimulus) could boost inflation expectations in H2, with the 10-year yield ending 2020 at around 1.6% in our central scenario. Overall, we expect a positive single-digit total return for 10-year Treasuries next year and a steepening...

USD/CHF declines for the second consecutive day. 50% Fibonacci retracement, October low could challenge sellers. An upside break of 0.9890 highlights 200-DMA, 23.6% Fibonacci retracement. USD/CHF extends the recent pullback while flashing 0.9870 as a quote during early Friday. The pair recently pulled back from 100-Day Simple Moving Average (DMA) and 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of August-October rise. Prices are now likely declining towards 50% Fibonacci retracement...