Tag Archives: newsletter

Quantum Global founder Jean-Claude Bastos was released from an Angolan jail last March after reaching a confidential settlement with the Angolan sovereign fund. The Angolan authorities dropped all charges against him. The Office of the Attorney General has closed an investigation into events surrounding the Zug-based asset manager Quantum Global and its founder Jean-Claude Bastos, the firm says. Bastos has been in the...

It boils down to two very simple principles: accredit the student, not the institution and teach every student how to rigorously learn on their own. Vested interests have every incentive to maintain the status quo: specifically, those who currently own the assets, income streams and power will continue to own the assets, income streams and power. To accomplish this, vested interests must suppress, undermine or co-opt...

For the third year running, newly registered cars in Switzerland have failed to meet the national CO2 emissions target, largely due to the growth in the number of 4x4s and fall in diesel cars, the Federal Office of Energy has warned. Car importers had to pay CHF30 million ($30.4 million) in fines into a national road fund after failing to meet vehicle CO2 emission objectives in 2018, the federal office said in a...

Workers will have the option of playing different cards to determine their retirement age and pension return. The Swiss government plans to incrementally increase the retirement age of women to 65 while offering incentives for all people to work longer. The CHF2.8 billion ($2.84 billion) savings measures would be accompanied by a sales tax hike and extra pension payments for hardship cases. On Wednesday, Swiss interior...

For now, Italy has avoided Brussels’ Excessive Deficit Procedure. But tensions are set to rise again in the autumn when Italy presents its 2020 budget package. In its mid-year budget revision, the Italian government lowered its 2019 deficit target. The government pointed to better-than-expected revenues for this revision, including tax revenues that were EUR3.5bn higher than expected and an additional EUR2.7bn in other...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.10% at 1.1126 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 05(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The dovish response to news that Lagarde was nominated to replace Draghi was extended by the dismal German factory order report that has pushed the euro to new two-week lows and kept bond yields near record lows. The focus ahead of the...

What’s left to monetize? It appears the answer is “very little.” Advertising has always monetized consumers’ time and attention, what we call engagement today. Newspapers and periodicals publish advertisements, radio/TV networks and stations air adverts, movie theaters run trailers/ads, billboards occupy our mental space while driving and websites and apps post adverts. The more media you consume, the more adverts you...

Start-ups in ICT, biotech, medtech and fintech raised the most investment Venture capital investment in Swiss start-ups doubled during the first half of 2019 to exceed CHF1 billion ($1.01 billion). After record investment in 2018, the venture capital market has stayed strong in 2019, according to dataexternal link published on Tuesday by Swiss company Venturelabexternal link. It shows equity investments rose to CHF1.02...

Mark O’Byrne, founder at GoldCore, gives IG TV’s Victoria Scholar his outlook for gold and silver prices and why he believes they will surpass their record nominal high prices of 2011 in the coming years. Gold is overbought and may go lower or higher in the short term, but the many financial, geopolitical and monetary risks in the world are issues which are here to stay. This bodes well for the price of gold and should...

Unable to tackle effective monetary requirements, bank regulators around the world turned to “macroprudential” approaches in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. It was mostly public relations, a way to assure the public that 2008 would never be repeated. A whole set of new rules was instituted which everyone was told would reign in the worst abuses. Among the more prominent of these was Basel 3’s leverage ratio....