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We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade...

A bank window panel in Beijing displaying the security markers on the latest 100 Yuan notes in February (Keystone) Swiss bank Credit Suisse has agreed with Founder Securities to increase its shareholding to a majority stake in its Beijing-based Credit Suisse Founder Securities (CSFS) joint venture. As a result of the agreement, Credit Suisse’s shareholding is expected to increase from 33.3% to 51% by way of capital...

Extreme levels of debt and overvaluation characterize the entire global economy, and are not limited to any one nation or sector. Financial crises come in two flavors: fraud and credit-valuation over-reach.Fraud-based financial crises may differ in particulars, but they share many traits: perverse incentives are institutionalized; the perverse incentives reward figuring out how to evade oversight via fraud,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.24% at 1.1395 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 17(see more posts on EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The veracity of Chinese data will be questioned by economists, but today’s upbeat reports round out a picture that began with stronger exports and a surge in lending. Chinese officials, we argue, had a “Draghi moment” and decided to...

Despite a record of federal budget surpluses, don’t count on fiscal policy to relieve pressure on the SNB The Swiss federal budget is governed by a strict expenditure rule, which is enshrined in the Constitution. Since its introduction, the ratio of public debt-to-GDP has been significantly reduced, falling back to its early-90’s level. At the close of 2018, the Swiss federal budget registered a significant surplus of...

Marc Chandler - Goldman Predicts Trump Win - Click to enlarge Goldman Sachs opined that President Trump had an edge to win the 2020 presidential election and Fox Business thought it was newsworthy and invited to me join the discussion. First, I tried playing down the significance of Goldman’s call. The markets have anticipated this. redictIt.Org has shown the President to be an easy favorite since the start of the...

The gap between income and expenditure for Switzerland’s old age pension system continues to widen. (© Keystone/Christian Beutler) Pay-outs by Switzerland’s main state pension plan, which comprises old age insurance and other schemes, far exceeded income last year. Overall, the old age pension scheme recorded a deficit of CHF2.2 billion ($2.2 billion) in 2018 compared with a surplus of CHF1.1 billion the previous year,...

According to revised figures, things were really looking up for US industry. For the month of April 2018, the Federal Reserve’s Diffusion Index (3-month) for Industrial Production hit 68.2. Like a lot of other sentiment indicators, this was the highest in so long it had to be something. For this particular index, it hadn’t seen better than 68 since way back in March 2010, back when the economy looked briefly like it...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.14% at 1.1366 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Amid light news, global equities are moving higher In Asia, the Nikkei rose to a new high since early December, while the Shanghai Composite rose 2.3% and posted its highest close since March 2018. European equities are solid, with...

The Producer Price Index (PPI) or officially named “Producer and Import Price Index” describes the changes in prices for producers and importers. For us it is interesting because it is used in the formula for the Real Effective Exchange Rate. When producers and importers profit on lower price changes when compared to other countries, then the Swiss Franc reduces its overvaluation. The Swiss PPI values of -6% in 2015...