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[embedded content] Economic thoughts and analysis from Alhambra Investments CEO Joe Calhoun. Related posts: Monthly Macro Monitor – October 2018 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – September 2018 Monthly Macro Monitor – August Monthly Macro Monitor – November 2018 Monthly Macro Monitor – October 2018 Monthly Macro Monitor – August 2018 Monthly Macro...

Safe savings: Switzerland is the world’s largest cross-border wealth manager. As the Swiss financial centre adjusts to the loss of banking secrecy and possible fallout from Brexit, a report highlights increased investment management as the sector’s cornerstone. The report, released on Thursdayexternal link by the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), outlines the emergence of investment...

A Swiss Post drone being tested in Bern in June 2018 (© KEYSTONE / PETER SCHNEIDER) The Swiss Post is expanding its drone delivery system, transporting laboratory samples between two hospitals in Zurich. Similar pilots have been conducted in Bern and Lugano. On Tuesday, the Swiss Post announced it is launching a one-year pilot project to use drones to send laboratory samples between the University Hospital of Zurich and...

A general view of the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquaters, in Geneva A Swiss complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) against United States import tariffs on aluminium and steel will be decided by a WTO panel. On Tuesday, the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) accepted to create separate panels to hear the complaints by Switzerland and India, after the two countries filed a second request for their cases...

Worldwide Liquidity Drought – Money Supply Growth Slows Everywhere This is a brief update on money supply growth trends in the most important currency areas outside the US (namely the euro area, Japan and China)  as announced in in our recent update on US money supply growth (see “Federal Punch Bowl Removal Agency” for the details). The liquidity drought is not confined to the US – it is fair to say that it is a global...

There’s no sign of inflation, markets are unsettled, and now new economic data keeps confirming that dark side. Forget each month, every day there is something else suggesting a slowdown. That much had been evident across much of the global economy, but this is now different. The US has apparently been infected, too, not that that is any surprise. That’s how these things go. Global synchronized growth, decoupling,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.09% at 1.13 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 07(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Global equities have stabilized after US equities recovered yesterday, with the NASDAQ 100 staging its biggest reversal in eight months and the S&P 500 recouped almost three percent to close 0.15% lower. Asia Pacific equities were...

A view inside a giant storehouse of the Amazon Logistic Center in Rheinberg, Germany Shoppers in Switzerland will no longer be able to buy items from the US Amazon website due to recent changes to Swiss value-added tax law. Exceptions will be made for e-books and apps. “From 26 December 2018 customers shopping on Amazon.comexternal link and other non-EU Amazon websites will not be able to ship non-digital orders to any...

Now that the slowdown is being absorbed and even talked about openly, it will require a period of heavy CYA. This part is, or at least it has been at each of the past downturns, quite easy for its practitioners. It was all so “unexpected”, you see. Nobody could have seen it coming, therefore it just showed up out of nowhere unpredictably spoiling the heretofore unbreakable, incorruptible boom everyone was talking about...

From 2000 through 2012, the price of gold increased every year, rising from around $280 an ounce to nearly $1,700. It was an unprecedented run. Then, in 2013, gold took a nose dive, losing over 27% of its value. It was widely reported that the Swiss National Bank, the former bastion of monetary conservatism, lost $10 billion that year just on its gold holdings. As you probably know, central banks hold a portion of their...