Tag Archives: newslettersent

In early 2011, Chinese consumer prices were soaring. Despite an official government mandate for 3% CPI growth, the country’s main price measure started out the year close to 5% and by June was moving toward 7%. It seemed fitting for the time, no matter how uncomfortable it made PBOC officials. China was going to be growing rapidly even if the rest of the world couldn’t. Back then, Western Economists were concerned...

The US import measures targeted at protecting national security were unjustified, SECO wrote. The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has initiated a dispute settlement procedure with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against US steel and aluminium import tariffs. In a statementexternal link published on Tuesday, SECOexternal link announced that a complaint to this effect had been filed with the...

Technical Divergence Successfully Maintained In an update on gold and gold stocks in mid June, we pointed out that a number of interesting divergences had emerged which traditionally represent a heads-up indicating a trend change is close (see: Divergences Emerge for the details). We did so after a big down day in the gold price, which actually helped set up the bullish divergence; this may have felt...

Unemployment Rate (not seasonally adjusted) Registered unemployment in June 2018 – According to SECO surveys, at the end of June 2018, 106,579 unemployed were registered at the regional employment agencies (RAV), 2,813 less than in the previous month. The unemployment rate remained at 2.4% in the month under review. Compared with the same month last year, unemployment fell by 27,024 people (-20.2%). Switzerland...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.13% to 1.1632 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The euro was already trading with a heavier bias, having been turned back after approaching the $1.18 level yesterday. The disappointing Geman survey data encouraged some late longs to be cut, driving the euro to the session low near $1.1715,...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Before it collapsed, the city of Rome had a population greater than 1,000,000 people. That was an extraordinary accomplishment in the ancient world, made possible by many innovative technologies and the organization of the greatest civilization that the world had ever seen. Such an incredible urban population depended on...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.17% to 1.164 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 09(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates After a little wobble, sterling has responded favorably to the resignation of the UK Brexit team led by David Davis. The idea is that a path to a softer Brexit is good for sterling. In fairness, it is a bit early to reach this conclusion, and...

The triumphalism that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly three decades ago has evaporated. The Great Financial Crisis and inexorable widening of income and wealth inequalities within countries undermined claims of moral and economic superiority. Liberal democracies are fighting a rearguard action and the rise of illiberal regimes. The president of the country with the strongest military might and largest...

Novartis’ Sandoz unit is one of the dozen Swiss firms alleged to have been targeted in the long-running German spying operation in Austria A dozen branches of Swiss firms in Austria were targeted by German spies between 1999 and 2006, according to the SonntagsBlick newspaper which has seen documents belonging to Germany’s federal intelligence service BND. Part of the data was allegedly handed to the United States. The...

I know it hurts, but the reality is painfully obvious: the USA is now a 3rd World nation. Dividing the Earth’s nations into 1st, 2nd and 3rd world has fallen out of favor;apparently it offended sensibilities. It has been replaced by the politically correct developed and developing nations, a terminology which suggests all developing nations are on the pathway to developed-nation status. What’s been lost in jettisoning...