Tag Archives: newslettersent

Somewhere in the mountains near Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne lies a hidden underground vault containing a vast fortune. It’s no ordinary vault, according to Quartz. Built inside a decommissioned Swiss military bunker dug into a granite mountain, it’s precise location is a closely guarded secret, and access is limited by myriad security precautions. But instead of gold bars, the bunker contains hard drives on which...

S’il y a une chose que les Libanais savent faire, c’est compter! S’il y a une deuxième chose qu’ils savent faire, c’est oser s’exprimer. C’est exactement ce que le député Georges Adwan a fait: Calculer le manque à gagner généré par la Banque du Liban à travers sa politique monétaire, et en faire part. Il semblerait qu’en lieu et place d’un bénéfice de 1 milliard de dollars, seuls 40,5 millions de dollars soient arrivés...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.51% to 1.1627 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 24(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is narrowly mixed in mostly uneventful turnover in the foreign exchange market. There is a palpable sense of anticipation. Anticipation for the ECB meeting on Thursday, which is expected to see a six or nine-month extension of...

When I wrote the update two weeks ago I said that we might be nearing the point of maximum optimism. Apparently, there is another gear for optimism in this market as stocks have just continued to slowly but surely reach for the sky. Which is fine I suppose since we own the devils (although not much in the way of the US variety) but I can’t help but wonder what happens when the spell breaks. Goldilocks may be in the...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.04% to 1.1578 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 23(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is enjoying modest gains against most currencies as prospects of both tax reform and additional monetary tightening by the Fed carry over from last week. The strong showing of the Liberal Democrats in Japan, where the...

Summary: Busy week of economic data and central bank meetings, and reaction to Spanish developments and Japan and Czech elections. Focus below is on the Bank of Canada and ECB meetings and tax reform in the US. The biggest challenge to tax reform is unlikely on the committee level but on the floor votes, especially in the Senate, in a similar way the stymied health care reform. US and German 2-year rates are...

Scepticism of Sion’s Winter Olympics bid, the cost of travelling around the country and Switzerland’s addiction to sugar – here are some of the leading stories making Swiss newspapers on Sunday. Has the Sion Olympic bid committee shone a light on the true costs? The bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics has seriously underestimated the cost of security for the event, according to some observers. The SonntagsZeitung has...

Every year, Ronald-Peter Stoeferle and Mark J Valek of investment and asset management company Incrementum put together the report In Gold We Trust – 160-plus pages of charts and thoughts, mostly gold-related, on the state of the world’s finances. There’s so much to look at and consider. It’s a sort of digital equivalent of a coffee-table book. Yesterday I got an email from them, containing a “best of” – a compendium of...

I predict the current investigations will widen and take a variety of twists and turns that surprise all those anticipating a tidy, narrowly focused denouement. The theme this week is The Rot Within. To those of us who understand the entire status quo is rotten and corrupt to its core, the confidence of each ideological camp that their side will emerge unscathed by investigation is a source of amusement. The...

Last year Switzerland’s government announced plans to change the rules on charging VAT on imported goods. © Rido Dreamstime - Click to enlarge Currently, most things ordered abroad and sent through the post to Switzerland that attract VAT of less than CHF 5, are waived through customs free of charge. This means if you buy clothing worth less than CHF 62.50, or books worth less than CHF 200, there is no import charge –...