Tag Archives: Politics

There is no change to the risk budget this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between risk assets and bonds is unchanged at 50/50. There are, however, changes within the asset classes. We are reducing the equity allocation and raising the allocation to REITs.  Based on the bond markets there has been little change in the growth and inflation outlook since the last asset allocation update. Based on...

The economic data releases since the last update were generally upbeat but markets are forward looking and the future apparently isn’t to their liking. Of course, it is hard to tell sometimes whether bonds, the dollar and stocks are responding to the real economy or the one people hope Donald Trump can deliver when he isn’t busy contradicting his communications staff. Politics has been front and center recently but...

Links between parliamentarians in Bern and lobby groups have grown steadily in recent years, according to a study by the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva. Between 2007 and 2015, these sorts of ties between interest groups and politicians increased by 20%. Links between parliamentarians and interest groups grew by 20% between 2007 and 2015. - Click to enlarge The academic research, featured in Swiss newspaper Le...

The arrest of a suspected Swiss spy in Germany has raised questions about what roles the Swiss secret service, the state public prosecutor and UBS bank played in the affair. The 54-year-old man, known as Daniel M, is accused of spying on the German tax authorities to find out who sold stolen Swiss banking data. His arrest more than a week ago has prompted a diplomatic...

The arrest of a suspected Swiss spy in Germany has raised questions about what roles the Swiss secret service, the state public prosecutor and UBS bank played in the affair. The 54-year-old man, known as Daniel M, is accused of spying on the German tax authorities to find out who sold stolen Swiss banking data. His arrest more than a week ago has prompted a diplomatic...

Espionage has inflamed a tax row between Germany and Switzerland (Keystone) German investigators believe a mole spied for the Swiss intelligence service inside a German tax office, which was trying to catch German tax dodgers. On Thursday, Swiss and German media published new details surrounding the case of an alleged Swiss spy arrested last week for industrial espionage in Frankfurt. Swiss public television, SRF, which...

It wasn’t a very good two weeks for economic data with the majority of reports disappointing. Most notable I think is that the so called “soft data” is starting to reflect reality rather than some fantasy land where President Trump enacts his entire agenda in the first 100 days of being in office. Politics is about the art of the possible and that is proving a short list for now. Republicans can’t agree among...

(draft of monthly column for Caixin) The election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States surprised many people, even seasoned political observers and astute investors. He failed to win the popular vote but did carry the electoral college, which is how the US elects its chief executive. His victory is a bit of a Rorshcach test, where people project the issues that allowed Trump to succeed, with...

In recent months, Ray Dalio seems to be undergoing a deep midlife and identity crisis, which has not only led to dramatic recent management changes at the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater, but also resulted in some fairly spectacular cognitive dissonance, as Dalio first praised, then slammed, president Trump. Yesterday. in the latest expression of his building anti-Trumpian sentiment, Bridgewater released a...

The diplomatic scandal between Turkey and the Netherlands deteriorated overnight, when Prime Minister Binali Yildirim warned on Sunday that Turkey would retaliate in the "harshest ways" after Turkish ministers were barred from speaking in Rotterdam, leading to a major protest in front of the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam, while the Dutch embassy in Istanbul was closed off due to "safety concerns." "This situation has been protested in the strongest manner by our side, and it has been...