The Swiss National Bank has announced 24 bn profits for 2016. Profits came from the dollar, yen and Canadian dollar, while the pound retreated by 15%. The EUR/CHF is only slightly weaker, mostly because the SNB actively supported the euro. SNB profits on USD, CAD and JPY, loses on GBP (see more posts on British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Japanese yen, SNB profit, US dollar, )FX rates for USD, JPY, EUR, GBP in 2016 with...
Read More »SNB announces 24 bn CHF profit for 2016 thanks to rising stock markets.
The Swiss National Bank has announced 24 bn profits from 2016. Profits came from the dollar, yen and Canadian dollar, while the pound retreated by 15%. The EUR/CHF is only slightly weaker, mostly because the SNB actively supported the euro. SNB profits on USD, CAD and JPY, loses on GBP . The SNB mostly profited on rising U.S. stock markets, in particular the S&P500. SNB Profit Increases Thanks to Well Performing...
Read More »Swiss Financial Accounts, 2015 edition
Institutional sector Non-financial corporations: 1106 bn CHF of assets, 1987 bn liabilities Almost half of financial assets of non-financial corporations are accounted for by the shares and other equity item and a quarter by loans. Total financial assets increased by CHF 34 billion to CHF 1,106 billion in 2015, mainly as a result of corporate acquisitions abroad and corporate group reorganisations. The liabilities...
Read More »Swiss balance of payments and international investment position: Q3 2016
Overview In the third quarter of 2016, the current account surplus amounted to CHF 21 billion. This was CHF 2 billion less than in the year -back quarter. As a result of lower receipts from direct investment, the receipts surplus in primary income (labour and investment income) declined by CHF 4 billion to CHF 1 billion. The surplus of receipts from trade in goods increased by CHF 2 billion to CHF 17 billion, while the...
Read More »Swiss National Bank further strengthens provisions for currency reserves
The Swiss National Bank uses a strange formula on the basis of economic growth for the provisions for FX losses. It would be much easier to connect this number to the size of the balance sheet, for example 10% of the balance sheet. The risks of losses are particularly high, because FX rates are very volatile and nearly all SNB investments are in foreign currency. From the press release: Allocation of CHF 4.6 billion...
Read More »Direct Investments in 2015
Swiss direct investment abroad Companies domiciled in Switzerland invested CHF 100 billion abroad, compared with disinvestment of CHF 1 billion the year before. Thus, Swiss direct investment abroad was significantly above the average for the past ten years. At CHF 54 billion, over half of the investment was made by finance and holding companies (2014: CHF 3 billion). Substantial fluctuations in direct investment by...
Read More »SNB Monetary policy assessment December 2016 and Comments
When Draghi extended QE in the November ECB meeting, it is was clear that Draghi was wrong. He is expecting lower inflation in 2018, maybe around 1%. The SNB reduced her inflation expectation by 0.1% for both years again, 0.1% in 2017 and 0.5% in 2018. Swiss National Bank leaves expansionary monetary policy unchanged The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is maintaining its expansionary monetary policy. Interest on sight...
Read More »Federal Department of Finance and SNB enter new distribution agreement
The Federal Department of Finance (FDF) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) have signed a new agreement regarding the SNB’s profit distribution for 2016 to 2020. Subject to a positive distribution reserve, the SNB will in future pay CHF 1 billion p.a. to the Confederation and cantons, as was previously the case. In future, however, omitted distributions will be compensated for in subsequent years if the distribution...
Read More »Swiss balance of payments and international investment position: Q2 2016
Overview In the second quarter of 2016, the current account surplus amounted to CHF 17 billion. This was CHF 3 billion less than in the year-back quarter, mainly due to a decline in the receipts surplus in primary income (labour and investment income). The receipts surplus in primary income was CHF 1 billion, compared to CHF 7 billion in the year-back quarter. By contrast, the second-quarter surplus of receipts from...
Read More »SNB Monetary policy assessment September 2016 and Comments
Strange diversion of conditional inflation forecasts: At the ECB Meeting Draghi expected inflation to rebound to 1.2% next year and 1.6% in 2018.The SNB, however, predicts 2017 inflation at 0.2% and 2018 at 0.6%. YoY CPI Inflation in Germany is at 0.4%, in France 0.3%, in Italy and Spain near or under zero. Switzerland sits on a real estate bubble that sooner or later will translate into rents and prices. Rents in...
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