Headlines Week May 03, 2017 The centre-left politician Macron has won the French elections. He is a politician that – similar to Hollande four years ago – promises economic improvements, move investment, more jobs. Mostly probably he will fail similar to his predecessor because the French economic reality is simply different. His success moved the EUR/CHF up to 1.0865, mostly caused by FX speculators. However serious...
Read More »Interim results of the Swiss National Bank as at 31 March 2017
From the official news release Interim results of the Swiss National Bank as at 31 March 2017 The Swiss National Bank (SNB) reports a profit of CHF 7.9 billion for the first quarter of 2017. A valuation gain of CHF 2.2 billion was recorded on gold holdings. The profit on foreign currency positions amounted to CHF 5.3 billion. The SNB’s financial result depends largely on developments in the gold, foreign exchange...
Read More »SNB posts 7.9 billion CHF Profit in Q1
From the official news release Interim results of the Swiss National Bank as at 31 March 2017 The Swiss National Bank (SNB) reports a profit of CHF 7.9 billion for the first quarter of 2017. A valuation gain of CHF 2.2 billion was recorded on gold holdings. The profit on foreign currency positions amounted to CHF 5.3 billion. The SNB’s financial result depends largely on developments in the gold, foreign exchange...
Read More »Where There’s Smoke…
Central banks around the world have colluded, if not conspired, to elevate and prop up financial asset prices. Here we’ll present the data and evidence that they’ve not only done so, but gone too far. When we discuss elevated financial asset prices we really are talking about everything; we’re talking not just about the sky-high prices of stocks and bonds, but also of the trillions of dollars’ worth of derivatives that...
Read More »Switzerland at IMF and World Bank 2017 Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C.
Bern, 20.04.2017 – Federal Councillor Ueli Maurer as Head of the Swiss delegation, Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann and Thomas Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, will take part in the joint Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group in Washington, D.C., from 21 to 23 April 2017. Prior to these meetings, Federal Councillor Ueli Maurer...
Read More »Swiss Franc Exchange Rate Index
The Swiss National Bank has updated its exchange rate indices. In an SNB Economic Studies paper, Robert Müller describes how. The upshot is that the SNB considers the Swiss Franc slightly less overvalued than before. From the abstract: The key aspects of the revision are: the application of the weighting method used by the IMF, which takes into account so-called third-market effects; continuous updating of the...
Read More »Weekly SNB Interventions and Speculative Positions: Back to 2.4 bn Intervention per Week
Headlines Week April 10, 2017 We were arguing in the previous months, that the EUR/CHF is trending towards parity. There are three reasons: Continuing SNB interventions Strengthening Swiss local demand, as also visible in the GDP release. Speculators increase their dollar shorts against Euro and reduce them against CHF. The tendency of point 3 had been interrupted when the ECB appeared to be less dovish. FX Last Week:...
Read More »End of EUR/CZK peg: Czech National Bank
The Czech National Bank (CNB) ended the EUR/CZK floor today. Timing was a little earlier than expected, but rising inflation and a robust economy warranted it. We think it’s too soon to talk about a rate hike, as we expect the koruna to overshoot to the strong side. Policy Outlook Price pressures are rising, with CPI accelerating to 2.5% y/y in February. March data will be reported April 10, with consensus at 2.6%...
Read More »Weekly Sight Deposits and Speculative Positions: SNB interventions are rising again
Headlines Week April 03, 2017 We were arguing in the previous months, that the EUR/CHF is trending towards parity. There are three reasons: Continuing SNB interventions Strengthening Swiss local demand, as also visible in the GDP release. Speculators increase their dollar shorts against Euro and reduce them against CHF. The tendency of point 3 had been interrupted when the ECB appeared to be less dovish. FX Last week:...
Read More »Weekly Sight Deposits and Speculative Positions: SNB interventions are rising again
Headlines Week March 27, 2017 We were arguing in the last weeks, that the EUR/CHF is trending towards parity. There are three reasons: Continuing SNB interventions Strengthening Swiss local demand, as also visible in the GDP release. Speculators increase their dollar shorts against Euro and reduce them against CHF. Point 3 was not fulfilled last week. FX Llst weeks: The EUR/CHF suddenly appreciated with the ECB...
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