Tag Archives: Swiss and European Macro

According to the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), China’s FX reserves amounted to USD3.14 trillion at end – December 2017, up USD20.7 billion from the previous month. This marks the 11th consecutive monthly increase in Chinese FX reserves since February 2017. In full – year 2017, Chinese FX reserves increased by USD129.4 billion, in contrast with a drop of USD512.7 billion in 2015 and USD320...

According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), consumer prices in Switzerland remained broadly stable at 0.8% y-o-y in December, in line with consensus expectations, meaning that Swiss inflation stayed at its highest rate in almost seven years at the end of 2017. Core inflation (headline CPI excluding food, beverages, tobacco, seasonal products, energy and fuels) rose slightly from 0.6% y-o-y in November to...

Unemployment Rate (not seasonally adjusted) Registered unemployment in December 2017 – According to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) surveys, 146,654 unemployed people were enrolled at the Regional Employment Centers (RAV) at the end of December 2017, 9,337 more than in the previous month. The unemployment rate rose from 3.1% in November 2017 to 3.3% in the month under review. Compared to the same...

The Used Goods Question Retail sales in several countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland continue to fall or they remain steady for years. In the United States they have strongly risen recently. We should remind readers, that used goods sold via Ebay or similar, are not contained in this statistics. Still they create economic value for the purchases. By mentality, Swiss, Germans or Japanese pay more attention so...

The consumer price index (CPI) remained unchanged in December 2017 compared with the previous month, reaching 100.8 points (December 2015=100). Inflation was 0.8% compared with the same month of the previous year. Average annual inflation reached 0.5% in 2017. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Switzerland Consumer Price Index (CPI) YoY, Dec 2017(see more posts on Switzerland Consumer Price...

 Swiss balance of payments and international investment position: Q3 2017 Current Account  The Swiss current account surplus went down by 15% against the same quarter in 2016. In the third quarter of 2015. The current account surplus was still at 22 bn. CHF. It seems to be a change in the usual movement that sees higher Q3 surpluses compared to the other quarters. The surplus in Q2/2017 was similar to the one in...

Having laid down our expectations for the World economy in 2018, in this note we describe a number of potential surprises to the outlook. The usual suspects, or ‘known unknowns’, include a larger-than-expected fiscal boost from US tax cuts, (geo-)political risks, economic policy mistakes, inflation surprises, a financial bubble burst, or a Minsky moment in China, to name a few. We chose to include some of the...

We expect the ECB to announce a tapering of its asset purchase programme in the summer, but not to overreact to strong economic data. Our first choice as the title for our 2018 ECB outlook was “The courage not to act”, but regular readers will know that we used this hommage to Ben Bernanke earlier this year. Yet our faith in ECB’s courage knows no bounds and this still feels relevant today, with the caveat that the ECB...

The most important driver of the Swiss watch industry’s recovery has been the revival of the mainland China market. After years of impressive growth, the Swiss watch industry faced difficult conditions in 2015 and 2016, when exports declined by 3.2% and 9.9% respectively in value terms. The last time that there were two consecutive years of decline was in 1995-96. The appreciation of the Swiss franc, the collapse of...

The Swiss consumption indicator by UBS shows improvements. The indicator is still distant from the highs in 2012. At the time stronger growth in Emerging Markets and the weaker franc helped the Swiss economy. At 1.67 points, the UBS consumption indicator was above its long-term average in November, indicating solid consumption growth in 2018. Thanks to solid economic growth, private consumption will likely continue...