Tag Archives: Swiss Markets and News

Switzerland retains its number one spot in IMD‘s most recent 2016 World Talent Report. Unlike the other 60 nations in the study, which have seen their performance gyrate, a plot of Switzerland’s rank over the last ten years is a perfectly straight line. First ten years in a row. The study looks at three things: investment in people, ability to attract skilled foreigners, and readiness, a measure of the availability of...

SMI Swiss pharmaceutical and luxury goods giants pulled the Swiss Market Index (SMI) down again this week as investors dropped large cap firms. Global stocks however continued to rise, along with energy prices, on the promise of Trump’s reflationary administration. The US dollar headed further up, reaching decade highs. SMI Index, November 25 - Click to enlarge Economic Data Better-than-expected economic reports...

Today, Swiss Rail announced big price increases on some tickets and passes. The new prices will apply from 11 December 20161. According to the Swiss government consumer price index, average prices declined by 2.1% between October 2010 and October 20162. Over the same six years, from December 20103 to December 2016, the price of a second class Swiss Rail GA pass will have gone up by 22.3%, a rise of 25.0% in real...

Three years after Lloyds Banking Group Plc sold its private bank in Geneva, the only signs of life at the now-empty building are piles of cigarette butts and nutshells lying on its dirty window ledges. The riverside offices at Place de Bel-Air are a short walk away from the remaining private banks, hedge-fund managers and luxury-goods stores in the heart of the Swiss city. The locked entrance, where millionaire clients...

Swiss watch exports plunged 16 percent in October, the biggest monthly drop in seven years, as demand weakened in almost every major market for Rolex and Omega timepiece. © Oleg Palchyk | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge Shipments fell to 1.68 billion francs ($1.7 billion), the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said in a statement Tuesday. The decline was much greater than expected and was made worse because...

Switzerland risks becoming dependent on electricity imports as its citizens prepare for a plebiscite on whether to hasten its exit from nuclear power. © Gregory Perkins | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge The nation faces losing a third of domestic supplies and becoming a net buyer of power if it opts to start closing its five nuclear plants as early as next year. The Swiss will vote on Sunday and the anti-nuclear...

According to a recent report by the bank Credit Suisse, the Swiss are worth more on average than the residents of any other nation. The bank’s annual Global Wealth Report calculates average net worth per Swiss adult to be US$ 561,900 (CHF 567,500). Switzerland’s combined personal wealth of US$ 3.5 trillion represents 1.4% of the global total, while the nation’s population represents 0.1% of the global total. ©...

© Andrey Popov | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge Le Matin. After nearly ten years of European Union opposition to preferential company tax deals, Switzerland’s government agreed in 2014 to do away with such arrangements. Under current rules Swiss cantons can offer preferential tax rates to certain companies, mostly multinationals with most of their activity abroad. In Geneva, these special rates mean certain...

SMI Swiss stocks continued to rise this week, in line with other global stocks thanks to a strong performance from financials which gained as investors weighted the prospects of higher interest rates in the US. SMI Index, November 18 - Click to enlarge Economic Data Stocks in the financial sector advanced after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the US central bank is close to lifting interest rates as the...

Tetra Pak crumpled - Click to enlarge According to Reuters, following an investigation, China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) said, it found out that Tetra Pak violated some provisions in China’s anti-trust law and will impose a fine of 668 million yuan ($97 million) on Tetra Pak for “abuse of dominant market position”. The Shanghai Daily said, SAIC found that Tetra Pak had broken anti-monopoly...