FX Daily, February 21: Covid-19 Contagion Outside China Keeps Investors on the Defensive

Overview:  The spread of Covid-19 outside of China and early signs of the economic consequences again emerged to weigh on investor sentiment.  Poor Japanese and Australian preliminary February PMI reports and some trade indications from South Korea saw most Asia Pacific equities sell-off.  China was an exception.  The small gain (0.3%), lifted the Shanghai Composite 4.2% on the week.

USD/CHF New York Price Analysis: Dollar eases from session highs, trades below 0.9830 vs. Swiss franc

USD/CHF prints another 2020 high and retraces down in the New York session. Bears are challenging the 0.9830 level. After hitting yet again a new 2020 high, USD/CHF is easing from session highs. The spot is trading below the 200-day simple moving averages suggesting an overall bearish momentum in the long term.

Widening Bid-Ask Spreads, Gold and Silver Market Report 17 February

The price of gold rose $14 and the price of silver fell $0.07. The gold-silver ratio rose further with this price action. Welcome to our new Gold and Silver Market Report, or “Market Report” for short. We are separating this from the economics essay, which was attached for many years. As they used to say in many toy commercials of yore, “batteries sold separately”—or in this case essays.

Is Free Market Economics Too “Ideological”?

Free market economics is often ignorantly dismissed for being "ideological" rather than scientific. It probably sounds smart to the economically illiterate, but it is decidedly not. It doesn't mean nearly what most people assume it does. The word "free" in free market economics is not used as a normative value judgment but indicates an economy that is unaffected by exogenous (from the outside) factors.

Swiss Trade Balance Q4 2019: Secondary sector shows positive growth rates again

20.02.2020 - Secondary sector production rose by 1.3% in 4th quarter 2019 in comparison with the same quarter a year earlier. Turnover rose by 0.3%. This rise has continued without interruption since the 1st quarter 2017 but was slightly weaker in the reporting quarter. This is shown by provisional results from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

The labels that show how much more international retailers charge Swiss

To simplify labelling, many international retailers put recommended retail prices (RRP) for multiple nations on the same label, like the one below. The Swiss retail price premium laid bare.Labels such as these show how much more Swiss customers are being charged compared to customers in other countries.

FX Daily, February 21: Covid-19 Contagion Outside China Keeps Investors on the Defensive

Overview:  The spread of Covid-19 outside of China and early signs of the economic consequences again emerged to weigh on investor sentiment.  Poor Japanese and Australian preliminary February PMI reports and some trade indications from South Korea saw most Asia Pacific equities sell-off.  China was an exception.  The small gain (0.3%), lifted the Shanghai Composite 4.2% on the week.

DM Equity Allocation Model For Q1 2020

Developed equity markets remain near the highs despite mounting concerns about the impact of the coronavirus. MSCI World made a new all-time high last week near 2435 and is up 2.5% YTD. Our 1-rated grouping (outperformers) for Q1 2020 consists of Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Spain, and Switzerland.

The Secret to Fun and Easy Stock Market Riches

Post Hoc Fallacy. On Tuesday, at the precise moment Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell commenced delivering his semiannual monetary policy report to the House Financial Services Committee, something unpleasant happened. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) didn’t go up. Rather, it went down.

Impressive Swiss Recovery After SNB Peg Removal

Retail data shows that the SNB peg removal in January 2015 as early as April 2015 with minimal adverse impact on the economy. Trade surplus showed that Switzerland had fully recovered its lost trade surplus in May and expectations crossed an important threshold into positive territory in June. CHF strengthened since May end, as the market caught wind of the Swiss recovery, and the Grexit would further strengthen the CHF if it were to occur.

The Secret History Of The Banking Crisis

Accounts of the financial crisis leave out the story of the secretive deals between banks that kept the show on the road. How long can the system be propped up for? It is a decade since the first tremors of what would become the Great Financial Crisis began to convulse global markets. Across the world from China and South Korea, to Ukraine, Greece, Brexit Britain and Trump’s America it has shaken our economy, our society and latterly our...

Post Keynesians

Weak Yen, Is it Really a Currency War?

Some journalists, like Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the U.K.'s Telegraph and Michael Casey of the Wall Street Journal, have already claimed this to be a shot in the currency wars. Casey focuses exclusively on the BOJ activity and does not even mention GPIF. Evans-Pritchard spends most of his time talking about the bearish yen implications of the increased BOJ purchases, and mentions GPIF only at the very end of the his essay, and even then to...