FX Daily, April 6: Glimmer of Hope Lifts Markets

Overview:  Reports suggesting that some of the hot spots for the virus contagion appear to be leveling off, and this is helping underpin risk appetites today.  The curve seems to be flattening in Italy, Spain, and France.  In the US, there are some early signs of leveling off in NY, and now, the number of states with infection rates above 20% is less than 10 from over 40 last week.

Weekly SNB Sight Deposits and Speculative Positions: Corona Panic

Update April 6, 2020: Corona panic Sight Deposits have risen by 6.7 bn CHF, this means that the SNB is intervening and buying Euros and Dollars: The change is +6.7 bn. compared to last week. The intervention point is slightly under 1.06 EUR/CHF.

Swiss regulator cracks down on fraudulent crypto activities

Switzerland’s financial regulator brought charges against eight “initial coin offering” (ICO) blockchain projects for breaching anti-money laundering rules last year. ICOs raise money from the public by selling digital tokens that promise to hold future value for the consumer.

The Pandemic Exposed the Frailty of the Financial System

Despite the more optimistic claims of political pundits and Federal Reserve officials (Jerome Powell, specifically), things are far from being under control. Notwithstanding archetypal Austrian objections to “loose” monetary and fiscal policies on the grounds that they create production structures that ultimately deplete the pool of real savings, the operational failures of central banks cross-globally are largely nested in faulty axioms.

Swiss Consumer Price Index in March 2020: -0.5 percent YoY, +0.1 percent MoM

02.04.2020 - The consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.1% in March 2020 compared with the previous month, reaching 101.7 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was –0.5% compared with the same month of the previous year. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

Swiss hospitals reportedly running out of money

Cash-strapped Swiss hospitals, in the front line of the fight against coronavirus, are calling for financial help and an end to the ban on non-emergency procedures which has sapped revenue, reports the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. It quotes the director of Valais Hospital Hugo Burgener as saying “we need liquidity to pay salaries”, and writes that the Graubünden cantonal hospital will also have to raise an additional CHF20 million ($20 million)...

FX Daily, April 6: Glimmer of Hope Lifts Markets

Overview:  Reports suggesting that some of the hot spots for the virus contagion appear to be leveling off, and this is helping underpin risk appetites today.  The curve seems to be flattening in Italy, Spain, and France.  In the US, there are some early signs of leveling off in NY, and now, the number of states with infection rates above 20% is less than 10 from over 40 last week.

If Lockdown Is a Needless Over-Reaction, Then Why Did China Lockdown Half its Economy?

Recall that the initial deaths and related costs are only the first-order effects; policy makers have to consider the second-order effects. Everyone who reckons that the lockdown is needless and more destructive than the pandemic that triggered it has to answer this question: then why did China lockdown half its economy?

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.

Swiss Franc History, 2012: CHF becomes a “safe” Risk-On Currency

At the end of May, SNB president Jordan admitted that the EUR/CHF floor will not raised (here also cited by Bloomberg): “We cannot arbitrarily manipulate our currency. In an even worse crisis situation this would be disastrous and counterproductive. The floor must be legitimized. The current minimum exchange rate is realistic and has helped the Swiss economy.”

Irvin Fisher’s Deflationary Spiral

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.