Monthly Archive: July 2021

Third CPI In A Row, Yet All Eyes On That 30s Auction

2021-07-14

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2021-07-14

U.S. Core CPI, Jan 1990 - Jan 2021
Three in a row, huge CPI gains. According to the BLS, headline consumer price inflation surged 5.39% (unadjusted) year-over-year during June 2021. This was another month at the highest since July 2008 (the last transitory inflationary episode). The core CPI rate gained 4.47% last month over June last year, the biggest since November 1991.

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Covid: 483 New Cases in 24 hours in Switzerland

2021-07-14

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2021-07-14

On 13 July 2021, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) reported 483 new cases of Covid-19, up from a daily average of 274 over the preceding three days. The rise in cases follows a rising trend in the incidence of the more infectious Delta variant, which now makes up the majority of DNA sequenced samples in Switzerland.

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Swiss ‘Crypto Nation’ supports African blockchain ambitions

2021-07-14

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2021-07-14

Sub-Saharan Africa is a key region for Swiss foreign policyExternal link and digitisation will play a major role in that strategy. To this end, “Crypto Nation” Switzerland is throwing its weight behind a public-private partnership to find blockchain solutions to some of the challenges facing the continent.

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Review: Sohrab Ahmari’s New Attack on Laissez-Faire Liberalism

2021-07-14

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2021-07-14

Sohrab Ahmari’s new book The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in An Age of Chaos is so disappointing I don’t know where to begin. This may seem to be a harsh invective, but in reality, it is a confession. My previous attempts to review this book have resulted in little more than hours and hours of frustration and discarded drafts.

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FX Daily, July 13: Headline US CPI may Decline for the First Time in a Year

2021-07-13

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2021-07-13

New record highs in the US S&P 500 and NASDAQ coupled with China allowing Tencent to acquire a search engine helped lift Asia Pacific equities. It is the first back-to-back by MSCI's regional index for more than two weeks. Australia's market was a notable exception.

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Swiss Producer and Import Price Index in June 2021: +2.9 percent YoY, +0.3 percent MoM

2021-07-13

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2021-07-13

Switzerland Producer Price Index (PPI) YoY, June 2021
The Producer and Import Price Index rose in June 2021 by 0.3% compared with the previous month, reaching 102.7 points (December 2020 = 100). In particular, basic metals and semi-finished metal products, scrap and petroleum products saw higher prices.

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Swiss Start-Ups Show Resilience Despite Covid-19 Pandemic

2021-07-13

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2021-07-13

The number of Swiss start-ups launched has risen significantly in the first six months of 2021 while the number of companies filing for bankruptcy has decreased, studies have shown. In the first half of 2021 over 26,000 new companies were added to Switzerland’s commercial register, an increase of over 20% compared to the year before, a new report by Dun & Bradstreet has found.

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Basel III’s Effect on Gold and Silver

2021-07-13

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2021-07-13

There is sometimes a tendency to confuse ends and means. For example, in traveling through an airport there is extensive inspection of passengers. Before you are allowed to board an airplane, you must go through a process that is intrusive and increasingly invasive.

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The $50 Trillion Plundered from Workers by America’s Aristocracy Is Trickling Back

2021-07-13

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2021-07-13

Wages Shares, 1960 - 2020
The depth of America's indoctrination can be measured by the unquestioned assumption that Capital should earn 15% every year, rain or shine, while workers are fated to lose ground every year, rain or shine. And if wages should ever start ticking upward even slightly, then the Billionaires' Apologists are unleashed to shout that higher wages means higher inflation, which will kill the economic "recovery."

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Toxic Metals Studies Add to Frustrations Surrounding Swiss-Owned Mine in Peru

2021-07-13

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2021-07-13

Health concerns over toxic metals in remote communities near a mining complex in the Peruvian Andes are gaining ground after the publication of several reports. Glencore which owns the mine, points at natural mineralisation of the environment.

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FX Daily, July 12: Markets Adrift ahead of Key Events

2021-07-12

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2021-07-12

The new week has begun quietly. The dollar is drifting a little higher against most major currencies, with the Scandis and dollar-bloc currencies the heaviest. The yen and Swiss franc's resilience seen last week is carrying over.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Is It Time To Panic Yet?

2021-07-12

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2021-07-12

TNX Daily, Dec 2020 - Jul 2021
Until last week you hadn’t heard much about the bond market rally. I told you we were probably near a rally way back in early April when the 10 year was yielding around 1.7%. And I told you in mid-April that the 10 year yield could fall all the way back to the 1.2 to 1.3% range.

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Tax Deal: Small Countries ‘Should not be Forgotten’ says Swiss Minister

2021-07-12

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2021-07-12

The interests of small innovative countries must be taken into account in international corporate tax measures, says Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer, who has been attending the G20 meeting in Italy. Tax was a key issue at the two-day meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the group of 20 major economies, which wrapped up on Saturday.

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Climate Scientist: More Urgency Needed over Climate Crisis

2021-07-12

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2021-07-12

Climate change is causing extreme weather, also in Switzerland. A climate taskforce – like the Covid 19 science task force – makes sense, a leading Swiss climate scientist says.

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RRP No Collateral Coincidences As Bills Quirk, Too

2021-07-12

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2021-07-12

Federal Reserve: Liabilities and Capital, Jan 2021 - Jul 2021
So much going on this week in the bond market, it actually overshadowed the ridiculous noise coming from the Fed’s reverse repo. Some maybe too many want to make a huge deal out of this RRP if only because the numbers associated with it have gotten so big.

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Measuring Inflation and the Week Ahead

2021-07-12

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2021-07-12

There is quite an unusual price context for new week's economic events, which include June US CPI, retail sales, and industrial production, along with China's Q2 GDP, and the meetings for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of Japan.

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EU Now Accepts Swiss Covid Certificates

2021-07-11

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2021-07-11

The European Commission has given the Swiss Covid certificate a green light for inclusion on the EU-wide digital Covid certificate platform. This means that holders of Swiss Covid certificates are able to present their Swiss-issued Covid certificate QR codes at ports of entry into EU nations under the same conditions as holders of certificates from EU nations.

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EU recognition of Swiss Covid certificate imminent

2021-07-11

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2021-07-11

According to RTS, Brussels is close to giving the Swiss Covid certificate a green light for inclusion on the EU-wide digital Covid certificate platform. This means that Swiss residents will soon be able to present their Swiss-issued Covid certificate QR codes at ports of entry into EU nations.

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Housing Bubble #2: Ready to Pop?

2021-07-10

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2021-07-10

U.S. S&P/Case-Shiller, 1990 - 2020
The expansion of Housing Bubble #2 is clearly visible in these two charts of house valuations, courtesy of the St. Louis Federal Reserve database (FRED). The first is the Case-Shiller Index, which as you recall tracks the price of homes on an "apples to apples" basis, i.e. it tracks price movements for the same house over time. Note that this is an index chart where the index is set at 100 as of January 2000. It is not a chart of median housing...

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Cryptocurrencies and China Imperil the Reserve Currency Status of the US Dollar

2021-07-10

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2021-07-10

Gold Price in US Dollars, 1970 - 2020
In his book Denationalisation of Money, F.A. Hayek argued that governments have never devoted their power to providing proper money over time. They “have refrained from grossly abusing it only when they were under such a discipline as the gold standard imposed.”

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