Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,Sensationalism, like central bankers and policy makers, has many faces, views and voices.This may explain why so many want to hold their ears, hug their knees and beg the heavens for a beacon of guiding light amidst a 24/7 fog of info-cycle pablum masquerading as information.

The collapse of Greensill Capital has been the biggest financial scandal of the year so far, having set off a massive public corruption scandal in the UK that has deeply embarrassed the ruling Conservative Party due to the close involvement of former PM David Cameron, who was on the Greensill.

Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,“Everything is on fire” – Heraclitus (535-475 BC)What Heraclitus meant was that the world is in a constant state of flux.But the big problem in the next few years is that the world will experience a fire of a magnitude never seen before in history.I have in many articles and interviews pointed out how predictable events are (and people).

The social distancing measures introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many people to work from home and accelerated the trend of remote working. Eurostat have released some interesting new data showing the share of employed people aged between 15 and 64 in Europe who usually do home office.

Bias vs. LogicWe’ve written elsewhere about the ironic over-use of logic to justify otherwise illogical biases. As Swiss-based precious metals professionals who see physical gold and silver as currency protection outside of an openly illogical (and dangerously fractured) banking system, it is more than fair for some to challenge our own “logic” (bias?) when it comes to precious metal ownership. We understand such critiques.

On one hand, UBS seems hell bent on keep its new Gen Z employees who have recently been promoted to associate positions. After all, it was just hours ago that we wrote about how the bank was showering some newly promoted employees with one-time $40,000 bonuses.

It looks like the hiring (and retention) shortage isn’t just for rank-and-file minimum wage jobs.UBS has now said that, amidst historic competition and a "retention crisis" in the investment banking world (which we noted weeks ago), it is going to pay a one time $40,000 bonus to its global banking analysts when they are promoted.

After firing a raft of senior employees including its head of risk, Lara Warner, Credit Suisse has been struggling to move past a series of major risk-management failures that together could cost the bank $10 billion, or more, though the final tally of losses from the Archegos blowup isn’t yet known as the bank weighs whether it should cover some client losses associated with the “low risk” trade-finance funds that collapsed earlier this year.

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,Recently, my colleague, Egon von Greyerz, and I had some unabashed yet blunt fun calling out the staggering levels of open hypocrisy and policy desperation unleashed by former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan.Poor Alan was an easy target of what I described as the “patient zero” of the reckless interest rate suppression and unbridled monetary expansion policies of the Fed which have always led to equally reckless boom and bust cycles in markets and economies.But let us be fair to comical Fed Chairmen like Greenspan, as he is not alone in making a mockery of his post at the Eccles Building.With the exception of Paul Volker and William Martin, the sad truth is that nearly every person who has sat in that lead Chair of a private bank

Authored by Nick Dunbar of Risky FinanceWhen the family office Archegos Capital abruptly imploded in late March, prompting $50 billion in block trades and $10 billion in losses at Credit Suisse, Nomura, UBS and Morgan Stanley, many bank analysts were taken by surprise. Last week, many of these analysts sounded frustrated listening to Credit Suisse’s earnings call in which senior management skirted round without giving any real detail about the disaster.“Do you think it’s possible that this could produce a very fundamental reset in how your IRB credit risk models work?” wondered Stefan Stalmann of Autonomous Research. “I mean you have only CHF20 billion to CHF25 billion of counterparty credit risk-weighted assets on literally hundreds of billions of equity swaps and repos”.Risky Finance

Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,“Read my lips: No New Taxes” Bush Sr said in his acceptance speech for his nomination in 1988 when he promised no tax rises. As most politicians, he didn’t keep his word. In the 1992 campaign Clinton made a devastating attack on Bush’s pledge and the rest is history.

Just minutes after the SEC is reportedly "exploring how to increase transparency for the types of derivative bets that sank Archegos," The Wall Street Journal reports that Credit Suisse Group AG had somehow allowed a massive exposure to investments related to Archegos Capital Management or more than $20 billion.

While all of the banks playing “pass the hot potato” with Archegos Capital’s now-dismantled equity book are undoubtedly still assessing the damage they incurred (or at least will report to shareholders), it looks like no one had it worse than Credit Suisse. The banking giant has now slashed its bonus pool by “hundreds of millions of dollars” according to FT, after the firm lost $4.7 billion in the Archegos implosion.

“People aren’t investing, they’re just chasing.” That is the ominous, ponzi-like warning from Adam Cohen, Caspian Capital’s managing partner as the distressed debt investor has chosen to return some money to investors because the rewards don’t justify the high risks anymore.

“And the future is certain, give us time to work it out…”Markets were shaken but unstirred by the collapse of Greensill and the Archegos unwind trades. Credit Suisse is the ultimate loser of the two scandals – reputationally damaged and holed below the water line.  The bank is paying the price of years of flawed management, poor risk awareness. and its self-belief it was still a Tier 1 global player.

Literally moments ago we said that the Archegos portoflio was being sold off all day on fears of "stealth" prime broker deleveraging, as tens of millions of shares were yet to be accounted for.

As the collapse of Greensill Capital threatens to ensnare former PM David Cameron in a humiliating public probe, the Financial Times on Thursday reported some disturbing new details that appear to suggest Greensill wasn’t merely reckless, but potentially guilty of a Wirecard-style fraud.

Over the years I’ve written almost ad nauseum about the crazy I see (and saw) around me as a fund manager, family office principal and individual investor.The list includes: 1) an entire book on the grotesque central bank distortions of free market price discovery.

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,Worried about gold sentiment? Don’t be.The mainstream view of gold right now is an open yawn, and sentiment indicators for this precious metal are now at 3-year lows despite the gold highs of last August.Is this cause for genuine concern?

Credit Suisse is still reeling from the collapse of Greensill Capital, a firm which it championed by helping to sell its financial products (created by ensconcing trade invoices in a complex securities wrapper).

Swiss voters have narrowly approved a proposal to ban face coverings in public spaces. The measure comes just over a decade after citizens voted to ban the construction of minarets, the tower-like structures on mosques that are often used to call Muslims to prayer.

Roughly a weekand a-half has passed since Credit Suisse gated funds containing $10BN in assets packaged by Greensill, the troubled financial innovator that suckered in former British PM David Cameron, SoftBank and legions of clients and investors with its stated mission to “democratize” supply-chain finance.

Despite banks, broadly speaking, having a banner year in 2020 as central-bank-liquidity more-than-washed over the losses due to COVID and policy restrictions, banker bonuses have come under pressure.In Europe, the picture is more uncertain as banks’ performance has been mixed.

Via 21stCenturyWire.com,After mounting a national campaign, and the work of determined local organisations, Swiss campaigners have managed to trigger a referendum for ending the government’s destructive COVID regulations.

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,Just over four years ago, as Bitcoin was making its first big moves in both price and public perception, John Hussman of Hussman Investment Trust penned a lengthy as well as seminal report entitled, “Three Delusions: Paper Wealth, a Booming Economy, and Bitcoin.

Looking Behind the LabelsRegardless of one’s politics, most would agree that extremely complex issues are typically given extremely misleading titles.Not all those of the extreme left, for example, are all that “woke” and not everyone on the far right, to be fair, is a “domestic terrorist.

On Saturday, we showed why according to observations from Credit Suisse and BofA, the "US Economy Is Set To Overheat As Households Are Flooded With $2 Trillion In Excess Savings." Then, in a note this morning from Morgan Stanley asking "What To Do About All This Optimism" the bank said that "in November, December and now January, no question or concern has come up more often than ‘everyone is optimistic’." Finally, the latest Fund Managers Survey showed that investors’ global growth expectations rose by 1% to a net 90%, the 3rd highest growth expectations ever (#1 in March 2002, #2 in November 2020).This unbridled optimism prompted Goldman to boost its full year US GDP forecast to 6.6%, nearly 50% higher than the 4.1% consensus.The common theme: record euphoria has gripped not just markets

It used to be a running joke among traders that when markets crash, central banks step in – either directly or in the case of the Fed indirectly via Citadel – and buy stocks to prop up the market and shore up confidence. That joke is now the truth.

Two days ago, when a platoon of clueless CNBC hacks said that stocks were extremely undervalued, and must be bought (on their fundamentals, not because the Fed was about to nationalize the entire bond market and is set to start buying equity ETFs in the next crash), we showed just how “undervalued” the market was.

As governments take drastic measures to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, Wall Street – much like a plethora of other industries – has embraced the virtual workplace, according to Bloomberg.

To contain the economic and financial ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic, Central Banks are going all in. Jim Bianco, founder and chief strategist of Bianco Research, warns that this time, monetary policy might be unable to stop financial markets from collapsing.

Almost exactly 10 years ago, we detailed the tragic death of Gerard Reilly in a skiing accident – the point man on Repo 105, the point person for E&Y’s “investigation” into the Matthew Lee whistleblower campaign, Lehman’s Level 2 and Level 3 asset valuation, the brain behind the idea to spin off Lehman’s commercial real estate business, Lehman’s Archstone investment, and likely so much more.

Felix Zulauf was a member of the Barron’s Roundtable for about 30 years, until relinquishing his seat at our annual investment gathering in 2017. While his predictions were more right than wrong, it was the breadth of his knowledge and the depth of his analysis of global markets that won him devoted fans among his Roundtable peers, the crew at Barron’s, and beyond.

After pushing up to two-month highs over the weekend, Bitcoin is accelerating lower this morning… Breaking down from the 200DMA and testing the 100DMA… Cryptos are all lower today (and this week)…

The rift between the US (where rates are still positive) and European banks (where rates have never been more negative) continues to grow. While US banks have so far reported mostly better than expected results for Q4, the same can not be said for Europe, where UBS shares are down 5% as the bank misses fiscal year profitability and cost targets in addition to trimming its mid-term goals.

After the article on the Great Replacement in Belgium, I present you the following translation of an article by Polémia on the situation in Switzerland. The Swiss situation is unique, if only because of the country’s objective excellence and exceptional quality of life, and the extraordinary practice of direct democracy. Thus we have the rather rare situation of citizens actually being allowed to vote on whether and in what conditions new people should be allowed into their country.

First it was Dennis Gartman shutting down his newsletter after more than three decades, lamenting a market that no longer made any sense (a lament shared by Deutsche Bank’s Aleksanda Kocic), and now the market’s QE4-driven meltup has forced Wall Street’s biggest sellside bear to capitulate on his November call that the market will drop in 2020; instead UBS’ head of US equity strategy, Francois Trahan, has joined the bullish herd hiking his year-end S&P price target from 3,000, where he set the bottom of the year-ahead market forecasts alongside Morgan Stanley’s notorious bear Michael Wilson, to 3,250.

If it was The Wall Street Journal or other US financial media outlets, for the last several weeks, pumping headlines via “people familiar with the discussions,” about how President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could have a phase one trade deal signing event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January. 

When Colleen Graham heard a story of investigators looking into Credit Suisse for spying on its recently departed head of wealth management, something sounded familiar. She had recalled, years prior, when she was working on a JV between the bank and Palantir Technologies, a “striking tall blonde” had followed her in Manhattan after she refused to sign off on how revenue from the JV would be booked.

It looks like the year-end repocalypse that was predicted by Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar is taking a raincheck. Today’s Term Repo saw $26.25BN in security submissions ($15.75BN in TSYs, $10.5BN in MBS), below the $35BN in total availability. This was the first “turn” repo that was not fully subscribed (on Monday, there was $54.25BN in demand for $50BN in repos maturing on Jan 17).

Rosenblatt Securities analyst Jun Zhang maintained a sell rating on Apple with a price target of $150 per share, citing a decline in iPhone sales in China is leading to a wave of production cuts by the company. “Based on our recent channel checks, we believe Apple’s total iPhone sales in China were down ~-30% y/y in November,” said Zhang in a note to clients on Tuesday.

There’s been talk that the Federal Reserve will slam interest rates to zero or even negative when the next recession strikes. President Trump’s support for negative interest rates has quickly increased in the last several months as the latest tracking estimates for Q4 GDP have tumbled to sub 0.4%. 

A synchronized global slowdown, with no end in sight, has spooked some of the wealthiest investors around the world, according to a new survey from UBS Wealth Management, seen by Bloomberg. UBS polled wealthy investors, who are preparing for a significant stock market correction by the end of next year. 

In the third quarter of 2019, one in which the global economy continued to cycle lower, global central banks across the world continued to slash interest rates and launched/expanded quantitative easing programs with very little success at troughing global growth. Still, US equity indices powered to new highs, climbing a wall of worry of President Trump’s “trade optimism” tweets. 

Over the last five years ending in 2018, the billionaire boom created more billionaires than the world has ever seen. These financial elites saw their wealth increase by more than a third over the same period, but as soon as 2018 rolled around, the billionaire boom deflated, according to a new UBS/PwC Billionaires Report.

If one is a central bank – such as the SNB and BOJ – life is easy: you just print as much money as you need out of thin air, and buy whatever you want, without regard for price. For those who are not central banks, having access to unlimited borrowed money may be the next best thing.

The avalanche of central bank meetings is rapidly winding down. We’ve had cuts, holds and a raise. The surprises have been minimal. Yet it didn’t prevent the inevitable knee-jerk reactions in the market. In truth, put together as a whole, we are no wiser nor better or worse off. I count that as a success. Especially because there was no projection of panic in any of the decisions.

Earlier this morning, there was an added wobble in European bond prices after an unconfirmed MNI report said the ECB could delay the launch of QE on Thursday and make it data dependent. While skeptics quickly slammed the story, saying it was just a clickbait by MarketNews…

For years, European banks were leery of passing on the ECB’s negative -0.40% deposit rate to their clients for fears of deposit flight and other unintended consequences, in the process being forced to “eat” the difference and impacting their interest income.

In a surprising announcement on Friday morning, the European Central Bank said the 21 signatories of the 4th Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA) “no longer see the need for formal agreement” as the market has developed and matured, and as a result the signatories “decided not to renew the Agreement upon its expiry in September 2019.”

Like the other lagging European investment banks (Deutsche and SocGen immediately spring to mind), UBS is resorting to the last resort of the embattled megabank CEO when shareholders are demanding higher profits ‘or else’. After a decade where UBS cut thousands of jobs in its investment bank unit, Sergio Ermotti is turning to one of the few business lines where fat can feasibly be cut: UBS’s once legendary asset-management business.

Real revolutions are taking place not on squares, but in the quiet of offices, and that’s why nobody noticed the world revolution that took place on March 29th 2019. Only a small wave passed across the periphery of the information field, and the momentum faded away because the situation was described in terms unclear to the masses.

Benjamin de Rothschild’s family plans to take Swiss Bank Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) S.A. private as it consolidates and simplifies the bank’s legal structure. According to Bloomberg,  Edmond de Rothschild Holding SA will acquire all publicly held Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) bearer shares at 17,945 francs per share, a 6.7% premium to Tuesday’s closing price, in a deal worth about $100 million.

In a landmark ruling that sent a clear message to other banks battling misconduct investigations in French courts, a Paris court on Wednesday found UBS guilty of having actively helped some of its wealthy French clients hide money from French tax authorities in undeclared Swiss bank accounts, and ordered the bank to pay a $5.1 billion fine.

Eariler this week, when the San Fran Fed published a paper that suggested that the recovery would have been stronger if only the Fed had cut rates to negative, we proposed that this is nothing more than a trial balloon for the next recession/depression, one in which the Federal Reserve will seek affirmative “empirical evidence” that greenlights this unprecedented NIRPy step (in addition to QE of course).

In the third quarter of 2018, the hedge fund known as the Swiss National Bank did something it had not done in years: it sold stocks. As we showed in November, the overall value of the SNB’s US listed long holdings rose by over $2 billion to $90 billion, but all of this was due to the price appreciation as the central bank sold around $7bn of equities in Q3. This compares to purchases during 1H18 of around $6bn.

It wasn’t that long ago that Apple was the most beloved stock by the hedge fund community, and although in recent months the company’s popularity faded somewhat among the 2 and 20 crowd it is still one of the most popular names among the professional investing community. Which on a day that saw AAPL stock tumble as much as 10% is clearly bad news.

A few years ago the Swiss National Bank (SNB) – which traditionally held “monetary assets” like government bonds, cash and gold to back up the Swiss franc – decided to branch out into common stocks. This was a departure, but for a while a brilliant one.

Back in August 2 we reported of a historic event for China’s economy: for the first time in its modern history, China’s current account balance for the first half of the year had turned into a deficit. And while the full year amount was likely set to revert back to a modest surplus, it was only a matter of time before one of the most unique features of China’s economy – its chronic current account surplus – was gone for good.

The SNB’s latest 13-F form filings (yes, the Swiss central bank lists its US equity holdings like the hedge fund that it is) to the SEC were released this week. And, like every other quarter, we take a closer look to see what stocks the world’s only hedge fund central bank that prints money out of thin air bought, and on rare occasions, sold. This was one of those rare quarters.

Protectionism has cross-party support in the U.S., and nationalist parties continue to gain traction in Europe. Where there is inequality, there is a surge in protectionism; a risk that could trigger the next global economic crisis sometime around 2020.

Two major Swiss banks imposed restrictions on staff travel to China after a UBS employee was detained in the country, underscoring the challenges of doing business in a country which is a mecca for banks eager to capture and manage (for a generous fee) the fastest growing fortunes in the world, yet are challenged by a regime that tramples over civil rights.

For years, Russian oligarchs and robber barons seeking to park their “unsourced” capital offshore and away from the sticky fingers of the Kremlin, treated Swiss bank accounts (preferably anonymous) with their “no questions asked” customer policies as, well, Swiss bank accounts.

In the first tentative step toward the final option available for Erdogan to halt the Lira’s accelerating collapse – which crashed as low as 7.2362 earlier after the Wellington FX open following the the Turkish president’s latest belligerent comments – namely capital controls, the Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency imposed a limit on the amount of foreign currency and lira swap and swap-like transactions, which are not to exceed 50% of the bank’s shareholder equity.

In the second quarter of 2018, one in which the global economy was shaken by the rapid escalation of Trump’s trade war, and in which central banks were one after another hinting at their own QE tapering and rate hiking intentions to follow in the Fed’s footsteps, what was really taking place was another central bank buying spree meant to boost confidence that things are now back to normal, using “money” that was freshly printed out of thin air, and spent to prop up risk assets around the world by recklessly buying stocks with no regard for price or cost.

After several months of heated market speculation, to Amazon’s chagrin the question of which stock would be the first to reach $1 trillion in market capitalization was answered when Apple reported strong Q2 results (which included $21 billion in stock buybacks) and its stock soared 9% this week, rising above the very round number and elevating its YTD gain to 23% (Amazon, with a market cap of just under $900 billion, will most likely be second).

Sure, it’s been a bad year for investors, with the S&P posting the smallest of gains in the first half (all of which thanks to tech stocks) after several hair-raising, monthly incidents including February’s vol-spike, April’s real yield scare, May’s Emerging Market massacre and June’s trade war fears as shown in the following Citi chart…

Did you know that for 99.2% of recorded human history, money was backed by a gold standard? And only for the last 47 years has the world largely moved away from the gold standard. It is easy to feel like we are on top of the world in 2018. Technology has never been better or more easily accessible. The standard of living is rapidly rising.

While monetary tightening remains the main risk for global stock markets, the threat of a trade war continues to dominate the headlines…

After crossing below $6,000 for the 4th time in a week yesterday, Bitcoin surged overnight – jumping by as much as 10% at one point, the most in 3 months. The 10% surge is a notable outlier after weeks of constant downward pressure, but we note it’s already fading modestly along with the rest of cryptos.

Bitcoin has tumbled back below $6,000 in early Asia trading and the rest of the crypto space is following suit. No imediate catalyst for the move – aside from technical pressure – but tougher AML rules in South Korea and US Congress being told Bitcoin is a threat to the US election may have sparked it earlier in the week and this is follow-through.

Trump’s aggressive trade war overtures and China’s initial retaliatory moves have spooked Wall Street over the past week and again on Monday, which helped drive down the Dow Jones by 459 points, with the Nasdaq Composite quickly approaching correction territory. And as the mass exodus continues out of Wall Street’s highest-flying stocks, trade war concerns are sparking political, regulatory and market challenges that could soon derail the global growth narrative for months or even years to come.

  In the most ironic story of the day, the company that makes the paper that Swiss banknotes are printed on was just bailed out by the money-printing, stock-purchasing, plunge-protecting, savior-of-global equities…Swiss National Bank. While The SNB has a long and checkered history of buying shares in companies… as we have detailed numerous times.

Like any other market, there are many opinions on what a currency ought to be worth relative to others. With certain currencies, that spectrum of opinions is fairly narrow. As an example, for the world’s most traded currency – the U.S. dollar – the majority of opinions currently fall in a range from the dollar being 2% to 11% overvalued, according to organizations such as the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bank of International Settlements, the OECD, and the IMF.

There are two divergent views on the crackdown on corruption by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), which led to the arrest and detention of 200 princes, ministers and former ministers. On one hand, it was a masterstroke which will earn political capital with the Saudi people and catalyse an Arab Spring in which MBS is a modernizing reformer who will liberalise Islam.

ere’s the latest sign that the massively fraudulent ICO market is headed for a collapse. Tezos’s investors are still waiting to learn when they can expect to receive the digital tokens that they paid a premium for during the company’s record-setting crowdsale. But as reports of abuse, internal strife and outright embezzlement have surfaced in the press, three groups of angry investors have filed class action lawsuits accusing the company of fraud and securities violations.

The value of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, just like any other kind of money, comes fundamentally from what you can do with it. As a follow up to What Backs Bitcoin, I want to dig into that value. The idea, which comes from Austrian economist Carl Menger, is that just as a shovel’s value comes from its ability to dig, a currency’s value comes from its ability to help you do two things: transactions and savings.

Update: Cryptocurrencies are widely bid tonight with Bitcoin over $10,150, Ether holding $475, and LiteCoin topping $100 for the first time. Bitcoin has now soared over 20% since Black Friday’s close, topping $10,000 for the first time in history (rising from $9,000 in just 2 days)… now up over 950% year-to-date.

Across the world, demographic dysphoria is taking shape, creating numerous headaches for governments. To avoid the next economic downturn, governments are searching for creative measures to increase population growth and deliver a sustainable economy. In Europe, a near decade of excessive monetary policy coupled with a massive influx of refugees have not been able to reverse negative population growth– first spotted in 2012.

In recent years, there has been a major debate about the respective merits of gold versus Bitcoin, even though many, not all, gold bulls are also supporters of the latter. Gold advocates generally view favourably Bitcoin’s inherent characteristics of decentralisation, finite supply and ability to operate (so far) outside of the usual interference by western central banks.

Today Credit Suisse released its latest annual global wealth report, which traditionally lays out what has become the single biggest reason for the recent “anti-establishment” revulsion: an unprecedented concentration of wealth among a handful of people, as shown in Swiss bank’s infamous global wealth pyramid, an arrangement which as observed by the “shocking” political backlash of the past year, suggests that the lower ‘levels’ of the pyramid are increasingly unhappy about.

Over the weekend, Saudi King Salman shocked the world by abruptly announcing the arrests of 11 senior princes and some 38 ministers, including Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the world’s sixty-first richest man and the largest shareholder in Citi, News Corp. and Twitter.

While Bitcoin bulls will probably never have it so good as they have in 2017, we wonder whether many of them have stopped to think about the environmental downside of this roaring bull market. After all, back in the dot.com boom, people had ideas about potential internet businesses, issued pieces of paper representing ownership and watched their prices go parabolic parabolic.

In the third quarter of 2017, one in which the global economy was supposedly undergoing an unprecedented “coordinated growth spurt”, and in which central banks were preparing to unveil their QE tapering intentions, in the case of the ECB, or raising rates outright, at the Fed, what was really taking place was another central bank buying spree meant to boost confidence that things are now back to normal, using “money” freshly printed out of thin air, and spent to prop up risk assets around the world by recklessly buying stocks with no regard for price or cost.

Earlier this summer, Tezos smashed existing sales records in the white-hot IPO market after the company’s pitch to build a better blockchain for cryptocurrencies made it one of the buzziest ICOs in the world. As we noted at the time, the company capitalized on that buzz by courting VC firms and other institutional investors with a $50 million token pre-sale. After the company opened up selling to the broader public, demand soared as investors greedily bought up tokens in spite of glitches that threatened to derail the sale early on.

Somewhere in the mountains near Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne lies a hidden underground vault containing a vast fortune. It’s no ordinary vault, according to Quartz. Built inside a decommissioned Swiss military bunker dug into a granite mountain, it’s precise location is a closely guarded secret, and access is limited by myriad security precautions.

Former trader and author of best-selling book “The Black Swan” sat down for an interview with Bloomberg News to mark the upcoming thirtieth anniversary of the stock-market crash that occurred on Oct. 19, 1987 – otherwise known as Black Monday.

When it comes to flushing valuables down the toilet, the Swiss are hardly “Austrians”, and appear to be equity-opportunity dumpers, whether it is fiat or hard money. Last month we reported that Switzerland was gripped in a mystery, after it was discovered that someone tried to flush $120,000 in €500 bills down the toilet in a bathroom close to a UBS bank vault as well as three nearby restaurants, which in turn clogged the local toilets requiring thousands of francs in plumbing repairs to unclog the pipes.

World stocks eased back from record highs and fell for the first time in eight days, as jitters about Catalonia’s independence push returned while bets on higher U.S. interest rates sent the dollar to its highest since mid August; S&P 500 futures were modestly in the red – as they have been every day this week before levitating to record highs – ahead of hurricane-distorted nonfarm payrolls data (full preview here). U.S. jobs report will also be released Friday with a speech on monetary policy by the New York Fed chief.

Something else ‘Murica is no longer #1 in… A recently released World Economic Forum report has found that the global economy is recovering well nearly a decade on from the start of the global financial crisis with GDP growth hitting 3.5 percent in 2017. The eurozone in particular is regaining traction with 1.9 percent growth expected this year. As Statista’s Niall McCarthy points out, the improvement in Europe’s economic fortunes can be seen in the report and the following infographic which shows that six European economies are among the world’s ten most competitive.

It has now been 318 trading days since the S&P 500 suffered a 5% drawdown – the 4th-longest streak since 1928… So everything is awesome…BUT…US ‘hard’ economic data has not been this weak (and seen the biggest drop) since Feb 2009…Q3 Was a Roller-Coaster…Q3 was the 8th straight quarterly gain in a row for The Dow – the longest streak since Q3 1997.

In ancient times, like as far back as the 1990s, housing prices grew roughly inline with inflation rates because they were generally set by supply and demand forces determined by a market where buyers mostly just bought houses so they could live in them. Back in those ancient days, a more practical group of world citizens saw their homes as a place to raise a family rather that just another asset class that should be day traded to satisfy their gambling habits.

Two years ago, when UBS looked at the world’s most expensive housing markets, it found that London and Hong Kong were the only two areas exposed to bubble risk.What a difference just a couple of years makes, because in the latest report by UBS wealth Management, which compiles the bank’s Global Real Estate Bubble Index, it found that eight of the world’s largest cities are now subject to a massive speculative housing bubble.

New Yorkers who wince every time they slip a $1,500 rent check under their super’s door should consider moving to Shanghai, or maybe Berlin. According to a new study published on RentCafe, $1,500 will buy you three times more space in Shanghai than in Los Angeles and twice as much in Frankfurt. Meanwhile, rents per square foot are five times higher in San Francisco than they are in Berlin.

The price of shares in The Swiss National Bank is up 11 days in a row, soaring 150% in the last two months. That sounds like a ‘tulip’ bubble-like ‘fraud’… The SNB is up over 120% in Q3 so far – more than double ‘bubble’ Bitcoin…

“Like watching paint dry,” is how The Fed describes the beginning of the end of its experiment with massively inflating its balance sheet to save the world. As former fund manager Richard Breslow notes, however, Yellen’s decision today means the risk-suppression boot is on the other foot (or feet) of The SNB, The ECB, and The BoJ; as he writes, “have no fear, The SNB knows what it’s doing.”

But as Bitcoin rebounded from its China challenges, it overtook The SNB once again as bubbliest bubble. However, a 13% spike in the share price of The Swiss National Bank today has put an end to that leaving the central bank back in first place among the melter-uppers…

While there are several comments one can make here, “dirty money”, “flush with cash” and “flushing money down the toilet” certainly coming to mind, perhaps the ECB was on to something when it warned that €500 “Bin Laden” bills (which it has since discontinued to print) tend to be used by criminals. The reason for … Continue reading »

A day after Bridgewater Associates Founder Ray Dalio claimed that bitcoin was “definitely in a bubble” partly because he said the digital currency was too difficult to spend, CoinTelegraph is reporting that the first-ever bitcoin-only real-estate transaction has been completed in Texas.

In confirmation that Theresa May’s upcoming Florence speech this Friday is not only what many have called “the most important day for Brexit since the referendum”, but also the most opaque, the Telegraph reports that UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will resign as before the weekend if Theresa May veers towards a “Swiss-style” arrangement with the EU in her upcoming speech.

Accurately measuring the scope of global wealth inequality is a notoriously difficult undertaking – a fact that was brought to light last year when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the Panama Papers, exposing clients of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

While the broader market for Swiss stocks has risen modestly this year, one ‘entity’ has outperformed its peers by such a staggering margin, it has left bamboozled market experts struggling for an explanation. And that company is…the Swiss National Bank. The price of a share in Swiss National Bank in August rose above 3,000 francs ($3,143) for the first time, more than double the level of a year ago, and up 50% since mid-July, as the Financial Times noted in a story about its performance.

Here’s a piece of news that the remaining human members of Wall Street’s FX sales and trading desks probably don’t want to hear. According to the Financial Times, six of the world’s largest banks have decided to join a blockchain project called “utility coin” that will allow banks to settle trades in securities denominated in different currencies without a money transfer.

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 politics.

Now that the possibility of a war between the US and North Korea seems just one harshly worded tweet away, and the window of opportunity for a diplomatic solution, as well as for the US stopping Kim Jong-Un from obtaining a nuclear-armed ICBM closing fast, analysts have started to analyze President Trump’s military options, what a war between the US and North Korea would look like, and what the global economic consequences would be.

In the second quarter of the year, one in which unlike in Q1 fund flows showed a persistent and perplexing outflow from US stocks and into European and Emerging Markets, a trading desk rumor emerged that even as institutional traders dumped stocks and retail investors piled into ETFs, a “mystery” central bank was quietly bidding up risk assets by aggressively buying stocks.

US futures are set for a sharply lower open (at least in recent market terms) following a steep decline in European stocks and a selloff in Asian shares, following yesterday’s sharp escalation in the war of words between the U.S. and North Korea. In a broad risk-off move U.S. Treasuries rose, the VIX surged above 12 overnight, while German bund futures climbed to the highest level in six weeks. The Swiss franc gained 1.2 percent to 1.1320 per euro its biggest daily advance since February 2015, while the yen surged as much as 0.8% against per euro, its strongest level in three weeks while gold rose.

When President Trump promised last fall that under a Trump administration America would “would win so much you’ll get tired of winning,” we suspect this is not what he had in mind. According to the latest international obesity study from the Organization For Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), America is by far the fattest nation in the world with just over 38% of the adult population considered ‘obese.’

Overnight, the Swiss National Bank disclosed the composition and breakdown of its FX reserves as of June 30. There were no notable changes, as the central bank kept most of its asset allocations unchanged from the previous quarter, with equities, government bonds and “other bonds”, at 20%, 68% and 12% respectively. There were also no shifts in the currency composition as shown in the table below.

S&P futures rose 0.1% on the last trading day of the month, trailing European and Asian markets boosted by China’s July Mfg. PMI, which despite declining from from 51.7 to 51.4, and missing expecations  of 51.5, saw the construction index rise to its highest level since December 13, sending Chinese iron ore futures surging and … Continue reading »

Signs of complacency and disconnect from fundamentals abound. So to sanity check, it may still be helpful to periodically remind ourselves of a few recent ones. In no particular order. The Swiss National Bank bought $ 100bn between US and European stocks. It now owns 26 million Microsoft shares (read).

Bitcoin and other cryptos have fallen sharply over the past month in a shakeout that saw some of the early longs decide to take their winnings and walk away. But a 20% drop from the all-time highs hasn’t done much to temper wealthy investors interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as alternative investments potentially worthy of diversification.

After a tumultous week in the world of politics, with non-stop Trump drama in the US, a disastrous for Theresa May general election in the UK, and pro-establishment results in France and Italy, this is shaping up as another busy week ahead with multiple CB meetings, a full data calendar and even another important Eurogroup meeting for Greece.

Negative interest rates and the populist uprising that spurred the UK to vote for Brexit and Americans to elect Trump has helped reignite a rush into physical safe haven assets like gold and silver, which however has led to a shortage of safe venues where to store the precious metals (unlike bitcoin, gold actually has a physical dimension).

Whether or not San Francisco Fed President John Williams is right about US inflation and employment being about as close to the central bank’s targets as investors have seen – as he told CNBC two days ago – is irrelevant: The central bank is going to raise interest rates two more times this year no matter what happens to consumer prices, says Credit Suisse Chief Investment Officer for Switzerland Burkhard Varnholt.

The following is an excerpt from David Enrich’s nonfiction financial and legal thriller The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History. (Read part of the prologue here; another excerpt can be found here) This excerpt takes place shortly after the accused mastermind of the Libor scandal, Tom Hayes, is fired from his job at Citigroup, kicking government investigations into interest-rate-rigging into a higher gear.

With Monday’s financial media blasting reports about the VIX collapse to levels not seen in 24 years, going all the way back to 1993, it is worth remembering that the near record low volatility collapse of 1993 did not end well either for stocks, or for bonds, with the great 1994 bond tantrum. Reminding us of that, and of broader implications for the cross-asset space, is SocGen’s Kit Juckes with his overnight note, “The ghost of 1993”

Two weeks ago Bank of America caused a stir when it calculated that central banks (mostly the ECB & BoJ) have bought $1 trillion of financial assets just in the first four months of 2017, which amounts to $3.6 trillion annualized, “the largest CB buying on record.”

In the first few months of the year, a trading desk rumor emerged that even as institutional traders dumped stocks and retail investors piled into ETFs, a “mystery” central bank was quietly bidding up risk assets by aggressively buying stocks. And no, it was not the BOJ: while the Japanese Central Bank’s interventions in the stock market are familiar to all by now, and as we reported last night on sessions when the “the BoJ comes in big, the average return on the [Nikkei] is about 14 basis points higher” with Nomura calculating that “the BoJ has provided a cumulative boost to the Nikkei of about 1,400 points”.

Every year Deutsche Bank releases its fascinating index of real-time prices around the world which looks at the cost of goods and services from a purchase-price parity basis, to determine the most expensive – and in this year’s edition, best – cities. As have done on several occasions in the past, we traditionally focus on one specific subindex: the cost of & cheap dates in the world’s top cities.

Central banks around the world have colluded, if not conspired, to elevate and prop up financial asset prices. Here we’ll present the data and evidence that they’ve not only done so, but gone too far. When we discuss elevated financial asset prices we really are talking about everything; we’re talking not just about the sky-high prices of stocks and bonds, but also of the trillions of dollars’ worth of derivatives that are linked to them, as well as real estate in dozens of countries and locations.

‘Exceptional’ America is seriously lagging behind in global life expectancy… Via: MesoTreatmentCenters.org Some additional details… Life Expectancy Indicates a Country’s Overall Well Being—So Why Is Ours Dropping? The last time U.S. life expectancy declined at birth 1992-1993: 75.8 to 75.5 years Resulting from high death rates from AIDS, flu epidemic, homicide, and accidental deaths After … Continue reading »

Credit Suisse has confirmed that the Swiss bank, some of its employees and hundreds of account holders are the subjects of a major tax evasion probe launched in UK, France, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, setting back Swiss attempts to clean up its image as a haven for tax evaders.

In recent months, Ray Dalio seems to be undergoing a deep midlife and identity crisis, which has not only led to dramatic recent management changes at the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater, but also resulted in some fairly spectacular cognitive dissonance, as Dalio first praised, then slammed, president Trump.

While Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his displeasure with China for manipulating its currency, he appears to have recently figured out that over the past 2 years Beijing has been spending hundreds of billions in dollar to strengthen, not weaken, the Yuan and to halt the ~$1 trillion in capital flight from China.

Warren Buffett has frequently advised aspiring investors to take a contrarian view on markets and “be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.” In fact, being dismissive of the wall street ‘herd mentality’ has resulted in some of Buffett’s most successful trades over the years including his decision to load up on bank stocks during the ‘great recession’.

On Friday, after it emerged that as part of Marine Le Pen’s strategic vision for France, should she win, is a return to the French franc as well as redenomination of some €1.7 billion in French (non-international law) bonds, both rating agencies and economists sounded the alarm, warning it would “amount to the largest sovereign default on record, nearly 10 times larger than the €200bn Greek debt restructuring in 2012, threatening chaos to the world financial system on top of the collapse of the single currency.”

Dear FX traders: forget the dot plot, and prepare to learn a new – or to some forgotten – skill: how to read trade flows. As Bloomberg’s Vincent Cignarella and Andrea Wong point out, currency traders accustomed to analyzing the Fed’s dot plot and monthly U.S. jobs figures to predict the direction of the world’s reserve currency are having to learn, or in some cases re-learn, a largely forgotten ability: how to scrutinize trade data. With protectionism, border tax, VAT and trade wars the buzzword of the day, suddenly international trade is all that seems to matter, and yet “It’s been decades since investors gave significant thought to the data amid easing trade tensions.”

Being able to print your own money and buy stocks at any price sure can be fun. Just as the SNB which unlike many other (if ever fewer) central banks admits to doing just that. In its latest 13F filing, the Swiss National Bank reported that the value of its portfolio of US stocks rose again in the fourth quarter, increasing by 1.6% from $62.4 billion as of Sept. 30 to a record high $63.4 billion at the end of the year.

The CFTC on Monday fined Forex Capital Markets, parent FXCM Holdings LLC and founding partners Dror Niv and William Ahdout to pay $7 million to settle charges it defrauded retail foreign exchange customers and engaging in false and misleading solicitations. As part of the settlement, FXCM agreed to withdraw its registration and never seek to register with the CFTC again, effectively banning it from operating in the US.

The ECB’s nationalization of the European corporate bond sector continues. In the ECB’s latest update, the six central banks acting on behalf of the Euro system provided an update on the list of corporate bonds they bought. They bought into 810 issuances with a total of €573bn in amount outstanding.

Having discontinued its production of EUR500 banknotes, it appears Europe is charging towards the utopian dream of a cashless society. Just days after Davos’ elites discussed why the world needs to “get rid of currency,” the European Commission has introduced a proposal enforcing “restrictions on payments in cash.

Regular readers remember how, when we first reported around the time of our launch eight years ago that central banks buy stocks, intervene and prop up markets, and generally manipulate equities in order to maintain confidence in a collapsing system, and avoid a liquidation panic and bank runs, it was branded “fake news” by the established financial “kommentariat.”

Over the weekend China used the Trump inauguration to warn about the perils of democracy, touting the relative stability of the Communist system as President Xi Jinping heads toward a twice-a-decade reshuffle of senior leadership posts.

Bloomberg’s Anne Swardson, Zoe Schneeweiss, and Andre Tartar perfectly summed up the state of play right now during their discussion of the World Economic Forum’s annual get-together: “Never before has the gap between Davos Man and the real world yawned so widely.”

As we scoffed oveernight, who better than a handful of semi, and not so semi, billionaires – perplexed by the populist backlash of the past year – to sit down and discuss among each other how a “squeezed and Angry” middle-class should be fixed. And so it was this morning as IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan and Founder, Chairman and Co-CIO of Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio, espoused on what’s needed to restore growth in the middle class and confidence in the future.

For those unfamiliar with what goes on at the annual January boondoggle at the World Economic Forum in Davos, here is the simple breakdown. Officially, heads of state, captains of industry, prominent academics, philanthropists and a retinue of journalists, celebrities and hangers-on will descend Tuesday on the picturesque alpine village of Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum.

Indulging in a weekly habit of drugs, booze and cigarettes can cost you as little as $41.40 in Laos and a whopping $1,441.50 in Japan, according to the Bloomberg Vice Index.

It is difficult to say exactly how, or when, the next collapse will be triggered, but, as SHTFPlan.com’s Mac Slavo notes, of course all the conditions are ripe for it. What can be certain is that the technocrats intent on controlling the future are already engineering the post-collapse society.

While China has been banging the nationalist drums in its government-owned tabloids, warning daily of the adverse consequences to the US from either a trade war, or from Trump’s violating the “One China” policy, a more tangible concern for deteriorating relations between China and the US is that Trump could, and most likely will, brand China a currency manipulator shortly after taking over the the Oval Office.

Just over a year ago, we reported that in what was set to be a pilot experiment in “universal basic income”, Finland would become the first nation to hand out “helicopter money” in the form of cash directly to a select group of citizens.

If you thought 2016 was full of market maelstroms and geopolitical gotchas, 2017’s ‘known unknowns’ suggest a year of more mayhem awaits… Here’s a selection of key events in the year ahead (and links to Bloomberg’s quick-takes on each).

While most of the world is enjoying it last day off from the 2017 holiday transition, with Asia’s major markets closed for the New Year holiday, along with Britain and Switzerland in Europe and the US and Canada across the Atlantic, European stocks climbed to their highest levels in over a year on Monday after the Markit PMI survey showed manufacturing production in the Eurozone rose to the highest level since April 2011.

With January just around the corner, the world’s billionaires, CEOs, politicians and oligarchs prepare to take their private planes to Davos, Switzerland for their annual convocation at the World Economic Forum, where they discuss such diverse topics as global warming due to greenhouse gases (which exempts Gulfstream jets) and the dangers of record wealth inequality (which exempts them), while snacking on $39 hot dogs and $50 Caesar salads.

Shortly after last night’s news that Deutsche Bank had settled with the DOJ for $7.2 billion, of which it would pay $3.1 billion in a civil penalty, far lower than the $14 billion number initially speculated (the stock popped as much as 4% before settling just over 2% higher currently), Credit Suisse likewise closed the books on its pre-crisis RMBS fraud when the largest Swiss bank agreed to pay $5.28 billion to resolve a U.S.

As global markets bask in the glow of the Trumpflation recovery, the ECB continues to be busy providing the actual levitating power behind what DB recently dubbed global “helicopter money”, by buying copious amounts of bonds on a daily basis (at least until tomorrow when the ECB goes on brief monetization hiatus, and Italy will be on its own for the next two weeks).

As if things were not already chaotic enough in the socialist utopia of Venezuela, following President Nicolas Maduro’s decision to follow Indian PM Modi’s playbook and announce that the nation’s largest denomination bill (100-Bolivars – worth around 3c) will be pulled from circulation in 72 hours, he has tonight closed the border to Colombia to crackdown on currency smuggling by so-called “mafias”.

But, but, but… growth, and inflation, and supply cuts, and growth again… Well that de-escalated quickly… As Libya restarts exports and The Fed sends the dollar soaring so WTI crude prices just broke back to a $49 handle for the first time since Dec 8th.

How many hours must you work to buy a new iPhone? It varies dramatically around the world, reflecting disparities in productivity and purchasing power. According to a recent report by UBS that aims to measure well-being by estimating how many minutes workers in various countries must work to afford either an iphone, a Big Mac, a kilo of bread or a kilo of rice, the average worker in Zurich or New York can buy an iPhone 6 in under three working days.

The global bond rout returned with a bang, sending 10Y US Treasury yields as much as six basis points higher to 2.53%, the highest level in over two years. The selloff happened as oil prices surged by more than 5% following Saturday’s agreement by NOPEC nations agreed to slash production, leading to rising inflation pressures. At last check, the 10Y was trading at 2.505%, up from 2.462% at Friday and on track for its highest close since September 2014, according to Tradeweb.

Some say that the common currency prevents less productive economies from cheating by weakening their national currencies and forces them to become more efficient and competitive. Industrial production data shows that it is not the case. Italy, France, Greece and Portugal have not only stopped producing more; they are producing now less than in 1990! The decay started immediately after the introduction of the euro in 2002!

Today Credit Suisse released its latest annual global wealth report, which traditionally lays out what is perhaps the biggest reason for the recent “anti-establishment” revulsion: an unprecedented concentration of wealth among a handful of people, as shown in its infamous global wealth pyramid, an arrangement which as observed by the “shocking” political backlash of the past few months suggests that the lower ‘levels’ of the pyramid are increasingly unhappy about.

Despite speculation over the past year that Canada may join Japan and Europe in the NIRP club and launch negative interest rates, so far the BOC has stood its ground. However, starting on December 22, for the broker dealer clients of one of Canada’s most reputable financial institutions, BMO Nesbitt Burns, it will be as if the Canadian bank has cut its deposit rate on most currencies, to match the deposit rate of Switzerland.

Over the past few years, one of the recurring themes on this website has been an ongoing discussion of how the VIX has lost its predictive value as a market risk indicator. This culminated recently with a note by Russel Clark who explained in clear term why the “VIX is now broken.” Today, in a fascinating note Hyun Song Shin, head of research at the Bank for International Settlements, the “central banks’ central bank” has agreed with the increasingly prevailing conventional wisdom that the VIX is no longer the world’s fear barometer. Instead, Shin believes that the world’s most traded currency is now the true fear gauge: the US Dollar.

We have created a map which shows the per-capita GDP based upon the type of government in a country. The larger the country appears on the map, the higher the GDP per capita.

Gold futures had their heaviest day of trading during April 2013 when a mysterious flash crash sent the precious metal collapsing with no clear fundamental/news catalyst. In June, Brexit sparked massive volume buying in the barbarous relic, but overnight, as a Trump victory became more and more of a reality, gold futures are approaching their busiest day ever.

At an event in Davos, Switzerland earlier today, Former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, argued that Central Bank independence from national governments should be scrapped in favor of a coordinated effort between politicians, central bankers and treasury to engineer inflation. Seems reasonable, right?…what could possibly go wrong?

Something unexpected happened when the ECB released its latest bond purchase data at during its scheduled release time on Monday: in addition to the purchase of at least 20 separate corporate bonds under the bank’s CSPP bond buying program during the week ended October 14, amounting to a total of €1.84 billion, which lifted the number of securities held by the central bank to 660, bringing the total to amount of its holdings to €33.8 billion, or 7.1% of the €476 billion outstanding for these issues, the ECB actually sold one bond.

While subtle, the general public loss of faith in central banking has been obvious to anyone who has simply kept their eyes open: it started in Japan where in February hardware stores were reported that consumers were hoarding cash, as confirmed by t…

One year ago, when it was still widely accepted conventional wisdom that NIRP would “work” to draw out money from savers who are loathe to collect nothing (or in some cases negative interest) from keeping their deposits at the bank, and would proceed to spend their savings, either boosting the stock market or the economy, we showed research from Bank of America demonstrating that far from promoting dis-saving, those European nations which had implemented NIRP were, “paradoxically”, also observing a jump in their rate of savings.

Following the seemingly endless procession of short-squeeze-fueling trial balloons last week – from settlement rumors to German blue-chip bailouts to Qatari investors – Germany’s Bild newspaper confirms the rumors that sparked weakness on Friday: Deutsche bank CEO John Cryan has failed to reach an agreement with the US Justice Department.

As reported moments ago, just around 7:07pm ET, cable snapped and plunged by what some say may have been as much as 1200 pips, dropping from 1.26 to as low as 1.14 according to some brokers, before snapping back up.

By now it is well-known that as we profiled previously, one of the most ravenous buyers of US stocks in recent years, has been a central bank: the Swiss National Bank… However, it is far less known that not only is the Swiss National Bank also a publicly traded stock, but is also one of the best performing stocks in the world this year.

For decades, Switzerland had a reputation for bank secrecy that made it the most sought after tax haven for billionaires from around the globe. But, after more than 80 years of secrecy, a series of bilateral agreements with countries around the world, including America’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), have forced the private-banking industry in Switzerland to embrace an entirely new era of transparency that requires a full exchange of tax-relevant information with more than a hundred countries.

First it was Germany who redeemed 120 tons of physical gold from the NY Fed in 2014; then it was the Netherlands who “secretly” redomiciled 122 tons of gold; then last May, we learned that Austria would be the third “core” European nation to repatriate most of its offshore gold, held primarily in the Bank of England, redepositing it in Vienna and Switzerland.

Bank of Ireland, which is 14% owned by the State, has informed its large corporate and institutional customers that it plans to charge them a negative rate of -0.1% for deposits of €10 million or more starting in October.

Seven people are in hospital with stab wounds and burns, police say, after an attack on a train near St.Gallen, Switzerland. The man set the train carriage on fire using a flammable liquid and also stabbed passengers, including a six-year-old child, police said. Details are sparse for now but The BBC reports, the suspected attacker, described as a Swiss man aged 27, was also taken to hospital after the incident near Salez in St Gallen Canton.

Things are increasingly upside down in the brave new centrally planned world: thanks to negative deposit rates central banks have put an explicit cost on saving, while in various instances, such as taking out a mortgage in Denmark and the Netherlands, the bank actually pays the borrower, thus rewarding living beyond one’s means.

BofA’s Michael Hartnett points out something amusing, not to mention diabolical: following the rate cuts by the BoE & RBA this week, “global central banks have now cut rates 666 times since Lehman.”

In a month, quarter and year, in which many have scratched their heads trying to answer just who is buying stocks, as both retail and smart money investors have been aggressively selling, yesterday we got the answer.

The last time we wrote about the long-running saga of the scandalous collapse and constant corruption at the Malaysian state wealth fund, 1MDB, which also happened to be an unconfirmed slush fund for president Najib, was a month ago when we learned that the NY bank regulator was looking into fundraising by the fund’s favorite bank, Goldman Sachs.

Over the past four days, risk assets have been on a tear, led by the collapsing Yen and soaring Nikkei, as the market has digested daily news that – as we predicted last week – Bernanke has been urging Japan to become the first developed country to unleash the monetary helicopter, in which the central banks directly funds government fiscal spending, most recently with an overnight report that Bernanke has pushed Abe and Kuroda to sell perpetual bonds, all of which would be bought by the BOJ.

Overnight, we previewed what was about to be a historic for the eurozone bond auction, when this morning Germany sold its first ever 10Y bonds with a zero coupon.

With both stocks and US Treasury prices at all time highs the market is sensing that something has to give, and that something may just be more QE, which likely explains the move higher in gold to coincide with both risk and risk-haven assets. As of moments ago, gold rose above $1,370, and was back to levels not seen since 2014.

For the first time in Dutch history, 10Y government bond yields have turned negative (-0.001% intraday) closing at 0.00%… Joining Switzerland, Japan, Germany, and Denmark… Pushing Global NIRP bonds over the $13 trillion!

Japan has pushed further away from being the nation that embraces “Krugman Era” economics and deeper into the new “Bernanke Era” economics of helicopter money. As a result Japan’s citizens have been on a blitz to save what little purchasing power they still possess, before hyperinflation finally arrives.

It never ceases to amaze how vastly different the investment styles of gold paper vs physical traders are: while we have documented previously how the latter tend to buy progressively more the lower the price (as traditional “buy low, buy more lower” investing would suggest), “investors” in gold paper-derivatives such as ETFs and ETPs are quite the opposite: in fact, they rarely buy until someone else is buying and generating momentum.

There is a large dose of irony to the post-Brexit market response: while on one hand stocks have soared and as of today the S&P500 has already recouped more than half its post-Brexit losses (the SPX sank 5.7% peak-to-trough since the referendum and has since bounced 3.5%) an even sharper reaction has been observed in bonds.

It was not even a month ago when we last looked at the total amount of negative yielding debt around the globe, and were shocked to find that according to Fitch, for the first time in history (obviously), there was over $10 trillion in negative yielding debt. Fast forward 4 weeks later, and the grand total is now $1.3 trillion higher, or $11.7 trillion.

Authorities in the Austrian town of Mistelbach issued a temporary pool ban for refugees following a sexual assault by a “dark-skinned’ man on a 13-year-old girl. German and Swiss are issuing leaflets how to behave in pools.

One of the rising laments against NIRP is that far from forcing savers to shift from cash and buy risky (or less risky) assets, it has done the opposite. Intuitively this makes sense: savers expecting a return on the cash they have saved over the years are forced to save even more in a world of ZIRP or NIRP, as instead of living off the interest, they have to build up even more prinicpal.

Anyone wondering why gaps and volatility in FX, and especially cable is reaching on the absured today, with 100 pips swings in minutes the norm, the reason is that there is virtually no liquidity.

What happens on the 18th floor of the main tower at Centralbahnplatz 2 in Basel, stays on the 18th floor of the main tower at Centralbahnplatz 2.

Ever had to testify in a trial involving your father’s dealings in corrupt activities, and as a result had your tax records leaked for all of the public to see? Sergio Machado, the ex-head of Credit Suisse’s Brazil fixed-income business has, and now …

Resentment toward the EU hit a new high yesterday when the upper house of the Swiss parliament on Wednesday followed in the footsteps of Iceland, and voted to invalidate its 1992 application to join the European Union, backing an earlier decision by …

As the “deflationary supernova” sweeps across the world, dragging bond yields to zero-and-beyond, even the almighty omniscent Federal Reserve has been forced to capitulate as the ‘cheapness’ of Treasury bonds lures the world’s yield-hunters dragging …

First The Telegraph, then The Sun, and today The Spectator all came out on the “Leave” side of the Brexit debate. However, perhaps even more shocking to the establishment is the CIO of a major bank’s asset management arm dismissing the apparent carna…

As Brexit appears to gathering pace among British voters, Bloomberg Briefs interviews Hung Tan, executive managing director at the Institute of International Finance in Washington, DC., to understand the global impact of a decision by Britain to leav…

A chart-up from China and Japan. Growth of Chinese industrial production, retail sales, fixed asset investment is at lows not seen since the Asian financial crisis. The Yuan is falling. Economic data from Japan is not a lot better.

The European Union is an “empire that is hugely bureaucratic,” warns Marc Faber, telling CNBC that he thinks that “a Brexit would be bullish for global economic growth,” because “it would give other countries incentive to leave the badly organized EU…

Well that escalated quickly…All-time highs within reach… everything is awesome…wait what…

Quite a week:
Gold +5.25% in last 2 weeks – best run in 4 months
Silver +5.65% this week – best week since May 2015
Copper -4% this week to lowest week…

The German Bund chart is very important for us, because the Swiss franc is negatively correlated to German government bond yields. The lower Bund yields, the stronger the Swiss Franc. When European governments and the ECB are ready to pay higher interest rates, then CHF depreciates.

In times of negative interest rates and falling earnings per share, gold is the ultimate safe haven. Due to negative rates, it is not the Swiss Franc.

In the long run, as someone once said, we are all dead, but in the meantime, as BofAML’s Michael Hartnett provides a stunning tour de force of the last 5000 years illustrates long-run trends in the return, volatility, valuation & ownership of financi…

This weekend the Swiss population was called upon to make a historic decision, when Switzerland became the first country worldwide to put the idea of free money for everyone, technically known as Unconditional Basic Income (of CHF2,500 per month for every adult). The Swiss rejected the proposal with a big majority.

Earlier we introduced the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the longest and deepest tunnel in the world. The 35 mile long tunnel which cuts underneath the Alps helps remove natural barriers to trade and tourism, and is undoubtedly a testament to Swiss precision …

Several months ago, as Venezuela’s hyperinflating, imploding economy was spinning in freefall, leading to the dramatic episodes of total social collapse such as those profiled in “Scenes From The Venezuela Apocalypse: “Countless Wounded” After 5,000 …

Despite US equity investors’ exuberance over bouncing crude oil prices, the world’s crude producers continue to suffer and while Venezuela is in the headlines every day (having already collapsed into chaos), Nigeria appears the nearest to that abyss …

On June 1, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will take a break from their respective domestic crises and attend a ceremony to inaugurate the Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) in Switzerland.

After three consecutive weeks of seemingly relentless bad news for Apple, moments ago the stock jumped by $2 dollars, rising from $90.5 to over $92.50. Some hope for the Swiss National Bank or will Berkshire shares sink together with Apple and the SNB?

We hope for the sake of Swiss residents that equity markets never suffer a dramatic drop. The SNB has “invested” 20% of Swiss GDP in stocks. When will the ivory tower economists ultimately lose control of the most manipulated, centrally-planned market in history?

Following a scramble by European nations to issue ultra long-dated government paper, which saw France and Belgium sell 50-year bonds last month, while Ireland and Belgium went all the way and issued century bonds, with even Switzerland locking in 42-…

“At the end of the day, negative interest rates are taxes in sheep’s clothing. Few economists would ever claim that raising taxes on households will stimulate spending. So why would they think negative interest rates will?” Those are the shocking wor…

In the wake of the Panama Papers being released, the U.S.Treasury announced that it will use existing powers in order to make two rule changes that are intended to stop tax evasion.
First, in a rule which amends the US Bank Secrecy Act, the Treasury …

Submitted by Soren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

A 20-year-old asylum seeker from Iraq confessed to raping a 10-year-old boy at a public swimming pool in Vienna. The Iraqi said the rape was a “sexual emergency” resulting from “excess sexual ene…

As Norway offers cash for refugees to leave, announcing that they won’t be accepting any more refugees from the EU, and Switzerland prepares its military to close down borders, the EU has seemingly had enough of every country acting as if it has any …

Earlier this week we observed that in what may be Europe’s latest mistake, the European Union is about to grant visa-gree travel to 80 million Turks: a key concession that Erdogan obtained as a result of the ongoing negotiations over Europe’s refugee…

Submitted by Dan Popescu via Acting-Man.com,
The Inflation Illusion
We hear more and more talk about the possibility of imposing negative interest rates in the US. In a recent article former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke asks what tools the Fed h…

For those who thought that the world’s biggest company losing over $40 billion in market cap in an instant on disappointing Apple earnings, would have been sufficient to put a dent in US equity futures, we have some disappointing news: with just over…

First it was the blow up of hedge fund darling Valeant that crushed countless funds who were long the name.
Then, one month ago after the collapse of the Allergan-Pfizer deal, we showed (one of the reasons) why the hedge fund world continued to unde…

According to The BBC, the most asylum claims in 2015 occurred in Germany, which saw >500,000…

 
With the main route (reportedly shut down) being from Turkey to Greece, and up through the Balkans…

With Syrians making up the bulk of migrants tryi…

Over the better part of the past year, we’ve documented the curious case of 1MDB, Malaysia’s government investment fund founded in 2009.
It’s a long and exceptionally convoluted story that doesn’t exactly lend itself to a concise summary but suffice…

There has been much confusion, at time quite angry, how in the aftermath of the Soros-funded Panama Papers revelations few, if any, prominent U.S. name emerged as a result of the biggest offshore tax leak in history. Now, thanks to McClatchy more U.S…

Barely a day had passed since the historic admission of gold and silver price rigging by Deutsche bank, which as we reported on Thursday was settled with not only “valuable monetary consideration”, but Deutsche’s “cooperation in pursuing claims” agai…

A year ago today, European equities hit their highest levels ever. But, as Bloomberg reports, the euphoria about Mario Draghi’s stimulus program didn’t last, and trader skepticism is now rampant. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index has lost 17% sinc…

Banks have been lobbying intensively against Brexit. Among those leading the charge is Goldman Sachs. For three years, the bank’s executives have publicly warned about the downsides of leaving the EU… and now we know why (hint – it’s not concern fo…

Ask people which is the most important structure that keeps the US capital markets humming day after day, and most will likely erroneously say the New York Stock Exchange, which however over the past decade has transformed from its historic role into…

Markets have stopped focusing on what central banks are doing and are “positioning for what they believe central banks may or may not do,” according to BofA’s Athanasios Vamvakidis as he tells FX traders to “prepare to fight the central banks,” as th…

With oil losing some of its euphoric oomph overnight, following the API report of a surge in US oil inventories, and a subsequent report that Iran’s oil minister would skip the Doha OPEC meeting altogether, the global stock rally needed another catal…

By now it is common knowledge that when it comes to massive, taxpayer-backed hedge funds, few are quite as big as the Swiss National Bank, whose roughly $100 billion in equity holdings have been extensively profiled on these pages, including its woef…

Yesterday when summarizing the Fed’s action we said that in its latest dovish announcement which has sent the USD to a five month low, the Fed clearly sided with China which desperately wants a weaker dollar to which it is pegged (reflected promptly …

In many ways, 2016 has been the year that the world woke up to how far down Krugman’s rabbit hole (trademark) DM central bankers have plunged in a largely futile effort to resuscitate global growth.
For whatever reason, Haruhiko Kuroda’s move into NI…

As we predicted over a year ago, in a world in which QE has failed, and in which the ice-cold grip of NIRP has to be global in order to achieve its intended purpose of forcing savers around the world to spend the taxed product of their labor, one thi…

It was already a torrid day for commodity currencies, among which the MXN, or Mexican Peso, which were surging on today’s latest crude short squeeze and then as if pulling a PBOC with just one intention – to crush the shorts – the Mexican Central Ban…

Bad news is once again good news… for stocks that is. 
After a month and a half of markets unable to decide if they should buy or sell on ugly data, over the weekend, People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan expressed faith in the economy, …

In the spring of 2015 we showed something unexpected: one of the biggest buyers, and holders, of AAPL stock was none other than the already quite troubled – in the aftermath of its disastrous Swiss Franc peg which ended up costing it tens of billions…

As we noted last night, in what was the second clear example of sheer desperation by the Bank of Japan, the central banker formerly known as Peter Pan for his on the record belief that “he should fly”, and as of this morning better known as Peter Pan…

Having urged “don’t panic” just 4 short months ago, it appears Nigeria just did just that as the global dollar short squeeze forces the eight-month-old government of President Muhammadu Buhari to beg The World Bank and African Development Bank for $3…

Well that did not last long. After initial exuberance over The BoJ’s wishy-washy decision to adopt a 3-tiered rate policy including NIRP, markets have realized that without further asset purchases (which were maintained at the current pace), there is…

With the biggest drop in 3 months, EURCHF has broken above last September’s highs, plunging below 1.06. Amid chatter of SNB intervention, this is the weakest Swissy has been since the removakl of the ceiling a year ago.
EURCHF reached  1.10592…
…

Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
When David Bowie died, everybody, in what they wrote and said, seemed to feel they owned him, and owned his death, even if they hadn’t thought about him, or listened to him, for years….

   “We’re gonna need a bigger Bullard”
    – overheard on a trading desk this morning.
Yesterday, when looking at the market’s “Bullard 2.0” moment, which was a carbon copy of the market’s kneejerk surge higher response to Bullard’s “QE4” comments fr…

Having told banks and investors “don’t panic” in September, amid spiking interbank lending rates and surging default/devaluation risks, it appears the massive shortage of dollars that we warned about in December has washed tsunami-like ashore in oil-…

Now that the Powerball Jackpot has just hit a record $1.4 billion, people, mostly those in the lower and middle classes, are coming out in droves and buying lottery tickets with hopes of striking it rich.

After all, with $1.4 billion one can …