Category Archive: 1.) English Posts on SNB

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Currencies: Going cuckoo for the Swiss

2015-01-15

CURRENCIES don't normally move that far on a daily basis—2 to 3% is a big shift. The exception is when a country on a fixed exchange rate suffers a devaluation; then a 20-30% fall is a possibility. But a 20-30% plus upward move is almost unprecedented. That, however, is what happened to the Swiss franc on January 15th, as Switzerland's central bank abandoned its policy (instituted back in 2011) of capping the currency at Sfr1.20 to the euro.

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Setting monetary policy by popular vote: Full of holes

2014-11-27

by The Economist

2014-11-27

THE Swiss franc is a volatile currency that is fast becoming worthless. That, at least, is what some members of Switzerland’s right-wing People’s Party (SVP) would have you believe. Thanks to the SVP, Switzerland will vote on November 30th on a radical proposal to boost the central bank’s gold reserves. Bigger reserves, activists argue, will make the Swiss economy more stable and prosperous. In fact the opposite is true.

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Will SNB FX Investments Yield Enough Until U.S. Inflation Starts?

Yield on Investment SNB Swiss National Bank

Will the SNB be able to survive an upturn in inflation: We focus on income and yields for foreign exchange position and gold and find out if the SNB makes enough income to survive a franc appreciation.

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Swiss Franc and Swiss Economy: The Overview Questions

pictet long-term graph eur/chf, real trade

Before the upcoming SNB monetary policy assessment meeting on June 19th, rumors started the SNB could follow the ECB and set negative rates on banks' excess reserves. We would like to deliver the whole background, starting with the question why Swiss inflation has been so low in the past and why CHF always appreciated.

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Private markets, public investors: The march of the sovereigns

2014-06-17

by The Economist

2014-06-17

SOVEREIGN wealth funds, typically set up by oil-exporting nations, have been around for decades, in the case of Kuwait since 1953. But their influence has increased in recent years, as China has adopted a similar strategy for investing some of its vast foreign-exchange reserves while existing funds have been fuelled by gains from high oil prices.

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Buttonwood: Land of the falling yield

2014-06-05

by The Economist

2014-06-05

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15 Billion SNB Losses on Gold in 2013, But 40 Billion SNB Profit on Gold between 2000 and 2012

For anybody complaining about gold that caused the big loss of the Swiss National Bank. Since 2000, the total SNB profit was 32.1 bln. CHF, of which 24.6 billion came from gold.

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SNB Balance Sheet Expansion

Since 2008 the balance sheet of the Swiss National Bank is 280% higher, this is the equivalent of 60% of Swiss GDP. So did most other central banks, too. But there is one big difference: The risk for the SNB is far higher, the SNB nearly exclusively possesses assets denominated in volatile foreign currency.

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A Nationalization of Swiss Foreign Assets? SNB Owns 56% of Swiss Net International Investment Position

Net International Invest Position Switzerland

The SNB currently owns 56% of the Swiss net international investment position (“NIIP”). In the year 2007 this number was only 12%. Is the central bank implicitly nationalizing the Swiss international companies?

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Why the SNB will not Imitate Hong Kong, but Potentially Singapore

What QE means for the world: Positive-sum currency wars

2013-02-15

by The Economist

2013-02-15

Brazil’s finance minister coined the term “currency wars” in 2010 to describe how the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing was pushing up other countries’ currencies. Headline writers and policy makers have resurrected the phrase to describe the Japanese government and central bank’s pursuit of a much more aggressive monetary policy, motivated in part by the strength of the yen.The clear implication of the term “war” is that these policies are...

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