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Category Archive: 3.) Investec

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Swiss fact: work days lost to strikes in Switzerland close to one ninth of neighbouring countries

2017-01-26

2017-01-26

Protest-France

Across the ten years to 2008, Switzerland lost an average of 3 working days per 1,000 workers to strikes a year. This compares to 32 days in Austria, 33 days in France, and 55 days in Italy. Germany was close behind Switzerland with 4 days. The combined average for Switzerland’s neighbours: Austria, Germany, France and Italy, was 26 days. Switzerland’s 3 day average was one ninth or 11% of this.

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Squeezed and angry: how to fix the middle class crisis – a look at Switzerland

2017-01-18

2017-01-18

One of the topics at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos is: Squeezed and angry: how to fix the middle class crisis. As a precursor, the WEF published the 135 page Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017, which ranks Switzerland 3rd behind Norway and Luxembourg on inclusion, out of a group of 30 advanced economies. In addition, unlike Luxembourg, which is headed slowly backwards, both Switzerland and Norway are moving towards higher...

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Swiss franc less overvalued according to latest Big Mac index

2017-01-16

2017-01-16

Big-Mac

On 12 January 2017, the Economist came out with its latest Big Mac index. Also known as the burger benchmark, the index compares the price of a Big Mac around the world. This catchy, if highly incomplete means of comparing the relative purchasing power of different currencies, uses the United States and the US$ as its base. Countries where Big Macs cost less than in the United States (in US$ terms) have weak currencies, and those where they are...

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2016 saw fewer passengers on Switzerland’s highest railway

2017-01-07

2017-01-07

Tunneleingang

The train, which takes sightseers to the Jungfraujoch in the Bernese Alpes, carried 916,500 passengers in 2016, significantly fewer than the year before. In 2015, a record 1,007,000 made the journey.

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SMI set to end 2016 in negative territory

2016-12-31

2016-12-31

In the last week of the year, the Swiss Market Index deepened its loss for the year as banks continued lower on low trading volumes. The SMI is set to end 2016 with an annual loss of 6.8% as banking and pharmaceutical giants pulled the index down in a year of turbulent trading. A volatile 2016 started with a brutal equity sell off as investors dumped global stocks on fears of an accelerating economic slowdown in China. The Brexit vote in June...

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Miners, including Swiss-based Glencore, unearth a profit bonanza with rally set to last into 2017

2016-12-30

2016-12-30

Coal-mining

Miners had been digging in one of Australia’s oldest collieries for almost a century until operations wound down a year ago, the victim of plunging global commodity prices.

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Seven banks fined in Swiss probes of rate-rigging cartels

2016-12-24

2016-12-24

Switzerland handed out about $100 million in antitrust fines against seven U.S. and European banks for participating in cartels to manipulate widely used financial benchmarks.

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Sentiment appears positive as investors close their books for the year

2016-12-23

2016-12-23

SMI vs. MSCI World, December 23

Ahead of the Christmas break, trading volumes were thin this week amid a lack of new market catalysts. Swiss and European equities were generally unchanged through the week, tracking global stock markets. Overall, sentiment appears to be positive as investors close their books for the year.

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The hidden cost of Christmas gifts

2016-12-22

2016-12-22

Value Destroying

If you haven’t had a chance to go Christmas shopping don’t despair, gifts destroy value. For example, someone on a diet is unlikely to place much value on a box of chocolates. The difference between what was paid for the chocolates and what the recipient would have paid represents destroyed value. They could have been left on the shelf for someone who would have fully valued them. Economists call this deadweight loss.

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Swiss watch exports poised for worst year since 1984: chart

2016-12-21

2016-12-21

Watch Drop Exports of Swiss timepieces

The number of watches Switzerland exports is on track to reach the lowest level since 1984, when digital timepieces were in vogue and Swatch Group AG had just been formed in reaction to low-cost competition.

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Swiss to avoid EU clash as immigration bill passes final hurdle

2016-12-20

2016-12-20

European Comission

After three years of uncertainty, Switzerland may just have solved its immigration dispute with the European Union. Lawmakers in Bern on Friday passed a bill designed to curb EU immigration by giving locals a head start on filling job vacancies. By supporting the measure — which sidesteps quotas — they aim to prevent a deeper dispute that could cost the country crucial trade deals.

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Swiss-based Glencore’s Rosneft deal reopens battle for Russian commodities

2016-12-18

2016-12-18

Rosneft

In the cutthroat world of commodities trading, there’s no bigger prize than Russia. The country of Vladimir Putin has it all: oil, natural gas, aluminum, nickel, wheat, coal and many other riches. The world’s biggest trading houses have jostled over it for decades.

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Swiss pay doesn’t always match company success, Ethos says

2016-12-17

2016-12-17

carrot

Switzerland continues to see a disconnect between executive pay and company performance three years after voters passed some of the world’s strictest limits on compensation, according to a study by corporate governance group Ethos.

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December rally continues this week for SMI

2016-12-16

2016-12-16

SMI vs. MSCI World Week, December 16

2016’s December rally continued this week as Swiss and European equities outperformed global stocks. The US dollar continued to surge after the Federal Reserve increased interest rates for only the second time in a decade on Wednesday.

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Swiss fact: Switzerland is one of the world’s top 5 coffee exporters

2016-12-16

2016-12-16

Swiss Coffee Exports

According to UN trade statistics, the small Alpine nation exported US$ 2.4 billion1 of coffee in 2013. This figure is far higher than its cheese (US$ 615 million2) or chocolate (US$ 822 million3) exports, two far more famous Swiss exports.

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Swiss banks probed at home over Brazil’s ‘Carwash’ bribe scandal

2016-12-14

2016-12-14

Swiss frank

The Switzerland attorney general’s office is shifting its focus to banks operating in the country as it continues to investigate Brazil’s bribery scandal, after plea deals with individual executives provided fresh insights into how the illicit funds flowed through the financial system.

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Migros Bank could pass on negative interest rates

2016-12-13

2016-12-13

Because of negative interest, even a savings account earning 0% interest is earning too much reckons the bank’s boss. Soon many banks will be passing on some of the cost of negative interest to their clients, reports 20 Minutes. Migros Bank will need to seriously consider doing the same in 2017.

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Credit Suisse planning more Swiss job cuts

2016-12-11

2016-12-11

Credit suisse Zurich

Credit Suisse Group AG is preparing a new cost-savings program that puts as many as 1,300 jobs in Switzerland on the line, according to Schweiz am Sonntag. The plan will be announced Wednesday, when the lender holds its investor day in London, the newspaper said, without saying where it got the information. Credit Suisse’s Swiss unit may slash an additional 1,000 to 1,300 positions, or about eight to 10 percent of the unit’s workforce, it said.

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Pension payments could become compulsory for self-employed in Switzerland

2016-12-10

2016-12-10

Swiss francs

Switzerland’s Federal Council is looking at a proposal to make pension payments compulsory for self-employed workers in the same way that they are for salaried workers.

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Uncertainty prevails everywhere, says Draghi, but apparently investors don’t mind

2016-12-09

2016-12-09

SMI vs. MSCI World, December 09

According to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi “uncertainty prevails everywhere” but apparently investors don’t mind. Market participants shrugged off last weekends “no” to constitutional reform in Italy and the subsequent resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to push European indices to 12 month highs this week.

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