Category Archive: 3) Swiss Markets and News

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Investec is a distinctive Specialist Bank and Asset Manager. We provide a diverse range of financial products and services to a niche client base in three principal markets, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia, as well as certain other geographies. Investec’s strategic goals are motivated by the desire to develop an efficient and integrated business on an international scale through the active pursuit of clearly established core competencies in the group’s principal business areas.

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

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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FRIEDMAN: Russia’s Done the US a Favor in Syria

Download the FREE special report “Top 3 Economic Surprises for 2017” from George Friedman: http://bit.ly/2ih5W5n

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Davos Staff May Sleep In Shipping Containers As Billionaires Swarm Resort

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.

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FRIEDMAN: Energy Prices Will Hit These Two Nations Hard in 2017

Download the FREE special report “Top 3 Economic Surprises for 2017” from George Friedman: http://bit.ly/2ih5W5n

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The Alpine movie that didn’t need a script

The film “Alpzyt” is the most successful Swiss documentary of the year. Equipped with a camera and a drone, director Thomas Rickenmann heads for the mountains without a script and just starts filming. His work is something viewers find soothing. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) — swissinfo.ch is the international branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Its role …

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Credit Suisse Settles With DOJ For $5.3 Billion; Will Pay $2.5 Billion Civil Penalty

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.

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Seven banks fined in Swiss probes of rate-rigging cartels

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

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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FRIEDMAN: Trump’s Biggest Problem Is Not the Democrats

Download the FREE special report “Top 3 Economic Surprises for 2017” from George Friedman here: http://bit.ly/2ih5W5n

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The hidden cost of Christmas gifts

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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FRIEDMAN: There’s No Such Thing as Europe Anymore

Download the FREE special report “Top 3 Economic Surprises for 2017” from George Friedman: http://bit.ly/2ih5W5n

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Swiss watch exports poised for worst year since 1984: chart

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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Police say no terror links to Zurich mosque gunman

Police say the man responsible for the shooting incident at the Zurich Islamic Centre on Monday evening was a 24-year-old Swiss with Ghanaian roots. They said there appears to be no link to radical groups. The man's motive for the mosque shooting and a separate murder on Sunday remains unclear.

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Swiss to avoid EU clash as immigration bill passes final hurdle

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

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

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’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

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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WTI Crude tumbles To $49 Handle, Erases OPEC/NOPEC Deal Gains

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.

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

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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