Tag Archive: newsletter

The Hidden Cost of Losing Local Mom and Pop Businesses

2019-04-03

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2019-04-03

American Dynamism in Retreat 1979-2014
What cannot be replaced by corporate chains is neighborhood character and variety. There is much more to this article than first meets the eye: In a Tokyo neighborhood's last sushi restaurant, a sense of loss "Eiraku is the last surviving sushi bar in this cluttered neighborhood of steep cobblestoned hills and cherry trees unseen on most tourist maps of Tokyo.

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Will Basel III Send Gold to the Moon, Report 2 Apr

2019-04-02

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2019-04-02

Gold and Silver Price
A number of commentators have predicted that the rules of the Basel III bank regulations will cause gold to skyrocket (no, this article is not about our view that gold does not go up, that it’s the dollar going down, that the lighthouse does not go up, it’s the sinking ship going down in the storm).

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FX Daily, April 02: Herding Cats

2019-04-02

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2019-04-02

After surging yesterday, equities are struggling to maintain the momentum that carried that S&P 500 to its best level since last October. Most Asia Pacific equity markets advanced. Japan's small losses were a notable exception. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 has advanced in four of the last five sessions and is little changed, while US shares are trading with a heavier bias.

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GBP to CHF weakness after no majority for alternative Brexit

2019-04-02

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2019-04-02

The pound to Swiss franc exchange rate still struggles to push higher amidst global uncertainty and the pressing issue of Brexit. The Swiss franc maintains the higher ground with its safe haven status amidst concerns of a global slowdown, the effects of which are already being seen across China and the EU.

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Swiss Consumer Price Index in March 2019: +0.7 percent YoY, +0.5 percent MoM

2019-04-02

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2019-04-02

Switzerland Consumer Price Index (CPI) YoY, March 2019
The consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.5% in March 2019 compared with the previous month, reaching 102.2 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was 0.7% compared with the same month of the previous year. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

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April Monthly Currency Outlook

2019-04-02

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2019-04-02

Poor economic data and soft inflation saw several central banks, including the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, take a dovish turn in March. Contrary to expectations that interest rates would rise as the G3 central banks were no longer adding to their balance sheets on a combined basis.

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Million franc salaries cause friction in Bern

2019-04-02

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2019-04-02

Switzerland’s government recently voted for a ceiling on the salaries of those managing public companies such as Swisscom, Swiss Post, Skyguide and Swiss Rail. In response, the board of Swiss Rail wrote to the Federal Council requesting it to soften its position. From 2020, the company wants to pay its nine senior managers CHF 5.89 million, including a salary of more than CHF 1 million to Andreas Meyer, the boss of the company.

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FX Daily, April 01: China Reanimates the Animal Spirits, While Europe Finds New Ways to Disappoint

2019-04-01

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2019-04-01

Overview:  Better than expected German retail sales ad employments reports at the end of last week has been followed by gains in China's official PMI  and Caixin's manufacturing reading. However, the spillover from China was limited in Asia.  Japan's Tankan survey and outlook disappointed and South Korea's exports and imports were weaker than expected. 

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Swiss Retail Sales, February 2019: -0.2 percent Nominal and -0.2 percent Real

2019-04-01

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2019-04-01

Switzerland Retail Sales YoY, February 2019
Turnover in the retail sector fell by 0.2% in nominal terms in February 2019 compared with the previous year. Seasonally adjusted, nominal turnover rose by 0.2% compared with the previous month. These are provisional findings from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

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FX Weekly Preview: The Green Shoots of Spring

2019-04-01

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2019-04-01

Investors have worked themselves into a lather. Equities crashed in Q4 last year amid on corporate earnings and concerns about growth. The Fed’s tightening decision in December was made unanimously. The above-trend growth, the preferred inflation measure was near target, unemployment was the lowest in a generation and real rates were historically low.

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The Fed Guarantees No Recession for 10 Years, Permanent Uptrend for Stocks and Housing

2019-04-01

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2019-04-01

SPX, future 2003 - 2029
A classified Federal Reserve memo sheds new light on the Fed's confidence in its control of the economy and the stock and housing markets. In effect, the Fed is guaranteeing that there will be no recession for another 10 years, and that stocks and housing will remain in a permanent uptrend.

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Swiss expat community hits 760,000

2019-04-01

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2019-04-01

Swiss Abroad 2018
The number of Swiss Abroad citizens grew by 1.1% to reach 760,200 at the end of last year. Most live in neighbouring countries and in the United States.The expatriate community accounts for 10.6% of the total number of Swiss nationals, according to official statistics published on Thursday. Nearly three-quarters of the Swiss Abroad have dual nationality.

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Almost 60,000 Swiss dwellings unoccupied last year

2019-03-31

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2019-03-31

A significant increase in vacant homes is predicted by Zurich Cantonal Bank. Suburbs are particularly prone to lower occupancy levels. The problem of empty housing, particularly in the urban periphery, is likely to worsen, with construction activity concentrated in areas with already high vacancy rates. Last year around 59,700 homes did not have any tenants.

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Monthly Macro Monitor – March 2019 (VIDEO)

2019-03-31

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2019-03-31

Alhambra CEO discusses all the talk about the recent yield curve inversion and how he views it.

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Growth forecast lowered for Swiss economy

2019-03-31

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2019-03-31

Worsening international conditions will have a negative impact on Switzerland’s export-driven economy, prompting the Swiss Economic Institute (KOF) to lower its forecast for this year. KOF on Wednesday announced it had revised its growth forecast down from 1.6% to 1% for Switzerland’s gross domestic product. However, the latest outlook for 2020 remains virtually unchanged with growth of 2.1%.

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Two Junior Miners Offering Arbitrage Opportunities – an Interview with Jayant Bhandari

2019-03-31

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2019-03-31

Maurice Jackson of Proven & Probable has just conducted another interview with Jayant Bhandari, who is known to long-time readers as a frequent guest author on this site. Below is a video of the interview as well as a link for downloading the transcript of the interview in PDF form. But first here is a list of the topics discussed.

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Facebook rejects most information requests from Swiss authorities

2019-03-30

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2019-03-30

Over the first three months of 2018 Switzerland’s authorities made 80 requests for Facebook user data, however two thirds of them were rejected, according to the newspaper SonntagsBlick as reported in 20 Minutes. When the requests were urgent the response rate rose to two thirds of requests.

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Public transport enjoys another record year among tourists

2019-03-30

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2019-03-30

Foreign visitors spent 6.4% more on Swiss Travel System tickets in 2018 than in the previous year. Sales rose to over CHF130 million ($131 million). 2018 is thus the sixth record year in a row, the Swiss Federal Railways said on Tuesday. Chinese guests were the top foreign users of public transport, with sales of CHF20.3 million, an increase of 14.9%.

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Apple’s Rotten Core

2019-03-30

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2019-03-30

Entering commoditized, fiercely competitive low-margin services cannot substitute for the high-margin profits that will be lost as global recession and saturation erode iPhone sales. Apple has always been equally an enterprise and a secular religion. The Apple Faithful do not tolerate heretics or critics, and non-believers "just don't get it."

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Brexit and Learning To “Live With Boom and Bust Economic Cycles”

2019-03-30

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2019-03-30

Generations of people have learned to live with boom and bust economic cycles. Years of relative plenty were followed, as night follows day, by grief including high unemployment and forced emigration on a large scale. In fact, if you go back much beyond the late 1960s, it would not be too cynical to say the cycles were often more about going from bust to really busted, as for decades the country was hit by crippling rates of largely enforced...

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