Tag Archive: newsletter

Growth forecast lowered for Swiss economy

2019-03-31

by

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%.

Read More »

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

2019-03-31

by

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.

Read More »

Facebook rejects most information requests from Swiss authorities

2019-03-30

by

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.

Read More »

Public transport enjoys another record year among tourists

2019-03-30

by

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%.

Read More »

Apple’s Rotten Core

2019-03-30

by

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."

Read More »

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

2019-03-30

by

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...

Read More »

FX Daily, March 29: Equities Bounce While Bonds Pullback to End Q1

2019-03-29

by

2019-03-29

The global growth scare may be subsiding. It had been fanned by the ECB and Fed statements and projections. Poor US jobs growth reported in early March and the poor flash EMU PMI late in the month contributed.  The slowdown in China and the flurry of measures to combat it also had a role.

Read More »

Swiss Rail shares bumper profits with passengers

2019-03-29

by

2019-03-29

In 2018, Swiss Rail made a profit of CHF 568 million, 42.5% more than in 2017. Part of the rise was due to higher than average spending on maintenance in 2017. It is worth noting that Swiss Rail receives a large sum from taxpayers every year. In 2018, the company received CHF 3.5 billion of public funding, CHF 2.7 billion of it booked as income.

Read More »

Watchdog confirms illegal activity by cryptocurrency firm Envion

2019-03-29

by

2019-03-29

An investigation by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has revealed the that Zug-based cryptocurrency venture Envion unlawfully received deposits from at least 37,000 investors. Envion unlawfully accepted over CHF90 million ($90.5 million) in its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) without the necessary statutory licence, according to a statement by FINMAexternal link on Wednesday.

Read More »

Is the World Becoming Wealthier or Poorer?

2019-03-29

by

2019-03-29

There is nothing intrinsically profitable about either robotics or AI. At the request of colleague/author Douglas Rushkoff (his latest book is Team Human), I'm publishing last week's Musings Report, which was distributed only to subscribers and patrons of the site.) The core assumption of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and other plans to redistribute wealth and income more broadly is that the world is becoming wealthier, and so the pool of income and...

Read More »

Dépossession. Des politiques monétaires mortifères…

2019-03-28

by

2019-03-28

Liquidity ratio 2015-2017
L’économie du pays est promise à un effondrement. Il suffit pour s’en convaincre de voir la quantité de surfaces commerciales disponibles. En Suisse, près de 1200 entreprises ont fait faillite entre janvier et février! L’information du jour est un non-évènement, puisque annoncé de longue date sur ce site. Par ailleurs, elle ne semble intéresser personne à Berne, dans les « agglomérations », ou autres »Régions ».

Read More »

FX Daily, March 28: Brexit Uncertainty Deepens as Parliament is Divided, while Turkey’s Short Squeeze Falters

2019-03-28

by

2019-03-28

The lurch lower in global interest rates continue. The US 10-year yield is at new 15-month lows, five basis points through the average effective Fed funds rate. Late yesterday, it appeared that 10-year German Bund yields slipped below similar Japanese government bond yields for the first time since Q4 16, but when the JGB market opened, it the 10-year JGB yield fell a couple more basis points to minus 10, the most negative since August 2016.

Read More »

Swiss chocolate consumption slides

2019-03-28

by

2019-03-28

In 2018, Switzerland’s population consumed around 87,000 tonnes of chocolate. However, average chocolate consumption dropped from 10.5 kg per person in 2017 to 10.3 kg in 2018, a decline of roughly 2%. This decline reflects last year’s longer hotter summer, according to the industry association Chocosuisse.

Read More »

Monthly Macro Monitor: Well Worried

2019-03-28

by

2019-03-28

Yield Curve and Lending Standards 1990-2018
Don’t waste your time worrying about things that are well worried. Well worried. One of the best turns of phrase I’ve ever heard in this business that has more than its fair share of adages and idioms. It is also one of the first – and best – lessons I learned from my original mentor in this business. The things you see in the headlines, the things everyone is already worried about, aren’t usually worth fretting over.

Read More »

Gold Gains On Recession Concerns and ‘No Deal’ Brexit Risks

2019-03-28

by

2019-03-28

Gold in GBP (1 Year), 2018-2019
– Gold gains due to concerns about slowing growth, monetary and geopolitical risks – Increasing possibility of ‘No Deal’ Brexit heightens recession risks in UK, Ireland – Brexit uncertainty is impacting UK & Irish economies; Likely do long term damage – UK sees sharp slowdown in mortgage approvals in February as housing market slows – Gold surges to near all time record highs in Australian dollars at $1,860/oz – Gold in sterling, euros and...

Read More »

FX Daily, March 27: Global Bond Rally Continues, Greenback Remains Firm

2019-03-27

by

2019-03-27

Overview: The US 10-year yield is trading below the Fed funds target. The two-year yield is trading below the lower end of the Fed funds target range. A warning by New Zealand that the next rate move could be a cut sent New Zealand and Australian yields to new record lows. In Japan, the 10-year yield slipped below the overnight unsecured call rate.

Read More »

Pound to Swiss Franc Forecast – Will GBP/CHF rates rise or fall on Brexit?

2019-03-27

by

2019-03-27

The Brexit date of 29th March has been delayed to the 12th April or the 22nd May as the EU provide a lifeline to the UK to help them avoid a no-deal scenario. This has helped the pound to rise and has provided some of the best rates to buy Swiss Francs in many months.

Read More »

Cool Video: Bloomberg–Sterling and the Euro

2019-03-27

by

2019-03-27

I joined Shey Ann and Amanda Lang on the Bloomberg set to talk about sterling and the euro. The media makes it sound like there was a coup in the UK and Parliament has taken control of Brexit. This is an exaggeration. The House of Commons did secure tomorrow to have "indicative votes" on the different alternatives. These votes are not binding on the Prime Minister who as already indicated some alternatives that she will not accept.

Read More »

Additional flaw found in Swiss Post e-voting system

2019-03-27

by

2019-03-27

A second error in the Swiss Post planned e-voting system has been discovered as the public intrusion test phase comes to an end. The Federal Chancellery announced the need for action and confirmed a review of the e-voting certification and approval process. The same computer experts who discovered a critical error in the source code of Swiss Post’s new e-voting system earlier this month announced they discovered a further security gap.

Read More »

When Are We Going to Tackle the For-Profit Monopolies Which Censored RussiaGate Skeptics?

2019-03-27

by

2019-03-27

The Dominance of Google and Facebook
We either take down Facebook and Google and turn them into tightly regulated transparent public utilities available to all or they will destroy what little is left of American democracy. The RussiaGate Narrative has been revealed as a Big Con (a.k.a. Nothing-Burger), but what's dangerously real is the censorship that's being carried out by the for-profit monopolies Facebook and Google on behalf of the status quo's Big Con.

Read More »