Tag Archive: newsletter

USD/CHF Price Analysis: Rejected at 0.94, bear flag on 4H

USD/CHF is under pressure in Asia as US index futures are flashing red. The pair has created a bear flag or a bearish continuation pattern on the 4-hour chart. USD/CHF is currently trading at 0.9364, representing a 0.38% drop on the day, having failed to chew through offers around 0.94 during the overnight trade.

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Devisen: Euro mit Abschlägen zu Dollar und Franken

Zum Franken neigt der Euro ebenfalls wieder leicht zur Schwäche. Im asiatischen Handel hatte sich die Gemeinschaftswährung noch oberhalb der 1,06er Marke bewegt, seit dem Vormittag ging es dann aber tendenziell wieder etwas abwärts, so dass aktuell 1,0597 Franken gezahlt werden. Der US-Dollar notiert mit 0,9328 Franken ebenfalls etwas tiefer als noch im frühen Handel.

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No ‘ghost flights’ to Zurich airport, authorities say

With passenger numbers down due to Covid-19, some airlines want authorities to loosen rules maintain that airport landing slots are lost unless fully used. “Use it or lose it”: regulations state that when an airline is allocated a landing slot, it must use it at least 80% of the time planned, or else risk being stripped of it the following year.

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Roche tells all Spanish staff to work remotely

Swiss pharma giant Roche said on Tuesday it would send all of its 1,200 Spanish employees home starting from Wednesday to work remotely amid the coronavirus outbreak. “The company will maintain its normal activity and will guarantee, as until now, the supply of medicines to hospitals,” Roche said in a statement.

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If China Is the Problem, Can’t We At Least Have Free Trade with Everyone Else?

It remains unclear how much the stock market implosion of recent days will affect the larger economy. As David Stockman has noted often, the Wall Street economy is not synonymous with the Main Street economy, contrary to what the advocates of rampant bank bailouts and financialization would have us believe.

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ECB Preview, March 11

Christine Lagarde will chair her third ECB meeting Thursday.  She faces growing risks of recession but also widespread skepticism within the ECB regarding the efficacy of negative rates.  Markets have priced in several rate cuts this year.  Here, we discuss what measures the ECB may take this week.

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Low Rates As Chaos, Not ‘Stimulus’

Basic recession economics says that when you end up with too much of some commodity, too much inventory that you can’t otherwise sell, you have to cut the price in order to move it. Discounting is a feature of those times. What about a monetary panic? This might sound weird, but same thing.

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Is this the Beginning of a Recession?

As I sit here Monday evening with the Dow having closed down 2000 points and the 10-year Treasury yield around 0.5%, the title of this update seems utterly ridiculous. With the new coronavirus still spreading and a collapse in oil prices threatening the entire shale oil industry, recession is now the expected outcome. Most observers seem to question only the potential length and depth of the coming downturn.

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Coronavirus hits Swiss train passenger numbers

The number of people taking trains in Switzerland has fallen since the outbreak of the coronavirus, resulting in a huge financial hit, Swiss Federal Railways reported on Tuesday.

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Dollar Firm as Global Financial Markets Calm

Global financial markets are finally seeing a measure of calm return; local Chinese media is sounding more confident that the situation is now under control. The White House will announce fiscal measures today; five states hold primaries and one holds a caucus with 352 total pledged delegates up for grabs.

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FX Daily, March 10: Markets Stabilize after Body Blow

Overview:  It appears after a few days of miscues, US officials struck the right chord, and the global capital markets seemed to stabilize shortly after the US session ended.  President Trump's press conference today is expected to spell out in greater detail relief for households and businesses.  Asia Pacific equities rallied, led by a 3% surge in Australia.

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Swiss hotels poised for big losses after record 2019

The Swiss hotel industry could lose out on up to half a billion francs in 2020 due to the impact of Covid-19, the boss of the country’s tourism body has said. Martin Nydegger of Switzerland Tourism said on Monday that he expects the virus to account for some 2.1 million fewer overnight stays in Swiss hotels this year compared with 2019, amounting to financial losses of CHF532 million ($574 million).

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Why Sweden’s Negative Interest Rate Experiment Is a Failure

According to the Financial Times's February 20 article “Why Sweden Ditched Its Negative Rate Experiment,” economists are pondering whether Sweden’s central bank experiment with negative interest rate was a success. Sweden’s Riksbank, the world’s oldest central bank, introduced negative interest rates in early 2015.

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Switzerland Unemployment in February 2020: Down to 2.5 percent, seasonally adjusted unchanged at 2.3 percent

Registered unemployment in February 2020 - According to surveys by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), 117,822 unemployed people were registered with the regional employment centers at the end of February 2020, 3,196 fewer than in the previous month. The unemployment rate fell from 2.6% in January 2020 to 2.5% in the reporting month.

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What Comes After Quantitative Easing?

André de Godoy: Ludwig von Mises mentions in his books that credit expansion is one of the causes of the inflation beyond the monetary expansion. What are the similarities and differences between those two phenomena?

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FX Daily, March 9: Monday Meltdown

Overview: Equities plunged, and yields sank as the coronavirus threatens a global recession. The oil price war signaled by Saudi Arabia and Russia aggravates the desperate situation. Equities markets in the Asia Pacific region slumped 3-7%. The Shanghai Composite was fell 3%. The Nikkei was off by 5%, and Australia was hit among the hardest with a 7.3% loss.

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What the Fed Can Do: Print and Buy, Buy, Buy

Everyone with a pension fund or 401K invested in stocks better hope the Fed becomes the buyer of last resort, and soon. Much has been written about what the Federal Reserve cannot do: it can't stop the Covid-19 pandemic or reverse the economic damage unleashed by the pandemic.

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Drivers for the Week Ahead

Risk-off sentiment continues to build as the coronavirus spreads. Fed easing expectations continue to intensify; February inflation readings for the US will be reported this week. The ECB meets Thursday and markets are split; the stronger euro is doing the eurozone economy no favors. The UK has a heavy data release schedule Wednesday; UK government also releases its budget that day.

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Like Repo, The Labor Lie

The Federal Reserve has been trying to propagate two big lies about the economy. Actually, it’s three but the third is really a combination of the first two. To start with, monetary authorities have been claiming that growing liquidity problems were the result of either “too many” Treasuries (haven’t heard that one in a while) or the combination of otherwise benign technical factors.

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What Would Murray Say About the Coronavirus?

Murray Rothbard died in January 1995, long before this year’s coronavirus scare. But the principles this great thinker taught us can help us answer questions about the coronavirus outbreak which trouble many of us. Would the US government be justified in imposing massive involuntary quarantines in order to slow down the spread of disease? What about vaccines?

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