Tag Archive: newsletter

Swiss president continues on his ‘autocrat world tour 2019’

2019-11-23

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2019-11-23

Ueli Maurer, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency this year, was set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday. It is Maurer’s fourth foreign visit this year that has raised eyebrows in Switzerland.

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20 years of the Vereina tunnel

2019-11-23

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2019-11-23

On November 19, 1999, after eight years of construction, the Vereina Tunnel opened in eastern Switzerland.Connecting the Landquart – Davos Platz and the Bever – Scuol-Tarasp lines, the tunnel is 19 kilometres long and the journey through takes 18 minutes.In 20 years, it has brought various improvements to locals, tourists, and businesses.However, its construction had initially been opposed by some as it was feared that the tunnel would lead to...

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What’s Been Normalized? Nothing Good or Positive

2019-11-23

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2019-11-23

What's been normalized are policies and cultural norms that seek to enrich and protect the few at the expense of the many. When the initially extraordinary fades into the unremarkable background of everyday life, we say it's been normalized. Put another way, we quickly habituate to new conditions, and rationalize our ready acceptance of what was previously unacceptable.

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Global Gold Buyers Are ‘Confident’ in Gold

2019-11-23

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2019-11-23

‘Retail Gold Insights 2019’ has just been published by the World Gold Council. It is a thematic analysis of their new consumer research survey. With a base of 18,000 participants across India, China, Russia, Germany, the US and Canada, we believe it is the largest ever consumer survey on the global gold market.

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FX Daily, November 22: Europe’s Flash PMI Disappoints and Hong Kong Shares Advance Ahead of Sunday’s Election

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

Overview: Equities in the Asia Pacific managed to mostly shrug off the drag of the losses in US equities yesterday. China and India could not escape the pull, but most other bourses were higher, led by Singapore and Hong Kong. It was the second consecutive week that the MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell. The US and European benchmarks are paring this week's small losses.

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UBS Has No Choice In Passing Negative Rate Pain To Customers

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

G4 policy rates, 2000-2020
There's been talk that the Federal Reserve will slam interest rates to zero or even negative when the next recession strikes. President Trump's support for negative interest rates has quickly increased in the last several months as the latest tracking estimates for Q4 GDP have tumbled to sub 0.4%. 

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The Deep State: The Headless Fourth Branch of Government

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

School children learn that there are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial. In actual practice, however, there are four branches of government. The fourth is what for decades now has been called a "headless fourth branch of government," the administrative state.

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Dollar and Equities Sink as Trade Pessimism Rises

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

Pessimism regarding a Phase One trade deal has intensified; further muddying the waters are recent US Congressional actions. FOMC minutes contained no surprises; regional Fed manufacturing surveys for November continue. South Africa is expected to cut rates by 25 bp to 6.25%. Korea reported trade data for the first twenty days of November; Indonesia kept rates steady at 5.0%, as expected.

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EM Sovereign Rating Model For Q4 2019

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

Emerging Markets Sovereign Ratings Model Q4 2019
We have produced the following Emerging Markets (EM) ratings model to assess relative sovereign risk. An EM country’s score directly reflects its creditworthiness and underlying ability to service its external debt obligations. Each score is determined by a weighted compilation of fifteen economic and political indicators, which include external debt/GDP, short-term debt/reserves, import cover, current account/GDP, GDP growth, and budget balance.

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Freedom Means a Right to Discriminate

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

Should employers have the right to discriminate in hiring on the basis of obesity? The Washington State Supreme Court recently ruled that “it is illegal for employers in Washington to refuse to hire qualified potential employees because the employer perceives them to be obese.”

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FX Daily, November 21: Markets Hear What it Wants from China’s Chief Negotiator, but HK maybe New Obstacle

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

Overview: The strongest signs to date that even phase one of a US-China trade deal is proving elusive helped spur the risk-off mood that had already been emerging. The S&P 500 fell by the most in a month (~-0.40%) yesterday, closing the gap from last week we had noted was the risk, and follow-through selling was seen in Asia Pacific and Europe.

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OECD rechnet für 2020 mit höherem Wachstum in der Schweiz

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

Switzerland Flag
Vor allem der Einfluss internationaler Sportereignisse wird das Wachstum des Bruttoinlandprodukts (BIP) im kommenden Jahr ankurbeln, erklärte die OECD. Entsprechend werde es 2021 wieder auf 1,0 Prozent zurückfallen. Für das laufende Jahr erwartet die OECD eine Zunahme des BIP um 0,8 Prozent.

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Factory lays off workers amid gloomy manufacturing outlook

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

Swiss precision machine maker Mikron has laid off 25 workers, citing weak demand for its products from the global car industry. The news reflects pessimistic sentiment from Swiss manufacturers and the wider economy. Mikron announced on Tuesday that it would have to reduce headcount at a plant in southern Switzerland from its present level of 370.

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UBS unveils Year Ahead outlook for 2020 and a ‘decade of transformation’

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

In its base case for 2020, UBS GWM forecasts growth of:
Zurich, 20 November 2019 – Stark political choices make the 2020 outlook more difficult to predict, but innovation driven by technology and sustainability will present new winners and losers over the decade ahead, according to UBS Global Wealth Management (GWM)’s new Year Ahead outlook.

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DM Equity Allocation Model For Q4 2019

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

Global equity markets continue to power higher US-China trade tensions have eased. MSCI World made a new all-time high today near 2290 and is up 23% YTD. Our 1-rated grouping (outperformers) for Q4 2019 consists of Ireland, Sweden, Israel, Denmark, and Australia. Our 5-rated grouping (underperformers) for Q4 2019 consists of the UK, Hong Kong, Greece, Germany, and Portugal.

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CNBC is careful to admit that owning GLD is not owning gold

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

Chris Powell of GATA writes today about how he finds it interesting that CNBC are careful to admit that owning the GLD ETF is not the same thing as owning physical gold, a theme that has run strongly throughout our market commentaries for many years.

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Does Economic Theory Work in Business?

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

Marketing guru and fund investor Hunter Hastings joins the Human Action podcast for a look at Economics for Entrepreneurs, a new platform which uses Austrian theory to teach actionable entrepreneurship. Can business acumen be taught, or is it innate? Hunter and Jeff examine consumer sovereignty, value creation, and the theory of the firm, all from a unique Austrian perspective.

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Negativzinsen von mindestens minus 4 Prozent werden kommen

2019-11-20

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2019-11-20

Jetzt ist es soweit. Die Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Fürstenfeldbruck erhebt als erste Bank in Deutschland Strafzinsen in Höhe von 0,5 Prozent auf das Guthaben von Tagesgeldkonten. Und das bereits ab 0,01 Euro. Dies ist erst der Anfang. In Zukunft werden uns Strafzinsen von minus vier bis minus fünf Prozent blühen, wenn wir weiterhin an dem zum Scheitern verurteilten Währungsexperiment Euro festhalten.

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FX Daily, November 20: Dollar Snaps Back

2019-11-20

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2019-11-20

Overview: The idea that a US-China trade deal is proving more elusive than the agreement in principle on October 11 implied is being seized upon to spur what we suspect is an overdue round of profit-taking in global equities. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index snapped a three-advance, with over 1% declines in South Korea and Australia.

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Switzerland excels at attracting talent, but can do better

2019-11-20

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2019-11-20

For the sixth consecutive year, Switzerland clinched the top spot in the annual global ranking of the Lausanne-based IMD business school. The 2019 edition of the IMD World Talent Ranking ranked Switzerland highly in the three areas assessed. It came first in appeal, second in investment and development and second in readiness. Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Luxembourg rounded out the top five.

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