Tag Archive: newsletter

FX Daily, January 9: Animal Spirits Roar Back

2020-01-09

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2020-01-09

Overview:  The S&P 500 recovered from a 10-day low to reach a new record high, which set the tone for the Asia Pacific and European markets today.   The MSCI Asia Pacific Index jumped by the most in a month with the Nikkei's 2% advance leading the way.  More broadly, the markets in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, India, and Thailand all rose more than 1%.

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SNB – Devisenreserven der Nationalbank sinken

2020-01-09

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2020-01-09

Per Ende des Berichtsmonats lag der Wert der Devisenreserven bei 770,80 Milliarden Franken, nachdem es Ende November noch 782,95 Milliarden Franken gewesen waren. Der Gesamtbestand der Reserven (exkl. Gold) erreichte Ende Dezember 776,62 Milliarden nach 788,76 Milliarden Franken im Vormonat, wie die SNB am Donnerstag auf ihrer Internetseite mitteilte.

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Swiss Retail Sales, November 2019: -0.7 percent Nominal and 0.0 percent Real

2020-01-09

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2020-01-09

Switzerland Retail Sales YoY, November 2019
09.01.2020 - Turnover adjusted for sales days and holidays fell in the retail sector by 0.7% in nominal terms in November 2019 compared with the previous year. Seasonally adjusted, nominal turnover fell by 0.3% compared with the previous month. These are provisional findings from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

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Swiss National Bank expects profit of CHF49 billion for 2019

2020-01-09

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2020-01-09

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) expects to post an annual profit of CHF49 billion ($50.29 billion) for 2019, it said on Thursday, citing big gains from foreign bonds and stocks bought to dampen the value of the safe-haven Swiss franc. The profit, following a loss of CHF15 billion in 2018, means the central bank will pay out CHF2 billion to the Swiss government and cantons for last year and will hold discussions with the finance ministry on a possible...

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SNB – Nationalbank macht fast 50 Milliarden Franken Gewinn

2020-01-09

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2020-01-09

Die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB) hat gemäss provisorischen Berechnungen im Geschäftsjahr 2019 einen Gewinn von rund 49 Milliarden Franken erzielt. Der Löwenanteil des Gewinns entfiel mit 40 Milliarden auf die Fremdwährungspositionen. Auf dem Goldbestand resultierte derweil ein Bewertungsgewinn von 6,9 Milliarden, und der Erfolg auf den Frankenpositionen (mehrheitlich Negativzinsen) belief sich auf rund 2 Milliarden Franken.

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The Real Trade Dilemma

2020-01-09

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2020-01-09

US Imports of Goods, NSA 2016-2019
When I write that there are no winners around the world, what I mean is more comprehensive than just the trade wars. On that one narrow account, of course there are winners and losers. The Chinese are big losers, as the Census Bureau numbers plainly show (as well as China’s own). But even the winners of the trade wars find themselves wondering where all the spoils are.

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FX Daily, January 8: Hopes of De-Escalation Help Markets Stabilize

2020-01-08

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2020-01-08

The Iranian retaliatory missile strike on Iraqi-bases housing US forces initially sparked a dramatic risk-off response throughout the capital markets. The muted response by the US coupled with signals from Tehran that it had "concluded" its proportionate measures saw the markets retrace the initial reaction. It was too late for equities in the Asia Pacific region, and several markets (Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand) fell more than 1%.

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Swiss rents fall but property prices increase in 2019

2020-01-08

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2020-01-08

Rents in Switzerland fell by an average of 0.5% last year but some regions bucked the trend. Last year was a good one for tenants, according to the Swiss Real Estate Offer Indexexternal link, which was published on Tuesday. December alone saw rents dropping 0.4% on average. The most significant drops were in central Switzerland (-1.7%), the Lake Geneva region (-1.1%) and northwestern Switzerland (-0.9%).

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More Trends That Ended 2019 The Wrong Way

2020-01-08

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2020-01-08

US Trade, SA 2016-2019
Auto sales in 2019 ended on a skid. Still, the year as a whole wasn’t nearly as bad as many had feared. Last year got off on the wrong foot in the aftermath of 2018’s landmine, with auto sales like consumer spending down pretty sharply to begin it. Spending did rebound in mid-year if only somewhat, enough, though, to add a little more to the worst-is-behind-us narrative which finished off 2019.

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The S&P’s Biggest Bear Capitulates

2020-01-08

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2020-01-08

First it was Dennis Gartman shutting down his newsletter after more than three decades, lamenting a market that no longer made any sense (a lament shared by Deutsche Bank's Aleksanda Kocic), and now the market's QE4-driven meltup has forced Wall Street's biggest sellside bear to capitulate on his November call that the market will drop in 2020; instead UBS' head of US equity strategy, Francois Trahan, has joined the bullish herd hiking his year-end...

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Gold’s New Bull Market and Why $7,000 Per Ounce Is “Logical” (Part I)

2020-01-08

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2020-01-08

◆ Gold could rise to more than $7,000 an ounce according to respected MoneyWeek contributor and fund manager Charlie Morris (Part I today and Part II tomorrow). A year ago, in my occasional free newsletter, Atlas Pulse, I upgraded gold – which was trading at $1,239 an ounce at that point – to “bull market” status for the first time since 2012.

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FX Daily, January 7: Geopolitical Angst Eases, Helps Equities and Underpins the Greenback

2020-01-07

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2020-01-07

Overview: Without fresh escalation, investors cannot maintain a heightened sense of geopolitical anxiety.  The recovery of US shares yesterday set the tone for today's rebound in Asia and Europe. All the equity markets in the Asia Pacific region rallied today, led by a 1.6% rally in Japan and a nearly 1.4% advance in Australia, with the exception of Taiwan.

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Swiss Consumer Price Index in December 2019: +0.2 percent YoY, +0.4 percent MoM

2020-01-07

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2020-01-07

Switzerland Consumer Price Index (CPI) YoY, December 2019
07.01.2020 - The consumer price index (CPI) remained stable in December 2019 compared with the previous month, remaining at 101.7 points (December 2015 = 100). Inflation was +0.2% compared with the same month of the previous year. The average annual inflation reached +0.4% in 2019.These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

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Hoher Gewinn der SNB weckt Begehrlichkeiten

2020-01-07

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2020-01-07

Am nächsten Donnerstag publiziert die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB) ihr Finanzergebnis für das Jahr 2019. Sie dürfte gemäss den Berechnungen der UBS für das Gesamtjahr einen Gewinn von rund CHF 50 Mrd. erzielt haben, im Schlussquartal resultierte hingegen ein Verlust von rund CHF 1 Mrd. Bund und Kantone können mit einer Auszahlung von CHF 2 Mrd. rechnen.

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Manufacturing Clears Up Bond Yields

2020-01-07

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2020-01-07

Federal Reserve Regional Manu. PMI, 2016-2019
Yesterday, IHS Markit reported that the manufacturing turnaround its data has been suggesting stalled. After its flash manufacturing PMI had fallen below 50 several times during last summer (only to be revised to slightly above 50 every time the complete survey results were tabulated), beginning in September 2019 the index staged a rebound jumping first to 51.1 in that month.

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Gold Surges To Test $1,600/oz, Oil Over $70, Stocks Fall on Risks of World War In Middle East

2020-01-07

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2020-01-07

Hot Havens, 2013-2019
◆ Gold has surged to test $1,600 per ounce, up 4% so far in 2020 and building on the stellar near 18.9% gain in 2019 ◆ Gold is testing it’s highest levels since 2013 as investors diversify into gold; Goldman, Citi and other gold analysts are advocating gold bullion as important hedge in crisis ◆ Oil prices have surged with Brent crude reaching $70 per barrel; concern over oil supplies from Iran, Iraq and other nations as U.S. State Department warns...

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Conservation in the Free Market

2020-01-07

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2020-01-07

It should be no news by this time that intellectuals are fully as subject to the vagaries of fashion as are the hemlines of women’s skirts. Apparently, intellectuals tend to be victims of a herd mentality. Thus, when John Kenneth Galbraith published his best-selling The Affluent Society in 1958, every intellectual and his brother was denouncing America as suffering from undue and excessive affluence; yet, only two or three years later, the fashion...

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FX Daily, January 6: Markets Struggling to Stabilize to Start the New Week

2020-01-06

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2020-01-06

Overview: The global capital markets have yet to stabilize amid heightened geopolitical tension. Even though the US stock market finished last week off its lows, the sell-off continued in the Asia Pacific region. Japan's markets re-opened after an extended holiday, and the yen, at three-month highs, saw the Nikkei sell-off nearly 2%. Several markets in the region lost over 1%, including Taiwan, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. Europe's Dow Jones...

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FX Weekly Preview: High-Frequency Data may Underscore Four Thematic Points

2020-01-06

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2020-01-06

Full liquidity returns to the markets gradually in the coming days, and the week ahead culminates with the US December employment report.  The highlights include the service and composite PMI readings,  and December eurozone and China's CPI.  The UK reports December PMIs,  November GDP, and industrial output figures.

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Swatch offers compromise in watch movements deadlock

2020-01-06

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2020-01-06

Switzerland’s largest watch maker, Swatch, says it will limit the number of movements it makes for the industry in a bid to end a long-running stand-off with the anti-trust regulator. At the end of last year, the Competition Commission (Comco) temporarily suspended deliveries of watch movements from Swatch’s ETA unit to big rivals from January 1, 2020.

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