Tag Archive: newsletter

The Covid-19 Dominoes Fall: The World Is Insolvent

2020-03-16

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2020-03-16

All Sectors, Debt Securities and Loans, 1960-2020
Subtract their immense debts and they have negative net worth, and therefore the market value of their stock is zero. To understand why the financial dominoes toppled by the Covid-19 pandemic lead to global insolvency, let's start with a household example. The point of this exercise is to distinguish between the market value of assets and net worth, which is what's left after debts are subtracted from the market value of assets.

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Swiss industry fears consequences of US travel ban

2020-03-16

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2020-03-16

A United States ban on travellers from Europe has been condemned as “incomprehensible” by leading Swiss manufacturing association, Swissmem. The Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce has also weighed in, saying firms would seriously suffer if borders remain closed for longer than a month.

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Coronavirus: Swiss hospitals have around 750 breathing ventilators

2020-03-16

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2020-03-16

One of the biggest challenges during the coronavirus outbreak will be ensuring there are enough qualified staff and equipment to keep the worst affected patients alive. Thierry Fumeaux, head of the Swiss Society of Intensive Medicine, told RTS there are 82 intensive care units (ICU) across Switzerland. These have a combined 850 places, of which 750 are equipped with breathing equipment. It is not clear how many of these places are currently available.

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EM Preview for the Week Ahead

2020-03-16

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2020-03-16

Market sentiment is likely to open this week on an upswing after the Fed’s emergency rate cut and expanded QE were announced Sunday afternoon local time.  Yet as we have seen time and again this past couple of weeks, added stimulus has had little lasting impact on markets as the virus numbers continue to worsen.  Europe is now reporting more daily cases than China did at its peak.  We remain negative on EM until the global growth outlook becomes...

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Coronavirus: an estimate of the real number of infections in Switzerland

2020-03-15

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2020-03-15

Today, according to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), there were 815 confirmed cases in Switzerland. There are obvious challenges to this figure. Possibly the most important is the time lag between infection and a confirmed case.

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Swiss lawyers seek to keep special ‘advisor’ status in the shadow economy

2020-03-15

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2020-03-15

The Swiss government faces resistance to efforts to tighten anti-money laundering rules that close loopholes for lawyers who act as “advisors” in setting up offshore financial structures. Anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth writes how the lawyer lobby in Switzerland is trying to maintain their special status at the expense of Switzerland’s attempts to improve its reputation as a laundering haven.

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Goodbye to All That: The Demise of Globalization and Imperial Pretensions

2020-03-15

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2020-03-15

The decline phase of the S-Curve is just beginning. Globalization and Imperial Pretensions have been decaying for years; now the tide has turned definitively against them. The Covid-19 pandemic didn't cause the demise of globalization and Imperial Pretensions; it merely pushed the rickety structures over the edge.

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Gold Hedging Stock Market Crash: Euro Stoxx -6 percent, FTSE -5.7 percent and DAX -5.6 percent

2020-03-15

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2020-03-15

Time of Crisis, 2019-2020
◆ Stock markets around the world are collapsing today as the financial and economic implications of the impact of the pandemic on already massively indebted companies and governments is realised.◆ Investors are liquidating en masse risk assets from equities to industrial commodities, while gold has held its ground.

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Modern Monetary Theory Is an Old Marxist Idea

2020-03-15

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2020-03-15

Modern monetary theory, or MMT, has been getting a lot of attention lately, often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough. However, there is absolutely nothing new about it. The very basis of the theory, the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and that therefore deficits don’t matter, actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist Michael Kalecki (1899–1970).

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Aktienmärkte erneut im Panikmodus

2020-03-14

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2020-03-14

Der SMI ist heute morgen teilweise über 6% abgesackt. (Bild: Shutterstock.com/Pavel Ignatov)Die Aktienmärkte erlebten heute erneut einen schwarzen Tag mit Rekordverlusten: Der SMI stürzte um -9,64% auf 8270 Punkte ab, der Euro STOXX 50 um sage und schreibe -12,4% und der DAX tauchte ebenfalls zweistellig um -12,24%. Der Dow Jones lag kurz nach 18 Uhr mit -9,3% ebenfalls im tiefroten Bereich.

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How will we judge multinationals when the epidemic is over?

2020-03-14

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2020-03-14

Our regular analysis of what the biggest global companies in Switzerland are up to. This week: responsible business in an epidemic, child labour on coffee farms, and Responsible Business debate. What has made multinational companies in Switzerland so successful is exactly what is making them particularly vulnerable in a global epidemic.

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Coronavirus: youngest death so far brings Swiss death toll to four

2020-03-14

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2020-03-14

The coronavirus has claimed its fourth victim in Switzerland. A 54 year old man died yesterday in Binningen hospital in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, according to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH).

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The CDC’s Budget Is Larger Now Than Under Obama

2020-03-14

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2020-03-14

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Operating Budget, 2016-2020
This is how the budget process in Washington begins. Step one: the president submits his budget to Congress. Step two: Congress puts the president's budget in a drawer somewhere and forgets about it. Step three: Congress passes a budget it likes instead.

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Dollar Firms, Equities Sink Ahead of ECB Decision as US Fails to Deliver

2020-03-14

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2020-03-14

President Trump spoke to the nation last night and did little to calm markets; reports suggest that the Democrats are working on a bill. Fed easing expectations are intensifying. The ECB decision will be out at 845 AM ET; over the past 17 ECB decision days, the euro has finished lower in 11 of them.

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Coronavirus: too late to close Swiss borders

2020-03-13

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2020-03-13

Switzerland’s government and health officials presented a coronavirus update yesterday. Key elements of the presentation are set out below. The full coronavirus press update can be viewed above in German.

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New trade barriers could hamper the supply of masks and medicines

2020-03-13

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2020-03-13

Mar 11th 2020IT IS BAD enough when individuals stockpile pasta and toilet paper. It is worse when governments put a protective ring around medical equipment. As the covid-19 pandemic leads to a rush for medical gear, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that supplies of respirators and medical masks will not keep up with demand, and soon global stocks of gowns and goggles will be insufficient too.

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What Happens When Central Banks Buy Stocks (ETFs)? Well, We Already Know

2020-03-13

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2020-03-13

Japan Machine Tool Orders, 2010-2020
Can we please dispense with all notions that monetary policy works? Specifically balance sheet expansion via any scale asset purchase programs. Nowhere has that been more apparent than Japan. Go back and reread all the promised benefits from BoJ’s Big Bang QQE that were confidently written in 2013. The biggest bazooka ever conceived has fallen short in every conceivable way.

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Why Medicare for All Would Require Huge Tax Increases

2020-03-13

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2020-03-13

Medicare for All is listed as the top priority of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. He describes it as a single-payer system that is “free at the point of service” as there will be no premiums, deductibles, copays, or surprise bills. It will cover more services (dental, hearing, vision, long-term care, substance abuse treatment, etc.) than what the present Medicare system covers. It will also stop the “pharmaceutical industry from...

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And Then Came the Lawsuits: Pandemic in a Litigious Society

2020-03-13

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2020-03-13

This is the upside of hyper-litigiousness: prevention is prioritized as the most effective means of limiting future liability. Never mind prevention or vaccines; the big question is "who can we sue after this blows over to rake in millions of dollars?" Yes, this is pathetic, tragic, perverse and evil, but that's reality in a hyper-litigious society like the U.S.

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FX Daily, March 12: Trump Dump as Market Turns to ECB

2020-03-12

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2020-03-12

Overview: After the Bank of England and the UK Treasury announced both monetary and fiscal support, the focus turns to the ECB, but the proximity of the US Congressional recess (next week) without strong fiscal measures being in place sucked the oxygen away from other issues. President Trump's national address in the Asian session failed to reassure investors.

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