Tag Archive: newslettersent

Bombardier to downsize Swiss operations

2017-06-13

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2017-06-13

Canadian plane-maker Bombardier will cut about 650 jobs in Switzerland by the end of 2018, the largest Swiss trade union said on Thursday. The job cuts, which include almost 500 temporary postings, will come from Bombardier facilities in Villeneuve and Zurich, Unia announcedexternal link on its website. That would remove well more than half of the company’s employees in Switzerland.

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Forced Finally To A Binary Labor Interpretation

2017-06-13

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2017-06-13

U.S. Job Openings, December 2000 - June 2017
JOLTS figures for the month of April 2017, released today, highlight what is in the end likely to be a more positive outcome for them. It has very little to do with the economy itself, as what we are witnessing is the culmination of extreme positions that have been made and estimated going all the way back to 2014.

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Is the Central Bank’s Rigged Stock Market Ready to Crash on Schedule?

2017-06-12

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2017-06-12

We just saw a major rift open in the US stock market that we haven’t seen since the dot-com bust in 1999. While the Dow rose by almost half a percent to a new all-time high, the NASDAQ, because it is heavier tech stocks, plunged almost 2%.

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FX Daily, June 12: Ahead of Central Bank Meetings, Politics Dominates

2017-06-12

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2017-06-12

The US dollar is trading within its pre-weekend range against the major currencies as participants await the central bank meeting starting in the middle of the week. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan meet.

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Renewed debate over banking laws for expats

2017-06-12

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2017-06-12

New efforts are underway in parliament to ensure that the Swiss abroad can keep banking and other aspects of a financial life in Switzerland. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, an increasing number of Swiss citizens in other countries have been experiencing trouble keeping a bank account in Switzerland, especially if they reside in the United States.

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Weekly Speculative Positions (as of June 06): Speculators Trimmed Exposure Ahead of Super Thursday

2017-06-12

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2017-06-12

swiss franc june 12
The net short CHF position has fallen from 18.5 short to 16.5K contracts short (against USD). But the major movement was that speculators are net long the euro now and not the dollar any more. This implies that they are also long Euro against CHF. In the CFTC reporting week that covered the US employment data and the run-up to Super Thursday that featured an ECB meeting, former FBI Director Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence...

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FX Weekly Preview: Politics and Economics in the Week Ahead

2017-06-12

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2017-06-12

FOMC, BoE, and BOJ meet next week; only the Fed is expected to change policy. High frequency data may be less important than the central bank meetings and politics in the week ahead. UK political situation is far from resolved, and US drama continues, while several hot spots in the EMU are emerging.

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Emerging Markets: Preview of the Week Ahead

2017-06-12

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2017-06-12

EM FX was mixed last week but in general held up well in the aftermath of Super Thursday. The global backdrop seems relatively benign right now despite the FOMC meeting this week. We still think investors have to be picky. TRY, ZAR, and BRL at current levels seem too rich given the underlying risks in all three.

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FX Weekly Review, June 05 – June 10: Sterling Leads Dollar Recovery

2017-06-11

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2017-06-11

EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 10
The US Dollar has lost 4% against the franc since the beginning of May, while the euro is down only 1%. Most important events in this week were the ECB meeting and the UK elections. The inability of the Tory Party to secure a parliamentary majority spurred a sharp decline in sterling.

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Biking still faces uphill battle in Switzerland

2017-06-11

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2017-06-11

As the bicycle celebrates its 200th year, advocacy group Pro Velo Switzerland says there is still a lot of unfulfilled potential when it comes to Switzerland’s use of the two-wheeled mode of transport.On June 12, 1817, a German aristocrat named Karl Drais rode 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) on pedal-less wooden beam with two wheels of his own invention.

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Switzerland signs up to corporate tax dodging remedy

2017-06-11

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2017-06-11

Switzerland has officially agreed to a raft of measures to combat the tax avoidance tricks of multinational companies. More than 100 countries have pledged to tackle the so-called base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) shenanigans. Huge companies, such as Starbucks, Amazon and Fiat, have been publically taken to task by the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) over the way they distort their tax bills.

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The Three Headed Debt Monster That’s Going to Ravage the Economy

2017-06-11

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2017-06-11

Mass Infusions of New Credit. “The bank is something more than men, I tell you.  It’s the monster.  Men made it, but they can’t control it.” – John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. Something strange and somewhat senseless happened this week. On Tuesday, the price of gold jumped over $13 per ounce. This, in itself, is nothing too remarkable. However, at precisely the same time gold was jumping, the yield on the 10-Year Treasury note was slip sliding...

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Signs of Something, Just Not Wage Acceleration

2017-06-11

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2017-06-11

Average Weekly Earnings Production And Nonsupervisory, January 1990 - May 2017
I have been writing for many years that they really don’t know what they are doing. I only wish it was that simple. There has been developing another layer or dimension to that condition, a second derivative of stupid, whereby when faced with this now well-established fact the same people, experts and authorities all, they have no frame of reference to figure out what next to do. In other words, they really don’t know what to do when they realize...

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Necessity is the Mother of Invention – Retirees Desperate Reach for Yield

2017-06-10

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2017-06-10

Ben Bernanke’s creativity inspired a generation of economists and central bankers. QE, ZIRP and NIRP established a new class of economics that is mathematically sound but practically disastrous. Billions of dollars were transferred from savers to investors to boost the economy, but the wizards of quant forgot that something has to give. In this case, it was the formation of a pension crisis that threatens the golden years of millions of retirees...

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Few tenants take advantage of rent controls

2017-06-10

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2017-06-10

Anyone who rents a home in Switzerland (more than 60% of households) could qualify for a rent reduction after the Federal Housing Office reduced the reference rate on June 1. However, not everyone bothers to ask, and not all those who do get a positive response from landlords.

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Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2017-06-10

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2017-06-10

The Reserve Bank of India cut its inflation forecast for FY2017/18. South Korean President Moon suspended the installation of the remaining components of the THAAD missile shield. S&P cut Qatar one notch to AA-. Turkey looks likely to get caught up in yet another regional conflict. Brazil’s structural reform agenda has been delayed as President Temer remains on the ropes.

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In Gold We Trust, 2017

2017-06-10

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2017-06-10

August Gold, 2017
This year’s Incrementum In Gold We Trust report by our good friends Ronald Stoeferle and Mark Valek appears about one month earlier than usual (we already mentioned in our most recent gold update that it would become available soon). As always, the report is extremely comprehensive, discussing everything from fundamentals pertaining to gold, to technical analysis to statistical studies on the behavior of gold under different economic scenarios.

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The Anti-Perfect Jobs Condition

2017-06-10

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2017-06-10

Unemployment Rate, January 2013 - May 2017
The irony of the unemployment rate for the Federal Reserve is that the lower it gets now the bigger the problem it is for officials. It has been up to this year their sole source of economic comfort. Throughout 2015, the Establishment Survey improperly contributed much the same sympathy, but even it no longer resides on the plus side of the official ledger.

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Recession Watch Fall 2017

2017-06-10

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2017-06-10

National Debt
One Ear to the Ground, One Eye to the Future Treasury yields are attempting to say something. But what it is exactly is open to interpretation. What’s more, only the most curious care to ponder it. Like Southern California’s obligatory June Gloom, what Treasury yields may appear to be foreshadowing can be somewhat misleading.

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FX Daily, June 09: Sterling Shocked, Dollar Broadly Firmer

2017-06-09

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2017-06-09

What looked like a savvy move in late April has turned into a nightmare. Collectively, voters have denied the governing Conservative party a parliamentary majority. The uncertainty today does not lie yesterday with the known unknown, but with the shape of the next government and what it means for Brexit.

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