Tag Archive: Switzerland

The Fairy Tale of Rising Competitiveness in the European Periphery

2012-12-17

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2012-12-17

Euro zone Labor Costs Q3 2012
In our post we look on two questions concerning competitiveness for the European periphery: When will local production be cheaper than imported products? Do people have the money to buy these local products? It does not help reducing labor costs if local production costs still more than imported products. The second aspect is: even if …

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4 Different Solutions for the Euro Crisis: Can it Be the Northern Euro? A Discussion

2012-12-15

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2012-12-15

The discussion about the future of the Euro: Among a Post-Keynesian, a European Etatist, an Austrian economist and an advocate of a Northern Euro on the French website www.atlantico.fr. The French paper is asking: “Sommet européen : créer un euro du Nord est-il le seul moyen de sauver l’Europe de l’austérité ?” Is the creation of …

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SNB Monetary Policy Assessment December 2012: (Nearly) Full Text

2012-12-14

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2012-12-14

snb monetary policy assessment december 2012 jordan danthine zurbrügg
  The SNB decided to maintain the floor at 1.20 and the Libor target between 0% and 0.25%. As we expected in our outlook on the assessment, there were still important downwards drivers of inflation after the strong appreciation of the franc. Therefore, the SNB has moved its inflation expectations downwards for 2013 to minus 0.1% …

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Switzerland, the Paradise of Insider Trading and Intransparency

2012-12-07

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2012-12-07

Insider Trading
Switzerland is well known as the country, where even central bankers were allowed to do insider trading. Instead the whistle blowers get problems with the courts. Some new cases of insider  trading include UBS, General Electric and Valiant, see the article on 

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How Currency Speculators Help the SNB to Fight against Ordinary Investors

2012-12-05

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2012-12-05

UBS Export-weighted exchange rate CHF
A discussion in the investor forum made clear how currency speculators currently help the SNB to maintain the floor against normal investors. A situation that was different in August/September 2011, when the SNB had to fight against these speculators.   A discussion in the investor forum Seeking Alpha: part one   Based on our analysis of …

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Credit Suisse and UBS Will Charge Negative Interests Above a Threshold

2012-12-03

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2012-12-03

Credit Suisse and UBS will charge negative interests for cash clearing clients above a threshold. Last year such was worth 150 bps, this year on 28 bps.  See the official news at FT Alphaville

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Gold, CHF, Brent Arbitrage Trading after Negative CS, UBS Interest Rates

2012-12-01

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2012-12-01

gold price usd/chf 1972 2012
  Credit Suisse and UBS will charge negative interests for cash clearing clients above a threshold. Last year such news was worth 250 bps, on December 3 only 28 bips. One remembers August 26, 2011, when UBS only spoke of negative interests and consequently EUR/CHF rose from 1.1420 to 1.1688. At the time FX traders …

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Global Purchasing Manager Indices, Update December 10

2012-11-12

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2012-11-12

Global PMIs December 3, 2012
  Manufacturing PMIs are considered to be the most leading and important economic indicators. Jim O’Neill, Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, believes the PMI numbers are among the most reliable economic indicators in the world.  BlackRock’s Russ Koesterich thinks it’s one of the most underrated indicators. Global Purchasing Manager Indices for the manufacturing industry   December 3, 2012 …

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Swiss and German Economic Indicators, Update November 1

2012-11-01

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2012-11-01

Swiss & German Economic Indicators, August 2012
Euro Crisis Has Affected Germany, Switzerland Still Immune    Most Recent Events The Swiss SVME PMI has risen from 43.9 to 46.1. This PMI  is dominated by machinery, metallurgical and electric equipment exporters organized in the Swissmem organization. As opposed to the chemical industry, they were not innovative enough to adapt to the stronger franc; but …

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Euro Crisis Has Affected Germany, Switzerland Still Immune

2012-10-26

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2012-10-26

Swiss & German Economic Indicators, August 2012
Swiss and German Economic Indicators, October 2012   Both Swiss and German economic indicators show continued signs of stability, but the German situation has become worse and might affect the Swiss. Especially low unemployment, rising real wages and strong trade balances are signs of robustness. Despite that, Germany’s industrial production is weaker than last year, …

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SNB Monetary Data Week of September 28

2012-10-01

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2012-10-01

snb -expansion
Seasonal effects, the good months for the SNB and the US economy, but weaker ones for emerging markets and Switzerland, have started Given that the seasonal effects between October to March have started, the SNB might be able to sell some currency reserves. Traditionally the United States and the USD dollar become stronger over the autumn months till …

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George Dorgan on Zerohedge



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Will the EUR/CHF fall like a stone? A perfect scalp ?

2012-09-17

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2012-09-17

eur/chf chart since Sep 11
Recently we have observed the upward movement of all euro pairs. They have marked more or less continuously higher highs and higher lows thanks to massive support from the central banks ECB, Fed and SNB (ignore Sunday 16th)         The first euro pair to finish this upwards trend is traditionally the EUR/CHF. … Continue...

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Are German Bunds finally heading for the big slide ?

2012-09-14

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2012-09-14

Swiss 10 yrs. Sept 14
Citibank judges that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) does not need a peg anymore. The EUR/CHF exchange rate would be now over 1.20 even if exposed to the free market. Yesterday we showed that the upward move in the EUR/CHF is just the behavior of some euphoric Forex traders. In the meantime we see a completely … Continue reading »

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The next SNB rumor: Wall Street Journal and our response

2012-09-12

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2012-09-12

GDP Switzerland vs. Eurozone
A bit breathlessly….     The next SNB rumor story comes from the so-well established Wall Street Journal, its columnist Nick Hastings. WSJ: The Swiss National Bank was bold before. And the central bank would be well advised to be just as bold again. When the SNB announced just over a year ago that it was setting a …

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Net Speculative Positions, FX Outlook, Global Stock Markets, Week September 10

2012-09-10

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2012-09-10

monopoly
  Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com Key policy makers are preparing new efforts to address the deterioration of financial and economic conditions.  This is seen reducing tail risks, which allowed the rally in risk assets to be extended, and undermined the dollar.  China is providing new fiscal support.  The ECB announced its new Outright Market …

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