Switzerland

I am sure you have seen the catastrophic financial results of Swiss bank UBS released this week. I have been saying for quite some time that UBS is too big to fail, but also too big to bail for tiny Switzerland. In my view, the recent…

First Spain, now Switzerland: Consumer prices in March were down 0.4% from a year ago, the Federal Statistics Office said, a 50-year low. The country has been close to deflation all year, with inflation having fallen from a peak of 3.1%…

This comes from Swiss daily Le Temps (my translation): Credit Suisse will request the creation of additional conditional capital of 3.98 million at the General Meeting of April 24. The operation is to guarantee to the bank the "strategic…

Apparently, the Swiss franc is too high -- or so says the Swiss central bank. As a result, they are selling francs in the foreign exchange market to get the franc to come down. There has been a lot of speculation about the Swiss and their…

The following post is from John Mauldin, who is a Best-Selling author and recognized financial expert. He is also editor of the free Thoughts From the Frontline that goes to over 1 million readers each week. For more information on John…

FT Alphaville has a post up indicating that the UBS EMEA economics team is much more sanguine about prospects in Eastern Europe than many market participants. The most important part of the UBS contents reads as follows: We don’t normally…

In an interview with Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger, a well-known economist has warned that Switzerland risks bankruptcy, if the recent market turmoil centering on Eastern Europe is not contained quickly. At issue are loans made in Swiss Francs…

Below is my translation from an excerpt in the Swiss newspaper NZZ: In 2008, the lucrative business with loans to U.S. students came to an abrupt end. Today, UBS sits on paper that could still be worth $8.4 billion - or less. The collapse…

What are the Swiss doing selling dollars? I don't have an answer to this question. But, I thought I would posit it because a reader tipped me off to a development via the Blog Alea:

Zero percent interest rates mean a weak currency. The U.S. Dollar is getting hammered. See these charts from the last day and a half of trading. Even the British Pound is cleaning up!