Switzerland invested the most money in the European Union (“the EU”) in 2016. With €55 billion, it was ahead of the United States (“the US”), which invested some €54 billion in the EU.
Globally, EU foreign investments fell by 41% last year. They went from a total of €476 billion in 2015 to €280 billion in 2016. This is according to an initial estimate by the European statistical institute, Eurostat, published on Tuesday.
Research by think tank the Centre for London concludes that the looming EU exit could be a factor in reducing numbers of Europeans coming to the capital to work, a slowdown in job creation, declining business confidence and decelerating house price growth.
The report underlined an economic slowdown included deteriorating house prices and plummeting business confidence, coinciding with a drop in the numbers of Europeans registering to work.
Investors currently face great difficulty in trying to limit risk while desperately searching for higher yields. ZIRP and NIRP have made bonds uninteresting even as central banks continue buying up what is available on the market with the result that yields are kept artificially low. Central bank acquisitions on the stock market have pushed equity prices so high that new records have been set. David Stockman is correct in asserting that price discovery has been eliminated.
The Swiss National Bank’s foreign-exchange reserves, accumulated on a massive scale since 2012, dipped slightly last month to 693.5 billion Swiss francs ($721 billion), the SNB said Friday. The figures suggest the central bank has pulled back on its currency intervention efforts.
It was the second successive month, despite the central bank’s continued complaints about the effects of an “overvalued” franc.
Switzerland’s unemployment rate remained stable in June, data from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs showed Friday.
The jobless rate held steady at seasonally adjusted 3.2 percent in June, in line with expectations. The rate fell 4% year-on-year, 5’524 less than one year ago.
The Michael Page Swiss Job Index recorded an increase in advertised jobs of 1.2% between May to June 2017. During the period from March-June 2017 the number of advertised jobs grew 4.4%. The increase in advertised jobs was led by the Swiss plateau which showed a monthly increase of 3.1% in June.
According to Michael Page, the increase in the number of jobs posted was driven by the transportation, logistics and supply chain category, with year-on-year growth up to 33.6% and a monthly growth of 9.2%, depending on the position. The IT sector also continued its growth, with systems specialist positions posting an increase of 52.8% year-on-year and 6.6% between May and June 2017.
Bank of England staff have voted to hold their first strike in more than 50 years in a push for higher pay, a union said on Monday, adding to pressure for an end to tight controls on public sector wages in Britain.
Unite, Britain’s biggest union, said maintenance and security staff at the 323-year-old institution would strike for four days from July 31 after they were awarded a 1 percent pay rise: “Unite has informed the Bank of England that its members working in the maintenance, parlours and security departments will be taking four days of strike action on July 31, August 1, 2 and 3 2017,” it said in a statement. That period coincides with the bank’s next monetary policy meeting.
Central bankers do not know what they are doing. The reason for this is that they are experimenting with the global economy. There has never been a similar situation in history to the one now unfolding because interest rates have never been so low or even negative and never have central banks resorted to QE as they have done in the last decade. They do not know what is going to happen if they continue the policies followed hitherto or if they try to “normalize” markets by reducing their balances and raising interest rates to “normal” levels. Another novelty is the huge sovereign debt that has been amassed since 2008.
