Forex Critical: The “Safety Trade” Drives the Swiss Franc Near A 2-Year Milestone

While the volatility index (VIX) is only reluctantly responding to the latest turmoil in financial markets, other safety trades are moving in full steam. The “safety trade” I left out of my last post covering the stock market was the Swiss franc (FXF). At the time of writing the Swiss franc fell to a near … Read more

Swiss National Bank Speaks Frankly On Growing Downside Economic Risks

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) released its latest decision on monetary policy on Thursday, March 21. Apparently the warnings from the SNB were drowned out by the rallies in financial markets that day. The SNB dropped its growth forecast, its inflation forecast, and reiterated that economic risks are biased to the downside. I took particular … Read more

A Gold Bottom But Will the U.S. Dollar Cooperate?

Gold, and by extension the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), has had a rough year. However, based on a historic flip in speculative positioning in gold futures, a bottom is likely in for GLD. According to the tweet and chart below, the net speculative positioning in gold recently went net negative for the first time in … Read more

Betting the Swiss Franc’s Italian-Inspired Comeback Is Temporary

In mid-April I wrote expecting EUR/CHF to finally return to the old 1.20 currency floor set by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) years ago. Two days later, EUR/CHF did indeed hit 1.20….for all of a few hot minutes. For almost the past three weeks, EUR/CHF has plunged all over again as political turmoil in Italy … Read more

Forex Critical: The Swiss Franc Completes A Reversal A Long Time in the Making

It was utter chaos in January, 2015: the Swiss National Bank (SNB) capitulated on its self-made 1.20 floor against the euro on EUR/CHF. The bottom completely fell out the currency pair and caused ripple effects around the world of forex. I barely traded the Swiss franc since then specifically because of what I perceived as … Read more