We show the two phases or "two innings" of Swiss franc appreciation: The risk aversion game and the inflation game. With the weakening of emerging markets and the strengthening of the United States in 2013/2014, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) had won the first battle in the war against financial market, the "risk aversion game", the first inning in two-part match. Risk aversion is lower because the United States recovered with weaker oil prices. The "inflation game" started earlier than we...
Read More »Eurocrisis, Myth and Reality, part 1: Big Job Creation in Spain
In the new series George Dorgan suggests that the euro crisis is a temporary development but not a long-lasting crisis. In the first part he shows that Spain actually created a lot of jobs in last twenty five years.
Read More »Purchasing Power Parity, REER: Is CHF Overvalued? (May 2015 update)
After the strong revaluation of the Swiss franc in recent years, some economists, like the ones at the Swiss National Bank (SNB), claim that the franc is overvalued. Many use misleading Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) measures like the Big Mac index, the OECD index or the PPP based on consumer prices for computing fair values. The second big mistake is to use the wrong base year and to assume, for example, that in 1999 the CHF was correctly valued. The third mistake is to ignore massive Swiss...
Read More »Carry Trade: Is the Swiss Capital Account Able to Neutralise the Persistent Current Account Surpluses?
FX Theory: The Trade Surplus and the Real Exchange Rate Mean Reversion
George Dorgan explains why currencies of countries with trade surpluses must appreciate over the long-term. Thanks to these surpluses, inflation and costs of companies rise more slowly than in other countries. In Forex a mean reversion does not exist, but only an inflation-adjusted reversion to the mean: a real exchange rate mean reversion or in short the "real mean reversion."
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