Financial Highlights in Switzerland
Suva continues to take a closer look at Fraud suspected cases. In 2021, they looked at 2800 suspected cases in which 686 were already confirmed. With this amount of cases, they were able to save around 21 million francs. Since 2007, this operation was able to save them 215 million francs and the reasons most common are the abuse by insured companies and unjustified benefits that could be prevented.
On Monday morning, the Euro was quoted at 0.95825 francs, the lowest ever. Since the unexpected interest rate hike by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in mid-June, the euro has lost more than seven percent.
Much of the weakness of the euro is due to the strength of the US dollar. This is supported by the prospect of further rigid interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve in the coming months. Adding the Ukraine war, the impending energy crisis and the very likely recession in the eurozone, all of this situations speak against the euro.
And the lack of confidence in the European Central Bank (ECB) on how they are hesitantly fighting inflation too is not helping.
Financial Highlights in the World
USA: Sales of newly constructed homes fell by 12.6% in July from June, against the 2.5% expected fall. And were down 29.6% from a year ago.
Only 511,000 new homes were sold last month (vs est. 575 mil).
UK: The flash UK composite PMI, which tracks the private sector economy, fell to an 18-month low of 50.9, down from July’s 52.1, near to stagnation.
The drop in the headline index was largely driven by a faster decline in manufacturing output (index at 42.4), as services activity growth eased only slightly (52.5).
EUR: Fears of a Recession in the Eurozone deepens. Russia’s Gazprom annouced that it would halt the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, already operating at only 20 per cent of capacity, for three days of what it described as “routine” maintenance. That sent European gas price soaring, again, with benchmark prices – already in unprecedented territory – hitting record levels. The Europeans are scrambling to increase their gas reserves as winter looms and have almost reached their target levels of about 80 per cent of their storage capacity.
The eurozone inflation rate has crept up to 8.9 per cent and the latest spike in power prices will ensure that the rate continues to rise, intensifying pressure on the European Central Bank to increase European interest rates even as eurozone economies tip into recession.
Financial Highlights in Companies
Swiss Post: Made a profit of CHF 259 million in the first half of 2022. This is 12 million francs more than in the first six months of the previous year. The Operating profit (EBIT) rose by 55 million to 294 million. Sales increased by CHF 104 million to CHF 3460 million. Even though the parcels delivered decreased, their Growth comes from the Post Bus which recorded 20% more passengers.
The Raiffeisen Group: In the first half of 2022, made a net profit of 556 million francs, an increase of around 10 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. This was mainly due to the commission and services business, which grew strongly by 43.9 million francs to 299.9 million francs (an increase of around 17 percent) as well as the interest business. Their operating profit, grew only slightly by 1.4 percent to 623 million francs.
