Interested in negative yields ?

Yields are meant to repay the providers of capital for the risk of tying up their available liquidities into risky projects. The concept is related to the existence of time preference of money: a 1$ today is worth more than a 1$ tomorrow, because lending it entails lost consumption and investment opportunities and because that dollar is subject to inflation. Therefore the only theoretical way in which an interest would be zero, is if the perceived risk of the issuing entity is zero. If this is mesmerizing, than how would one explain the negative nominal yields on Swiss bonds ?

Swiss Franc: Will another peg bite the dust ?

When back in September of last year the EUR/CHF was heading towards the 1.1 level, many were expecting some sorts of monetary intervention, under the form of a showering of Swiss francs towards the commercial banks. Since the benchmark interest rate was already at the rock-bottom level 0 - 0.25%, and the minimum reserve requirements for short term debt are already at 2.5%, there was little leeway for "traditional" policy instruments. On the 6th of September the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced an unprecedented peg against the Euro at the 1.20 yardstick. Within minutes the EUR/CHF reached 1.2180, a spectacular 10% gain, after which it hovered around 1.218 - 1.245 depending on the minor jolts sent by the SNB.

What about the other perypheral EU countries: Hungary

With most of the investor focus nowadays on the PIIGS "fallen angels", and  on the forthcoming US presidential campaign, not much has been heard about some of the other EU countries: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria. Rumors in the market are that banks there are slowly withdrawing capital and scaling out of their less profitable businesses, but is there any cause of concern regarding their financial stability ? How did they surf the crisis wave and do they still require a safeguard ? Are they going to be left out of the core-Europe, in case such plan materializes or not ?

FOREX market, why u so mean ?

Trading on the Foreign exchange market has been a bumpy ride, and the highest possibility is that it will get even bumpier. Most of the currency pairs surprised investors some way or the other: the EUR/CHF Swiss Bank intervention, the EUR/USD sharp drop then rebound on  EFSF news, the USD/JPY fat finger and the expected Japanese easing, the USD/HUF breakout of its channel and imminent retest of channel resistance, etc. It's been a looong month.