"It's Carnage" - Swiss Franc Soars Most Ever After SNB Abandons EURCHF Floor; Macro Hedge Funds Crushed
"As if millions of macro hedge funds suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced"Over two decades ago, George Soros took on the Bank of England, and won. Just before lunch local time, the Swiss National Bank took on virtually every single macro hedge fund, the vast majority of which were short the Swiss Franc and crushed them, when it announced, first, that it would go further into NIRP, pushing its interest rate on deposit balances even more negative from -0.25% to -0.75%, a move which in itself would have been unprecedented and, second, announcing that the 1.20 EURCHF floor it had instituted in September 2011, the day gold hit its all time nominal high, was no more.
What happened next was truly shock and awe as algo after algo saw their EURCHF 1.1999 stops hit, and moments thereafter the EURCHF pair crashed to less then 0.75, margining out virtually every single long EURCHF position, before finally rebounding to a level just above 1.00, which is where it was trading just before the SNB instituted the currency floor over three years ago.
Visually:
The SNB press release:
The resultant move across all currency pairs has seen the EUR and USD sliding, the USDJPY crashing, and US futures tumbling even as European stocks plunged only to kneejerk higher as markets are in clear turmoil and nobody knows just what is going on right now.Swiss National Bank discontinues minimum exchange rate and lowers interest rate to –0.75%
Target range moved further into negative territory
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is discontinuing the minimum exchange rate of CHF 1.20 per euro. At the same time, it is lowering the interest rate on sight deposit account balances that exceed a given exemption threshold by 0.5 percentage points, to ?0.75%. It is moving the target range for the three-month Libor further into negative territory, to between –1.25% and -0.25%, from the current range of between -0.75% and 0.25%.
The minimum exchange rate was introduced during a period of exceptional overvaluation of the Swiss franc and an extremely high level of uncertainty on the financial markets. This exceptional and temporary measure protected the Swiss economy from serious harm. While the Swiss franc is still high, the overvaluation has decreased as a whole since the introduction of the minimum exchange rate. The economy was able to take advantage of this phase to adjust to the new situation.
Recently, divergences between the monetary policies of the major currency areas have increased significantly – a trend that is likely to become even more pronounced. The euro has depreciated considerably against the US dollar and this, in turn, has caused the Swiss franc to weaken against the US dollar. In these circumstances, the SNB concluded that enforcing and maintaining the minimum exchange rate for the Swiss franc against the euro is no longer justified.
The SNB is lowering interest rates significantly to ensure that the discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate does not lead to an inappropriate tightening of monetary conditions. The SNB will continue to take account of the exchange rate situation in formulating its monetary policy in future. If necessary, it will therefore remain active in the foreign exchange market to influence monetary conditions.
In other asset classes, Treasury yields, understandably plunged across the entire world, and the entire Swiss bond curve lest of the 10 Year is now negative, with the On The Run itself threatening to go negative soon as can be seen on the table below:
Crude and other commodities, except gold, are also tumbling, as are most risk assets over concerns what today's epic margin call will mean when the closing bell arrives.
An immediate, and amusing, soundbite came from the CEO of Swatch Nick Hayek who said that "words fail me" at the SNB action: "Today's SNB action is a tsunami for the export industry and for tourism, and finally for the entire country." More from Reuters:
Continue Reading at Zerohedge HERE
Further Notes on the Swiss action that has sent the markets into a full fledged freak fit:
Switzerland Ambushes the Global Economy
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-15/switzerland-ambushes-the-global-economy
Swiss mess could make oil plunge seem like minor hiccup
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/another-day-another-plunging-asset-2015-01-15
Swiss National Bank Shocks the World
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-15/central-banks-show-power-to-shock-as-2015-policy-splits-exposed.html
Sleepy Switzerland jolts currency markets
http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/15/investing/switzerland-euro-currency-ceiling/index.html?iid=Lead
FRANCOGEDDON: SWITZERLAND’S SMI INDEX -13%. Major losses in EURCHF trades are causing panic selling and deleveraging across the board!
http://investmentwatchblog.com/swiss-market-7-21-snb-what-have-you-done/
