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SNB’s monetary policy is scheduled for next week. We upgraded CHF forecasts, in the recent past, to reflect both more negative global conditions (EM stress) and more favorable domestic conditions (oya GDP growth has accelerated from 1% a year ago to 3.4% in 2Q’18).
The franc may have rather underwhelmed since we published those forecasts – the TWI has shed around 1.5%, so giving back one-third of the gains it made from mid-May to mid-September - but we are not inclined to reconsider the forecast this month as we attribute this correction to largely temporary factors (a ceasefire for EM, evidence of some smoothing intervention from the SNB, albeit very low-key if at all, and receding risks of a disruptive Brexit).
The forecast thus continues to envisage modest appreciation in the franc, a move in EURCHF to 1.12 over the coming one-two quarters, albeit we have downgraded the risk bias from bullish to bearish as we are more conscious of the potential for the yawning rate differential between USD and CHF to generate at least intermittent interest from short-term traders to sell CHF (as may have occurred over the past month).
The surprising context to the franc’s slippage over the past month is that it has occurred despite the ratcheting up of tensions in Italy. In the prior six months, EURCHF was more than -90% correlated to Italian credit risk. Over the past month, however, the correlation to the BTP spread has flipped to +70% (exhibit 1). Courtesy: JPM
Trade tips:
Stay short GBPCHF from 1.3051. Marked at 2.29%. Lower stop to 1.30.
Buy 6M GBPCHF - GBPUSD vol spread, equal-vega notional.
Furthermore, on hedging grounds, we advocate shorting EURCHF futures contracts of mid-month tenors as the underlying spot FX likely to target southwards 1.1150 levels in the near run. Courtesy: JPM
Currency Strength Index:FxWirePro's hourly EUR spot index has shown 102 (which is bullish), while hourly CHF spot index was at 76 (bullish), while articulating at 09:32 GMT. For more details on the index, please refer below weblink:
