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Various factors are responsible for the shift in the SNB’s FX stance, we believe:
1) Economic performance is satisfactory and inflation continues to normalize (the rate of CPI inflation has increased by 1.5% from 2015 low, putting it 0.4% above its 5Y average.
2) The SNB’s FX and gold reserves increased by 17% of GDP in 2016 to 114%. The SNB needs to be mindful of the fiscal risk inherent in a balance sheet of this size, especially considering potential investment losses from a trend to higher bond yields.
3) The Trump Administration is less accepting of FX manipulation. But what has US FX policy got to do with a small economy like Switzerland? The answer is that while small, Switzerland has a long and enduring history of FX intervention such that it is now the third largest holder of FX reserves (6% of global reserves for an economy which accounts for 0.9% of global GDP) and the fourth largest holder of UST (excluding offshore centres).
Most importantly also, Switzerland is one of only two countries that exceeds the threshold the US Treasury has set as prima facie evidence of currency manipulation -persistent, one-sided FX intervention exceeding 2% of GDP (Switzerland is at 10%, Taiwan 2.5%).
SNB intervention may be regarded as a legitimate expression of domestic monetary policy by some observers, but could equally be construed as manipulation by others. In view of this, it’s not an entirely fanciful suggestion that the SNB might be tapering intervention in order to the guard against the risk of being cited by the US Treasury as a currency manipulator.
