Some people have the view that the more you pay for something the more status it gives you.
Like the Russian Mafia guys story where they boast they paid more for their gold chains than the other guy.

just exchanged 100 bucks american today at the bank,no charge.....nearly fell down whe received 87.50 in swiss..........

Last time I exchanged $ for CHF I got 122chf for $100 that was a winner

might not hit parity by the end of Q3, but maybe by the end of the year.

Based on my analysis the next strong support level is at 1.106 and that's as low as it will go in the short term.

Short article in Business week on this topic
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...ro-parity.html

One quote is "“The Swiss franc looks like it will go to par with the euro,” said John Taylor, founder of FX Concepts LLC in New York, the world’s largest currency hedge fund. "

i can easily see parity by the end of 2012 and potentially as soon as 2Q 2012 (or sooner) depending on events.

but there's so much uncertainty it's going to be hard to pin a date on parity, if indeed parity is even reached.

Care to share your analysis with us?

I wonder how long it is before the multinationals consider the fact that headoffices in Switzerland are simply too expensive and move out? Maybe the central bank should reflect on the damage a strong currency can do?

well, if you consider the millions/billions they save in tax, then the extra costs due to FX movements are probably lost in the rounding nobody moves to switzerland for a low cost jurisdiction...

There CHF profits & taxes will be lower, so some listed companies with foreign exposure may well leave as the share price falls due to lower profits-

it doesn't quite work like that. having a swiss tax structure doesn't necessarily mean having to have a swiss reporting currency or a CHF cost base that is significant compared to operations.

Well Swatch & Nestle do for a start, & the SMI over 12 months is -3.69% so the market does not follow what your saying, meanwile The DAX + 18.16, The NASDAQ +23.93 The Dow Jones + 19.02 which to me makes holding CHF & investing it look rather unattractive.

they are both swiss companies. not foreign companies with a swiss tax structure.

I wrote

"There CHF profits & taxes will be lower, so some listed companies with foreign exposure may well leave as the share price falls due to lower profits"

I am talking about Swiss companies with a Swiss tax Structure reporting in CHF, they may retain their CH domicile but report in another currency & be listed elsewhere. In the end a high CHF is bad news for CH companies & their investors as reported profits will be lower.

but then that makes no sense. changing the reporting currency doesn't change any fundamentals of the business. i guess if a CHF company reported in USD the results would look better, but what would be the point in that?

Companies are valued on a multiple of earnings, for the share price to rise the profits must grow. A fall in profits will result in a 'profit warning' & a collapse in share price.

The reproting currency should ideally be the currency that the company has the greatest exposure, so reducing risk for investors, if currencies are reasonably stable it does not matter, today it probably does.

Thanks for playing. Next!

I thought that it would take long time for the parity CHF=EUR, but the situation with the EU makes CHF stronger. Lets see how much money the swiss central bank prints to avoid the CHF=EUR parity

We're getting inside 'dangerously close' territory... Was trading closer to 1.03 earlier today.