One of the indicators used to see if the SNB has been intervening in EUR/CHF are Sight deposits. In simple form it’s the amounts that banks hold at the SNB. To the week ending 21st Nov they increased by 5 bn francs to CHF320bn from CHF315bn and the most since July 2013.
It’s by no means 100% definitive and delving down into the numbers it it points to intervention of around 2.7bn.
George Dorgan at SNBCHF.com has a detailed article on the numbers if you want to get into the nitty gritty of it. And the latest numbers from the SNB are here.
We heard that the SNB were supposed to be on the bid at 1.2010 but there was never any official confirmation. As far as the SNB are concerned 1.20 is the official level they are defending, not anywhere else. The data may say different, if you believe it.
At the moment the market is leaning towards a favourable outcome in the Swiss gold vote (i.e a “No”) as the last two polls have seen the “Yes” vote way off the 50% pass mark. We’ll probably need to wait until full confirmation before we see any reaction in swiss pairs but it may be muted if the market is leaning that way anyway.
The big clue will be the reaction in EUR/CHF, although I’m not sure it will be as big as everyone is expecting and so better value may be found in other pairs. Probably a very big chunk of those who have been buying sub 1.21 will be looking to offload if we get back above 1.21 but that effect may not be so large in other pairs.
