BASEL: Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) slightly upgraded Switzerland’s economic growth forecast for 2016 as uncertainties created by the Brexit vote is not expected to have a significant negative impact on the nation’s economic recovery. It now expects the Swiss economy to expand by 1.5% in 2016, revised upward from 1.4% estimated earlier and by 1.8% in 2017. Meanwhile, the inflation forecasts for 2016 and 2017 were unchanged at -0.4% and 0.3% respectively.
In other economic news, Switzerland’s trade surplus expanded to a level of CHF3.0 billion in August, compared to a revised trade surplus of CHF2.8 billion in the prior month. Meanwhile, the nation’s exports declined by 2.1% on a monthly basis in August, against a revised gain of 5.0% in the previous month. Further, imports eased by 3.5% MoM in August, following a revised gain of 8.6% in the preceding month. In the Asian session, at GMT0300, the pair is trading at 0.9788, with the USD trading flat against the CHF from yesterday’s close.
The pair is expected to find support at 0.9761, and a fall through could take it to the next support level of 0.9733. The pair is expected to find its first resistance at 0.9813, and a rise through could take it to the next resistance level of 0.9837.
Moving ahead, investors look forward to the Swiss National Bank’s Q3 bulletin report, scheduled to release later today. The currency pair is showing convergence with its 20 Hr moving average and is trading below its 50 Hr moving average.
