The Swiss National Bank – a Central Bank or a Hedge Fund?

Abstract

The paper examines the investment activities of Swiss National Bank during last years and especially what is the nature of these activities, what is their scope, what are their financial grounds, what possible consequences could they lead to, and why are they so disconcerting for the financial world. The study finds that the Swiss National Bank operates as a quasi-government hedge fund following the global macro investment strategy. In fact the SNB is increasing the Swiss francs in circulation in order to make investments in foreign debt instrument and stocks. The study states that such kind of interventions from the leading central banks in the world in the pricing mechanism of global financial markets can reduce the scope of operations of portfolio managers and turn investing into a constant game of guesswork and tracking the behaviour of certain central banks or juggling with investment assets which actual value is unknown and immeasurable and more impornant - to lead to investment bubbles, financial and economic crises.

Keywords: Swiss National Bank, hedge funds, quantitative easing, global macro strategy

JEL Classification: G11, G29, E30, E58