SNB posts 0.5 billion loss in first quarter
Keystone-SDA
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) suffered a loss of CHF0.5 billion in the first quarter, caused by positions in foreign currencies. These generated a loss of CHF8.2 billion ($10.45 billion), compared with a gain of CHF7.8 billion on gold stocks.
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Swiss franc positions generated a profit of CHF40 million, the SNB said on Thursday.
Economists at UBS had forecast a loss of CHF1 billion as the most likely scenario for the SNB in the first quarter.
The large loss on foreign currency positions was mainly attributable to interest-bearing securities and interest rate instruments, as well as equity securities and equity instruments, which recorded outflows of CHF5.3 billion and CHF6.3 billion respectively.
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Interest income amounted to CHF3.2 billion and dividend income to CHF0.6 billion. There was also an interest expense of CHF0.2 billion and foreign exchange losses of CHF0.2 billion.
The SNB’s gold holdings have not changed since the last update. On March 31, the price per kilo of gold was CHF118,400, compared with CHF110,919 three months earlier.
In its press release, the SNB points out that its financial performance depends mainly on developments on the gold, foreign exchange and capital markets. This is why large fluctuations are the rule. It is difficult to draw any conclusions from this for the current year’s results.
Translated from German by AI/jdp
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