Weekly Report 06/2026

Dollar falls to record low

US President Donald Trump sent the dollar into a tailspin and helped the Swiss franc soar in return. It climbed to its highest level in ten years. The dollar, on the other hand, fell to a record low of 0.76 francs: an 82% loss in value since 1970, more than 3.0% annually. The trigger was a remark Trump made to a journalist. “The dollar is doing great,” Trump said when asked if the dollar had fallen too much.

The distorted perception and surprisingly weak US consumer confidence triggered a wave of selling on Tuesday. Consumer confidence fell to a 12-year low. The dollar recovered slightly following the nomination of Kevin Warsh. It is now only 2.5% lower than at the beginning of the year. Since Donald Trump took office, the dollar has lost more than 17%.

Last week, the US Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate steady in the range of 3.50% to 3.75%. Jerome Powell’s term as chairman will end in a few months, and his successor is one of his harshest critics. The Fed’s problem is that it relies on outdated economic models and uses them to make poor economic and inflation forecasts. However, political uncertainty in the US has also increased due to constantly changing tariffs. These are interpreted unclearly by the Fed, which is another reason why companies and private households continue to worry about persistently high inflation.

In our portfolio, the results from the pharmaceutical and diagnostics group Roche were encouraging. Core earnings (+11%) rose solidly. Pharmaceutical supplier Lonza is also doing well. Sales growth (+21.7%) was strong, as was the higher margin.

Givaudan also reported good annual figures, achieving free cash flow of 14.1% of sales. In 2022, this figure was 6.7%. Swisscom shares (+10% since the beginning of the year) provided an upswing, climbing to a 25-year high. The telecommunications group announced its most extensive price increase in many years.

However, this did not prevent the Swiss Market Index from falling. Heavily influenced by Nestlé (-6%) and weak insurance stocks (profit-taking), it was 0.6% lower at the end of the month than at the beginning of the year, below the global stock index (+0.2% in CHF).

Incidentally, ABB’s order books performed excellently, which is why its shares are at the top of the SMI (+13% since the beginning of the year). This also led to positive sentiment towards other companies heavily involved in the construction of data centers, including Siemens (+7%) and Belimo (+8%). In contrast, Europe’s largest software group, SAP (-18%), was punished. After growth of 29% (2024), the cloud business grew by “only” 26% (2025) – with rising market shares. We therefore consider the reaction on the capital markets to be exaggerated.