Counting the cost of ‘Frankenshock’

Counting the cost of ‘Frankenshock’
Matthew Allen
Jan 14, 2016 - 11:00

One year ago – at exactly 10:29am on January 15 – a euro bought CHF1.20 worth of Swiss goods and services. At 10:30am, Switzerland’s central bank abruptly pulled the plug on its franc-euro exchange rate peg. Within minutes the same euro bought a mere 85 centimes.

For most of last year the franc-euro exchange rate stabilised to a band of around CHF1.05 to CHF1.08, but that still made Swiss goods at least 10% more expensive to euro buyers than they were before January 15 – not to mention the cost of visiting Switzerland for eurozone tourists.

A year on, companies and economists are totting up the economic and political cost of the Swiss National Bank’s...