Strategists at HSBC expect the Swiss franc to weaken to 1.20 francs per euro by the end of this year, returning for the first time to the officially-mandated ceiling on the currency which collapsed dramatically in January 2015.
Strategists David Bloom, Daragh Maher and Dominic Bunning argued the Swiss bank was still far from any sales of the huge stores of foreign securities it has built up intervening against the franc in the past decade. That should allow the franc to fall further, they said. "When the level is right and the SNB is convinced the Swiss private sector is willing to buy the assets the central bank wants to sell, then the SNB may start its normalisation," they said.