After the unexpectedly large interest rate cut, the newly appointed central bank governor Martin Schlegel confirms at a press conference that further interest rate cuts – down towards zero – and currency interventions may come.
Among analysts, the average forecast before the announcement was that the repo rate would be cut by 25 points, according to the news agency Bloomberg.
The unexpectedly large cut comes just hours before the European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to announce this year's final interest rate cut of 25 points.
The Swiss franc, which was at its highest rate in almost ten years in November, fell 0.6 percent to a rate of 0.93 per euro after the interest rate announcement.
The Zurich stock exchange also gets a small boost from the interest rate announcement.
Schlegel clearly signals that he is just as determined in the fight against too low inflation as his predecessor, says Karsten Junius, chief economist at Bank J Safra Sarasin in Zurich.
