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Swiss National Bank overwhelmed in desperate campaign to devalue franc

Section: Daily Dispatches

Switzerland Is 'New China' in Currencies

By Alice Ross
Financial Times, London
Tuesday, July 31, 2012

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d3176586-db29-11e1-be74-00144feab49a.html

There is a "new China" active in the currency markets, according to analysts, as Switzerland's battle to weaken the franc inflates its stockpile of foreign currency reserves.

The Swiss National Bank was forced to buy tens of billions of euros in May and June after the eurozone crisis worsened, creating strong haven demand for the franc and threatening the ceiling the central bank set for its currency last September. The SNB is prepared to buy as many euros as it takes to hold the franc at SFr1.20 against the euro to protect the country's exporters.

As a result, Switzerland's foreign currency reserves have leapt more than 40 per cent this year to SFr365 billion ($375 billion), propelling it to the sixth largest holder of foreign exchange in the world from ninth last year, behind China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Taiwan.

... Dispatch continues below ...



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Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization
at Blackdome in British Columbia -- 13.6g over 1.5 Meters

From a Company Press Release
November 22, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling.

"We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company."

Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered.

For the company's complete press release, please visit:

http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf



The proportion of euros held by the SNB also ballooned in the second quarter of the year, rising from 51 per cent to 60 per cent. Foreign currency analysts said the bank was buying SFr3 billion worth of euros a day to defend the Swiss franc, with serious knock-on effects for the global forex market.

"Switzerland is the new incipient China," said Steven Englander, Citigroup's head of foreign exchange strategy.

The SNB is believed to be partly responsible for recent moves in major currencies including the Australian dollar and the Swedish krona as it seeks to offload some of its euros.

But that has consequences for other central banks, whose own currencies are rising in value as Switzerland sells its euros back to the market. The Swedish krona has hit a 12-year high against the euro in recent days, while the Australian dollar is at record highs against the single currency.

"Sweden will need to set monetary policy now with the SNB in mind," said Geoffrey Yu, foreign currency analyst at UBS.

Analysts also warned that SNB's half-year results, released on Tuesday, indicated that the central bank was struggling to rebalance its holdings as it appeared to be buying euros more quickly than it could exchange them for other currencies.

Figures showed a drop in the maturity of the SNB's bond holdings from four years to 2.8 years, which analysts said indicated that the bank was taking shorter-term positions because it did not know how long it would carry on accumulating euros at the current rate.

"The picture is one of a central bank that's not coping with how much money is coming in," said Kit Juckes, foreign currency analyst at Societe Generale.

The SNB declined to comment on its foreign exchange management strategy.

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Prophecy Platinum Announces Wellgreen Preliminary Economic Assessment:
38% Pre-Tax IRR, $3.0 Billion NPV, and a 37-Year Mine Life

Company Press Release

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) reports the results of an independent NI 43-101-compliant preliminary economic assessment for its fully owned Wellgreen nickel-copper-platinum group metals project in the Yukon Territory.

The independent assessment, prepared by Tetra Tech, evaluated a base case of an open-pit mine (with a mining rate of 111,500 tonnes per day), an on-site concentrator (with a milling rate of 32,000 tonnes per day), and an initial capital cost of $863 million. The project is expected to produce (in concentrate) 1.959 billion pounds of nickel, 2.058 billion pounds of copper, and 7.119 million ounces of platinum, palladium, and gold during a mine life of 37 years with an average strip ratio of 2.57.

The financial highlights of the preliminary economic assessment, shown in U.S. dollars, are as follows:

Payback period: 3.55 years
Initial capital investment: $863 million
IRR pre-tax (100% equity): 38 percent
NPV pre-tax (8% discount): $3 billion
Mine life: 37 years
Total mill feed: 405.3 million tonnes
Mill throughput: 32,000 tonnes per day

Prophecy Chairman John Lee says: "We are pleased with the preliminary economic assessment results. The numbers indicate that Wellgreen is one of most exciting mineral projects in the Yukon. The company is drilling to upgrade and expand the resource base. The infrastructure is excellent as the project is only 1,400 meters in altitude and 14 kilometers from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to the Haines deep seaport. Discussions are under way with support from local stakeholders regarding permitting and logistics."

For the complete press release, please visit:

http://prophecyplat.com/news_2012_june18_prophecy_platinum_announces_res...