Situation

Shows the franc's purchasing power against the US dollar. A rapidly strengthening franc is typical of crisis phases (flight to safe havens): imports and purchases abroad get cheaper, exporters and tourism come under pressure. The dollar is also the invoicing currency for oil, gas, wheat and metals — a strong franc dampens imported price surges, a weak one amplifies them. For preparedness, the speed of the movement matters more than the level. (European Central Bank, own calculation; information, does not feed into the crisis score)

Own calculation: EUR/CHF ÷ EUR/USD. The European Central Bank publishes its reference rates exclusively per euro and keeps no US dollar/franc rate; we form it as a cross rate from two ECB series. Source of the input data: European Central Bank (fixing at 14:15 CET); the combination is ours. As a result the value deviates slightly from rates with a different fixing time — by about 0.2 % in the median against the noon rate of the US central bank. Deliberately kept as pure information: colourless, no contribution to the crisis score.

Information/situational overview, not investment advice.

Shows the franc's purchasing power against the euro. A rapidly strengthening franc is typical of crisis phases (flight to safe havens): imports and purchases abroad get cheaper, exporters and tourism come under pressure. The franc shock of 15 January 2015 is the yardstick for how fast that can happen — in a single morning. For preparedness, the speed of the movement matters more than the level. (European Central Bank; information, does not feed into the crisis score)

Daily euro reference rate of the European Central Bank (fixing at 14:15 CET), taken over unchanged — no calculation of our own. Source: European Central Bank. The series goes back to 1999. A reference rate is a snapshot value, not a tradable rate: your bank applies mark-ups and mark-downs. Deliberately kept as pure information — the card stays colourless and does not feed into the crisis score.

Information/situational overview, not investment advice.

Shows the franc's purchasing power against the Chinese yuan. China is the origin of a large share of our consumer goods, electronics and spare parts — including much of what sits in an emergency supply: torches, batteries, solar panels, radio sets. A weaker franc makes exactly those purchases more expensive, with months of delay via supply contracts. The direction over weeks matters more than the daily level. (European Central Bank, own calculation; information, does not feed into the crisis score)

Own calculation: EUR/CHF ÷ EUR/CNY. The European Central Bank publishes its reference rates exclusively per euro and keeps no yuan/franc rate; we form it as a cross rate from two ECB series. Source of the input data: European Central Bank (fixing at 14:15 CET); the combination is ours. Deliberately kept as pure information: colourless, no contribution to the crisis score.

Information/situational overview, not investment advice.

Rising world market prices reach Swiss shelves damped and delayed — but they do reach them. More important than the price is what high values trigger elsewhere: in 2008 and 2011 price peaks were followed by export bans from several producing countries and by unrest; supply chains react faster than shop prices. A persistently high index is the moment to top up your emergency supply while choice and price are still normal — not when the shelf is empty. (FAO, CC BY 4.0; information, does not feed into the crisis score)

The FAO Food Price Index measures world market prices of five food groups (meat, dairy, cereals, oils, sugar), weighted by export shares; index base 2014-2016 = 100, monthly, series from 1990. Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), used under the CC BY 4.0 licence. The index measures world market commodity prices in US dollars, not Swiss shop prices: border protection cushions strongly here (in 2022/23 food prices rose by 15.5 % in the euro area and by a good 5 % in Switzerland). That is why the card is deliberately colourless and does not contribute to the crisis score — it is an early indicator, not a price statement. The data lag by about a month. Since 07.08.2026 it replaces the previously used index of the International Monetary Fund; the two series are kept separate because of their different index bases.

Information/situational overview, not investment advice.

A low groundwater level does NOT mean the tap will run dry tomorrow — Switzerland has reserves, interconnected networks and lake water treatment plants, and even in the dry summers of 2018 and 2022 the restrictions remained local. As a daily reading the figure is therefore worthless: groundwater moves in weeks and months, not in hours. That is precisely where its value lies — it is a lead indicator. A dry winter shows up here long before it arrives in summer as a usage restriction, whereas our other water indicators (Rhine, Aare, flooding) only react within days. If the share climbs over months, that is the moment to check your own water supplies. How serious the overall situation is is stated by the official level on the "Drought" card — this figure only shows how unusual the state of the monitoring network currently is. (FOEN, NAQUA monitoring network)

The value is NOT a level in metres but the share of measuring stations at an unusually low level: the percentage of stations whose current groundwater level or spring discharge lies below the 10th percentile of the 1991–2020 reference period — each station measured against its own history, not against that of the others. Source National Groundwater Monitoring NAQUA (module QUANT) of the FOEN, around 75 stations, recalculated daily. We filter out the two river stations contained in the official dataset (that is surface water); stations without data count neither in the numerator nor in the denominator. Over the reference period the expected value is 10 % by construction. This card deliberately carries NO colour and does not enter the situation assessment: the figure measures statistical unusualness, not water scarcity — a station below its 10th percentile may still hold plenty of water, and in a dry summer very many stations are low at the same time. Colour thresholds of our own once stood here; on 5 August 2026 they showed 55 % and therefore red, while the FOEN reported "normal to low" conditions across Switzerland in its groundwater bulletin of the same day. How dangerous the situation is is therefore stated by the official level on the "Drought" card; here the percentage remains an honest piece of additional information. The series starts without history because the dataset only supplies the current state.

Information/situational overview, not investment advice.