The Swiss National bank is entitled as the only one to issue the swiss franc into the market. That is what she did in recent past due to turbulent times in the financial markets. The weakness of the USD or EUR led to the consequence that billions of Swiss Francs where generated to keep a certain level of power of the Swiss Franc without getting too powerful. This newly issued money had to be invested, so it wouldn’t be just lying around somewhere. So SNB invested in any kind of markets there are. SNB currently holds more shares on the facebook title than Mark Zuckerberg does. But they don’t only hold fun titles such as facebook. They also bought shares of of companies that are a “lot less fun.” Military contractors for examples. Enterprise that build nuclear weapons for instance. Worth of this investment: 1.2 billion USD. (Remember: Switzerland is supposed to be neutral, aren’t they?)
But there is more: SNB invested a whopping 5 million into CoreCivic and now holds almost 200’000 shares of the company. CoreCivic is a private corrections and detention management enterprise in the US. (Still: Switzerland is supposed to be neutral.)
SNB told in an interview recently, that such investments “could not be avoided.” After what SNB is telling us, it is a law of nature to invest overseas.
By issueing Swiss Francs into the market and investing them on the international stock exchanges they drive share prices into new alltime highs. Even the price for their own title arose from 1300.- to CHF 3000.- within a new (Which is bitcoin-style actually)
In my opinion, the play of SNB is dangerous. By investing in doubtful titles, SNB became a massive speculant in the financial market and jeopardizing Switzerlands neutrality after all.