Swiss franc vs US dollar
Two currencies, seen from the euro. The Swiss franc has appreciated against almost everything for half a century; the dollar has run wide cycles in both directions. But an exchange-rate curve tells only half the story: holding a currency also earns the interest it pays, and none of that is here.
Over the period both series share, Swiss franc comes out ahead at +1.7% a year.
| Asset | Total return | Annualised | Volatility | Largest drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swiss franc | +149.9% | +1.7% a year | 5.8% | −15.7% (March 1980) |
| US dollar | −52.2% | −1.3% a year | 10.3% | −66.3% (July 2008) |
Figures calculated on 26/10/2026 from monthly closing prices. Past performance is no guide to future performance.
What an exchange-rate curve does and does not measure
The two lines compare what a Swiss franc and a dollar are worth to someone who counts in euros. It is a price relationship between currencies, and nothing more.
Yet nobody holds currency under a mattress: an account in francs or dollars earns interest at the relevant central bank’s rate. And those rates have differed enormously — Switzerland ran zero and then negative rates for years, while the dollar paid far more. The ranking shown here can therefore reverse in a real account, where interest received is added to the currency move. The comparison tool knows nothing of it.
Half a century of appreciation, and one morning in January 2015
The series opens in the early 1970s, as the post-war system of fixed exchange rates comes apart and currencies begin to float. The Swiss franc comes out ahead for decades, carried by the country’s trade surplus, its political stability and its haven status — when a crisis breaks out somewhere, capital moves there.
That strength became a problem for Swiss industry, to the point that the central bank set a floor against the euro in 2011 and defended it by creating money. It abandoned the floor without warning on 15 January 2015: the franc jumped by tens of per cent within minutes, ruining brokers and individuals positioned against it. Few events illustrate so plainly that a peg held by an institution is not a guaranteed peg.
A note on the display: everything is converted into euros, including the years before 1999. Since the euro did not exist then, those values necessarily rest on a reconstruction from the currencies it replaced.
Frequently asked questions
Is a currency an investment?
Not in itself: it produces nothing. What a currency account earns comes from the interest rate paid, plus or minus the exchange-rate move. This page shows only the second term.
Why does the Swiss franc rise in crises?
Because capital looks for a stable currency, issued by a country with little debt, a trade surplus and predictable politics. That demand lifts its price at the very moment people are worried elsewhere.
What happened on 15 January 2015?
The Swiss central bank abandoned, without warning, the exchange-rate floor it had defended against the euro since 2011. The franc appreciated violently within minutes, a move of a scale very rarely seen in a major currency.