That’s what the market thinks anyway, and yours truly is feeling like a dope for not checking out some long term charts before trading dollars for Francs last spring. Here they both are against the dollar via CurrencyShares ETFs (Euro in red, Franc in blue):

Click for larger view. Source: Yahoo! Finance

Here’s a 10-year shot (courtesy of Index Mundi. Ignore the spikes, must be a data feed error):

The market can barely tell them apart. From ’02 to ’07 the Euro dashed up about 50 US cents, but it only gained 20 Swiss cents, since the Franc was rallying too. Now that the European economy has turned and lower rates loom, a great reversal may be underway. But Switzerland never ran very hot, its real estate only appreciated by low single digit compound rates, and its bond rates have been puny for years, so there is no gap to be closed with the dollar. On the contrary, dollar rates have fallen to meet those of the Franc, so one would expect the scales to tip the other way.

So much for rewarding the prudent. Americans bring ruination on themselves but the ensuing deflation drives a powerful rally in their inherently worthless and ultimately doomed script. It will be very interesting to see how far this goes. Sentiment is still very anti-dollar, so we could easily get back to parity with the Euro in 2-5 years.

So here I have fallen victim to the rule that the market inflicts the maximum pain on the maximum number. In my haste to get out of a horribly flawed currency, I ran to the Franc on its reputation as the paper that has best held its value in the decades since the end of gold convertibility. I like the Swiss, and I still think they play the fiat game better than anyone, but currencies are all just slips of paper in the winds of public opinion, and public opinion doesn’t often follow the ‘fundamentals’ of financial analysis. It has its own natural patterns, which are not so easily formulated as interest rate differentials and purchasing power parity.