SNB Sight Deposits w/e Aug 21st (CHF): Domestic 437.11bln (prev. 433.52bln), Total 462.66bln (prev. 458.75bln)

Weekly sight deposits are the market's standing proxy for SNB FX intervention, and the read here is a modest rise in both domestic and total balances, consistent with at most small-scale franc selling rather than an active intervention campaign. The distinction that has mattered historically is between drift and step-change: gradual weekly moves of this size have typically reflected routine factors such as liquidity operations, government balances and interest flows, while genuine intervention episodes have shown up as abrupt multi-billion jumps sustained over consecutive weeks. The domestic component is the cleaner tell, since it strips out other sight liabilities and tracks the cash the SNB creates to buy foreign currency. Context matters for interpretation: through the strong-franc periods the series was watched for intervention to weaken the franc, while in the inflation-fighting phase the SNB ran the balance in reverse, selling reserves to firm the franc, so direction of change only carries meaning against the prevailing policy stance. Follow-ons worth noting are the quarterly SNB FX reserve and intervention data, which confirm or contradict what the weekly proxy implies, and the pairing with EUR/CHF levels near thresholds that have historically drawn a response. As a print, this size of change sits within the range usually treated as noise.