It is written here and there that the Swiss Franc is used as a safe heaven in the last weeks and months and that the flight into this low-risk alternative, was the reason for its recent past outperformance (ie. rise versus other currencies) -- is this true or a fallacy: could it be a real safe heaven (ie. a less risky currency than other majors) and is this shift into the Franc causing its outperformance?

In short and maybe a bit surprising or counter-intiuitively, the answer to both questions is a clear and strong: NO!

To understand this we only have to see that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) holds approx 90% of its assets in foreign currencies (especially USD & EUR but also GBP & JPY) as it is massively intervening in the market to "lower" the CHF, ie. to bind it to the other major currencies. That means the SNB is emitting the sought-after CHF by buying for example EUR --