When Rémi Duchemin woke up one morning last month on a South Pacific island he had chosen for a two-day hideaway stopover during a busy intercontinental itinerary, he still did what he always does. He checked his e-mail and he checked the foreign exchange cross rates. What he saw was staggered and he checked again. The Swiss franc had rocketed in value courtesy of a move kept secret even from the boss of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.
