For the first time in over 3 months the two sides reconvened yesterday for the oldest reason in the world: self-interest. Make no mistake these trade disagreements are costing real money to both sides: Huawei is hurting following the US banning American firms from using their technology; US agriculture is hurting due to Chinese import tariffs and lastly…both sides are hurting as the trade dispute is weighing on global confidence and growth. No better reason to find a way through all this for both sides: money.
Gold Silver ratio and the (very) long view
We last wrote about this three weeks ago when the gold to silver ratio was 92 times and we expressed doubt about how much higher it could go. It is now back to 86 times and the gold price is firm while good news for the silver bulls among you is that silver has risen a whole dollar to $16. Spare a thought for 70 year old Robert Vesmerais who has spent the last 22 years prospecting for silver and dreaming of a big strike as the sole inhabitant of a Californian ghost town named Cerro Gordo or Fat Hill in Spanish and he claims(no pun) to have found a wheelbarrow full of silver in that time. Frankly he would have been better off sticking to his previous career as a school teacher. Still there is at least no light pollution and plenty of tumbleweed.
No this is not what the young guns at sgm-fx go on on a Thursday night, it’s what PM Mateusz Morawiecki is doing about arresting the flight of Poland’s youth overseas: at a stroke he has announced the removal of the 18% income tax for anyone under 26 earning less than the Zloty equivalent of EUR 20K which is a decent incentive as the average wage in Poland is EUR 14K.
Ear Ear-WHAT? Silly Season Story
No this is not a tale about deafness. Trying to type this with a straight face- apparently tickling the ear with a small electric current can help the over 55s age more healthily and therefore more slowly. The vagus nerve is connected to the heart, lungs and gut which means that tickling it will improve body, sleep and mood according to a research team at the University of Leeds. The vagus nerve is also known as the wandering nerve because it is long and well connected and “it transmits information from the brain to organs around the body.”
We are trying to find one of these nerves for SGM-FX’s James on Amazon (they seem to have everything) as it will surely connect him to the rest of us! WHAT?!
Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

Evens That is the bookies’ betting on PM Starmer being gone by the end of June following the UK Council Elections, which were even worse than had been expected for the Government. Whether that does indeed happen, equity prices are set for greater volatility, gilt yields, and therefore interest rates will likely remain at their […]
Dire Straits A handy ready reckoner for the major straits of the world that see 70% of the global oil trade pass through them: Malacca, Bass, Singapore, Gibraltar, Magellan, Hormuz, Bering, and Bosphorus. It may not add much knowledge to those who have a good grasp of economic geography but it does serve to remind one following the […]
US Dollar The Maurits C. Boas Professor at Harvard University who is better known as the former IMF economist Ken Rogoff has broken cover about the USD: he is predicting that the Chinese Yuan will be a Reserve Currency within 5 years and the USD will decline between 15-20%, which would take EUR/USD to 1.40 predicated […]