SGM-FX insights

An upset in the minutes Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s January meeting were published yesterday evening. As you may tell from the market reaction, the contents of such minutes were far from in line with market consensus. If you cast your mind back to January 28th, the FOMC voted 10-2 to keep rates on hold. […]

Muscular EUR A group of the larger EU countries have come to the realisation that talking about EUR becoming a global currency needs to be translated into more concrete actions with an integrated EU capital market and increased EU borrowing as being the two key measures. This realisation has been amplified by the successive US […]

A bank holiday breather A US bank holiday yesterday meant that FX ranges have been relatively contained so far this week amidst lighter volumes. The Dollar itself has stalled in its latest attempt to claw back ground lost over the past few months as debasement fears grew. In addition to yesterday’s US bank holiday limiting […]

US Consumer Price Inflation With January CPI coming in at 0.2% and annual inflation at 2.4%, the Federal Reserve will not be feeling undue pressure to cut interest rates for the time being. With inflation expected to increase this year as tariffs feed through and the effects of a depreciating USD are felt, despite the […]

Alphabet Funding and funding AI development has never been easier. Alphabet parent of Google sought USD 20 billion this week by way of a bond issue to fund its AI push and the maturity was set at 100 years. Despite the size and the length of the maturity, the bond issue attracted a staggering USD […]

A belated jobs surprise Entering last week, the markets had expected January’s non-farm payrolls to be published on Friday. After disruptions to the frequency and quality of this statistic, published by the Bureau for Labor Statistics, yesterday’s data point had become all the more important. As last week progressed, it became apparent that the market […]

British Pound The sudden unanimity of support for the beleaguered PM and cessation of anti PM Starmer briefing by members of his cabinet can only mean one thing: PM Starmer threatened a John Major moment (back me or else) and said he would call a General Election unless they offered a unilateral show of support. […]

Quick to Retreat          A receding US Dollar once again yesterday was able to lift the outlook for FX. One significant outlier to that remained the Pound Sterling which, whilst still able to outperform an ailing Dollar, itself sunk lower. The main cause cited behind the underwhelming performance of GBP has been rising political risk. This […]

EU Household Income As envious eyes are cast from some in the UK towards the EU, it is worth noting that the EU average household income has increased by 7% between 2019 and 2024 i.e. since the pandemic. In case you are wondering, the UK has increased its household income by 9% over the same […]

UK Markets As widely expected, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee left interest rates unchanged. While of course closely watched by markets, the decision and subsequent Press Conference was overshadowed by the continuing political drama unfolding in nearby Westminster. With a 174-seat majority, it would have seemed unlikely or even inconceivable a few short […]

Bucking the trend The Aussie Dollar has broken out from recent ranges and is on a convincing upward trajectory. Post-Covid, the antipodean currencies, AUD and NZD, had found themselves a step ahead of the dominant global cycle shared between the likes of the UK, EU, and US economies. Over the past couple of years that […]

Gold and Silver Due to the vertiginous moves in both these precious metals all markets are more than usually fixated on the price action at present. Yesterday, both steadied and clawed back some of the recent losses with Gold rising almost 6% and Silver 10% to USD 4921, and USD 86.70 respectively at the time […]