SGM-FX insights

What’s next for GBP? Those watching Sterling will not have been able to ignore its gravity-defying push higher yesterday. Cable (GBPUSD) experienced its biggest one day move since Q1 2026 amidst broad-based USD weakness and sudden GBP demand. It’s important to note that the backdrop of relative USD weakness this week is creating an environment […]

UK-Switzerland Luckily, Argentina put the kybosh on Switzerland’s World Cup hopes in the nick of time as otherwise it would have been a touch awkward for UK Business and Trade Minister Peter Kyle as he hastened to ink a trade deal with Switzerland to burnish his credentials with his new boss, Andy Burnham if the […]

Déjà vu Markets appear to be repeating themselves once again following the latest breakdown in relations between the US and Iran. It was the combination of the threat of supply constraints and a change of guard at the Fed that allowed the Dollar to surge in recent months. However, earlier this month it appeared as […]

Runners and Riders Unsurprisingly, this week will see the culmination of the frantic lobbying efforts of Labour Ministers and MP’s to capture the attention and approbation of incoming new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. There are of course the biggest prizes of all the great offices of state, but it is the next Chancellor of the […]

Sterling and UK Politics With former UK Armed Forces Minister Al Carns having got into line yesterday morning and backed Andy Burnham, rivals to his leadership bid dwindled to… zero. So barring AB changing his mind or falling ill as newly minted Barclays CEO Michael O’Neill memorably did in 1999 and consequently never to take […]

Back to square one? Unlikely. If anything, the market today finds itself set back just one step and prices are reflecting a significant composure. Speaking at the NATO summit in Turkey yesterday the US President appeared to call off a truce between Iran and the US. He wasn’t highly complementary about the nation’s leadership either. […]

UK Student Loans Given the tiggerish enthusiasm of the UK’s PM in waiting to tackle things in the too difficult to deal with tray, Andy Burnham should direct the great minds advising him towards the thorny subject of the UK’s Student Loans with outstandings currently of GBP 295 billion. Apart from the sheer size of that […]

Keep Calm and Carry Oz Commentators and speculators alike heralded the end of the US-Iran war as a great risk-on opportunity. We saw implied volatility fall and positioning build in favour of a risk-on period for markets. However, aside from those preparations for a tailwind to markets, no such boost ever materialised. Ultimately, with the […]

British Pound The end of last week saw Sterling up over 1% and analysts were declaring that the reason was that the reality of incoming PM Andy Burnham was not as bad as was feared and that he had pledged fiscal rectitude rather than worshipping at the foot of the magic money tree brand of […]

Sintra The Central Bankers’ fest hosted by the ECB in Sintra Portugal threw out some memorable soundbites as we have already written about this week, but as takeaways from the closing remarks, the Federal Reserve under new Chair Warsh announced that inflation was under control and the risks have reduced but that he/they would be […]

Change of fortune The Euro was one of the favourite FX picks amongst analysts at the start of the year. The debate that rears its head amongst policy makers every time EURUSD exceeds 1.20 was also underway: should the ECB be worried about currency strength in the Eurozone. The forecasts at the start of the […]

Back to Basics As we know, back to basics means different things to different people and most memorably for PM John Major it meant back to my place for Edwina Currie who for the benefit of younger readers was not his wife. In her keynote address to the world’s top Central Bankers in Sintra, Portugal […]