SGM-FX insights

Two cuts down The Federal Reserve cut the target Fed funds rate by 25-basis points again last night. This brings the benchmark range down to a 3.75-4% banding. This move had been widely expected, but that does not mean it did not have any market impact. As of market open today, the dollar continues to […]

UK Productivity The OBR or Office for Budget Responsibility has likely downgraded its forecast for UK Productivity by the time that you are reading this. Despite taking a leaf out of her boss’s PM playbook and jetting off on an overseas business trip when unwelcome economic news is in the offing, for Chancellor Reeves there […]

A glimmer of (European) hope The ECB has made significant progress in cutting rates towards an accommodative level. The Eurozone saw evidence of cooling inflation much sooner than many economies and has been able to respond accordingly, cutting the deposit rate to 2%. The ECB will meet again this Thursday to publish its latest monetary […]

UK Non Doms An excellent suggestion from the previous CEO of Rolls Royce, Sir John Rose in a letter that he had published in Saturday’s Financial Times: before it’s too late, offer a flat tax amount to non doms of GBP 500,000. At a stroke that would more than compensate for the disastrous treatment of […]

Autumn Statement Trailing some prospective budget measures ahead of the UK Budget is as old as well, the UK Budget. Chancellor Reeves would do well to look up the TB/GB(Tony Blair/Gordon Brown) playbook from 1997-2008 which was a masterclass in the dangle, the tease and the test. Chancellor Reeves a good 5 weeks ahead of her […]

Inflation’s peak? Yesterday’s publication of the latest UK inflation report will be welcomed by households and the government alike. The report released prior to the market open yesterday showed UK inflation to September remained stable month-on-month. That might not sound like a whole lot at face value, but it is in fact critical that headline […]

UK Government Borrowing Borrowing for September was reported yesterday by the Office of national Statistics or ONS to be GBP 20.2 billion, up by GBP 1.6 billion from the same month in 2024. What that means is that public spending exceeded tax income by that amount. That takes borrowing for the first 6 months of […]

A testing week Markets so far have largely endured the admonitions coming from significant figures within the world of finance. The Bank of England’s own Andrew Bailey’s warnings of the risks of a market crash were uncommon for an MPC chair and initially took markets aback. Shortly thereafter, prominent figures warned of a pre-Halloween fright […]

World’s wealthiest non USA person That title belongs of course to the suave 76 year old Frenchman Bernard Arnault whose LVMH shares have suffered of late on the back of France’s economic and political woes combined with POTUS’ tariffs that had walloped the outlook for French luxury goods in the US market. On Wednesday of […]

UK Growth To refresh your memories, UK Growth fell 0.1% in July and the hope or more accurately the expectation was that July was an aberration which would be rectified when the men with the clipboards reported on UK Growth for August. In the case of Chancellor Reeves, that expectation was rather more of a prayer […]

A rising tide lifts all boats As the Dollar continues to perform lacklustre oscillations, key pairs remain rangebound. The trend so far this week has been for a mildly weaker Dollar. Given that the Dollar is considered the primary counterparty for most currencies, this creates a rising tide effect across the rest of the market. […]

China and the USA What prompted POTUS to escalate the trade war last week? Before answering that, it is worth a refresh on the current state of play: US tariffs on China average 58% and China on the US 33%, and the next cliffhanger date is November 10, after which the current threat is for […]