SGM-FX insights

Europe With EU annual inflation coming in at 2.4% up from 2.2%, conventional wisdom might suggest that that might dampen the ECB’s enthusiasm for an early cut in EUR interest rates at the end of January. But such is the weakness pervading the EU economies, it is more likely that the hawkish tendencies at the […]

EURO At its weakest for 2 years against USD and reflecting a fall of 9% in 2024, EUR has a look of drifting down towards parity with USD and then below. The news on gas supplies from Russia being stopped by Ukraine, the likelihood of a more dovish ECB agenda on interest rates and the […]

UK Interest Rates Instructive that rate cuts of 100bps in short term UK interest rates in 2024 resulted in 10 Year Government Bond yields rising by exactly 100bps from 3.6% to 4.6% to the levels last seen after short lived PM Liz Truss’ ill-fated foray into the world of market economics with her September 2022 […]

2+1 ‘winners’ Happy New Year. As weather warnings fade in favour of New Year’s resolutions, the UK embarks upon its first trading day of 2025. Some markets remain closed today with notable value date exceptions from Switzerland, Japan and New Zealand. As we highlighted earlier in the week, 2024 was characterised by the typically asynchronous […]

Final Trading Day of 2024 With Christmas Eve now upon us, markets will be expecting a quieter day than they received four years ago. On this day in 2020, having locked down the UK and ‘cancelled Christmas’, Boris Johnson announced the completion of a post-Brexit trade deal with just a handful of days until the […]

If you are reading this, you might be contemplating doing some FX business in the Twixtmas period- SGM-FX is open 30+31 December and ready to help. Equities, British Pound, Gold and Oil Morgan Stanley sprinkled some less than sparkling seasonal cheer over the weekend on US equity price direction by saying that due to current […]

If you are reading this, you might be contemplating doing some FX business in the Twixtmas period- SGM-FX is open 27+30+31 December and ready to help. US Dollar As we approach 2025 it is still a USD story in currency markets with just 35bps of interest rate cuts in the USA pencilled in for the […]

Inter-Americas divide With Christmas Eve now upon us, markets will be expecting a quieter day than they received four years ago. On this day in 2020, having locked down the UK and ‘cancelled Christmas’, Boris Johnson announced the completion of a post-Brexit trade deal with just a handful of days until the end of the […]

Euro Markets are currently pricing in four 25bp rate cuts for 2025 in the EU from 3% to 2% but some analysts are now predicting that rates may go as low as 1.5%. What that means is that EUR will remain weak and allow buyers of EUR to lock in the best levels for years.  […]

British Pound With GBP if not all at sea but wallowing against the crashing waves of USD strength, it is a tale of two cities for beleaguered Brits: GBP/USD dipping below the previous floor of 1.2600 but versus EUR GBP still looking firm due to the apparent divergence between the Federal Reserve and the European […]

That’s going to leave a mark Overnight the Federal Reserve published its latest monetary policy decision. The relentless appreciation of the Dollar lately has been driven by the combined narratives of a soft landing, US economic exceptionalism, the forthcoming Trump presidency and the belief the Fed may have to moderate its easing cycle accordingly. The […]

Germany Gloomy Germans is not an entirely unknown phenomenon for those of us who have toiled in Finanzplatz Deutschland or the Financial Marketplace of Germany which primarily encompasses Frankfurt, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Hamburg. Unfortunately the ZEW German Research Institute are upholding that less than noble tradition in their Economic Sentiment Indicator report that was released […]