SGM-FX insights

UK Statistics With wage growth at 4.8% higher year on year for the 3 months to the end of September and unemployment rising to 4.3% versus the expected 4.1% yesterday, the reasoning behind the thinly veiled warning from Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is that they were taking a measured approach to further interest […]

All green, bar debt A global market rally that was largely catalysed by US stock market outperformance following the US election has extended for a fifth consecutive day. The rising tide of global markets appears to be carrying the majority of asset classes, bar one: debt. Despite an initial unwinding of so-called ‘Trump trades’ immediately […]

Trump and Europe Even before a week has elapsed since Trump’s resounding victory, analysts are scrabbling to work out what it all means for Europe. Broadly for the major European economies the sanctions mooted by Trump in his election pitch will mean a fall in their individual 2025 GDPs of between 0.3 and 0.4% and […]

Bank of England As widely expected, the Monetary Policy committee did cut interest rates to 4.75% yesterday but it is worth watching the predicted path of inflation currently at 1.7% which will rise to 2.2% in the next 3 months and which is not slated to fall back to within the 2% target range again […]

Next on the docket Today the Federal Reserve will publish the outcome of its two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Moving into this decision and prior to the mandatory blackout period, employment and price data remained largely consistent with a ‘no landing’ scenario. The market had been keeping a close eye on employment data, wary […]

Great British Pound For buyers of USD and EUR versus GBP, the lead up to the results of the US Presidential Election have thrown up an opportunity given that USD has seen a weaker performance in the past two days. The likelihood is that there will be some swings in the next few days ahead of […]

Not just the flow US election day is upon us. As we have noted, whilst the polls open today and much of the US electorate cast their ballots, there are two key elements to keep in mind. Firstly, many millions of eligible voters have already cast their ballots in the weeks leading up to today. […]

US Election It would be distinctly odd on the eve of such a closely fought election not to comment on it, but it really is too close to call even though the Trump trade is cited as evidence that he is expected to win(at the time of writing). But what might markets expect once the […]

UK Budget Reverberations Last week we posed the question of what it would feel like for the new UK Chancellor post her maiden budget. Well now she (and we) have found out: social media is vitriolic as are farmers, small and medium sized businesses, long suffering private school fee paying parents, people sitting on capital […]

Unconvinced Markets had already experienced volatility yesterday ahead of Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ delivery of her budget to Parliament yesterday. A gradual but intense sell-off in GBP as the morning European session progressed could be written down to derisking and deleveraging GBP positions moving into the budget. In the days prior to yesterday, Speaker of […]

UK Budget Day Chancellor Reeves has already leaked/floated so many potential measures for her Budget later today interwoven with promises/denials as to what are the red lines which will not be included in her maiden Budget, that we are all suffering from an overload of (dis)information while hoping that much of It, will end up […]

JPY falls back The start of July saw the Japanese Yen appreciate from north of 160 Yen to the US Dollar down to a low of circa 140 in mid-September. The backdrop that had allowed the Yen to grind ever weaker appeared to be shifting in July. The prospect of monetary adjustment from decades of […]