SGM-FX insights

It’s okay, Truss me. On Wednesday next week Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver the UK Spring budget. We are in the final straight with significant speculation over the shape of the budget taking place. The Treasury and OBR will have scrutinised the latest forecasts and the final budget will soon be cast in stone. Despite […]

British Pound While UK business optimism is at a 2 year high, UK consumer confidence fell in February for the first time since October. However GBP had a better week last week and the Pound performed well.GBP/EUR 1.1715 Germany The word most associated with the German political establishment for many years has been consensus. Until […]

US Tariffs on Chinese Imports Recently we wrote about how Mexico has become the Number One trade partner for the USA. It now transpires that Mexico may have had what is known as a little assist with their numbers: the statistics for the number of 20 foot shipping containers for the first three Quarters of […]

Battle of the Minutes Overnight it was the minutes from the prior Fed meeting that were scrutinised. Immediately in its shadow will be the ECB’s minutes, due to be released early this afternoon. The Fed has been highly successful this month in dragging an over-zealous bond market back onto its track. The ECB by contrast […]

British Pound There really was something for everyone in Bank of England Governor Bailey’s comments yesterday. Firstly he said that the BoE was comfortable with the market’s view of the decline in UK interest rates -meaning one presumes both on extent and timing. Then he followed it up by saying that the UK labour market […]

The commodity trade A surprise overnight cut to a key policy rate at the Bank of China could shake up incumbent trends within commodities and commodity currencies. For context, given a recent depreciation in the Chinese Renminbi, any easing of policy was expected to be minimal during the February meeting. Whilst the central bank opted […]

34 Days That is the average time it takes between putting a UK home on the market and agreeing a sale. In London it takes 40 days which is the longest in the UK while at the other end of the time scale in Scotland the average is a mere 20 days. GBP/USD 1.2600. UK Retail […]

EU Commission Instead of November’s EU growth forecast of 1.2%, the EU Commission has revised back its prediction to 0.8% for the growth in the gross domestic product of the 20 countries. The 2025 year however will see growth of 1.5%. Back to 2024, it is difficult for the EU bloc to grow much when […]

The penny drops With UK GDP growth data released at 7am today, many commentators had looked ahead to today as a day of reckoning for the UK and its economy. With Q3 2023 already having published a negative growth rate, if contraction was confirmed in the UK for Q4 in this morning’s data then it […]

Germany With the German IFO or Business Climate Index down from 90.10 a year ago to its current level of 85.20, Germany’s business leaders are more realistic about the outlook for Europe’s largest economy than their political leaders. Chancellor Scholz wisely passed the speech making duties yesterday to one of his cohorts who managed with […]

Inflation today The most watched item on today’s agenda will undoubtedly be US CPI inflation. The statistic due for release this afternoon observes consumer price inflation for the month of January. It is a critical figure for two reasons. Firstly, the Fed has pushed back against market expectations for a rate cut as soon as […]

Gong Hei Fat Choy! As we exit the Year of the Rabbit to enter the Year of the Dragon this past weekend there were no less than 9 billion journeys made within the Peoples’ Republic of China as Chinese people caught up with friends and family to celebrate the Lunar New Year after the enforced […]