SGM-FX insights

Dutch Election What the Hard Right under Geert Wilders winning by the largest number of seats(37) means for Europe will become clear in the next months but for the Netherlands the composition of their new coalition government is expected to take a month and will likely comprise 4 or even 5 parties. This may or […]

British Pound Two days after the Autumn Budget Statement, the Pound is hanging in there and is looking firm. Why? Despite some attempts to talk it up on the grounds of the economy not in fact contracting, but merely marking time, the real reason is that while not being shouted from the rooftops, but definitely […]

Keep calm and (don’t) carry on Over the past few weeks many of you would have noticed the slowly turning tide within many emerging market currencies. Bucking the trend that has persisted for much of this year, strong demand for emerging market currencies is subsiding. This is because institutional and investor interest within such currencies […]

UK: We Will Cut Taxes This morning will demonstrate that it is worth listening carefully when politicians make promises. In this case it is the word “will”, because with the economic tank almost completely dry, while he is a recent convert to the idea of cutting taxes, Chancellor Hunt has limited scope to do anything […]

An interesting day for EURUSD Taken in isolation, many of the events scheduled for today might be thought insufficient to threaten EURUSD. However, together, the concoction of releases concerning the currencies on either side of this pair could make for interesting trading during today’s session. Foremost on the list will be the Fed minutes. As […]

UK Market With Chancellor Hunt set to deliver the Autumn Statement on Wednesday, the chat is about tax cuts. However that chat is reckoned to be just that rather than realistically of substance, given that Jeremy Hunt yesterday on BBC TV ruled out any measures likely to stoke the still glowing embers of inflation. More […]

USD Steadies After two volatile days USD held steady as traders having rushed into shorting the currency at the beginning of the week, have now turned en masse and are coming belatedly (in our view) to the conclusion that the Federal Reserve will in fact hold US interest rates at higher levels for longer. Better […]

What goes down.. That very old phrase: what goes up must come back down. To over analyse the phrase, it’s presented as an axiom that when something rises, its new level will necessarily mean it will come back down. I think the reason it’s ordered as such (up preceding down) is that from the day […]

US Inflation One puzzle for the markets is, if US inflation has been crushed by the Federal Reserve as is claimed, why then does the Fed stick to its tough talking hawkish rhetoric on inflation? The answer is that while US inflation was expected to be at 3.3% last night, core inflation is stuck stubbornly […]

Politics and GBP They say a week is a long time in politics. If we misinterpret this famous phrase, for the likes of Liz Truss and her increasingly forgotten Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng it was virtually an entire tenure in office. Perhaps this is all too fresh in the rear view mirror of Conservative Party politics […]

Germany In the past 20 years, Germany’s leaders have made two big bets: first depend on China for trade and second, depend on Russia for energy. Both look disastrous at the moment end of 2023. Although Germany is predicted to be a particularly poor performer economically in the next 12-24 months, together with its aging […]

UK GBP managed to improve yesterday in the wake of comments from the Bank of England Governor and also the Chief Economist who both gave the clear message that it was too early to talk about cuts. The reason for the faint praise for GBP from us is that once the market absorbs the implications (inflation […]