Our Daily Brief provides insights into the news and views driving today’s foreign currency exchange rates.
Decoupling Over the weekend (apparently), we learnt who the king and queen of Winter love island ‘19/‘20 would be. I can only tell you their names by googling it. So I won’t pretend to be a fountain of knowledge on the subject and allow you to make your own searches. One thing I can […]
The Furious One Hats off to Tyson Fury for his epic victory on Saturday night. Quite a record this 206cm 115 kilo fighter has: 31 fights, 30 wins, 21 KOs. Sgm-FX’s (almost as) tall body builder and keep fit enthusiast Euan was up into the small hours cheering him on! Blue Is […]
Airlines Unsurprisingly Qantas and Air France-KLM both issued announcements of their profitability taking a pounding (no pun) yesterday. Airline management would, in their own minds at least, be considered derelict in their duties, if they did not take the opportunity to blame a lack of profitability on Coronavirus. However, it is worth injecting some […]
Cushty There have been times since he took over the FED presidency from Janet Yellen that Jay Powell’s job looked unenviable. October last year, for example, when the chairman had to calm a liquidity drought using severe repo operations, must’ve been a particularly stressful time for Mr Powell. The minutes released from the FOMC’s […]
Prada Fashionistas keenly anticipating the Prada Resort Japan fashion show on 21 May are set for disappointment. While Japan remains a key market for Prada the Milan based company has postponed the show due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Watch out for news of concerns regarding the potential impact on the mega Japan event for […]
Continental chaos This morning I bring you a story from Europe that should show you just how vulnerable the financial world has become and therefore just how unstable it could prove to be during in the coming year. It comes in the form of fixed income products in Europe that, let’s not forget, have […]
Okayama and the Hadaka Matsuri This weekend saw the Annual Naked Festival or Hadaka Matsuri in Okayama, Japan’s Honshu Island when 10,000 male participants braved the cold weather clad only in loincloths- fundoshi and white socks-tabi. First they run around semi naked and then around 10pm on Saturday night priests threw bundles of twigs […]
U.K. Chancellor Quits Unexpectedly A headline like that would in former times have prompted a fall in GBP of at least a cent and definitely more at times of financial crisis. Yesterday of course GBP firmed sharply against EUR and USD in particular, which just reflects that Sajid Javid was considered damaged goods by […]
Eurovision Resistance, support, reversal and jargon. Is pretty much what you’ll receive if you try and research the Euro’s sell-off since December 2019. If you try and read a forecast about what is going to happen to the Euro from here you’ll find even more nonsense. Here’s the truth of the matter: The […]
Singapore Money Management In the wake of the Hong Kong demonstrations and the recent questions as to the HK authorities’ management of the Coronavirus outbreak, Singapore is making much of the fact that the number of applications for money management licenses in Singapore has increased from an annual average of 180 to 200 in […]
Oh that’s where I left it! It takes a big lens to capture a clear image of a piece of paper from tens of metres away. But in most of those circumstances what takes far more skill and consideration is the hand placement, angle and speed of travel to ensure the photographer achieves the […]
U.K.: Home of EVs? With PM Johnson setting out his stall for the U.K. to lead the world in manufacturing electric cars, it would look to be more of an aspirational vision than an actual one since the U.K. currently has a small fraction of the global EV market. However with decisive fiduciary action […]
US Election: Democrat Runners…28 down to 11… Ahead of the key date of Super Tuesday March 3 2020 when 16 states are up for grabs in the primaries, some of our readers have questioned how best to categorise the Democrat challengers, so we have distilled the now 11 runners- 8 men and 3 women […]