SGM-FX insights

German bottom?   Germany narrowly avoided recession thanks to data last week that showed third quarter growth at 0.1%. Congratulations are in order then; the driver of Eurozone growth and manufacturing export champion is back up and running! Hold on, perhaps we should wait a moment before putting the Riesling on ice.    If you […]

Breakfast @Tiffany’s?   Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) announced the acquisition of Tiffany for $16.2 Billion at about the time that you are reading this. This will complement the A to Z of brands that LVMH already own that includes Acqua di Parma, Berluti, Bulgari, Celine, Christian Dior, Dom Pérignon, Fendi, Krug and alphabetically all […]

Global Economic Growth   Always useful at this time of year for export led businesses to look beyond forecasted growth rates for one’s own country or region. For those finalising their budgets for 2020 and 2021 global economic growth is forecast to be 2.9% for both years before clawing its way back to 3% in […]

Get Real   Apart from yet another BRLliant equivocation for a title, pause for applause, it’s apparent that the foreign exchange market is getting worried about equilibrium price action affording a seller of 1 US Dollars 4.2 Brazilian Real. With widespread pension reform hailed to take place in 2019, the market entered 2019 with high […]

  For those of a delicate disposition: look away now!   The Daily Telegraph has polled a representative group of U.K. 16-24 year olds and has discovered: 28% have never heard of Stalin 50% have never heard of Lenin and 70% have never heard of Mao Tse Tung. With a General Election 22 days away […]

2 vs 3   The Pound this morning sits at 2 week highs versus the US Dollar and shows signs of returning to the 1.30 ceiling which it has established for itself lately. However, with little more than three weeks left until the General Election in the UK, the Pound will be vulnerable to political […]

Limewood Hotel, New Forest   News of the theft of 82 bottles of wine worth GBP67,000 last week. Presumably the insurance company will fork out for the replacement cost of these bottles at an average GBP 817 cost per bottle. Incidentally at a normal restaurant mark up of 3 times that equates to GBP 201,000 […]

Markets   Today’s close of business marks the half way mark for November and a plethora of news including the Fed Chairman stating that he does not expect a major setback in equity markets is giving all markets encouragement on the economic front. From a political perspective however it is a different story with markets […]

INR   They say that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. Whilst far too gloomy for my bright and sanguine eyes, just how certain are these two certainties? In the case of India and particularly taxation, the predictability of these words, attributed to Founding Father of the United States Benjamin Franklin, are […]

UK: The Employment Picture   32.75 million in work, vacancies at a low of 800K, unemployment down by 23K to 1.31M. The statistic most closely watched by SMEs in this very positive employment picture is that of average earnings which slowed in October to an annual rise of 3.6% down from 3.8%. Nervous at the […]

Piss up in a Parliament   Having sat in countless lectures by the people who quite literally wrote the book on tactical voting and collective action, I can assure you that academia doesn’t have the answers to voting outcomes especially under circumstances of manipulated voting. It’s not failings on their part, rather it’s the entropic […]

Thirty Years Ago: The Fall of the Berlin Wall   Since that seismic event in Europe and the ensuing wave of globalization that the world has experienced, it is interesting to see which economies have benefitted most: the answer is of course the USA, Brazil, Russia, India and China. In Europe the biggest winner has […]