SGM-FX insights

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 […]

USD At EUR/USD 1.0760 the USD remains firm but doubtless in Japan lights are blinking faster on the risk dashboard of the Bank of Japan as USD is close to the psychological pain level of 150.USD/JPY 149.20. US Imports In 2023 imports of goods from China into the USA fell 20% to $427 billion. That […]

When and how For some time now there has been good cause for a bullish sentiment on EURGBP. Or, for those who prefer to analyse the inverse of the pair, GBPEUR consistently clocking in at or around the 1.17s seems steep. If we take a look at the options market, we see that Sterling in […]

China: the great leap forward On reports of the Chinese government’s president Xi arranging talks with the regulators and an imminent policy adjustment to offer relief to the beleaguered Chinese equity market, Chinese equities had their best session for 14 months yesterday.USD/CNY 7.1880. Australia Meanwhile the Reserve Bank of Australia held rates steady-no surprise- as […]

Make your mind up Sterling wasn’t excessively punished during last week’s monetary policy decision. Despite the majority of the Committee voting to keep rates on hold, including Governor Andrew Bailey, there were three dissenters. It’s not uncommon to have outlying votes even within the small Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. However, those […]

US Jobs Friday’s US jobs figures that showed an increase of 353,000 jobs which was almost exactly double what was expected has poured more than cold water on the argument for the first US rate cut happening next month. With wage inflation at 4.5%, the fear that the present level of interest rates is curbing […]

Bank of England To absolutely no-one’s surprise the Bank of England left rates as they were yesterday at 5.25% and Governor Bailey said they needed more data before cutting rates. Critics of the UK Monetary Policy setting unit will soon be accusing the Bank of being too slow to raise rates when inflation took off […]

Hat trick + 1 Yesterday’s was the fourth straight Federal Reserve meeting that has seen the FOMC hold rates at highly restrictive levels. Since the hiking cycle concluded last year, market attention has inevitably focussed upon how rates may be normalised from here. The job of the Fed has been to sustain health interest rate […]

Eurozone At the beginning of 2023 the ECB forecast was for the Eurozone to grow by 0.5%: hardly earth shaking but in the circumstances following the interest rate rises and the rocketing energy costs in 2022 and not at all to overlook the war in Ukraine, understandable. With no sense of schadenfreude -or the enjoyment […]

Stock check I know, I know. The new year celebrations are still so close in the rear-view mirror how could a whole month have possibly passed? Well, it almost has, and the passing of month end tomorrow will also bring with it new forces into the market. As far as seasonal effects are concerned, January […]

US Treasury Bonds With $34 trillion of debt the US Government has to run fast to keep up as it keeps increasing given the cost of re-financing the debt.  This week the US has auctioned $61 billion of 5 year debt and $ 60 billion of 2 year debt. In April the USA is looking […]