Our Daily Brief provides insights into the news and views driving today’s foreign currency exchange rates.
All or Nothing: Today we embark upon the first trading day of 2020 following a busy but ultimately unremarkable year for foreign exchange markets. Despite general elections, impeachment and monetary chaos clocks haven’t stopped ticking and markets have continued to function. One of the best performing currencies this year has been the newly crowned […]
Currency Markets Euro on the rise sending the USD lower and GBP higher as short positions were unwound ahead of year end which together with thin liquidity has exacerbated what would normally have been a smaller set of moves. China Demographics Ages: 0-14 yrs 17%; 15-24 yrs 12%; 25-54 yrs 48% […]
Yesterday in World Currency markets The Swedish Central Bank, the Rijsbank became the first Central Bank to raise rates…… to zero %.. after 5 years at minus. The Swedish Crown (SKR) dutifully rose marginally versus the USD. Norges Bank the Norwegian Central Bank kept its powder dry and kept rates on hold-so no change […]
US, Mexico, Canada trade pact News in last night that a deal has been done and it will be signed on Tuesday next week. Glossing over last week’s NATO spat, POTUS spoke to Canada’s Justin Trudeau and neatly just as the increased tariffs are due to be imposed next week, a rabbit has been […]
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 […]
Bank of England The Monetary Policy Committee voted in favour of leaving rates on hold at 0.75% yesterday. Nothing surprising in that, but what was unexpected were the two votes in favour of cutting rates by 0.25% to reflect the lack of growth expectations globally. Combined with the impact of the ongoing Brexit uncertainty […]
Gale force 12 Phraseology meets foreign exchange part two – ‘any port in a storm’. This time I’m on side, I would indeed rather be in any port in a storm than, as the phrase assumes, out at sea staring down a Beaufort scale-rattling wind. But, once again, it’s got limitations largely created by […]
Thrown under the bus  Do you remember when Boris Johnson told the world that he likes to build models of busses in his spare time? The ‘confession’ offered during the televised interview with talkRADIO was, the daily mail conjectured, a PR spin to draw attention away from the referendum red bus that brandished the […]
Borderline  The best way to solve a problem in politics, almost without exception, is to present the simplest form of the idea possible to maximise the expectation of success that each voter carries. What’s not a particularly grand idea in most scenarios, and certainly not when attempting to do something quickly, is to redefine […]
China and Hong Kong: enigma The incredibly successful statistics from China throw out a big question of which more below. Between 1952 and 2018 GDP averaged 8.1%. Life expectancy has risen from 35 in 1949 to 77 today. 770M people have been taken out of poverty since 1978. More than $2 trillion has entered […]
Largest Risk Facing Global Economy This is the lack of policy instruments at the disposal of central banks in the event of a financial crisis: with interest rates on historic lows and the ability to provide any fiscal stimulus heavily curtailed, the options available are limited. Nothing obvious in the way of a solution […]
Gladiators, are you ready?  I’m sure BBC Parliament has never had quite so many viewers as it enjoyed yesterday. Markets were fixated as usual with the political developments of the day in their pursuit to value domestic equity, currency and fixed income assets, but this time the population also turned to the Commons. Johnson, […]
NoDeal Brexit: What the bookies say: And Over the Rainbow After yesterday’s court ruling and with 37 days left to the current deadline: 40% probability of NoDeal. And that is despite the Benn Amendment that prevents the U.K. leaving with NoDeal(!) Meanwhile the cliff edge uncertainty has sent UK factory output expectations to a […]