SGM-FX insights

EUR, AUD, NZD stronger against USD   While the market likes the appointment of Janet Yellen as Joe Biden’s Treasury Secretary, the onward march of the risk currencies against USD continues. NZD strengthened 0.9% and AUD 0.4%. NZD is now on a 2 year high versus USD at $0.6985.   Dow   With the Dow […]

Germany   Another tale of one of the world’s leading economies borrowing much more to do what it takes: this time it is Germany and the announcement that the Finance Minister plans to take on more than EUR 160 billion or USD 190 billion in debt in 2021 to counter Covid. The German government expects […]

Playground Pharmaceuticals   Not wanting to be outbid, Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine partners returned to the numbers to check the efficacy of their vaccine. Their headline of 90% published only last week was bettered by Moderna’s vaccine. Not only could Moderna’s vaccine be stored and transported more easily despite relying on similar fundamentals, but they claimed a […]

Lufthansa   The German airline and its subsidiaries Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines have announced that as of next year Economy passengers will no longer be offered free meals and snacks but will have to pay for them like for example Ryanair, Easyjet and BA. Lufthansa and Swiss will however offer Economy passengers a […]

Brexit Mood Music on a Trade Deal   Plenty of noise from top UK ministers yesterday on both the desire and the likelihood of a UK trade deal with the EU. The market has already discounted the further slippage of the deadline and despite the warm words emanating from Westminster, GBP has remained unimpressed, on […]

Lawrence Binyon-For the Fallen 1914.     US Dollar and JPY and CNY   One of our readers has asked the very pertinent question as to why the USD falls on what is positive global news ie the election of a new and more moderate President and the development and impending release of an anti Covid […]

European Central Bank News Conference   While economic policy was left unchanged and no further stimulus was announced yesterday, it was clear that that was firmly on the agenda for the next ECB meeting in December. As a reminder of the numbers the ECB has set aside EUR 1.35 Trillion for bond purchases in the […]

Tumble   Stock, currency and bond markets alike burst into life yesterday. Following the close of the German and French major stock market indexes some 4% in the Red, the price of assets across the globe started to reflect growing discomfort with the macro economy. US stock futures had initially shrugged off the sell-off taking […]

Interference   We have become increasingly accustomed of late to sideswiping headlines gripping price action and throwing currencies in entirely opposite directions. The past 24 hours provided no respite to the torrent of headlines. But the salience and long run ramifications of yesterday’s major headlines could be far more significant than we are used to. […]

China   People’s Bank of China Head, Yi Gang stated this weekend at an online banking seminar to the G30 what many in the markets already suspected: despite Covid starting in China and almost a year ago having shut down large parts of China’s economy, not only is China back and enjoying an expansion in […]

Germany   After the Great War ended in 1918, what is now Germany’s population stood at 60 million. By 2019 and 100 years later that had grown to 83 million. Looking at the graph with a succession of policies encouraging guest workers the increases have been steady and regular. For the first time in 2020 […]

Aussie Coal   The AUD was hit yesterday after China instructed state owned utilities and steel mills in China that they should stop importing Australian thermal and coking coal immediately. The AUD fell 0.5% on the news but later recovered a bit after the market worked out that it is not simple to substitute other […]