SGM-FX insights

Andy’s Outlook   The Bank of England had an earlier than usual monetary policy decision this morning. The decision to move the announcement forward to 7am, apart from demanding that the market gets up earlier to monitor how the decision unfolded, also indicated unofficially that the decision was unlikely to introduce policy measures of any […]

Five-eyes   An exogenous threat always has the capacity to make us reconsider what really matters. In lockdown the things that frustrated us as individuals may now seem to no longer matter or, on the contrary, they may have grown in importance. Whatever the issue and no matter the change in importance, the important thing […]

Airlines: Winner and Losers   It is fair to say that the losers currently outnumber the likely winners with Norwegian, South African and Virgin looking especially vulnerable. However news that Lufthansa is close to clinching a EUR 10 Billion lifeline in exchange for 21.5% of their equity shows that if a government wishes to support […]

Powell; and the virus is gone   Yesterday evening is was the opportunity for the Federal Reserve to share its latest reflections on the US and the global economy in its delivery of its latest monetary policy decision. Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell met the expectation for rates to remain on hold at 0.00-0.25% but […]

Twin Deficits   Until recently the “Twin Deficits” theory was seen as a rather bland and mundane economic theory that had good basis but limited physical evidence. However, the post-millennial explosion of national debt brought with it an appreciation of the importance of the theory to the value of a currency. In particular, the theory […]

Marginal Cost of Oil Production   It does sound dull and a bit dry(no pun) but while all the furore continues about what it really means for the oil price falling to barrel production below $USD20 or lower, it is worth understanding what the marginal cost of oil production is ie what it costs per […]

Dominos Pizzas   Some good news at least from Dominos Pizzas with a forecast rise of 7% in sales. The company is being cautious despite rises in demand for both home deliveries and also in store sales due to the lockdown, as the future is far from clear for the US economy. However, if one […]

Chill Pill   Yesterday evening, following the close of the European trading session, I watched the price of oil in the United States completely collapse. The sell-off had been gathering momentum through the day. The most common instrument to measure the price of oil in the United States had opened yesterday’s trading day at $18 […]

Vital Signs   Whilst the global economy has been all but locked down government activity and stimulus packages have only accelerated. The scale of the unprecedented fiscal and economic responses will be important in gauging the path of global future growth. The relative value with which currencies will trade with each other will also be […]

Luckin Coffee   We have written previously about this Nasdaq quoted Chinese wannabe rival to Starbucks. It all seems a bit passé now in present circumstances with all cafe chains shut for drink in business, but Luckin’s shares having stood at $50 in January they fell to less than $10 on Friday night. It’s a […]

Market News   Oil firmer to $22 on the back of POTUS saying that he is expecting Russia and Saudi Arabia to reach agreement on both supplies and pricing soon. USD stronger. Equity markets remarkably stable on the back of horrible but expected US Unemployment figures with 6.65 million new claims. France is preparing a second stimulus […]

One Step Forward…   As avid observers of financial markets we spend a lot of our waking hours keeping up to date with market sensitive news. It is an important pursuit to stay on top of markets and the source of that news can come from (virtually) anywhere. Over the last couple of years I’ve […]