SGM-FX insights

The World’s Top Performing Currency is?   In case you had not spotted it, it is of course the Russian Rouble which has been as muscular as Russia’s President Putin in 2019. However with a stronger US Dollar battering all emerging currencies, it is likely that the Rouble will lose its crown before the end […]

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 […]

Crude Responses: Oil and Brexit   The attacks over the weekend on Saudi Aramco’s eastern facilities have moved foreign exchange markets. Unlike a lot of financial headlines at the moment, this serious threat to the provision of global energy looks as though it could have an enduring impact upon global FX. Throughout yesterday’s European trading […]

WeWork: Nice work if you can get it- they can’t as it turns out…   Goldman Sachs had previously advised a pre IPO valuation of $65Billion for the trendy hipster office sharing business. Smaller businesses have been struggling to find office space in all major cities worldwide as WeWork have relentlessly mopped up multi occupancy […]

Recession?   About a decade ago you could pick up virtually any newspaper (with perhaps the exception of the Daily Star or the Sun) and see the phrase Double Dip Recession or equivalent brandished on the front page. Whether it was accompanied by a vitriolic attack on the incumbent Conservative government, a backward-looking blame on […]

Fed Up   Powell’s on board – we think – following his testimony to the House Finance Committee yesterday afternoon. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, the United States’ monetary policy and interest rate setting authority, spoke to politicians yesterday offering a dovish testimony that saw the value of the US Dollar fall sharply. The […]

Swing Low   The carry trade is a favourite in foreign exchange (or indeed any) investment: use something cheap to buy something rewarding that you hope in turn is still worth something at the time you decide to cash your chips in. For example, with the Rand yielding 6.75% due to its underlying interest rate […]

Gold and the US Yield Curve   With gold over $1420 there is still more buying this week due to the fact that 3 month US Treasury Bill Yields are higher than the 10 year US Treasury Bond Yield. This bellwether indicator is closely followed because each time this has happened in the past 50 […]

Italy and its Budget: a contradiction in terms   As described here two weeks ago, Italy is pushing hard against tough budgetary restraints from the EU. The gap is €40 Billion. Italy’s Deputy PM is playing hardball and has reminded the EU just how much Italy owes to the rest of the EU with the […]

Pocahontas     Even the pros at Disney might have trouble thinking up and depicting the delicate rise and fall of emotions between China’s Xi Jinping and the States’ Donald Trump. Following this weekend’s summit, we’re closer to the resolve, the closing credits and watching the fully grown man in the back row pretending he […]

Trump and G20   It was even more compelling watching than Glastonbury with multiple sound stages and even more multiple sound bites. The SGM-FX elves were hard at it trying to decipher whether Mutti Merkel was simply suffering from stress or something more serious, what that meant for Germany and Europe and whether PM May […]

End of Quite a Week   With this weekend’s G20 meeting there really is so much that could go right -or wrong- and markets are rightly fixated on signals regarding USA-China trade talks; European economics; British politics; Gulf tensions and in particular the potential for Iran to abandon the nuclear agreement plus last but not […]