SGM-FX insights

Eurozone Growth Those productive Germans have for the second month been less productive it turns out in December which was a surprise to the pointy heads deputed to monitor EU stats. The story is as follows: the German services sector remains relatively resilient but manufacturing output has declined. At present the French economy is doing the […]

UK Economy The question is whether the contraction of 0.1% in the UK economy announced on Friday between August and October was as a result of the Chancellor’s economic strategy or due to her Hokey Cokey Budget that resulted in UK plc sitting on its hands for 3 months in the run up to November […]

Profit Repatriation For UK companies with overseas earnings reporting in Sterling, 2025 has been a salutary tale of a strengthening British Pound with periods of volatility prompted primarily by geo and domestic politics and POTUS. GBP/USD has seen a range of 1.22 to 1.37 and GBP/EUR 1.13 to 1.22. Finance managers at such companies are […]

Condensed Hours This is a relatively new concept which used to be called flexi hours and is available to public sector workers who as we have already written, are permitted to WFH – almost 50% of the public sector are in fact WFH for 2 or 3 days per week and 73% want to WFH for […]

Part-Time Employment It became fashionable to talk about the “Gig Economy” 20 years ago when technology allowed people to tele commute, and at the same time younger workers elected lifestyle over lucre and went for part time employment, permitting travel and more time for themselves to pursue their non work interests. Then the global financial […]

British Pound A reflection of post Budget relief that it’s over rather than due to its imaginative, growth positive or business friendly measures which are all conspicuously lacking, but British Pound is up over 1% this week. Braver voices than our own have claimed that a more positive view of British business activity is the […]

Office of Budget Responsibility If matters were not already murky enough, it now transpires that the unscheduled release of forecast on Budget Day was not a first for the OBR. Not really much of a story now that the previous Head of the OBR has done the honourable thing and fallen on his sword. But […]

Gold and Silver As regular readers know we do not offer gold pricing but we do of course monitor the Gold price action as it is a key input into Equity, FX, and interest rate markets. Gold stands at USD 4,205 and Silver at USD 55.62. That gives a price ratio of 75. This week […]

OBR: Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? After Wednesday’s fiasco with the pre Budget post budget forecast release, it is worth looking at how the shadowy OBR is actually constituted. Who are the guardians of the UK’s financial probity? The Office of Budget Responsibility as the UK’s independent fiscal watchdog is supposed to be purer than pure, which is […]

UK Migration of HNWs UK migration has become the focus in recent days in addition to, rather than instead of, immigration which is always front and centre in peoples’ minds and not just in the Isle of Dogs and Epping, as some politicians would have us think. Henley and Partners forecasts that the UK will […]

Economic Competence “Chancellor has GBP10 billion hole blown in her calculations just days before her Autumn Statement”, screamed the financial headlines on Friday. Of course, a Budget the size of the UK’s has plenty of overs and unders, but over borrowing and the cost of debt servicing or interest costs are part and parcel of […]

UK Bank Reserves An excellent Daily Telegraph piece this week by economist Dr Gerard Lyons that made a number of telling points that both BoE Governor Bailey and Chancellor Reeves would do well to read and afterwards to act differently. Just one of those points concerns the Bank of England paying banks bank rate on […]