SGM-FX insights

UK Retail Sales   Up 2.3% in July breaking the previous 3 month down trend due to purchases of summer clothes, picnic equipment and electric fans to cool consumers down. The last category could usefully be directed towards inflation which now stands at 9.4%. GBP/USD 1.2110.   Spain   As some of our readers will […]

A little sensitive   Last week saw some of the most volatile conditions for the Euro we’ve seen in a long time. During the stronger than expected interest rate hike announced on Thursday the Euro spiked reclaiming recently lost ground versus the US Dollar. However, the fun didn’t last long. During the press conference the […]

Euro   Buffeted would be the best description of the European currency due to the prevailing forces besetting the Euro: the collapse of the Italian government following Mario Draghi’s admittedly expected resignation which prompted a sharp sell-off in Italian Bonds, the resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline and last […]

Did I leave the gas on?   European markets have been buoyant this week. Sure, all things are relative and in the grand scheme of things the 2+ cent revival in EURUSD does very little to ameliorate the complete collapse of the currency pair over the last year. However, as you know the markets have […]

Markets   NYMEX WTI Oil at $100 on the back of President Biden’s lack of breakthrough on his visit to Saudi Arabia to persuade his hosts to increase production plus a rising interest rate environment suggest that a Recession is more likely. Apple viewed as a good surrogate stock for the overall US corporate scene […]

Italy   The Italian coalition government is facing collapse due to coalition member the 5 Star movement removing its support yesterday afternoon. That meant that Pm Mario Draghi had to follow the well worn route of all Italian PMs( 10 since 2000 if you are wondering) to the door of the President to ask him […]

Blink and you’d have missed it   I’m sure many of you had a flurry of alerts yesterday just before 2pm that for the first time in two decades a Euro was worth less than one US Dollar. However, it’s a good job those automatic headlines were pushed out because unless you’d been staring at […]

The day for parity?   Could today be the day that EURUSD hits parity? We’ve covered recently the likely scenarios that will arise and could also cause a move to 1-1 or lower reading of Euro-Dollar. However, with the world’s most traded currency pair still a couple of cents clear of the psychological level at […]

Germany: stuck in the middle   We wrote yesterday how Germany’s consumption and dependence upon Russian oil and gas was leading it to drag its feet with respect to Russian energy exports. This has become particularly visible in the recent summit of G7 leaders where there appears to be less progress than some may have […]

Battle of the Bank Holidays   With the inevitable volatility that month-end trading brings to foreign exchange markets, the distribution of bank holidays this week could hypothetically lead to a relatively illiquid environment where small headlines could create big moves. Yesterday, the US had its bank holiday to mark Memorial Day. On Thursday and Friday […]

Battle of the Board   Two factors ignited the recent flourish in EURUSD, the world’s most liquid and typically stable currency pair. Firstly, on Tuesday, Eurozone PMIs failed to show the descent into contractionary economic territory that many feared they were capable of. Whilst the index figure that aims to measure business appetite and confidence […]

Metamorphosis   As we forecasted on Thursday, the ECB’s press conference has driven EURUSD to retest recent lows with the pair even breaking through two-year lows to set fresh records during the afternoon European session. In an impressive show of metamorphosis, the President managed to change from dove to hawk, dove to hawk and back […]