SGM-FX insights

UK Statistics With wage growth at 4.8% higher year on year for the 3 months to the end of September and unemployment rising to 4.3% versus the expected 4.1% yesterday, the reasoning behind the thinly veiled warning from Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is that they were taking a measured approach to further interest […]

Trump and Europe Even before a week has elapsed since Trump’s resounding victory, analysts are scrabbling to work out what it all means for Europe. Broadly for the major European economies the sanctions mooted by Trump in his election pitch will mean a fall in their individual 2025 GDPs of between 0.3 and 0.4% and […]

Bank of England As widely expected, the Monetary Policy committee did cut interest rates to 4.75% yesterday but it is worth watching the predicted path of inflation currently at 1.7% which will rise to 2.2% in the next 3 months and which is not slated to fall back to within the 2% target range again […]

Great British Pound For buyers of USD and EUR versus GBP, the lead up to the results of the US Presidential Election have thrown up an opportunity given that USD has seen a weaker performance in the past two days. The likelihood is that there will be some swings in the next few days ahead of […]

US Election It would be distinctly odd on the eve of such a closely fought election not to comment on it, but it really is too close to call even though the Trump trade is cited as evidence that he is expected to win(at the time of writing). But what might markets expect once the […]

UK Budget Reverberations Last week we posed the question of what it would feel like for the new UK Chancellor post her maiden budget. Well now she (and we) have found out: social media is vitriolic as are farmers, small and medium sized businesses, long suffering private school fee paying parents, people sitting on capital […]

UK Budget Day Chancellor Reeves has already leaked/floated so many potential measures for her Budget later today interwoven with promises/denials as to what are the red lines which will not be included in her maiden Budget, that we are all suffering from an overload of (dis)information while hoping that much of It, will end up […]

France Crunch time for French ex EU/ Brexit negotiator PM Barnier as he struggles to get his budget approved on November 19, as he leads his minority Government with the backdrop of Moody’s changing their outlook for La Belle France from stable to negative last Thursday. Targeting a whopping €66 billion budget reduction through a […]

EU Economy For the second month running the EU economy contracted slightly. As ever a patchwork performance notable for Germany improving while France put in a particularly weak contribution. Worrying for France as well as the EU is that the outlook for France is not bright. No wonder the ECB was so keen to get […]

CINEA9 The Climate Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency of the European Commission abbreviated to CINEA9 has signed an agreement with Societa Stretta di Messina. What that means is that the dream of a bridge connecting Sicily to the mainland of Italy is a step nearer. There have been a few false dawns over the years: […]

US Interest Burden At $882 billion in the year to end September which equates to $2.4 billion a day or 3.06% of US GDP, the USA is staggering beneath the weight of just servicing its debt before even contemplating reducing it. As we have remarked previously and as picked up in Saturday’s Financial Times, neither […]

Swiss Ingenuity It started with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne or EPFL who were approached by start up company Sun-Ways which has developed a removable system of solar panels that can be laid on top of railway tracks over which trains can pass. Removable panels are important given the need for maintenance […]