SGM-FX insights

Globalisation As each week passes and returning President Trump’s January inauguration draws closer, he is if anything stepping up his rhetoric on the introduction of tariffs immediately after his return to office. China has responded in a measured way saying that they will maintain the value of the CNY rather than devaluing competitively as well […]

EU Stagflation With inflation blipping up and business activity turning down, the S word is back on the table. Not only manufacturing but also the services sector fell sharply in November with the Purchasing Managers Index at its lowest level this year. The EUR facing a rampant Dollar is increasingly undermined by its own weakening […]

NYC Drought No not a mistake NYC issued a drought warning earlier this week: for the first time since 2002 New York City has such a water shortage that residents and businesses are being asked to respectively take fewer shorter showers and to conserve water. Reservoirs are well below normal levels and to accentuate the […]

UK Mortgage Rates In a further widening of his very own credibility gap, UK PM Starmer denied that the recent Budget was responsible for the rises in UK mortgage rates from most of the High Street banks in the past two weeks as markets factored in higher inflation due to the measures announced by Chancellor […]

Mansion House Dinner Last week’s dinner attended by guest of honour still fairly new Chancellor Rachel Reeves turned out not to be much of a surprise from her due to the now well worn habit of leaking what she was going to say ahead of time. The surprise came rather from Bank of England Governor […]

Brazil When most Europeans hear the phrase Belt and Road in reference to China they think of the route of the ancient Silk Road from China to Europe. There is of course an initiative of the same name in Latin America and specifically between Brazil and the Pacific Coast to the Peruvian port of Chancay. […]

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 […]