SGM-FX insights

Milan, Italy The City of Milan has a late night noise problem and so it has acted unilaterally to resolve it-Italian style. A ban on the sale of take away food including ice cream and pizza after midnight is being imposed to protect the “peace and health of residents.” Here in the UK late night […]

British Pound Reports that the UK may cut its interest rates before the USA cut their interest rates were the final straw this past week for Sterling. A slew of less than helpful inflation, employment and finally retail sales saw GBP weaker , but then the suggestion that with the background of that less than […]

US Dollar Surging on a strong US economy together with further geopolitical tensions in the past week, USD is at its strongest versus EUR this year and came within a whisker of breaking through 1.06 in yesterday’s trading. Against the Japanese Yen USD was 154.55 which caused Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki to break cover […]

EUR European Central Bank President Madame Lagarde made two bold statements last week: the ECB does not target exchange rates and the ECB is not dependent on Federal Reserve policy. While at one level both are sometimes true, it is brave to explicitly make those statements at a ECB press conference and more than risks […]

European Central Bank Something for everybody: the ECB as expected left interest rates unchanged but made it clear that cuts will be forthcoming now that inflation is near the target 2% rate. Brushed over is that with growth at near zero, bank lending moribund and the EU economy flat, something has to give.EUR/USD 1.0720 Japanese […]

France Quite simply the numbers do not add up for President Macron and his future in government, never mind La Belle France and its citizens : France is the third most indebted EU country after Greece and Italy with a debt to GDP ratio of 110.6%. In the past year the deficit has increased by […]

Space Solar UK Oxfordshire based company Space Solar is on the way to creating a solar farm that will generate constant and cheap electricity….in space. The plan is to launch a 2000 tonne solar farm into space and then with a complicated system of mirrors and solar panels beam light back to Planet Earth from […]

Oil As we have been pointing to, oil has been edging up and is now on a 7 month high. Not it should be stressed on a rosey economic picture but rather on increasing tensions in the Middle East-the latest being the Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.Brent: USD 88.70 Sunny Spain The […]

EU Border Controls 26,000 respondents in 18 jurisdictions have spoken and 51% of them are dissatisfied with border controls and the level of immigration into the EU. Now that is a statistic that political parties across the EU should sit up and take notice of in the next two months in the lead up to […]

UK Trade Deals While there have been deals signed with Australia in 2021 and New Zealand in 2022, the past post Brexit years in respect of trade deals have been more about which deals have not been agreed that should have been rather than those that did get signed: Canada due to the UK refusing […]

Bank of England As expected UK interest rates were left unchanged following the Monetary Policy Committee’s meeting this week. The message is clear that the Old Lady will not be rushed into making hasty interest rate reduction decisions,and, given that inflation is still at 3.4%, the market sold GBP immediately after the announcement yesterday lunch […]

UK Infrastructure British electricity demand is expected to rise by 64% in the next 10 years and could double by 2050. This increase is in large part down to ambitious decarbonisation targets which result in a shift towards transport and heating for example being almost completely powered by electricity. The deadline for decarbonisation is 2035 […]