SGM-FX insights

UK inflation – June hike worthy? Yesterday’s inflation data surprised markets. The data was released slightly ahead of European core trading hours. The lighter liquidity available at this time could have resulted in the short-term spike towards 1.2450 on cable and around half a cent to the mid-1.15s within GBPEUR. However, you could, and perhaps […]

International Monetary Fund With no sign of insouciance despite its 180 degree turn in a two month timeframe, the IMF yesterday reversed its downbeat if not disastrous forecasts for the UK and stated the UK is no longer heading for a recession and nor is it the weakest member of the G7 when it comes […]

IMF and Bank of England Readers will recall the poor report card that the International Monetary Fund gave the UK in March. The latest set of forecasts from the Bank of England set it at odds with the IMF: firstly no recession, instead modest +0.25% growth this year and +0.75% in the next two years. […]

UK  Well signposted that interests rates would rise by 25bps yesterday which they duly did. However it was the year end inflation forecast that was raised from 4% to 5% that furrowed many brows. The previous promise admittedly from the Government rather than the Bank of England was to halve inflation from 10 to 5 […]

British Pound  Trading at a 1-year high, British Pound is buoyed by the market being pretty much unanimous on a 25 bp rise in rates tomorrow by the Bank of England. 98% of respondents to a survey have opined as such. The three choices are No Change, plus 25bps or plus 50bps so it is […]

US Consumer Confidence  A surprise fall in consumer confidence meant that confidence in April was the lowest since July 2022 and reflected growing fears that the steep interest rate rises would tip the US economy into recession. Against that the expectation for 12 months average inflation in the US is still 6.2%. Hence the wobble […]

Winter is coming Here in the UK, we have seen the IMF consistently downgrade growth expectations. Whilst the IMF has been pessimistic specifically on UK growth, routinely placing the UK at the bottom of the pack, global growth forecasts have also been downgraded as interest rates have risen. Still, the condemnation of UK growth looks […]

UK Interest Rates  Previously expected to peak at 4.5%, UK interest rates are now (mostly) expected to peak at 5% in the summer. Worth examining what the Bank of England forecast the annual inflation rate to be in February 2022 for 1 year forward in February 2023: 5.2%. As we know it is almost 5% […]

UK Inflation  At 10.1% March UK inflation is not only higher than the other developed markets, it is not coming down much which suggests that the Bank of England has misjudged the amount of interest rate medicine that is required and also the speed that it needs to be administered. The expectation was that inflation […]

Not quite 10 Data was expected to be particularly important to GBP this week. On Tuesday, the market observed the latest UK wage data which showed unexpectedly high growth figures within household earnings. This has set the stage for concerns surrounding a miss in inflation too, with wage price inflation often having a significant influence […]

UK Job Market  In the quarter to end February in the UK 220,000 more people were looking for jobs than in the previous 3 months even as the number of vacancies fell from 1,250,000 to 1,100,000. This means that the economic uncertainty is making people seek income. So even before PM Sunak called for UK’s […]

UK Growth: February 2023 It is fair to say that this piece could be rather short since the UK economy has not grown at all in February with strikes being given as the prime reason. Maybe it is therefore unsurprising that UK Chancellor Hunt has been very quiet since his Budget Day performance in March. […]