SGM-FX insights

British Pound GBP is currently in fashion: with a record number of long positions and currently at the top of the G7 currency performance charts and after a period of being deeply unfashionable GBP is wanted-in a good way. The reasons for this are diverse: first off is the Bank of England’s caution on cutting […]

UK Borrowing The Office of Budget Responsibility predicted that the UK would borrow GBP11.6 billion in June. As it turned out the UK did in fact borrow GBP 14.5 billion in June. All sorts of questions arise about the OBR and just how such a large overshoot in borrowing could occur given the already eye […]

British Pound With weekly earnings coming out at up 5.7% in the 3 months to the end of May compared to the same period a year earlier which is a key indicator for inflation and closely watched by the Bank of England, the feeling in the market yesterday was that the likelihood of a rate […]

US Dollar Broadly the market liked Trump’s nomination, choice of running mate and the growing likelihood of a second term for the ex President. USD strengthened against almost all of the G10 currencies and 10 year bond yields declined. EUR/USD 1.0888. Japanese Yen As is normal practice in Japan the Japanese authorities do not comment […]

UK Energy Apart from announcing that there will be no further North Sea drilling licences issued, newly minted Uk Energy Minister Ed Miliband has wasted no time in greenlighting three huge new solar farms in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Sufficient to power 400,000 homes with an output of 1.4 GW the solar farms will cover […]

UK Growth The UK economy expanded 0.4% in May after 0% growth in April and at double the pace expected. GBP was perky on this, or maybe it was the unusual amount of sunshine on offer yesterday afternoon that lifted the spirits of British pound traders. The reason is that this surprisingly good picture(the growth […]

Carlsberg It was third time lucky for Carlsberg in their bid to capture UK soft drinks firm Britvic which has Robinsons Barley Water, J20 and Fruit Shoots among others in its stable of refreshments. Paying GBP 3.3 billion or EUR 3.9 billion at 1290p per share, this was a significant acquisition for Carlsberg. The reason […]

US Election Bearing in mind that the CNN poll was taken on July 2 well after the disastrous debate between Trump and Biden but it put Trump ahead at 49% versus Biden at 43%, the subsequent ABC interview with pre-advised questions for President Biden will have done little or more likely will have compounded the […]

UK Election With the UK Voting exit poll at 2200 last night confirming what all of the polls had been saying in the lead up to Polling Day, while the result was never in doubt, contained within it there will be plenty of surprises on seat changes although short term it is far too early […]

US Interest Rates Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has not so much hidden behind the data at the economic summit in Sintra, Portugal yesterday but rather deployed it as a weapon against those baying for rate cuts: with inflation still half a percentage point above the target level on the Personal Consumption Expenditure index which […]

USD/JPY As we have written recently the Japanese Yen is on a 38 year low versus the USD. This past weekend has seen a number of comments from the Japanese authorities along the same lines as at the beginning of June when the currency pair stood at 155. The reason this is noteworthy is that […]

French Consumers In a word, they are pessimistic with leading concerns being that in the very near future their standard of living will fall, they will be able to afford to spend less and lastly that their job security will be reduced. Sunday’s French election sees the New popular Front Alliance made up of the […]