SGM-FX insights

Germany The victory for Chancellor Merz in the weekend Election was popular with the market and the EUR duly strengthened. This was more of a gut reaction than a reasoned response as while the result chimed with the EU political weather, any logical reasoning will lead to the conclusion that the formation of a working […]

France There are 4000 people in France with assets of more than €100 million and they account for just 0.01% of French citizens. Never mind that, the Ecologist Party supported by the Greens and the far left in the National Assembly are determined to target those ultra rich. Unlikely to be approved but eye catching, […]

Approval Ratings One month in and while unlikely to cause POTUS Trump sleepless nights, his approval ratings have shifted markedly on his handling of the US economy. Up from 43% to 53% of those polled believe he on the wrong track. Some noise about immigration and inflation but it is noteworthy that 54% of respondents […]

German Election This weekend will almost certainly see a reduction in the Green Party’s share of the vote in the elections on Sunday. In 2021 the Greens captured 14.7% of the pie with ecological issues and specifically climate change and clean energy being high up the list of voter pre-occupations. Scroll forward four years and […]

Japan Up by 47% in 2024 from 2023 the number of tourists visiting Japan has rocketed due to its favourable exchange rate. It seems unlikely but now Japan is becoming concerned about the sort of over tourism that has plagued European destinations such as Venice, Paris and Amsterdam. Meanwhile Japan is enjoying the economic windfall […]

British Pound Instead of a 0.1% contraction in growth the UK economy managed a 0.1% growth in Q4 2024. And that was enough to send the British Pound sharply up yesterday. Maybe it was or maybe the credit should go to the Daily Telegraph which carried a bullish article which can be summarised as cheer […]

Parallel Universe This time what seemed to be such a parallel universe was yesterday’s meeting between USA VP JD Vance and EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen following the USA sticking penal tariffs on EU aluminium and steel. UVL retaliated with “We should look with optimism at our transatlantic relations” but then remembered to say […]

Great British Pound After a lacklustre reaction to the UK interest rate cut on Thursday and a more visceral one to the much less rosy Bank of England economic forecasts, GBP staged a recovery at the end of the week. However over the weekend a series of less than optimistic commentary on the BoE, the […]

Bank of England As expected the BoE cut interest rates by 25bps yesterday. So far so good but then the BoE departed from the script. Flat economic growth up until the end of 2024 was less of a surprise but then a new forecast for inflation +3.7% and 2025 economic growth slashed from 1.5% to […]

German Election With just 18 days to go to the German election, tensions are building. The centre right CDU whose leader Friedrich Merz is likely to be the next Chancellor is under fire for proposing a tougher immigration policy. That says his critics is similar to the far right AFD and verboten given the antipathy […]

Harmful, Toxic, Biased and Insecure Well it took less than one week: after the excitement that met the DeepSeek AI application, came the fight back, the negative press and the correct questioning as to whether DeepSeek is safe. Well surprise surprise, it does not tolerate or even answer questions prejudicial to China but there are […]

Mission Driven ECB President Christine Lagarde faced some polite but firm questions in the post 25bp interest rate cut presser yesterday afternoon. Given that Germany, France and Ireland which are all on the EU naughty step have the worst Eurozone economic performances and Eurozone inflation is 2.4% or 4% for services inflation versus GDP growth […]