Our Daily Brief provides insights into the news and views driving today’s foreign currency exchange rates.
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 […]
Brent Oil Having traded in a range of $75-85 for some time conventional wisdom is that despite some supply disruption, the oil market looks benign when it comes to price volatility. However, that supply disruption is not receding and may in fact be increasing as time passes and stocks are run down. Recent drone attacks […]
US Inflation So what? you might justifiably wonder at February US Inflation coming in at 3.2% versus the expected 3.1%. However such is the febrile state of the market psychology at present where every pundit and his/her dog are sifting through the auspices to work out when the Federal Reserve will cut US interest rates, […]
4 years on Yesterday marked the 4th anniversary of the declaration of a pandemic by the World Heath Organisation. Hearing that, many of you may question where the time has gone since. But the pandemic has left a lasting legacy on markets and the wider economy too. Many of the ranges within major currencies pairs […]
International Women’s Day Today we wish all our readers a Happy International Women’s Day which has become a thing over the years and is now BIG and something that we are marking at SGM-FX!GBP/USD 1.2765. Prosperity, Security and Democracy Those according to European People’s Party leader Ursula Von Der Leyen are the 500 million population’s […]
One down, two to go Markets took the UK budget in their stride yesterday. Moderate GBP buying left major crosses in a largely healthy state during the afternoon session. Amongst the G10 FX space, when measured against the US Dollar, the Pound has been the best performing currency so far this year. Of course, reversing […]
China At this week’s National People’s Congress, the 2024 economic targets for the People’s Republic of China were announced. Last year GDP growth officially came in at 5.2% but outside China estimates put it at 1-2%; however while it was acknowledged this week that there had been some issues with the Chinese economy in 2023, […]