SGM-FX insights

iPhone 17 In the last few days there have been quite a few posts about how many days work it takes to earn enough to buy an iPhone17 across the countries of the world with the subtext that life is just not fair. Broadly, Western Europe is quickest and Africa is longest. Rather than dwell on […]

UK Quantitative Tightening It’s hard enough making tough calls on whether to stick to a GBP100 billion bond selling program or not when debating with fellow members of the Monetary Policy Committee, but for Governor Bailey things have got a lot trickier with not 1 but no less than 4 ex MPC members calling for […]

British Pound Despite the efforts of the press to write the story that UK PM SirKeir is on his last legs, Sterling on a 2 month high is unruffled so is not taking that story seriously. Damning with the headline “Lack of Replacement Options Keeps Starmer Safe-For Now” was Bloomberg yesterday which is not exactly […]

UK Growth Normally when UK Government figures come in exactly in line with forecasts it is a matter for self congratulation among economists and last week’s July Growth figures were no exception: the expectation was for Zero growth and indeed growth for the UK economy in July was Zero. There is a snag here: apart […]

France Beyond its political woes, which were somewhat mitigated by the appointment of President Macron’s latest PM on Wednesday, France is looking down the barrel of a likely credit downgrade that will see it losing its AA status. This will further constrain growth as well as increase its cost of borrowing. Just to round things […]

O Canada With much of the world’s North American focus on the USA rather than Canada, it is worth taking a look at what has been happening in the past few months in Canada. Government initiatives have been directed towards mitigating the effects of the US tariffs including new strategic response funds and extra loan […]

Independent Central Banks To continue the recent debate about how worried we should be (very) about the loss of independence of the USA’s Federal Reserve, the respected ex Deutsche Bank and HSBC Financial Times columnist Stuart Kirk, posited at the weekend that the answer should be, not very worried at all. SK arrived at this […]

US Rate Cuts The markets are understandably fixated on the US jobs report which comes out this afternoon given the Federal Reserve’s laser like focus on employment. On Wednesday data reflected that July Job Vacancies fell to a 10 month low. There is now a 100% chance priced in for a September US rate cut and […]

British Pound That Indian Summer predicted for GBP took a knock yesterday, with UK PM Sir Keir reshuffling some of his top team and the markets scoring it, as a blow for Chancellor Reeves since the PM seems to be recruiting a rival economic team to try and regain control of the UK economy and the […]

US Consumer Spending Inflation may be a concern, consumer sentiment may be low, the US labour market may be slowing but in the past four months the US consumer has been out and proud: spending. While consumer spending fell on an inflation adjusted basis for H1 2025, taking the period from may to end August […]

Independent Central Banks The concept that has served the USA and the wider world so well for more than 8 decades is being tested in respect of the Federal Reserve by POTUS and the financial world is largely so far, complacent. Distinguished economist Paul Krugman wrote an excellent piece yesterday and his conclusion, other than […]

Knock On Currency Moves Reuters conducted a survey of the largest European companies and unsurprisingly pretty much all of them are citing the strengthening EUR as having negatively impacted their results in H1. Whether it’s German telecoms or Dutch paint, the story is the same. But in another twist to the tale of tariffs and […]