SGM-FX insights

GBP   Finishing the week at its best levels for some time with the market anticipating a clear Conservative majority. Fully priced for where we are with 6 days to the Election and 7 until we get the result.     Macron and Pension Reform   Not unreasonably President Macron is attempting to introduce economic […]

The bigger they are, the harder they fall   9/10. Today’s Britishism above isn’t half bad. Whether subject to a physical, empirical examination of the pure mass of an object and the Newtonian force with which it falls or a more normative evaluation of how a highly regarded truth or person loses their status, it […]

  For those of a delicate disposition: look away now!   The Daily Telegraph has polled a representative group of U.K. 16-24 year olds and has discovered: 28% have never heard of Stalin 50% have never heard of Lenin and 70% have never heard of Mao Tse Tung. With a General Election 22 days away […]

2 vs 3   The Pound this morning sits at 2 week highs versus the US Dollar and shows signs of returning to the 1.30 ceiling which it has established for itself lately. However, with little more than three weeks left until the General Election in the UK, the Pound will be vulnerable to political […]

Limewood Hotel, New Forest   News of the theft of 82 bottles of wine worth GBP67,000 last week. Presumably the insurance company will fork out for the replacement cost of these bottles at an average GBP 817 cost per bottle. Incidentally at a normal restaurant mark up of 3 times that equates to GBP 201,000 […]

Markets   Today’s close of business marks the half way mark for November and a plethora of news including the Fed Chairman stating that he does not expect a major setback in equity markets is giving all markets encouragement on the economic front. From a political perspective however it is a different story with markets […]

Piss up in a Parliament   Having sat in countless lectures by the people who quite literally wrote the book on tactical voting and collective action, I can assure you that academia doesn’t have the answers to voting outcomes especially under circumstances of manipulated voting. It’s not failings on their part, rather it’s the entropic […]

  It’s Official: The Market is now on an Election footing   Further acres of newsprint and a torrent of tv and social media comment in prospect the General Election on December 12 is the first since 1923 to take place just before Christmas. And……the currency market has not moved GBP at all on that […]

Joker   Well the joke (if that is what it was) was definitely on me: off we went to the local Cineworld for the must see Todd Phillips movie Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix and Robert de Niro. Drawn in by the film taking $96M on its opening weekend and more than $250M to date and […]

GBPZAR   Remember that old teaching: you can achieve similar things by smacking something very hard with a small hammer or by tapping something softly with a sledgehammer? I must confess I’ve never found great use or utility in this phrase partially because of my underwhelming expertise in DIY and secondly, it totally ignores the […]

If Only   This weekend could have delivered a Brexit victory for the UK Government of the decisive nature of the England Lions’ victory over the Wallabies. It was not to be. After 5 1/2 hours of debate, there was a palpable sense of disappointment from all in Westminster that the Letwin Amendment had managed […]

UK Brexit   Market news was dominated yesterday by the announcement of a deal between Europe and the UK. Still doubt on whether the UK Parliament will ratify it, but for those European couch potatoes among you with nothing better to do tomorrow, Saturday, you can watch the UK Parliament on live TV from 1030 […]