SGM-FX insights

Markets Once again, markets were wrong footed over the weekend by POTUS, who had stated that he would decide in 2 weeks whether to bomb Iran. That 2 weeks turned out to be 2 days. With Iran talking to Europe’s leaders over the weekend in Geneva, Switzerland markets relaxed and in particular the oil price […]

Bank of England As expected, the Monetary Policy committee voted 6:3 to leave rates unchanged – for the avoidance of doubt that sizeable bloc of 3 voted to cut interest rates yesterday. That split reflects the dilemma faced by the Committee and the UK perfectly: growth is sluggish after a fairly decent 0.7% uptick in […]

US Dollar All the talk of the USD having had its day may be gaining in credence every day that goes by with the POTUS and his Administration seemingly determined to dismantle the post WW2 global currency order and depreciate the USD, but most people operate in a much shorter timeframe than the time it […]

Oil Supply With Friday’s rocketing up in the oil price of 12% to $78, the question is whether that is it and we have just seen a re-set or whether this is the first staging post in a much larger increase. That, of course, depends on the unfolding Israel-Iran attacks and whether that conflict spreads […]

British pound Sterling finds itself in the limelight and trading at its recent highs as somewhat improbably a couple of bolder market commentators have suggested the UK will benefit as a result of the disaffection with the USA and the USD at present. Those commentators have obviously not been following the commentary about UK Chancellor […]

UK Employment Real life consequences of policies that fulfil Chancellor Reeves’ agenda: this time we will not dwell on the plainly evident politics of envy stuff about targeting the higher earners, stuffing the non-doms, and even deciding to double tax those wishing to pay for private education or invest in property through second homes. This […]

Germany In a scenario similar to those Germans bagging poolside sunloungers by getting up early, the German economy had a more than decent Q1 as the canny Germans got in ahead of the TT or Trump Tariffs. However, it has all come to a juddering halt in April as almost all economic indicators fell back […]

Euroland Interest Rates Appropriately for ECB meeting day, the EU occupies much of our commentary today. Ahead of their deliberations, the ECB council members were faced with an environment of sluggish growth and low energy costs and a strong EUR keeping a lid on price pressures, leading to lower inflation but leading inevitably to lower […]

EU Inflation Paving the way for a 25bp rate cut tomorrow, EU inflation came in at 1.9% on the back of uncertainty, lack of consumer confidence and people sitting on their cash. So overall good on inflation but a sign of less good things in the EU. As ever, the overall inflation figure had some […]

EURO ECB President Christine Lagarde delivered a speech last week at Hertie School in Berlin, setting out the ECB ambition of making the EURO a larger/ the largest global reserve currency. At 20% versus USD ‘s 57%, EUR is already the challenger, but unlike CL’s calling for the deficit to be made up simply by […]

Oil Following the US Manhattan court blocking TT or Trump Tariffs deeming them illegal, that was enough for the oil market to outweigh the OPEC+ output increases pencilled in for July, while it remained wary on potential new US sanctions on Russian oil. The result was that oil prices rose yesterday despite POTUS letting it be […]

Dutch Division The 4 way Dutch coalition looks in danger of falling apart over immigration due to Gert Wilders’ party and its brinkmanship over the Netherlands adopting his 10 point hardline immigration plan. Apart from being at odds with EU policy, it is opposed by the rest of the coalition as it involves deporting criminal […]