SGM-FX insights

But what else? Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office yesterday in his first public appearance in a week. It’s the first time the incumbent President has addressed the public outside of Twitter following his weekend withdrawal from the Presidential race. Harris, incumbent Vice President and that whom Biden has endorsed for the Democratic […]

British Pound GBP is currently in fashion: with a record number of long positions and currently at the top of the G7 currency performance charts and after a period of being deeply unfashionable GBP is wanted-in a good way. The reasons for this are diverse: first off is the Bank of England’s caution on cutting […]

UK Borrowing The Office of Budget Responsibility predicted that the UK would borrow GBP11.6 billion in June. As it turned out the UK did in fact borrow GBP 14.5 billion in June. All sorts of questions arise about the OBR and just how such a large overshoot in borrowing could occur given the already eye […]

British Pound With weekly earnings coming out at up 5.7% in the 3 months to the end of May compared to the same period a year earlier which is a key indicator for inflation and closely watched by the Bank of England, the feeling in the market yesterday was that the likelihood of a rate […]

US Dollar Broadly the market liked Trump’s nomination, choice of running mate and the growing likelihood of a second term for the ex President. USD strengthened against almost all of the G10 currencies and 10 year bond yields declined. EUR/USD 1.0888. Japanese Yen As is normal practice in Japan the Japanese authorities do not comment […]

UK Energy Apart from announcing that there will be no further North Sea drilling licences issued, newly minted Uk Energy Minister Ed Miliband has wasted no time in greenlighting three huge new solar farms in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Sufficient to power 400,000 homes with an output of 1.4 GW the solar farms will cover […]

UK Growth The UK economy expanded 0.4% in May after 0% growth in April and at double the pace expected. GBP was perky on this, or maybe it was the unusual amount of sunshine on offer yesterday afternoon that lifted the spirits of British pound traders. The reason is that this surprisingly good picture(the growth […]

20 pips Despite significant macro events, FX volatility has taken a nose-dive in recent sessions. For EURUSD, the most heavily traded and directionally influential pair in the market, a range of just 20 pips prevailed through the European and into the US session. This is a currency pair that amongst many other factors yesterday was […]

Carlsberg It was third time lucky for Carlsberg in their bid to capture UK soft drinks firm Britvic which has Robinsons Barley Water, J20 and Fruit Shoots among others in its stable of refreshments. Paying GBP 3.3 billion or EUR 3.9 billion at 1290p per share, this was a significant acquisition for Carlsberg. The reason […]

Second Round The second and final round of the French legislative election took place on Sunday. The results of the election are now clear. However, the consequences of such voting outcomes are still far from known. With a relatively light data calendar for the Eurozone this week ahead of the ECB decision next Thursday, focus […]

US Election Bearing in mind that the CNN poll was taken on July 2 well after the disastrous debate between Trump and Biden but it put Trump ahead at 49% versus Biden at 43%, the subsequent ABC interview with pre-advised questions for President Biden will have done little or more likely will have compounded the […]

UK Election With the UK Voting exit poll at 2200 last night confirming what all of the polls had been saying in the lead up to Polling Day, while the result was never in doubt, contained within it there will be plenty of surprises on seat changes although short term it is far too early […]