Our Daily Brief provides insights into the news and views driving today’s foreign currency exchange rates.
Negative Rates End The moment that markets seem to have been chasing for forever and a day finally arrived overnight. The Bank of Japan has ended its negative interest rate policy, setting benchmark rates within a positive band. The looseness of Japan’s monetary policy had left the Yen as the funding currency of choice and […]
US Dollar The USD had a strong week more on the realisation that US interest rates are unlikely to fall as soon as hoped than on particularly strong economic data. In particular USD moved up against JPY. The USD index moved up the most this past week since the beginning of January.USD/JPY 149.05. Space VIP […]
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 […]
Stealth Whilst it may soon be ending, the latest economic paradigm that has endured globally has been one of high inflation and economies have been virtually defined by respective central banks’ race to adjust interest rates. Rates are now widely expected to fall later this year, but until they do I conjecture we are still […]
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 […]
A tale of two cities In NYC office vacancies stand at 20% whereas in London it is 10%. The US commercial real estate market is set to get worse in the next 2 years and already c$660 billion in value has been destroyed between 2019 and 2022. It is estimated that up to 44% of […]
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, […]
Money matters Tomorrow is the day that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver the Spring budget to the House of Commons. He has been keen to avoid the mistakes of his short-tenured predecessor. Whilst the infamous mini budget was notable mostly for its baseless largesse in favour of the British public and business, it was also […]
Cocoa The world’s cocoa crop available for consumption has shrunk by 11% in the past year as a result of a combination of poor weather and supply disruption. The move in the NY ICE Cocoa contract is a clear reflection of what that means in real world terms: in March 2023 Cocoa stood at $2586 […]
UK Economy Green shoots or maybe early indications that the UK economy may be showing some signs of life in Q1 2024: according to the Bank of England home finance approvals have risen from 51,500 in December to 55,200 in January. Also cash strapped brits have put GBP1.9 billion more on credit card and finance […]