Have started the week in a positive frame of mind with the Dow recording a record high and its best performance since last September, oil firm with WTI at $64.04 and USD strong and unchanged.
In the Beginning… (Genesis) or Beresheet in Hebrew
The Israeli Beresheet moon mission ran into trouble resulting in a 300 mph “hard landing” on the Mare Serenitatis on the surface of the moon. Mission over this time but Israel has pledged to try again.
Never mind Arnie and “I’ll be back”. This is Aaron and he will be back!
SGM-FX’s Shekel desk are standing by when the Israelis shell out for the next spaceship with USD/ILS presently trading at 3.58….
Londoners in particular but visitors to the South East also will take comfort from the news that there are now 3 cases for the opening of the line as opposed to a news vacuum on the launch of the long awaited service as we wrote last month. Best case is that it opens in a year in Spring 2020; middle case is for Summer 2020 and worst case is Spring 2021. Great to see that there is now some accountability on the timing for this the largest infrastructure project in Europe. 17 minutes from Paddington to Canary Wharf means no more excuses for being late at your SGM-FX desk, Richard!
Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

Missing haven At the start of the year, the Franc had performed well as a safehaven. As a result of political and economic developments in Japan, the Yen was not abiding by its usual safehaven form. Therefore, defensive plays within FX only had two credible places to go: the US Dollar or the Swiss Franc. […]
Battle of the banks Market volatility continues amidst unclear messaging from both sides of the conflict in Iran. The President’s position has continued to flit between seemingly concrete positions of absolutely tangible progress and bombing the nation back ‘to the Stone Ages’. Since the start of the war, smarter money has acknowledged that predicting the […]
Questioning Truth Adopting the same handle as his now rather redundant X account, @realDonaldTrump shocked markets yesterday using his own social media platform, Truth Social. During Trump 1.0, the legitimacy of a President using an unofficial X, then Twitter, account was questioned. Now under Trump 2.0, it’s seldom questioned when he is the majority shareholder […]