SGM-FX insights

Chill Pill   Yesterday evening, following the close of the European trading session, I watched the price of oil in the United States completely collapse. The sell-off had been gathering momentum through the day. The most common instrument to measure the price of oil in the United States had opened yesterday’s trading day at $18 […]

Hin Leong Trading Pte, Singapore   This oil trader has notched up losses of a magnitude which are still unclear despite having declared profits of SGD 78.3M which is just over USD50M up until October 2019. Founder and Director O.K. Lim “instructed the company”-no not sure how that works either- to suppress the trading losses […]

Turkish Lira   Exactly one year ago USD versus Turkish Lira (TRY) was 5.79 and today it is 6.90, a depreciation of over 19%. Looking at forward pricing and listening to market chat, the expectation is that the Turkish Central Bank will shortly have to concede and let the TRY find a new lower level. […]

Cat’s eyes   A useful perspective or model to employ for evaluating where the Pound is headed is by looking at where it is within its tight post-Brexit trading range. We produced a visual analysis previously that showed how Sterling was right at the top of that traded range on a trade-weighted basis and therefore, […]

Unintended Consequence?   Off-shoring has been  the name of the game for Western companies seeking opportunities to shave costs by relocating jobs that could be shifted and filled by the large and less expensive workforce available in India, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries. Insurance call centres, banking payment centres, IT coding and many other […]

Emerging Nightmare   The currencies of those nations earlier in their cycle of economic development are always the most vulnerable during a crisis. With thinner capital markets, a reliance upon the exportation of primary or secondary materials and raw commodities, they are highly sensitive to global downturn. Accordingly, their currencies are always the first to […]

OPEC+   Yesterday evening in a high stakes negotiation ahead of the markets opening in Asia, the protagonists met to try and agree the largest cut in production ever-10%. The issue apart from the tumbling price of oil now at $22.76 in NYC on Thursday evening is as highlighted here previously storage: quite simply capacity has been […]

Vital Signs   Whilst the global economy has been all but locked down government activity and stimulus packages have only accelerated. The scale of the unprecedented fiscal and economic responses will be important in gauging the path of global future growth. The relative value with which currencies will trade with each other will also be […]

South Korea   Known sometimes as “Delivery nation” and its citizens as “Delivery minjok” which means delivery race, even before Covid-19, the expectation is for everything to be available for delivery and often within hours. The delivery staff are often worked as hard if not harder than Amazon fulfilment centre workers- the difference being that […]

Care   Yesterday evening the United Kingdom learned that its Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had been moved to the intensive care unit of St Thomas’ Hospital following a deterioration in his condition. We wish the Prime Minister a speedy and thorough recovery from the virus. Last night it was easy to see Twitter warriors condemning […]

Luckin Coffee   We have written previously about this Nasdaq quoted Chinese wannabe rival to Starbucks. It all seems a bit passé now in present circumstances with all cafe chains shut for drink in business, but Luckin’s shares having stood at $50 in January they fell to less than $10 on Friday night. It’s a […]

Market News   Oil firmer to $22 on the back of POTUS saying that he is expecting Russia and Saudi Arabia to reach agreement on both supplies and pricing soon. USD stronger. Equity markets remarkably stable on the back of horrible but expected US Unemployment figures with 6.65 million new claims. France is preparing a second stimulus […]