SGM-FX insights

Social Media Activism   The most controversial arena in politics over the past decade has arguably been online. From election scandals to fake news, Cambridge Analytica to Brexit, the way campaigns are received online has shaped the course of politics. Now social media is fighting back and is taking credit for President Trump’s embarrassment at […]

Germany   Jenns Weidmann, President of the Bundesbank has made a call this weekend which the rest of Europe including the UK would do well to heed-if indeed as we all hope that it is correct: Germany’s economy has passed the low point of the crisis caused by the Covid outbreak. So by definition, the […]

Kiwi Dollar   The Kiwi or NZD has strengthened sharply in the past two weeks versus GBP. It was only at the beginning of April that it was trading at 2.10 and now has broken its previous resistance a 1.95 and has broken through to 1.93. GBP has of course weakened across the board but […]

Growth   The word growth over the past few months has usually involved a discussion about the spread of Covid-19 and the change in the number of infections. But in normal times economic growth is discussed more as one of the main drivers of the value of a currency. Coupled with an appreciation of relative […]

Indian Railways   Owned by the Indian government, Indian Railways in normal times operates 20,000 trains a day, has revenues of USD 28 Billion per annum and employs 1.3 Million staff. India has committed to electrify 100% of the network by 2023 and be carbon neutral by 2030. For any of you who have travelled […]

Interventions   State intervention in the foreign exchange market is a taboo subject. On the one hand, each nation holds and reports reserves of foreign currencies that are seen as critical to financial and economic stability. On the other hand, if a nation uses those reserves too aggressively then it risks being labelled a currency […]

FTSE   Four months ago in the more innocent days of February, FTSE stood at 7,500 before plummeting to 5000 in late March. Now at 6,100 FTSE is looking less certain despite the historic degree of support and stimulus from the UK Government and while the US market has largely shrugged off March with the […]

Global Markets   Following the Federal Reserve’s downbeat forecast, markets duly gave up some of the gains they have enjoyed in the past few trading sessions since the US Employment figures of last week Equity markets were down and the S&P after close in Europe by 5% which bodes badly for the end of the […]

Less Fireworks; more Firefighting   Last night the Fed voted to keep US interest rates between 0%-0.25%. I’m not sure about you but having only recently witnessed emergency meetings slashing the benchmark rate and pledging to buy corporate securities the meetings seem somewhat mundane! Even if not quite as unexpected, the Fed’s decision last night […]

Bitcoin   It’s been a few weeks since we have written about BTC or Bitcoin. At the beginning of March you may recall it was trading at $8000 before plummeting to $5000-yes I have written before about the need for strong trading stomachs for this particular index and the liquidity issues and and and… Anyway […]

Spot the Difference     What do the following two graphs have in common?         Points for the best answer: they both have a blue line, they both demonstrate limited finesse on Excel, they both don’t have labels on their axes? You’re all correct, but the true problem hidden beneath these graphs […]

OPEC+: Herding Cats   Pre meeting on Thursday the so called delinquent members of the cartel- Iraq and Nigeria in particular – reneged on their commitments to cut production. The largest members KSA and Russia in turn have said that if they do not adhere to the line agreed by OPEC+, then they in turn […]