SGM-FX insights

Libra: Digital Currency in Doubt?   PayPal pulling out of Facebook’s initiative to create a global digital currency is a key signal to the remaining members of the project which have each pledged but not paid the $10M joining fee. Watch for MasterCard and Visa to see if they follow PayPal. If they do, as […]

Polish Preferment   All those British who took out Swiss Franc mortgages 20 years ago and then found that while they enjoyed much lower interest rates: they ended up repaying far more as GBP depreciated against the Swiss Franc and can only look on at yesterday’s European Court of Justice, Europe’s top court ruling with […]

Mass Spectrometry   The process of mass spectrometry in its crudest format involves separating the components of a substance into its basic parts to allow us to understand what exactly makes it up. Invented shortly after World War I, the process is still used in areas of criminal and analytical investigation. I reckon it’s about […]

Taiwan and Typhoon Mitag   Despite markets, schools, airports and businesses being shut on Monday here in Taipei, Taiwan where I am writing this, there has been some unexpected good news for the economy. Analysts had concluded that Taiwan would suffer badly from the US-China trade war. Instead international funds are investing once again and […]

Borderline   The best way to solve a problem in politics, almost without exception, is to present the simplest form of the idea possible to maximise the expectation of success that each voter carries. What’s not a particularly grand idea in most scenarios, and certainly not when attempting to do something quickly, is to redefine […]

China and Hong Kong: enigma   The incredibly successful statistics from China throw out a big question of which more below. Between 1952 and 2018 GDP averaged 8.1%. Life expectancy has risen from 35 in 1949 to 77 today. 770M people have been taken out of poverty since 1978. More than $2 trillion has entered […]

Largest Risk Facing Global Economy   This is the lack of policy instruments at the disposal of central banks in the event of a financial crisis: with interest rates on historic lows and the ability to provide any fiscal stimulus heavily curtailed, the options available are limited. Nothing obvious in the way of a solution […]

Gladiators, are you ready?   I’m sure BBC Parliament has never had quite so many viewers as it enjoyed yesterday. Markets were fixated as usual with the political developments of the day in their pursuit to value domestic equity, currency and fixed income assets, but this time the population also turned to the Commons. Johnson, […]

NoDeal Brexit: What the bookies say: And Over the Rainbow   After yesterday’s court ruling and with 37 days left to the current deadline: 40% probability of NoDeal. And that is despite the Benn Amendment that prevents the U.K. leaving with NoDeal(!) Meanwhile the cliff edge uncertainty has sent UK factory output expectations to a […]

Sagging   Of the $6.6tn daily foreign exchange market, trading across the two leviathans, EUR and USD, takes the lion’s share. In normal times then, the sheer weight of demand and supply behind both of these two major currencies makes the EURUSD pair relatively flat. However, when presented with a big enough reason, the value […]

  Don’t just book it: Thomas Cook it….   Will have a new meaning for the 600,000 customers abroad as at last night of which approximately one third are British and need to be repatriated. The venerable company founded in 1841 has no national significance so will not be saved by the UK Government. Chinese […]

China: The Growth Story   Bizarre really that market analysts are wringing their collective hands because China’s growth for this quarter may dip below 6% after 6.2% in the last reported March to June period. In Europe’s anaemic world, we can only dream about such a figure. Needless to say the headlines will all reflect […]