SGM-FX insights

Focus on Asia driving equity markets   More news about President Trump meeting North Korea’s President Kim in Vietnam yesterday and depending on how things develop with China, he is contemplating inviting President Xi to his Mar a Lago Estate in Florida for a summit. There Is plenty of gold there to make the Chinese […]

Global Markets   Good news from Asia with reports on substantial progress on negotiations between the US and China on trade. Chinese stocks rose 5.6%-the most since 2015- accompanied to a much lesser extent by all other Asian indices.    GBP remains firm against EUR and USD which weakened slightly against the EUR. Now with […]

Purchasing Power Parity and the Big Mac Index   More about Purchasing Power Parity or PPP which we wrote about last week: the old benchmark which best describes this measurement was started by the Economist newspaper in 1986 and monitors a basket of shopping containing just one item: the cost of a Big Mac in […]

Taking stock at the end of the last full week in February 2019   The U.S. equity market has returned to its previous high over the past 3 months at 25,850 but will have to add a further 1000 points to reach its high of 6 months ago and highest to date. FTSE steady at […]

Global Economic Ranking over the years 2000 to 2023   While we are all clear as to the size of the two largest economies ranked by their Purchasing Power Parity, once we get beyond them let’s be honest while we can normally hazard a guess at the largest of the next largest world economies, we […]

UK Labour Market   Employment figures yesterday showed that 32.6 million were employed and 1.36 million unemployed representing 4% of the working population which is the lowest since 1975. Weekly earnings increased by 3.4% for the year to Dec 2018 and was the highest increase since 2011. Apart from demonstrating the ongoing strength of the […]

Real Estate- Mainstream Market Indicator rather than Middle Class Porn?!   Conflicting stories in Real Estate World have got SGM-FX Analyst Charles M. Porter scratching his head overnight: last year the largest property deal was the purchase of iconic City building the Walkie Talkie by Lee Kum Lee for £1.3Billion. Surely a testament to the […]

Hard Brexit and the current market environment   Now that markets have dissected the UK Parliament vote on Thursday night, collective wisdom is pointing towards an increase in the likelihood of a hard Brexit ie a NoDeal Brexit. Guess what? GBP currency traders do not like the sound of that while conversely the FTSE with […]

It’s Official: to understand the British and Brexit (you non Brits) you need to appreciate….Marmalade!     So first things first: for the classical scholars among you, recipes go back to Pliny and Martial. Marmalade is either shop bought or home made and like a number of great institutions-the monarchy, tea and democracy is non […]

To all our Clients: A Valentine Message and 3 corny jokes (sorry!)     1. Q: What did the boy octopus say to the girl octopus? A: Can I hold your hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand? 2. Q: What did one snake say to the other snake? A: Give me […]

Alfred Lord Tennyson: The Charge of the Light Brigade   ….Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley’d and thunder’d; Storm’d at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well,   Tradition has it that according to market pundits and in particular the richest Rothschild of […]

Ripe, Sexy, and Flamboyant…     No not the UK economy as it turns out, but the 2017 new Rhone wine vintage (according to the French!) Yesterday’s UK Q4 GDP release further confirmed what we have been saying with GDP Growth slowing to 0.2%. Not great- and the market is keeping a close watch on […]