SGM-FX insights

Oil Price Pre TT or Trump Tariffs, the oil price seesawed around but mostly reverted to its mean over a few trading sessions unless a major piece of economic, political or trade news arose. All that has gone out of the window with steady declines in session after session,  so in case you have been […]

Not an auspicious start  At the beginning of any political term, we often talk a lot about the first 100 days. It’s often something a candidate themselves is either questioned on or elects to comment on, telling the electorate what they will do if elected in their first 100 days in office. For elected candidates, the […]

British Pound Whenever one reads a headline such as Sterling at a 38 month high versus USD, the tendency is to assume that GBP is due for a hubristic fall after that particular piece of pride. However this time it might just be different with no sign that USD has turned a corner and is […]

A testing week Traded volatility continued to moderate into the end of last week. As a result, key currency pairs have begun to settle into a range, albeit one slightly wider than is typical. It has been the lack of devastating news flow regarding tariffs that has allowed an element of normalisation to emerge. The […]

UK Economic Growth 2025 The range is from 0.5% to 1.6%. Funnily enough, and not sure what conclusions one can draw from this, the four most pessimistic forecasts are all banks – Nomura, UBS, NatWest and Barclays who lead the downbeat group at 0.5%. At the other end of the scale the acronym heavy ICAEW, […]

Eastern Europe and Central Asia Between 2010 and 2019 economic growth in this large geographic area averaged 4%. According to the World Bank, that growth will decelerate to 2.5% for the next 2 years and even stripping out Russia that will still be lower at 3.3%. Inflation, weak external demand from the EU,  global uncertainty […]

Spreads fight back The renewed selling pressure created by President Trump’s challenges to the Fed’s independence left the US Dollar deeper in oversold territory. We have seen momentum and strength indices suggest the Dollar has been oversold on several occasions over the past few weeks. However, given the current market conditions and volatility, this hasn’t […]

British Pound A 7 month high versus USD, and GBP is at present benefitting from the self inflicted wounds that the USA is continuing to suffer, the latest of which is the speculation over whether POTUS will defenestrate the Chair of the Federal Reserve. At the moment, and we choose our words carefully given the […]

Volatility – here to stay? Prior to Trump’s liberation day, there were clear dates in the calendar that presented risk. Clusters of options expiries were therefore able to reflect the risks implied to markets from such dates. With no liberation day in the calendar and no roadmap for the resolution of existing tariff clauses (notably […]

China FX has found some breathing room against the backdrop of a weaker Dollar. As we know, that weaker Dollar is largely created by two factors. Firstly, the Dollar losing its safe haven status and even attracting a risk premium as investors shield themselves from the uncertainty of President Trump’s tariff game. Secondly, again as […]

UK Employment At 75.1%, employment for people aged 16-64 looks sort of OK depending on what that really means, but it does not alter the fact that there are currently 1.55 million people who are unemployed, or 4.4% of the potential workforce. Another much more significant number, is that there are currently 9.27 million people […]

Calm before the… Markets have begun this week with a somehow threatening sense of normality. Despite the volatility seen over the past week and a half, stable ranges appear to be establishing themselves in FX. Meanwhile equity market volatility is moderating. This is undoubtedly a relative calm in comparison to the volatility of last week, […]