SGM-FX insights

Never a dull day Yesterday South Africa headed to the polls in what was expected to be the most closely contested election in decades. Clearly not wanting the scrutiny of international markets to falter, we await an interest rate decision in South Africa later today also. Of course, in fact this is not abnormal. The […]

EU Elections With hard right French candidate Marine Le Pen and centre right German Ursula Von der Leyen vying for the position of being seen as the unifying right wing EU parliamentary candidate , it is Italy’s Giorgia Meloni who is being touted as the queen maker and who will determine the composition of a […]

Eurozone in focus After a busy week for the Dollar, focus looks most likely to turn to the Euro as we approach June. The next ECB decision is due to be published on June 6th. As present, the ECB looks near certain to cut rates at this meeting. There remain risks of course to that […]

Vice President Rather like those riderless horses in the Grand National that gallop over the fences alongside horses with jockeys aboard, Nikki Haley despite having abandoned her nomination bid for the Republican presidential candidacy, is still garnering 20% of Republican votes. Now however NH while falling short of endorsing her ex rival President Trump, has […]

It’s raining, it’s pouring And Rishi Sunak was cawing. Stood defiantly behind the lectern placed in the middle of Downing Street, if it weren’t for the puddles accumulating on Rishi’s shoulders, you’d have never known it was lashing down with rain in central London yesterday. Only time will tell whether the rehearsed and enthusiastic declaration […]

Gold The gold bulls are having a high old time with the metal at almost its all time high of Monday. There are three main reasons for this: first is the amount of gold bought by the world’s Central Banks in past months, second is the huge demand from China as holders of Yuan fearful […]

Will the BoE cut in June? According to markets at the close of trading yesterday, a June rate cut from the Bank of England is likely. However, priced at just a 58% probability, you can see just how open the ground for the Bank of England’s June meeting remains. For some time now June has […]

Asian Currency Wars A thoughtful article in the South China Post on Saturday evening raised the spectre for what many fear but few choose to put into words: China opting for a significant devaluation of the Yuan to make it more competitive and that in turn triggering devaluations in the other Asian economies.  The reason […]

Japanese Yen As soon as a rash of market analysts concluded yesterday that the Yen was a basket case and that the Bank of Japan were wasting their money intervening to prop up the Yen, the Japanese Yen strengthened markedly on the back of US data admittedly rather than positive Japan data, but it certainly […]

a C and a P, PI Two price indices have been released within the US this week. That released on Tuesday covered the change in prices at the producer level. On Wednesday, it was markets’ turn to look at consumer price levels. Only one of the price level readings had a meaningful impact upon markets. […]

UK Pay With unemployment at its highest since last year with the Q1 rate at 4.3%, it would look safe to assume that the Bank of England would be encouraged to cut UK interest rates sooner rather than later; however with wage growth at 6% providing the counter argument to sooner, the first cut may […]

An inflation focussed week The name of the game in markets currently still revolves around deciding how the respective paths of monetary policy easing will look across the globe. The hot forecast is therefore how inflation should be expected to be recorded amongst nations and currency areas. Given the importance of inflation statistics in deciding […]