SGM-FX insights

Jackson Hole This week’s annual gathering of top global economists and policy makers at the Wyoming resort will be more than usually closely followed by markets. The big event is on Friday when Fed Chair Powell will speak. Mostly the expectation is that Jerome Powell will adopt a less hawkish tone and will signal the […]

UK Growth The beginning of 2025 marked 0.7% growth in Q1 and the expectation for Q2 was for the UK economy to flatline, so when growth came in at 0.3%, which is exactly the same as France, Germany, and Italy, it prompted the more impressionable market commentators to dust off their forecasts and start talking […]

What the Trump-Putin meet up means for markets  Tomorrow a US military base in Alaska will play host to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. This date has been known for some time with POTUS taking to his chosen and own social media platform, Truth social, in order […]

Downbeat Deutschland Regular readers may recall that we reported that despite the many challenges the EU and especially Germany faced that in July with the prospect of summer holidays the June economic sentiment in Germany as reported by ZEW was bubbly if not positively effervescent at its highest level for 3 years at 52.7. The […]

A dollar demise? A case is most certainly building for a poor conclusion to 2025 for the Dollar. What’s more is that the current prospects for 2026 don’t look a great deal brighter for those hoping for upside within the greenback. Revisions to US labour statistics for May and June have undermined the capacity for […]

Gold Given the $600 or 21%+ move up from $2800 at the end of 2024, Gold has had a momentous 8 months for reasons ranging from demand driven by Central bank buying to investors placing safe haven side bets. However, last week trumped the previous 7 months in terms of whipsawing with firstly in response […]

Unfortunate That was how the Indian Foreign Ministry described POTUS’ extra 25% tariffs on Indian goods exported to the USA as a blunt instrument to prevent India buying Russian oil which indirectly funds the war in Ukraine. India is more than unlikely to find a ready replacement for the 2 million barrels of oil that […]

Running out of time Markets are likely to shift their focus back to the conflict in Ukraine caused by the Russian invasion. Ending the conflict between these two nations had been one of Trump’s election pledges and one which he scorned his predecessor for allowing to take place. With seemingly no progress made towards a […]

EU Tariffs Most people who followed the July 27 Turnberry meeting between POTUS and EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen thought that despite grumbling from Germany, France, and Greece, and subject to the EU Parliament ratifying the 15% US tariff rate that Ursula shook hands on, that was it. Not at all. First, there […]

Warning signals Admonitions of an equity market correction continue to be unheeded by major benchmarks. A stock market sell-off on Friday as a result of weak non-farm payroll data was met with a familiar buy the dip approach yesterday. Friday’s jobs numbers showed just 73,000 jobs added to the US economy versus the 110,000 forecasted. […]

Holcim The giant Swiss cement making company is the latest example of how failing to hedge or protect earnings from adverse exchange rate movements can hurt even the largest and most sophisticated international companies as well as those in the SME sector which operate on narrower profit margins. In Q2, Holcim saw a rise in […]

CBDCs Coming to your High Street soon: Central Bank Digital Currencies. The largest due to launch next year is the digital Euro. The Bank of England is still looking into it. Given that we have bank transfers, electronic banking, credit and debit cards and multiple payment cards the question is what will be the plus […]