Our Daily Brief provides insights into the news and views driving today’s foreign currency exchange rates.
Markets At the beginning of this week 1USD would have bought you 42 Argentine Pesos. Today that has become 45 Argentine Pesos. A 7%+ devaluation in a week is dramatic for the already beleaguered Argentine economy and represents a record low for the Peso. This has affected all emerging markets. Generally the USD has […]
INDYREF-eree! Yesterday’s confirmation by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon failed by rain on Sterling’s parade. Sterling finished the European trading session yesterday 0.3% up against the Euro and 0.2% against a strong US Dollar. Whilst the Pound eventually lost the battle against the US Dollar in New York trading hours, it did manage to […]
Markets Have started the week in a positive frame of mind with the Dow recording a record high and its best performance since last September, oil firm with WTI at $64.04 and USD strong and unchanged. In the Beginning… (Genesis) or Beresheet in Hebrew The Israeli Beresheet moon mission ran into […]
A lot of sunburned Brits will be headed back to work today after the long weekend. All four nations of the United Kingdom enjoyed their hottest Easter Mondays on record, with Saturday also stealing the 2019 crown for the hottest day so far this year. My thanks go to the Met Office for these statistics […]
Rand Resilience South Africa’s Rand is one of the most freely traded emerging market currencies in the world. With limited protectionist monetary architecture against capital in/out flows and with no explicit targeted manipulation of the currency from the central bank, the Rand is subject to the whims of international sentiment. With this in […]
Exchange Rates We have written previously about the low level of exchange rate volatility in the past year and it is now official: exchange rate swings are at a low for the past 5 years. Euro/USD 3 month volatility is running at a third of the norm over the past 18 years. The closely […]
Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries: I should think many of you reading this brief right now have visited, seen, or at least heard of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. No doubt too that you have spotted the saddening news of the fire that last night caused as-yet […]
Markets At the start of Easter week markets are looking to the start of Golden Week in Japan this time with a further holiday period with the new Emperor’s accession. The longest continuous closure of the Japan market since WW2 is causing a few frayed nerves. In the UK currency, credit and equity markets […]
Market As further evidence of a cooling in the global economy surfaced this week, it was inevitable that a scapegoat would be sought. Not only Europe but also the IMF are getting in on the act to blame Brexit. In currency world this week EUR has weakened versus USD and GBP has held up […]
The British stereotype can be a confusing one. The French call us “Roast beef”, I suppose due to our affinity to the quintessentially British Sunday roast and, one would assume, partially in retaliation to being referred to as frogs. Internationally, are we not also supposed to love a good cup of tea and love a […]
GBP/EUR For all those affected by this currency pair the tendency is to focus on GBP and its changing daily/hourly strength or weakness due to the torrid action in Westminster. As perceptions that a NoDeal is out of the picture, GBP strengthens and then as news emerges that PM May and Leader of […]
Omnishables: Taking the acclaimed title of Oxford Dictionaries word of the Year 2012, “Omnishambles” is a word which is normally deployed in relative proximity to a photograph of the former Foreign Secretary and Vote Leave figurehead, Boris Johnson. To my mind today, it’s an appropriate one-word encapsulation of global politics. The general decay in […]
Italy At the end of 2018, Italy agreed a budget with Brussels and that sorted things out right? Wrong. Italy has debt of EUR 3 Trillion or 3 thousand billion. According to the OECD the Italian economy will contract in 2019 and Italian debt will grow to between 2.5 and 3% of GDP in […]