SGM-FX insights

Bullseye   If you’re anything like me your bank will also be on the phone to you wondering why you’ve been withdrawing sums of cash from various cash points only to deposit them back into the bank 5 minutes later. As I’ve promised my bank, there is nothing untoward about this behaviour. Rather, I’ve been […]

VW   Despite the global chip shortage affecting not just VW but all car manufacturers, VW is sticking to its 2021 profit forecast. Despite lower production, VW will be able to make up the deficit by selling off inventory and still produce 800,000 vehicles which will deliver an operating profit margin of between 5.5% and […]

Hot Air   A change of tide has begun in the foreign exchange market. However, it is not one that will float all ships. Finally, an acknowledgement of rising inflation expectations in the United States and globally has coerced the Federal Reserve to begin the path towards a discussion about tapering rates it seems. Their […]

Dubai Airport   For 2021 Dubai Airport is targeting 28 million passengers. Capacity is 100 million and normally services flights to 260 destinations worldwide. 18 months ago pre Pandemic the discussion was about the damage to the environment of so many passengers flying. Now economic reality is regaining some attention as the jobs, revenues and […]

Norway   Norway’s Norges Bank is setting the pace for the world’s Central Banks by announcing yesterday that they plan to raise rates 4 times in the next year. Currently the key rate for Norway is at 0.00% but the indication is for 4 rate increases of 0.25% each quarter over the next 12 months […]

Fed-up?   It appears the Fed may indeed have decided that enough is enough with respect to the constant questioning and criticism it has received about falling behind the market. After the CPI inflation measure was observed at 5% and the Fed’s preferred PCE measure came in close behind it, yesterday’s decision was always going […]

European Government Bond Yields   Which is the only Eurozone country that does not expect bond buyers to pay them to lend for 5 years? The answer is Italy which pays just 0.04%. Even Greece charges 0.01% to bond investors to lend them for 5 years. The European Central Bank has convinced markets that the […]

What’s another month?   Since the latest lockdown began to contain Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations, the market has kept a close eye on the route out of the lockdown. It could have been presumed therefore that the rising rhetoric against the latest and most final step out of the social and economic restrictions could call […]

Global Shipping   The disruption caused by the pandemic and also the Suez Canal blockage 2 months ago continues with Guandong Province in China seeing a fraction of the throughput of goods that would be normal. The Yantian International Container Terminal is just one of the ports that is affected with goods queued and early signs […]

Record Books being dusted off in the UK Statisticians and practitioners of the dismal science known as economics put their slide rules aside yesterday and came up with the following from the UK record books: April saw an increase in economic output of 27.6% from April 2020; last month saw the Bank Of England raise […]

Record Books being dusted off in the UK   Statisticians and practitioners of the dismal science known as economics put their slide rules aside yesterday and came up with the following from the UK record books: April saw an increase in economic output of 27.6% from April 2020; last month saw the Bank Of England […]

G7   Having watched Macron receive a slap to the face already this week I’m sure many of the G7 leaders were cautious of receiving theirs (metaphorically or physically) as the summit gets underway this week. Thus far, we have seen headlines that G7 leaders are drawing up plans to collectively provide a billion vaccines […]