SGM-FX insights

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, […]

Rotation out of the US Quite what that rotation may mean and by how much is exercising the markets and also doubtless the Chair of the Federal Reserve. For the yield on 10 year US Treasury Bonds to move from 3.99% to 4.50% in a week is extraordinary. At the same time, the US Dollar […]

Brent sub $60 The last time that oil was at this level (now clawed its way back to $62) was in February 2021, following the 18% drop in price in the past 6 days. Currently, although for very different reasons, events plus supply resemble what happened to the oil market in 2020, when during the […]

Blink Just as the President had done with tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the manifestation of Trump’s liberation day has been delayed. Markets have not taken the news quietly with US stocks soaring. The S&P closed 10% in the green yesterday with FTSE100 futures suggesting a 5% gain versus the close. Trump hasn’t rolled over […]

News Overload In the last days it has at times felt overwhelming given the plethora of Trump announcements and the less than credible attempts by his coterie of officials to explain or even more ambitiously, to justify the illiterate economic reasoning behind it all. Take Jonathan Ferro on Bloomberg, whose eyebrows nearly disappeared into the […]

No let up If you look at the headlines coming from the financial press, you’d be forgiven to think the events of the last three trading sessions were the latest financial crisis. The truth is, at least for now, it isn’t. I certainly wouldn’t argue that the destruction in value within asset prices is negligible, […]