SGM-FX insights

UK Housing Market Best performance in the past two years etc etc with the Halifax average house price up 4.8% as at the end of November. Without being curmudgeonly or seasonally Scroogelike the real house price performance allowing for inflation in the last 2 years is minus 10.5% for all those mistakenly regarding their house […]

UK Equities We wrote recently about a European wide Santa Rally in Equities despite the political headwinds in Continental Europe, but it looks as if the UK market has finally managed to break out on the top side of its range and without wishing to jinx it, may be set fair. One well known Fund […]

BRICS In case you missed it, and I very nearly did due to the sheer amount of soon to be again President Trump’s social media output, he was vociferous in his opposition to a BRICS inspired alternative currency to USD. While we have been following the long running Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa […]

Iceland Over the weekend the 390,000 people of Iceland who number almost the same as the most populous London Borough of Croydon have cast their votes in a snap election that will likely unseat the current coalition and replace it with another one composed of Social Democrats and the Liberal Reform party. Cost of living […]

86 This is the number of Basis Points between French and German Government Bond Yields and represents the highest level since 2012 which was the last time of a major EU crisis- which that time was Greece which had fallen from grace with the markets. Apart from this wide spread it is instructive as to […]

Globalisation As each week passes and returning President Trump’s January inauguration draws closer, he is if anything stepping up his rhetoric on the introduction of tariffs immediately after his return to office. China has responded in a measured way saying that they will maintain the value of the CNY rather than devaluing competitively as well […]

EU Stagflation With inflation blipping up and business activity turning down, the S word is back on the table. Not only manufacturing but also the services sector fell sharply in November with the Purchasing Managers Index at its lowest level this year. The EUR facing a rampant Dollar is increasingly undermined by its own weakening […]

NYC Drought No not a mistake NYC issued a drought warning earlier this week: for the first time since 2002 New York City has such a water shortage that residents and businesses are being asked to respectively take fewer shorter showers and to conserve water. Reservoirs are well below normal levels and to accentuate the […]

UK Mortgage Rates In a further widening of his very own credibility gap, UK PM Starmer denied that the recent Budget was responsible for the rises in UK mortgage rates from most of the High Street banks in the past two weeks as markets factored in higher inflation due to the measures announced by Chancellor […]

Mansion House Dinner Last week’s dinner attended by guest of honour still fairly new Chancellor Rachel Reeves turned out not to be much of a surprise from her due to the now well worn habit of leaking what she was going to say ahead of time. The surprise came rather from Bank of England Governor […]

Brazil When most Europeans hear the phrase Belt and Road in reference to China they think of the route of the ancient Silk Road from China to Europe. There is of course an initiative of the same name in Latin America and specifically between Brazil and the Pacific Coast to the Peruvian port of Chancay. […]

UK Statistics With wage growth at 4.8% higher year on year for the 3 months to the end of September and unemployment rising to 4.3% versus the expected 4.1% yesterday, the reasoning behind the thinly veiled warning from Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is that they were taking a measured approach to further interest […]