SGM-FX insights

UK Election With the UK Voting exit poll at 2200 last night confirming what all of the polls had been saying in the lead up to Polling Day, while the result was never in doubt, contained within it there will be plenty of surprises on seat changes although short term it is far too early […]

US Interest Rates Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has not so much hidden behind the data at the economic summit in Sintra, Portugal yesterday but rather deployed it as a weapon against those baying for rate cuts: with inflation still half a percentage point above the target level on the Personal Consumption Expenditure index which […]

USD/JPY As we have written recently the Japanese Yen is on a 38 year low versus the USD. This past weekend has seen a number of comments from the Japanese authorities along the same lines as at the beginning of June when the currency pair stood at 155. The reason this is noteworthy is that […]

French Consumers In a word, they are pessimistic with leading concerns being that in the very near future their standard of living will fall, they will be able to afford to spend less and lastly that their job security will be reduced. Sunday’s French election sees the New popular Front Alliance made up of the […]

UK Labour Government Assuming that a new Labour Government comes into power on July 5 which is becoming daily more apparent, it is still even at this late stage hard to see how the new government will act in respect of the detail behind the platitudes that have been trotted out to date by the […]

Balkans integrated power network That’s the beauty of the Balkans when it comes to their individual power networks: each country is connected to the others which allows them to manage surplus electricity. So far so good. On Friday all those countries found out what happens when there is a surge in demand caused by 40c+ […]

Currencies on the Move USD up due to Switzerland cutting its rates again and a fall in GBP after the widely expected announcement yesterday lunchtime by the Bank of England of no change contained wording that the market has taken as a promise to cut in August. All that plus the ongoing France debt and […]

British Pound Somewhat in the doldrums as the market awaited this morning’s inflation figures and tomorrow’s interest rate decision. Truth be told, it is the inflation figure that is keenly awaited rather than the rate decision which is not expected to result in any move by the Bank of England. GBP/USD 1.2680. Reform UK Listening […]

US Jobs With Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stating that the US jobs market is now back to where it was 5 years ago ie prior to the Pandemic, it is all too easy to accept his word for it; except while there are 1.2 job openings for every 1 job seeker which is the […]

Chinese Electric Vehicles When the news of the EU slapping additional tariffs on imports of Chinese EVs from the current level of 10% this week, there was a sense of inevitability but not a widespread appreciation of the quantum: some Chinese EV imports will attract an additional tariff of over 38%. China needless to say […]

UK Election Landslide As we are being told that it is game over for PM Rishi Sunak, it is worth taking a look as to what that would mean for markets with an incoming Labour Government for the first time for 15 years with a large majority and an untested cadre of top leaders. Deep […]

Vigilance, Commitment and Perseverance Those are the requirements from ECB President Christine Lagarde for Europe to win the fight against inflation. What is conspicuously missing is an indication of the likely timing for the next cut in EUR interest rates, but it will not be at the time of the next ECB meeting in July. […]