The global strategists at SGH Macro Advisors, CEO Sassan Ghahramani and Kevin Muehring, note that maintaining economic stability has been the top priority of China’s decision makers, followed by preventing financial risk, preventing capital outflows, and ensuring foreign currency reserves do not fall too sharply. Here’s what they predicted would be among the top talking points this weekend...

With oil prices sinking toward $45 per barrel this week, the Middle East experts at SGH Macro Advisors say that a compromise to prop up prices could be imminent among big OPEC producers...

When U.S. markets awaken Wednesday, China’s third quarter economic growth will be at center stage. If the number is lower than expected, global markets won’t be happy and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets exchange-traded fund (EEM) could come under pressure. But SGH Macro Advisors CEO Sassan Ghahramani and Kevin Muehring, senior managing director, note that the Chinese government has broadcast a narrow outcome, based on government GDP estimates cobbled together from nine departments. GDP is expected to be between 6.7-6.8%, and should remain around 6.7% in the fourth quarter, “with a slight lean to 6.8%,” note the folks at SGH, a consultant to asset managers and policy makers on the global economy...

The informal meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC on Wednesday in the capital of Algeria could lay the groundwork for a production freeze or quotas — but in November, says SGH Macro Advisors... Sassan Ghahramani, CEO of SGH, a New York consultant to asset managers and policy makers on the global economy, and Kevin Muehring, managing director, explain that the much-ballyhooed OPEC “meeting” in Algiers this week has no decision making authority and is tacked to the end of an energy conference that began today. SGH is among the skeptics about a near-term production freeze. They write...

"This move in the yen is maybe more about a risk-off move, than sort of a positive sentiment," Sassan Ghahramani, chief executive officer of SGH Macro Advisors, said on Bloomberg Television. "People got a little bit ahead of themselves and were expecting some sort of announcement on a supplementary budget. When that didn’t come, I think there was a bit of a disappointment trade."

US TSYS: SGH Macro says "A Fed messaging offensive is underway, culminating with Chair Yellen's twin speaking engagements on May 27 and June 6, to move market pricing higher for a June rate move." Data are stronger.

Peter Praet, the ECB’s chief economist, met with Nomura, Germany’s Deka Group and Brussels-based BNP Paribas Fortis, as well visiting SGH Macro Advisers in New York...

...But Draghi, in Thursday's news conference, dismissed the notion that the central bank was out of ammunition. SGH Macro Advisors agreed, saying markets were missing how effective the ECB's broad-based measures could be. "Indeed, in pushing its stimulus deeper into the banking system, credit markets, and peripheral countries, the ECB may have delivered a rather powerful — and desperately needed — boost to the real economy," SGH Macro Advisors wrote in a note.

(Bloomberg) -- OPEC meeting of tech experts scheduled for March is another step in a “trust-building path” toward possible output cuts between the organization and key non-OPEC producers that could come into “sharper view” as early as this summer, Sassan Ghahramani, CEO of SGH Macro Advisors, writes in a note to clients.

Oil prices may be showing signs of a bottom, and Saudi Arabia and other big producers might be willing to settle for prices near $45 per barrel, says Sassan Ghahramani, CEO of SGH Macro Advisors...An expert on Iran and Saudi Arabia, Ghahramani just told Bloomberg that he doesn’t think there is an “extra bid” — a premium — in oil prices because of geopolitical risk, but rather the opposite. He said he thinks we have seen “some bottoming” in oil prices with spikes higher. While acknowledging a freeze in oil production announced by Russia and the Saudis, Ghahramani said the process of shoring up prices will be a long one with big players – including Iran — attempting to build trust when they are rivals, and “quite frankly enemies” in some cases. But oil-price threshholds are moving lower with a global glut of crude, boosted by U.S. supplies.

Bank of Japan undertook “rate check” calls to some banks to check levels of USD/JPY, which caused a spike in the pair, Sassan Ghahramani, head of SGH Macro Advisors, said in a note.

With a ceasefire in Syria brewing, and the Saudi king likely visiting Russia within weeks, the world’s biggest oil producers could cut output “sometime in March,” SGH Macro Advisors said late Thursday.

"In the heyday of the 1990s, a junior bank trader might hold a $1 million to $2 million position overnight, and a top trader might hold a position of up to $100 million overnight," notes Sassan Ghahramani, CEO of New York-based SGH Macro Advisors, which advises money managers. "That has disappeared. Volume is at an all-time high, but its a situation of 'pass the hot potato.' People can't hold positions... Meanwhile, hedge funds and other money managers have become the players holding currency positions for sustained periods, Ghahramani notes. "A lot of them are on the same side [of trades], and if they need to get out, banks are no longer there as a cushion. That tends to exaggerate moves."

Indeed, the folks at SGH Macro Advisors note while European Union officials want Greece to submit a memo of understanding before August 11 or at least August 13 as a condition for a European Stability Mechanism (ESM) disbursement, the memo may not come. And Greece needs money to pay the European Central Bank (ECB) on August 20.

SGH Macro Advisors’ Sassan Ghahramani and Kevin Muehring write: “The most humiliating measure of many, for Tsipras on a political level, was the 50 billion Euro escrow fund negotiated with Germany. After the all-night negotiations, he got little more than a concession that the “pledged” assets be left under Greek and not foreign (Luxembourg) jurisdiction … Despite guaranteed defections … we are told Tsipras has an estimated 100 or so Members of Parliament still that will do what he asks them to do … The Greek banking system is highly likely to be consolidated, although under an orderly scenario – meaning as part of the Eurozone and with all the support to the financial system that this inclusion earns from the ECB – we would expect that recapitalization and consolidation will be conducted gingerly, with considerable effort to limit the reforms to equity and subordinated debt and to avoid the far more controversial haircuts to deposits (i.e., those over 100,000 Euros).”