EU Referendum: investors vs gamblers
EU Referendum: investors vs gamblers. Brexit. According to some recent polling evidence, the British public has now turned toward voting to leave the European Union. We look at what investors vs gamblers are really thinking…we follow the money.
Following the real money seems like a better predictor of the referendum result than extrapolating surveys when the ‘don’t know’ voters (of which there is around 10% of polling surveys) have such a significant impact on the final outcome. Although the FT reports that the ‘Leave’ camp has the upper hand over the ‘Remain’ camp (by 3 percentage points on average), the ‘don’t knows’ are critical to the result and evidence suggests they tend toward the status quo.
Investors vs Gamblers
Gambling flows on betting website Betfair indicates that the vast majority (around 80% of gambling funds) are betting on Britain remaining inside the EU. Somewhat counter-intuitively, this is in contrast to investor flows into ETPs, which shows that 85% of total British Pound ETP funds are being deposited into products tracking short GBP positions. Although not strictly comparable, investment flows are showing a distinctly counter trend from gambling. We feel that the difference represents investors hedging potential losses in other asset classes that could be sustained if the referendum were to go the way of the ‘leave’ camp. Investment hedging is pragmatic and does not represent a underlying view that that Britain will leave the EU, in our opinion.
Martin Arnold, Global FX & Commodity Strategist at ETF Securities
Martin Arnold joined ETF Securities as a research analyst in 2009 and was promoted to Global FX & Commodity Strategist in 2014. Martin has a wealth of experience in strategy and economics with his most recent role formulating an FX strategy at an independent research consultancy. Martin has a strong background in macroeconomics and financial analysis – gained both at the Reserve Bank of Australia and in the private commercial banking sector – and experience covering a range of asset classes including equities and bonds. Martin holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of New South Wales (Australia), a Master of Commerce from the University of Wollongong (Australia) and attained a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia.