My colleague wrote recently about the biggest opportunities for profit often requiring one to ‘be greedy when others are fearful’ and vice versa. This strategy would have worked out rather well had you viewed the market as overbought going into the referendum and oversold after this morning’s sell-off. Is the trading and investment situation of a life-time staring us in the face? Blink and you might miss it.

The Financial, Housebuilder and Retail sector sold off hard when markets got their first chance to react to news of a UK Brexit vote this morning. And this was to be expected having been the biggest beneficiaries of a pre-referendum Remain-assumed rally into yesterday’s vote. And the most impressive thing today is how far these Brexit-sensitive names have rallied from their early-morning initial panic-fuelled lows. This suggests that the end-of-the-world is not upon us and that investors are effectively saying “this’ll work itself out; it’ll be alright in the end”. While everything has changed, nothing has changed. We will remain part of the EU for at least 2 years and that is a very long time for markets that have become rather short-termist.

And the resilience of the UK Index Index throughout today’s trading session – steadily rising from its 5700 lows to regain 6200 – implies that recent scaremongering from the Remain campaign may have been over-egged. Which leads us to ask whether the recovery rally has already begun with gusto with no secondary sell-off on the cards? Now the Leave camp’s tactics were a little questionable to say the least too, but an almost immediate back-peddling by Leave on certain claims (NHS, immigration, etc.) and vow not to rush with any activation of Article 50 to trigger EU divorce proceedings begs the question whether an alternative and less-messy compromise may be found appealing to both sides of the electoral divide and the UK-Brussels marriage (please think of the kids!).

With the UK Index now down only 2.5% on the day, back to levels traded on Tuesday, having been in the red by almost -10% this morning, this is one of the most impressive turnarounds I have ever seen in my 15yr city career. Especially given the context of a historically important and game-changing political event. As I write, it’s quite possible the UK Index gets back to breakeven by the close, effectively laughing in the face of political, economic and financial uncertainty. After almost a decade, and multiple financial fires, have we become so immune to crises that we don’t even bother panicking anymore. UK Index back at year-highs by the end of next week? Look at a chart and it doesn’t look as crazy as it might sound.

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Mike van Dulken, Head of Research, 24 June,