“I’m waiting for Brexit”, said the client. “What exactly are you waiting for?”, I asked. “To see what happens”. How will you profit from waiting? “What do you mean?” What’s your strategy for making money from the stock market while you wait? “I’m waiting for share prices to drop on Brexit day, so I can pick up a bargain”.

Why do you think prices will fall on Brexit day?, I enquired. “Because we might crash out”, the client confidently offered. If that does happen, would it be a surprise, like the morning after the referendum? “Probably not”. So why would share prices fall, if it wasn’t a surprise? “Ehhm…”

Share prices have been strong for the past few weeks. The UK Index is up almost 11% from Christmas lows (up 7.7% year to date), rebounding to its best since early October. This in spite of a rise and fall of hopes and fears about all the possible Brexit scenarios, from hard to soft Brexit to no Brexit at all.

As it stands, 90% of UK 100 members are positive for 2019. Of those, 7 are up by 20-25%, 17 up more than 15% and 46 up at least 10%. There’s so much going on, and it it’s not all about the UK leaving the EU. Companies continue to release full year results with the news often producing handsome share price moves.

Doing nothing is a perfectly valid trading decision. It’s called sitting on your hands. You won’t lose any money in the trade-gone-wrong sense. But you won’t make any money either. And missing out is a loss in itself; lost opportunity. Do we even know when Breixt will happen ? If Article 50 is extended, do you keep ignoring all the trade opportunities?

By all means wait for Brexit, whenever that may be. The stock market, however, will keep moving offering the chance of profits from share price moves driven by factors other than Brexit. Remember the financial markets don’t wait for anyone. They price in all available information very quickly.

If you think you can beat the market to the Brexit morning share price reaction, good luck. You’re more likely to find that the result is priced in by then. Unless, of course, things to go right down to the wire; 11pm on Friday 29th March. If they do, you’ll still have to wait until Monday 1st April to trade.

In the meantime the team at Accendo Markets isn’t sitting around twiddling its thumbs. There’s far too much going on. In fact, it was another strong week for the trade opportunities we sent our clients.

Positive full year results helped some shares rise more than 8%. A pair of breakouts extended by 6%. On average, fallers rebounded by 6%. One support candidate bounced 5% and a particular trading range dealt a 14% rally.

Curious about what you might be missing out on while you wait for Brexit? Then get access to our research Gold Pass. You might change your mind.

It’s the turn of the high street banks to report full year results next week. As a group, they have an average results day trading range of 4% over the last 16 quarters. RBS shares are up 3% today. Could peers do even better next week?

Mike van Dulken, Head of Research, 15 Feb 2019