There’s less than a week to go now until Britain decides whether to stick with the EU and try and make it work, or pack its bags and leave for good. It’s been a long and, to be honest, not particularly illuminating campaign. There have been lots of hyperbolic statements from both sides, and finding sensible comment on the matter has, at times, been difficult. There has, however, been plenty of scaremongering, patriotic chest-thumping and emotional bluster.
But this week, John Stepek gets down to the nitty gritty of actual economics, and looks at what the outcome of the referendum will mean for your money.
Find out what he’s got to say on the matter with a subscription to the magazine.
Along with that, we look at how to time buying tech stocks, how robots are going to change the world, and an adventurous new way to buy into Vietnam.
Should we stay or should we go?
The markets have got decidedly jittery in the wake of the most recent batch of opinion polls that suggest for the first time that the Leave campaign is in the lead. “Put simply”, says John, “markets have suddenly realised that there’s a good chance that Britain might wake up on 24 June with a mandate to leave the EU”. That’s led to “sliding global stockmarkets, soaring global bond prices and all manner of wobbles in the pound”. Everything short of the Apocalypse has been predicted, although EC president Donald Tusk has gone as far as prophesying the end of “the entire Western civilisation”.
“Don’t get caught up in the hype”, suggests John. The latest bout of global economic malaise isn’t all down the Brexit fears. There are plenty of reasons the markets have taken a beating lately. Weak US jobs growth and poor growth in China are just two obvious ones, while sovereign bond yields are tumbling because of investors’ worries that “central banks still can’t trigger decent growth, and may be doing more harm than good”.
If you want to know more detail about what John thinks will happen in the event of a vote to leave, a subscription to the magazine.
Brexit: a huge buying opportunity
If Britain does vote to leave, says Matthew Lynn in his City View column, it will serve as a “great buying opportunity”. UK assets have been marked down heavily in the run up to the referendum, and, if we do vote to leave, there will be “a wave of selling pressure”.
But if you can “calm down for five minutes” and resist that, says Matthew, there will be profits to be made. After all, “the City has form on getting the EU wrong”. He sets out four very good reasons why it might have got it wrong again.
Two contrasting ways to buy into Vietnam
For investors who fancy venturing farther afield, David C Stevenson takes a look at perhaps our favourite emerging market right now – Vietnam.
Things are improving there, he says. The political scene is relatively stable, the country is signing up to more and more free trade agreements, and the stockmarket is keen to encourage foreign investment.
But “investors don’t seem to have taken much notice”, says David. That could be a mistake. So if you’re looking to get in before the crowds, David picks two funds to buy into now – one well-established, London-listed investment trust and a new, Saigon-based fund that aims to invest in small value-orientated stocks. If you want to know more, a subscription to the magazine.
How to time your tech trades
Over the years, fortunes have been made and lost as the latest investment craze inflates into a bubble and then bursts. New technology is often a driver for these bubbles – think of the railway boom in the 1840s and the dotcom bust of 2000.
The pattern of boom and bust is predictable, however. In his investment strategy this week, Matthew Partridge outlines the theory behind the five-stage “hype cycle”, and uses it to discover the best stage to buy into the latest craze if you don’t want to lose your shirt.
Elsewhere, Sarah Moore looks at Neil Woodford’s new high-income fund, which should launch some time later this year; Natalie Stanton warns against apathy taking a chunk out of your retirement fund; and Simon Wilson looks at how robots are coming for everyone’s jobs.
In his shares pages, Alex Williams picks the best way to profit from the changing face of the pub, as boozers go gastro and turn away from fruit machines and dartboards in favour of fruit cocktails and specials boards. As ever, he also brings you all the best share tips from the rest of the press.
All that, plus eight of the best smallholdings for sale now, a look at perhaps the best Porsche 911 there is, and Chris Carter takes you on a tour of Budapest’s best hotels and restaurants.
Tuck in to all that with a subscription to the magazine.