With the latest news that Theresa May faces a leadership challenge and recent events in Parliament, it’s worth commenting on the impact on the stock market. These gyrations have generated an enormous amount of uncertainty among investors. The result is that few investors are buying even after share prices have fallen substantially.
The general trend in the UK market is down, the pound is falling and overseas investor confidence (which is key to prices of large cap stocks) must have been damaged by the headlines that they see. Will the UK face a “hard” and damaging Brexit, or even a change to a Labour Government? Overseas investors will have even less of a handle on those risks than UK investors so are running scared.
The fall in the pound should help the profits of many UK listed companies. But even the shares prices of those companies who might benefit have been falling. That applies particularly to small cap companies. Many small cap stocks have limited liquidity and the liquidity provided by private shareholders has been disappearing as those with limited stock market experience have suddenly realised that the markets are not a one-way system where you consistently make money after ten years of positive market trends. They are taking their profits and sitting on their hands.
We are in a “negative momentum” situation where falling share prices drive further falls as trend followers ignore fundamental valuations and sell regardless. This will not change until share values start to look very cheap. The decline in US markets has also undermined investor confidence generally, and has a big influence on the UK market.
There could be a sharp recovery in share prices if confidence returns – after all the UK and worldwide economies are doing well. But confidence will not return until there is some sight as to how the Brexit problem will be resolved.
Theresa May has certainly got herself and her party into a very difficult situation. She signed up to an agreement with the EU over withdrawal that many in her party, and in the DUP who she relies upon for votes, do not like at all. Instead of simply telling the EU that the deal has to be renegotiated, as any firm leader would have done, all she has been doing is going around Europe asking for “reassurances” on the back-stop. The EU bureaucrats (Juncker et al) might have said that they won’t renegotiate it – so would I knowing that Mrs May does not have enough support to take a firm position and time is rapidly running out. But the EU needs a deal to protect its economic interests. They might hope that Britain will reconsider and stop the Brexit process altogether but that is not consistent with the views of the majority of the UK population so is unlikely to happen. Even if a general election was called over the issue, it is not clear that Labour would run on a manifesto committing to rejoin the EU as a lot of their traditional supporters do not like the EU and are affected by the unlimited immigration that has resulted from free movement of people.
The answer therefore is to replace Mrs May with someone who can provide firmer leadership including taking a risk on a “hard” Brexit with no withdrawal agreement if necessary. The latter would not nearly be so damaging as some predict and would put the UK in a very strong position to negotiate a trade deal that is in our interests (and with no complications over Northern Ireland as that issue could then be simplified to avoid a hard border).
My view is all deals are renegotiable if either party no longer supports it. Therefore we need to “withdraw from the withdrawal agreement”, i.e. repudiate it and start again. There are many aspects of the EU Withdrawal Agreement and the proposed future relationship that make sense, but some aspects of the former need changing.
Well those are my views on the political situation. Others might disagree. But so far as investors are concerned, improving confidence in the future economic and political landscape is the key to improved share prices. That seems unlikely to happen under Mrs May’s leadership however much one recognises that she has been trying her best in difficult circumstances.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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