Good morning,
US futures are pointing to a positive open on Friday, with indices currently seen up around four tenths of one percent. The S&P is currently seen 7 points higher, the Dow 75 points higher and the Nasdaq 17 points higher.
Following weeks of uncertainty in the markets regarding Scotland’s position within the UK, the people have voted and decided to remain a part of the 307 year old union. Despite many polls in recent weeks suggesting the race was neck and neck, with one even claiming that the “yes” campaign was ahead, it was a fairly comfortably win in the end for the better together campaign, with 55% of people voting against independence.
What’s more, at no point during the counting process did the “yes” campaign ever look likely to win, so the volatility that we could have seen in the markets wasn’t really there. As the regions announced the results and it became apparent that Scotland would not get independence, investors did respond but not as strongly as some may have expected.
The pound, which appeared to anticipate the result in the 24 hours before the result was confirmed, rallied as the results were announced but it has reversed all of its gains since and now trades lower on the day. This is about as clear an example of buying the rumour and selling the news as you can hope to see. With the uncertainty of the referendum now behind us, it will be interesting to see whether the pound can make up the lost ground of the last couple of months or if the dollar can continue to run the show and drive the cable pair back towards 1.60.
The FTSE is trading higher on the day, with the result having a particularly positive impact on RBS and Lloyds, both of which have their head offices in Scotland and had threatened to move them to London should the Scots get independence. It’s not just UK companies that had a vested interest in the referendum, those in Spain were also keeping a close eye on the result as independence for Scotland may lead to further calls from Catalonia for the vote. The failure of the Scots to get independence has been judged to have weakened the Catalonians campaign, which has resulted in Spanish yields falling by 7 basis points and the IBEX trading 1% higher.
With the two major risk events of this week now out of the way, the other being the Fed decision, investors have very little to focus on, which is likely to make it a very quiet end to the week. There is no major economic data due out this afternoon and everything in the news is likely to continue to focus on the referendum result.
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