The latest on Brexit 16 October 2019

Lots of fuss being made about whether the DUP and ERG are onboard with Boris’s plan but;

  1. Nowhere has it been confirmed that the DUP’s mention of “gaps” means it’s gaps between it and the government, and not gov & the EU.
  2. Boris has been tight with the DUP since May was PM. They will be fully aware of everything Boris is trying to do, and that’s likely with their approval too.
  3. Boris was one of the founders of the ERG. They are all his crew so they will be in the loop on everything.

I think a lot of people are looking the wrong way on this. The DUP & ERG haven’t uttered a word against anything Boris has done since becoming PM, except to denounce rumours and “sources” hearsay. They’ve also remained tight-lipped over the details of the deal, which we still don’t know and is still only conjecture from the press and “sources”. Even the comments from ERG’s Paterson in The Sun didn’t mention anything exact about Boris’s plan, yet has been spun like he’s panned the deal;

“Concerns remain that the EU will seek* to trap Northern Ireland permanently in the EU Customs Union by trying to reheat the failed ideas of customs partnerships or single customs territories that proved so disastrous for Theresa May.

We await the full details* of the new deal to see exactly how they address the objections to the dead Theresa May deal, but dual-tariff systems like this would be, as Priti Patel has said, unacceptable.”

As you see, “will seek” is not “are seeking”. “We await the full details” is not him commenting on the full details.

We are in a world of spin and guesswork by the press and all MP’s that are outside of Boris’s close circle, and he’s keeping that circle very tight as not even all his Cabinet are in it. That’s a smart move because UK MP’s leak worse than a colander. He needs to keep this tight so he’s not undermined by the remain factions, and if we know he’s keeping schtum, we know there’s something serious going on. But, that’s not all, as even Barnier is doing the same his side. All we’ve had from “EU diplomats” & “sources” is nothing more than we’ve had from the UK side. They’re in the same position and Barnier is keeping it on a ‘need to know’ basis. But, you can bet state heads like Merkel and Macron are well in the loop.

Now, of course, some of the things touted around may well be true but the silence on these details is telling, and that might mean that what is in any deal is going to be unexpected.

Deciphering what’s real, not real, conjecture and rumour is like unravelling a tangled ball of string, so for us and trading, it’s easier to put the string to one side and look at what’s not being said and what the people involved are actually doing, rather than what the papers and “sources” tell us they’re doing. That’s worked for me throughout this Brexit mess and has worked well enough for me since I started buying GBP mid-Sep.

We are all in the dark over what’s going on but the way to try and see throught it is too look where others aren’t, and if the herd are all looking in one direction, they’ll all miss something coming from another direction.

Unfortunately, for trading, the market is going to move on whatever gets thrown up, real, guessed, or made up. For us to navigate that, we have to look through the headlines and assess whether they’re game changing or not. Suffice to say, GBP is a very hot potato right now so we’re open to big swings on nothing and everything. The techs are pretty much unreliable and I’m only really looking to the big figures for the main possible S&R points.

The only thing left to say is don’t guess what the pound will do. Either leave it and its vol alone and go and trade something else or if you want a thrill in your life, go and do a parachute jump.

 

 

Ryan Littlestone

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