In an historical night of voting Parliament for the first time agreed to back Boris Johnson’s Brexit proposal agreed with the EU last week but in the next breath voted against the PM’s timetable, effectively making sure that Brexit doesn’t happen by the end of this month.
Europe responded in the best Trumpian fashion – European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted he would recommend to back a delay in order to avoid a chaotic no-deal Brexit.
London shares with greater UK exposure were sliding but this was balanced out by hikes in share prices of the newly spun-off M&G Plc, previously the investment arm of Prudential (LON:PRU), and Russian steelmaker EVRAZ (LON:EVRE). Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) also rallied after saying that it found a massive lithium deposit, the metal used for electric car batteries, while looking for gold.
Pound slips post-Brexit vote
All the parliamentary activity left the currency market all confused and the pound initially dropped to $1.2842 before beginning to recover. The pound/euro cross followed a similar pattern with sterling trading down 10 pips this morning.
Oil trades sideways
The oil market is seeing some sideways action with traders trying to push the commodity above the $60 level to trigger some stop-loss buying but Brent crude keeps coming back into the $59-$60 range. As the next OPEC meeting in Vienna comes closer investors will look for comments ahead the gathering to indicate if OPEC is still happy with the current price range or will intensify production cuts.