With the UK threatening to leave the EU, hedge funds are seeing an opportunity to profit from correctly predicting the outcome of the EU referendum.
Several hedge funds are planning to conduct exit polls, at a cost of around half a million dollars a piece, to help them gauge the odds of the UK withdrawing from the EU. Presumably this information could allow these hedge funds to place large bets on currency markets.
According to Financial Times "A strengthening pound will be associated with a swing to ‘Remain,’ while a weakening in sterling versus the dollar and other currencies would be seen as a boost for ‘Leave.’"
According to The Wall Street Journal, currency markets indicate that traders believe heavily the UK will vote to remain in the EU: "Across options and futures contracts, speculators have nearly erased their net short sterling positions, according to data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission."
'Hedge funds have asked for exit polls and for hourly polls on the day.," according to one pollster, 'Banks are certainly commissioning polls for their own consumption that are never released.'
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