The world after Brexit

The collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2007 and the loss of the United States’ AAA rating in 2011 were the two events that had had the most serious impact on the wallets of stock exchange investors globally – until now. On June 24th, 2016 those two calamities were joined by the choice of the people of Great Britain to exit from the European Union. The decision of 52 pct of voters (with a very high turnout – 72 pct) was a complete surprise. A few days before the vote, the opinion polls were pointing to the Remain camp winning the day – and this is clearly what the stock exchanges were anticipating. During the night of the count, however, as it became apparent that Britain had voted to leave, a tsunami was unleashed, starting from the Asian stock exchanges. Post-referendum Friday was a day of chaos, suspended quotations and a huge stock sell-off on all the main stock exchanges. Standard & Poor’s calculated that almost USD 2 bln had evaporated