Chart of the week: the Brexit divide in the UK market

published 26 January 2018

Since the referendum, the 50 large British firms that derive the largest proportions of their revenue from abroad represented by the Bats Brexit Low 50 index have done well. But the 50 most domestically orientated companies, the Bats Brexit High 50, have barely moved. The Low 50 have profited from the weak pound, which makes foreign earnings and dividends worth more in sterling terms. Brexit jitters and the UK slowdown have hampered the firms with high domestic exposure. On the plus side, many of these now look cheap, says Ed Bowsher in the Financial Times.

Viewpoint

"We could maintain frictionless' access to our largest export market [by joining] Norway in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and [remaining] in the wider European Economic Area (EEA). [Some say] this would be no different from remaining in the EU [yet] joining EFTA would exempt us from having to obey three-quarters of the EU's 20,000 laws. The only ones we would still have to comply with are those dealing with trade, which guarantee frictionless' access to the single market. But 80% of these now originate from global bodies above Brussels, all of which we will have to continue complying with."

Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph