British stocks are set to soar

published 22 March 2019

The endless fuss and uncertainty over Brexit has prompted investors to look beyond Britain over the past few months. But that, as we keep pointing out, spells opportunity. The FTSE 100 is "very cheap", as Peter Stephens notes on Motley Fool. It is yielding a juicy 4.9%, more than double America's S&P 500 index. But it's not just blue-chip multinationals that make most of their sales abroad that arein the bargain basement.

When it comes to domestically orientated stocks, says Morgan Stanley, relative valuations are also "much too low".What's more, the gloomover the economy is overdone. The outlook may be "unspectacular", but it isstill "pretty solid", saysLiam Halligan in The Sunday Telegraph. GDP is set to grow 1.2% this year, according to

the Office for Budget Responsibility. This means that we are expected to grow faster than Germany (the latter's growth is predicted to reach just 1%). "For all the doom and gloom, wages are rising at their highest rate for a decade, amid record job creation."

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Nor should investors fear a no-deal scenario. Traders and investors "who actually read documents" know that French authorities have given assurances that a "smart customs" border in Calais will keep goods flowing, and a UK-EU aviation agreement will keep planes flying. The upshot? "As and when Brexit clarity emerges, British stocks... are set to soar."

Marina Gerner is an award-winning journalist and columnist who has written for the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist, The Guardian and Standpoint magazine in the UK; the New York Observer in the US; and die Bild and Frankfurter Rundschau in Germany.

Marina is also an adjunct professor at the NYU Stern School of Business at their London campus, and has a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Her first book, The Vagina Business, deals with the potential of “femtech” to transform women’s lives, and will be published by Icon Books in September 2024.

Marina is trilingual and lives in London.