Nearly there - but don't forget the long term.

Well only two days to go now before the UK's referendum on membership of the EU. Now if like me you are getting bored with all the arguments and slanging matches going on then it is worth remembering that there are other issue out there to be concerned about aside from this. Thus while we may well get a big move Blue Friday if the EU remain campaign wins and presumably a Black Friday if Leave win - according to George Soros in the Guardian, sounding like a EU minister. Hmm perhaps he is betting on Sterling this time around?

Any way the bigger issues out there have been highlighted in a couple of articles recently by Andrew Lapthorne the head of quantitative strategy at Societe Generale & Neil Woodford our best known fund manger who looked at what a BREXIT might mean for the UK and highlighted the bigger issues out there. As he said these are likely to be impacting us long after the EU referendum has been forgotten.

So in terms of thinking longer term about your portfolio I thought I'd share an interesting piece I read recently from Paul Hill an analyst at Equity Development called "Smart Investing and how to generate positive Alpha." Now don't be put off by the title as there is a lot of common sense advice in there which could help you in planning and building your portfolio's in the long run. You can download a copy below at the end of this post if that is of interest to you.

Finally I was debating whether I should add some EU referendum themed music, but having just heard BBC 5 Live's Wake Up to Money doing it - what the hell here goes.

They played the obvious Final Countdown by Europe and mentioned the other obvious appropriate tune Should I Stay or Should I go by the Clash. While in the background to their piece they played I just don't know what to do with myself - By the White Stripes, while I had thought of the much less cool and more cheesy but perhaps appropriately the Eurovision entry - Making your mind up by Bucks Fizz. While I had thought of an obscure track by ABC - called United Kingdom which had some strangely appropriate lyrics like "enrolment was easy, getting out proved to be the difficulty" - although we seem likely to be anything but United after this process. While finally if it goes the way of leave then it will supposedly be more likely to be Anarchy in the UK. 

Which left me thinking if the whole idea of BREXIT is such a bad one why on Earth did Cameron call a referendum in the first place? I suspect it was more about halting the rise of UKIP at the last Election and it was probably  a suggestion from a clever spin doctor to offer a referendum if they won the election as nobody expected them to win!

Having done that and then having had his bluff called, despite not getting substantive reform, he has still come out in favour of remain despite claiming he had an open mind - hey ho I guess that's what they wanted all along as apparently they are using the same tactics which were used when Denmark voted on their EU membership.

Any way it will thankfully all be over in a few days and we can go back to worrying about bigger issues in the World and markets. But I guess as the old saying goes you should be careful what you wish for. So at least I'll presumably enjoy a decent rally in the market on Blue Friday if the EU remain camp win, even if it is not what I wished for. Cheers and don't forget to vote on Thursday whichever way you want to go and may you get what you wish for.

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