The EU Referendum ‘Brexit Barometer’ developed by IG Group Holdings plc (LON:IGG) is currently showing an 81% chance that the UK will remain within the European Union, a new high for the Barometer since its launch in February 2016. A Brexit has been the most unlikely outcome since the inception of this market, according to IG clients.
A vote to leave was given a 35.5% chance in March, before pulling back to just 19% today.
The Barometer is an indicator of what those traders are predicting will happen in the 2016 UK referendum on membership in the European Union. The data is based on the political binary market IG has created for clients to trade on.
We would remind our readers that these figures are NOT what the IG Barometer is predicting will be the actual vote outcome – that will of course be a lot closer than 81%-19%. The Barometer simply measures the chance that the ‘Remain’ vote wins, which obviously goes higher as the predicted Remain vote rises above 50%. (For example if polls showed Remain-Leave voting at 75%-25% shortly before June 23, the Barometer would probably show a very high 99%+ chance of Remain winning).
Matt Brief, Head of Dealing at IG Group, commented:
Our binary market has consistently shown a strong likelihood that the UK will vote to remain in the EU, demonstrating that traders are choosing to look favorably at the results from phone polls over online polls when setting their expectations. Our political binaries have shown a high success rate in predicting the correct outcome in previous elections and referendums. The pattern we are seeing is similar to the Scottish Referendum when markets remained solidly for a NO victory throughout the campaign.
So what about the actual vote prediction?
With 29 days left until the EU Referendum, new Survation Brexit polling on behalf of IG shows ‘Remain’ continues to have a steady lead over Leave in the latest telephone poll in the series. Results are as follows, with changes from the previous Survation / IG poll (taken April 27) in brackets:
Remain 44% (-1%); Leave 38% (NC); Undecided 18% (+1%)
Excluding undecided voters, headline results are:
Remain 54% (NC*); Leave 46% (NC*)
But what about the Undecideds?
Voters in the sample who initially told Survation they were undecided were then “squeezed” with the question:
If the referendum was today and you had to choose, would you a) vote for the UK to Leave the European Union, b) vote for the UK to Remain a member of the European Union, or c) would you not vote?
Some of these Undecided respondents then stated their preference for Leave or Remain after this “squeeze” question. Adding back these respondents the initial Leave/Remain voting intention had the effect of a slight (1%) boost to the Remain figure:
Remain 55%; Leave 45%
Survation’s polling this year has shown voting intention for Leave between 41% and 46%, and Remain between 54% and 59% (excluding Undecideds) – a consistent picture despite the Leave and Remain campaigns beginning in earnest during this period.
Commenting on the findings, Damian Lyons Lowe, Chief Executive of Survation said:
In today’s polling for IG we also asked respondents to what extent they agreed or disagreed that Britain leaving the European Union would lead to an economic recession – comments that George Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron made widely this week. The extent to which voters agreed with this assertion was revealing.
Of those indicating that they would vote to Leave the EU, only 1% “completely agreed” with this statement compared to 10% of those indicating that they would vote to Remain, suggesting a reluctance on the part of all voters to be swayed by campaign messages. This may well explain the lack of movement in polling thus far.
Between now and referendum day, a series of major events from mainstream broadcasters – Sky News, ITN and the BBC’s Wembley event on June 21st – may change this and we’ll continue to monitor opinion for IG right up until polling day.
We will continue to follow the Brexit story and bring our readers further updates as the June 23 vote approaches.