How Did You Spend Referendum Day?

The big day has arrived, it's Referendum day and whether you Tory Scum, Socialist Scum, A Traitor or any other name that is being thrown about on the internet, today hasn't been as exciting as i thought it would be.

The humidity has been the biggest issue for me, it's been grey and gloomy all day in Hull, however i did enjoy a freshly ground Vanilla Coffee this morning, however the aroma was more enchanting than the taste of the coffee.

In the morning i played a little Euro Truck Simulator 2 on my laptop and then headed into town for voting, i won't say which way i voted, but i cast my vote.

The polling station were nice and polite, they were expecting me, which was nice. In every election i have stood in i have always got on well with the polling station staff.

After voting, which took me a couple of minutes to cast my vote, it was over to a local shopping centre for a limited edition doughnut at Krispy Kreme, the dougnut was a peanut butter and jelly doughnut, i enjoyed it, not sure about the price of £2 though!

Now it's just a waiting game until the polling stations close at 10pm and then of course the result in the early hours of the morning.

I Can't Really Be Bothered To Vote In The Referendum

I've mulled it over and thinking towards Thursday, my mind is clear and that in terms of important lifetime decisions, voting in the EU Referendum will not be one of them, I've spent a large proportion of my life around politics, the Conservative Party and to be honest i don't think i've ever eagerly awaited the EU Referendum, but last night i viewed a debate from 1975, pretty much what is being said today was said back then, except today their seems to be more nastiness from the Remain and Leave camps.

I'm quite a Euro Sceptic, in fact i take after a man I greatly admire in Milton Friedman who was sceptical of government as a whole, which i think i am too.

I think my thoughts come from the fact that after 1997, we don't have ladies or gentleman in the House of Commons, Blair's regime seems to have brought this fast food, loutish type of Member of Parliament, i only admire a handful of MP's today, Graham Stuart for Beverley & Holderness, my daughter Gretchen loves him, David Davis from Haltemprice & Howden, Stuart Andrew in Pudsey.

Although i have got to know quite a number of MPs over the years i can't help but think since we were put on a diet of reality tv, loutish MPs who don't respect one another and more recently the free press hacking dead kids phones to make a quick buck, that our democracy has been eroded in the name of ratings and what is cool.

50 years ago MPs used to debate on the TV and discuss matters of the day, they generally spoke with posh accents, smoked pipes and the discussion was very bland, even channel 4 used to show educational programming.

You can see the type of behaviour that we have in the house of commons, we have MPs both men and women that would be better on a Council Estate with their debating skills. Not that all Council Estates are bad mind you.

Fast forward to more recent times, last week a lady who was an MP was brutally murdered in the street in her constituency, now she was young and probably hadn't banked on dying anytime soon, so how can the people and campaign management from the Remain campaign actually use her death to further their cause? William Straw son of Jack Straw the famed Labour MP from Blair's time is in charge of the Remain Campaign, did he have talks with Mrs Cox about her dying and what her wishes were? I don't think so.

Then to this morning, some MPs who intend to vote Leave on Thursday have been sent threatening emails about that if they don't change their vote, it will be hard for them to become MPs again.

This isn't democracy, it's people who are clearly more unemployable than the actual people who are unemployed throwing their weight or their fantasy that they have some sort of power in the world, this is why i refuse to vote in the EU Referendum on Thursday.

Was Today's Rally A Fluke or Is There More To Come?

It's an unusual question to ask, but for the past 2 weeks we've had what i like to call a mixed bag when it comes to stock exchanges, especially as we roll into the Summer months and things tend to go a little quiet with investors and traders getting ready for Summer breaks, then as if by magic we get a rally and not in the US, it started in Europe.

Unless you've been off the grid, you cannot escape the fact that the UK is currently divided by the "In" campaign and the "Leave" campaign, but as someone who has played with the exchanges for quite a long time now and when i look at investing i don't tend to play the news, so is today's rally as i termed it on Facebook a last dash for cash before the referendum or is there more good cheer to come even after the results of the referendum?

I'm quite sceptical of the main stream media, well ever since the whole phone hacking and general underhandedness, plus the whole bias in the media, so i don't tend to trade the news myself, but there is clearly two camps of investors and i highlighted this over the weekend, there is investors who stand to gain a lot from an In vote and there is those who stand to gain in an Out vote, but there is the middle investor, who is trading the news and polls, clearly this strategy cannot and will not pay off in the short term.

my own thoughts on how to play the market is simple, when your looking at the stock, look at the company as a whole, look at their history, i always like to think that history will repeat itself and if anything don't play the over subscribed stocks.

The significance of today's rally is that usually the US Stocks rally quite well, but Europe doesn't really do rallies, but today we came out of our comfort zone, something the UK will be doing if it does leave the European Union.

Who Were The Winners In Today's Rally?

Today has been one of the best days for stock exchanges around the world, starting in Asia, all indexes in Asia managed to get at least 1%, then onto Europe and ahead of the big EU Referendum in the UK on Thursday with a big push, DAX got to over 3%, CAC40 got to over 3% and the FTSE got to 2%. Finishing in the USA which made small gains, all indexes finished in positive territory.

Let's have a look at the top 5 gainers from the UK:

Lloyds Banking Group plc

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc

Global Ship Lease, Inc.

Barclays PLC

BT Group plc