Remainers pointing to soft economic numbers in the UK should note that trade between euro-zone member states fell by 6.6% in June compared to the same period last year. That was the fastest such contraction since 2013. Exports from the eurozone to the rest of the world also dropped by 4.7%, the fastest rate since 2016. The EU can’t blame the fall in intra-bloc trade on China…

This is massively under-performing compared to exports of goods and services from the UK which grew 4.5% in June, the most since October 2016. Shipments of goods in particular surged 7.6%, driven by machinery & transport equipment. The euro looks over-valued…

There is a belief popular with some Remainiacs that Brexit backing financiers – particularly those who donate to Brexit causes – are doing so to profit. Somehow they will make a killing when Brexit goes disastrously wrong and that is the reason why they are funding Brexit causes. The latest manifestation of this is that Crispin Odey is short* £300 million of shares in British companies, proof that he stands to make a killing when Brexit collapses the economy. Literally caught short!

Guido has not spoken to Odey for this article. It is however well known that he runs a long/short fund. A common strategy of such funds is to do pairs trades; a trader might go long Fed-Ex shares and short Royal Mail shares because he thinks Fed-Ex will do better than Royal Mail whether the general market goes up or down. Even if both shares go down he expects Royal Mail to go down more, even if both go up he expects Fed Ex to go up more. The difference between the moves – the spread – is where his profits or losses will be made. The difference in the shares’ relative performance.

Sometimes long/short funds will short a stock versus the general market. If the market goes up more than the shorted stock, they profit. The reason the financial press knows Odey is short £300 million of shares is that funds have to make regulatory declarations of short interests. They do not have to declare their long interests unless they become so exceptionally large as to be notifiable interests. However we know that Odey has billions under management. It is therefore very likely that his firm is net long the UK stock market given he has only £300 million in declared shorts. Not a position you take if you expect disaster.

Odey is often reported as having made millions from the referendum. Guido is sure Crispin is happy for potential investors to think that. However the facts are that his Swan Long/Short Equity fund lost 42.1% in 2016 and 21.8% in 2017. It has only just started clawing back losses by some 39.7% in 2018, leaving it well down since the referendum. So much for profiting from Brexit…

*Shorting is when you borrow and sell shares in the hope of buying them back later at a lower price. Hedge funds were originally so called bcause they hedged a short position against a long position.

Do you remember when Downing Street briefed the media that the defeat of the meaningful vote would produce a “TARP Moment”, and that markets crashing would push panicking MPs to vote for the PM’s deal the second time round? Just as the US congress agreed the bail-out only after markets crashed in a second vote. The theory was that the pound and equities would slide as investors priced in the likelihood of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal in March 2019. Scared of being blamed, rebel MPs would fall into line. Sterling finished the day where it started and if firm this morning, the FTSE 100 is basically flat as well. So much for Downing Street’s insight into market dynamics.

Market players clearly now expect a softer Brexit. Which suggests Downing Street has totally failed to convince observers to believe that a WTO terms Brexit is really a likely outcome…

Peston earlier tweeted that the ERG were falling in behind May’s deal. Just a warning to Guido’s friends in the foreign exchange game. Please take Peston’s insights into the Conservative Party with a bag of salt…

Bloomberg, who should know better, reported Peston’s tweet as if it was a verified ITV News story. The newswire flashed it out across their terminals. Millions changed hands, boom and bust within minutes resulted…

Services sector activity in the UK economy extended its rebound in the month of June, and surprised markets to the upside, services PMI jumped to 55.1 in June versus a 54.0 reading booked in June. Markets expected 54.0 last month. The survey data indicate that the economy likely grew by 0.4% in the second quarter, up from 0.2% in the opening quarter of 2018. Sterling rose against the euro on the back of the news.

Former Tory MP and tree-hugging Energy & Climate Change minister Greg Barker has had a difficult start to 2018. As we previously reported in November, Russophile Lord Barker of Battle’s primary role as chairman of En+ Group was to add a veneer of respectability to reassure the City as the Russian energy and aluminium producer listed on the London Stock Exchange. Once the LSE accepted the listing, Barker must have thought his main struggles were over…

Slightly concerning then that Barker’s boss, Oleg Deripaska, is now under the cosh on several fronts. At the end of January Deripaska was named on the US Treasury list of oligarchs linked to the Russian government. Deripaska owns over 70% of En+ and is also the subject of a letter to the SFO from the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, calling for an anti-corruption investigation into his affairs after he was filmed on a yacht with Sergei Prikhodko, Russia’s deputy PM. The yacht trip only added to the intrigue around Deripaska’s links to Manafort and the Trump campaign, especially with new allegations of more meetings on the US elections surfacing…

This is likely not M’lud Barker’s biggest headache. Both MI6 and officials in Washington are angry that the float went ahead, as most of the funds raised went straight to the state-owned Russian bank VTB, which is under both EU and US sanctions. Having secured a bridgehead on the LSE, En+ is rumoured to be gearing up to raise another $1 billion from investors. While happy for its oligarchs to raise money in London, Russia seems less pleased about the presence of ex-KGB officials in Salisbury. Barker, a close pal of ex-PM David Cameron, must be wondering how to salvage this one…