Brexit vote brings investors golden returns of 19 per cent in the past 12 months

Study shows

Savvy investors could have banked returns of 19 per cent over the last 12 months by investing in gold immediately before last year’s Brexit vote sent the price soaring in Sterling terms.

That beats the FTSE100’s rise of 14.5 per cent over the same period. The Pound has meantime lost 12 per cent of its value on the currency market.

One year on from the UK’s vote to leave the EU, and with divorce talks now finally underway, BullionVault – the world’s largest online exchange for physical gold, silver and platinum – looks back at gold’s performance before, during and since the referendum, and shows how investors have protected their broader portfolios by banking on gold amid the political and financial turmoil.

Adrian Ash, director of research at BullionVault, said:

“Gold worked as advertised on last year’s Brexit shock, jumping in price and helping reduce the pain of sudden losses in Sterling and the stock market. Because gold tends to do well over longer periods when other investments do badly, British savers have continued to buy gold at these higher prices as the risks to shares and Sterling have continued to grow.

“Gold already said Brexit was a crisis well before June 2016’s referendum. Gold priced in Sterling rose sharply as David Cameron announced the date of the vote, sending bullion prices up 20 per cent across the first three months of last year, gold’s fastest quarterly gain for UK investors since the financial crisis peaked in September 2011.

“Buying gold ahead of the Brexit referendum proved both smart and increasingly popular. In the run-up to 23 June last year, the number of first-time UK BullionVault users jumped 95 per cent from a year earlier. As the referendum shock then became clear on 24 June, gold prices jumped another 22 per cent against the Pound – the fastest gain on record – and BullionVault’s online precious metals market saw a record £31.1m of buying and selling by its users worldwide.”