A lot can change over the course of three months and at the end of Q1 few can honestly say that they expected a vote for Brexit to win at the end of June this year. As soon as the result of the EU Referendum was reported the FTSE 100 fell along with the value of Sterling, but the real crash occurred within the financial (banks) and construction (housebuilders) sectors.

So how bad was it? Despite the rebound in the last two days of June it was pretty brutal, with the 10 stocks in our Index sliding by 18.5% on average during Q2, compared to a rise of 6.2% for the FTSE 100 during the same period, thanks largely to soaring oil and commodity stocks. However, we are just looking at one three month period. When we look at total returns over the past two years (see table), the shares in this fund have returned 26% on average, compared to a fall of 3% for
the FTSE 100.

Also, the unfortunate timing of the Referendum means that these losses are likely to be temporary. For example, on Friday the 1st of July the housebuilders were still massively rebounding with Persimmon rising 7%, Berkeley Homes and Taylor Wimpey both up 5%, Bovis Homes up 4% and many others up 2-3%. These are very large price moves over the course of just one day.

While one reason for these sharp price rises was the short-sellers activating trailing stops as the housebuilder shares started rising again, it was also very likely that some astute investors were picking up some incredible value during the 'Brexit panic-attack'. I did actually state in the last quarterly report that buying into the dips of the four large housebuilders during times of global stock market panics, (as we had back in February this year and in August 2015), would be a great strategy.