Domestic financial community chooses "Brexit" as stock market taboo word of the year 2019

• Other contenders: "trade conflict", "negative interest rates" and "MiFID"
• Independence from the current market environment with a long-term and broadly diversified investment strategy

(Vienna) The Vienna Stock Exchange once again invited 4,000 industry representatives to vote for the stock market taboo word of the year. The Brexit chaos kept the European financial community in suspense in 2019 – not surprisingly, this resulted in the clear victory of "Brexit" as the Austrian stock market taboo word of the year. The other contenders are "Trade War" and "Negative Interest Rates" (the stock market taboo word 2017), followed by "MiFID", the directives of the European Union that focus on reforms to stabilize and modernize the European financial system (MiFID for short). Industry commentaries say that these have failed to meet the targets they had set themselves, in particular that raising capital is more complicated and expensive for companies and that the choice of investors is more limited.

Long-term investment horizon ensures independence and stability

The stock market taboo word is chosen as one of the issues that burdened the financial community in the current year. In Europe, the Brexit is creating uncertainty, and worldwide the Chinese-American trade conflict is dampening investor confidence. With a long-term and broadly diversified investment strategy, independence from the current market environment can be achieved. "An eventful year on the stock markets is coming to an end. Despite some negative effects on the economy from uncertainties such as the Brexit, the ATX (including dividends) was able to achieve a plus of almost 20 % this year. And the stock market enables everyone to participate in the economic success of Austria as a business location. In order to increase the attractiveness of equity investments, we propose to exempt them from capital gains tax if the investments are held for more than one year," says Christoph Boschan, CEO of the Vienna Stock Exchange.

The stock market taboo word of the year is determined by the Vienna Stock Exchange on the basis of the Austrian word of the year. Over 4,000 industry representatives were invited to vote by the Vienna Stock Exchange, supported by associations such as C.I.R.A., ÖVFA and VÖIG. In 2018, the financial community voted "punitive tariffs" and in 2017 "negative interest rates" for the stock market taboo word.

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