I have little doubt that some investors would have been left shaken following Friday's savage sell-off, but I think it is important for investors to remember that huge share price movements are a normal part of investing in the sharemarket.
Markets hate surprises (unless they are earnings upgrades!) and this was pretty clear from the reaction on Friday. After some time to digest the news, however, it seems investors are now realising that a Brexit may not have such a big impact as first thought and only a relatively small number of Australian companies will be directly affected.
Monday's turnaround was a positive sign but many shares are still trading well below their pre-Brexit levels. Three shares that have caught my attention include:
Emerchants Ltd (ASX: EML)
Emerchants remains one of the top-performing stocks over the past 12 months despite it losing more than 13% of its value since Friday.
The company provides pre-paid debit card programs for a range of customers in the consumer and corporate sectors across Australia, Europe and North America.
It generates around 20% of its revenues in British pounds but the company has moved to re-assure investors that Brexit will have an immaterial impact on its UK operations in both FY16 and FY17. Nevertheless, investors are likely to remain cautious in the short term until the longer term implications of Brexit become clearer.
If the share price continues to fall from here, however, I would look more closely at the shares as the company has a number of interesting growth opportunities.
Treasury Wine Estates Ltd (ASX: TWE)
Treasury Wine Estates has also been a top-performing stock over the past 12 months, although the shares have taken a hit over recent days and are now trading 11.7% lower from their all-time highs.
The shares were flying high on the back of a strong performance from the company's international division which was helped by a weaker Australian dollar and burgeoning demand from Asian consumers.
The demand out of Asia is expected to be one of the company's biggest growth drivers moving forward but this appears to have already been priced in with the shares currently trading on around 34x forecast FY16 earnings.
Although I'm bullish on the short-to-medium term growth outlook for Treasury Wine Estates, I would like to see a further pull-back in the share price before labelling them as a bargain.
Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG)
Although its shares have fallen by around 12.2% from their pre-Brexit levels, Magellan has actually been left relatively unscathed by the events of recent days when compared to a number of other international fund managers.
This is not that surprising when you consider Magellan generates 78% of its funds managements revenues in the US and only 12% in the UK and Europe.
The issue for investors, therefore, is how US markets will continue to react to recent events and whether or not Magellan can continue to attract new fund inflows while markets remain volatile.
I'm confident Magellan will be able to prosper over the long term but I expect the majority of fund managers to remain under pressure in the short term until markets stabilise. As a result, I wouldn't rush out to buy the shares just yet, although a significant decline from here will put it right at the top of my buy list.
