Australian investors wait for Brexit outcome

The movement believes that Australia should form an independent republic and replace the Monarch with an Australian head of state.

“And our very strong relations with Europe, with continental Europe, which are leading towards negotiations to a free-trade agreement, will also continue”. In the event of a Brexit, besides the Pound plunging and the Euro coming under heavy pressure, there will be a major inflow toward the safe havens, i.e. the Japanese Yen, the Swiss Franc, and the US Dollar, despite the dovish bent of the Fed. It lost 1.1% against the euro, as the common currency retreated versus the dollar, weakening 0.8% to $1.1030. Well, the markets are starting to become quite confident that the result of the UK’s Brexit vote will be Remain – meaning that the United Kingdom will stay in the European Union and there’ll be substantially less market chaos to deal with. Cameron has said he is in no hurry to make the move, indicating he will wait as long as three months before making way for a new leader who will be tasked with negotiating the exit.

“This is all obviously driven by the Brexit”, Mr Grace said. “So far, in terms of sterling-dollar, we’ve seen half the decline we’re likely to see this year”. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 also started up slightly but two hours later was down 1.5 percent. West Texas Intermediate crude lost 0.6 per cent to US$47.34 a barrel after tumbling 4.9 per cent on Friday, the worst loss since its February rout.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 – which opened almost one per cent higher as early votes started to trickle through – closed 3.17 per cent lower, with all sectors in the red.

At 5pm AEST (7pm, NZT) on Friday, the local unit was trading at 73.61 U.S. cents, down from 75.26 U.S. cents on Thursday, and at 54.01 British pence, up from from 51.06 pence.

The focus is shifting to central banks as they seek to minimize the damage in trading from Asia to the U.S. Already, the chances of a U.S. rate increase by December has dropped to 15 percent, from 50 percent before the Brexit vote.