Opinium poll shows lead for 'Leave', Newcastle result blows a hole in the pound

A fresh poll from Opinium has ‘Leave’ ahead at 45.0% with support for ‘Remain’ clocking in at 44.0%.

As of 00:22 BST cable was lower by 2.56% to 1.4496, having hit 1.4436 at 00:20.

Some market commentary attributed the move to a far narrower win for 'Remain' in Newcastle (Remain: 51.0% ; Leave: 49.0%) than markets had been expecting.

To take note of, analysts at Nomura had warned over previous days that the earliest count results would originate from areas where 'Leave' sentiment was particularly high.

"The pound has just taken a substantial hit in thin trade early on in the results process after results from Newcastle and Sunderland posted a much stronger show of support for leaving the EU than had been expected. While there is still a long way to go in the process, these results do not bode well for the remain campaign and may suggest that the outcome is going to be very different than what was expected.

"[...] I’m sure there’ll be a number of surprise votes throughout the night for both sides that will ensure the markets, particularly the pound, remain extremely volatile," Craig Erlam, Senior Market Analyst at Oanda told clients.

-- More to follow --