By Wayne Cole
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Sterling and stocks sank while safe-haven bonds jumped in wild Asian trade on Friday as early results from the UK's vote on European Union membership showed the "Leave" camp holding the lead, sparking a wave of selling across risk assets.
Sterling collapsed as far as $1.4152, having earlier stretched to a high for the year at $1.5022. The loss of over 5 percent was even larger than during the global financial crisis.
"It's very jittery and I suppose that's very much going to be the order of the day until we see final results being announced," said Robert Rennie, chief currency strategist at Westpac in Sydney. "We are just going to roll from individual result to individual result."
With 26 of 382 counting areas declared, the Leave camp were ahead by 52.6 percent to 47.4 percent. The largest cities had yet to report and were expected to lean to the "Remain" fold but betting odds were for the first time showing a greater probability of Britain leaving the union.
A spooked euro turned tail to hit $1.1186, down 1.7 percent on that day, as an actual vote for Britain to leave could endanger the future of the entire bloc, and its single currency.
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The safe-haven yen recouped early losses to stand at 104.21 per dollar, dragging Japan's Nikkei down 2.6 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 1.3 percent. Australia fell 2 percent while South Korea lost 1.2 percent.
FTSE futures were indicated down 6 percent, while EMINI futures for the S&P 500 lost 2.2 percent.
Financial markets have been racked for months by worries about what Brexit, or a British exit from the European Union, would mean for Europe's stability.
Early opinion polls had favoured the "Remain" camp. An Ipsos MORI poll put the lead at 8 points while a YouGov poll found 52 percent of respondents said they voted to remain in the EU while 48 percent voted to leave.
Yet early official results showed the margins were nail-bitingly tight. Traders were particularly spooked by returns from Sunderland showing a large majority for the "Leave" camp and just a narrow win for "Remain" in Newcastle.
"Newcastle was a squeaky win for Remain but Sunderland was a huge kick in the ribs and the bottom has fallen out of the pound," said Jeremy Cook, chief economist at international payments company, World First.
"These markets are thin, liquidity is poor and a recovery is obviously possible but those traders who were looking to book a quick profit before a restful night's sleep have had their ideas shattered."
Safe-haven bonds immediately came back into favour, with U.S. 10-year Treasury futures jumping a full point. Yields on the cash note fell 10 basis points to 1.64 percent.
Investors also priced in even less chance of another hike in U.S. interest rates given the Federal Reserve had cited a British exit from the EU as one reason to be cautious on tightening.
Commodities likewise swung lower as a Brexit would be seen as a major threat to global growth. U.S. crude shed $1.31 to $48.80 a barrel in erratic trade while Brent fell $1.33 to $49.58.
Copper slipped but gold rose about 2 percent thanks to its perceived safe haven status.
(Editing by Lincoln Feast)