Gold Rallies on Brexit Fears

The bearish market sentiment continued with the European and U.S markets, yet again, under the weather after the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan decided to maintain the same level of interest rates. Central bankers in Switzerland and England followed suit, ahead of next week's referendum in the United Kingdom.

This development was good news for Gold as this brightened its outlook and prompted prices to tap a high of $1,300. In fact, Gold August futures continue to march higher sitting comfortably above that level.

On the currency side, the British pound maintained slight declines against major counterparts following results of a telephone survey indicated 53% of Britons want their country to leave the European Union, against 47% who opt for staying. This is the first time that the monthly poll showed Brexit is more likely.

Meanwhile, the Japanese currency hit the highest level against the euro since January 2013, as the country's central bank decided to keep interest rates and quantitative easing measures unchanged.

Auto Industry and Technology

Volkswagen (VW) group plans to launch 30 all-electric model cars, to position itself as a leader in the environmentally friendly transport. This means, the company needs to invest heavily, while it is addressing to move beyond the “dieselgate” scandal. Currently, the VW cars continue to fall behind European rivals and this new group strategy will try to transform its core automotive business. This attractive and fast-growing electric car market will help recoup some of the groups’ integrity.

Finnish telecom equipment giant Nokia announced a plan to complete the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent. The Company announced that this crosses the 95% threshold and it would squeeze out the remaining stock and bondholders. The deal sees Nokia owing 95.33% of share capital and 95.26% of the voting rights of Alcatel. This acquisition will trigger a public buy-out offer in cash of the remaining Alcatel shares and bonds.

Uber, the American transportation network company, has launched UberEATS a food delivery service in London. Apart from ‘pushing a button’ to book a car, now people can order food too. Many restaurants have signed up to its services competing with the London-based Deliveroo. Growth in home delivery and takeaway food has surpassed that of restaurants since the financial crisis. This market expanded by 2.7% to £6.5bn between 2009 and 2014.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares are higher as estimates show the company is making a modest market share recovery in core markets and this should yield to a recovery and solid profitability given the recent reduction in expenses. AMD’s weaknesses were its declining revenues but the engagements with hyper-scale cloud partners give a potential upside.

The Swedish maker of mobile network plans, Ericsson launches 5G plug-ins to equip today’s networks for 5G. The development will affect both consumers and industries, anticipated for self-driving cars, remote controlled robots and even haptic- feedback enabled drones. The company is already working with leading mobile phone operators to facilitate rapid evolution of 5G resulting in a successful adoption of 5G services.