The euro hit a six-month high against the dollar on Monday and US stock futures briefly touched a record high after Emmanuel Macron won the French presidential election, easily beating anti-EU rival Marine le Pen.
Overnight, the euro traded as high as $1.1024, its highest level against the dollar since November last year, before easing off slightly. It also briefly hit its highest level against Japan’s yen in about a year.
“The result of one of the most combative French presidential elections in recent years was in line with opinion polls and saw Emmanuel Macron being chosen as the new leader of the country,” said Steven Andrew, a fund manager at M&G Investments.
“This marks an important shift in the narrative around European politics: not all popular discontent in Europe can be channelled as anti-EU or purely nationalistic.”
During her campaign, Ms Le Pen had boasted that France would follow the triumphant populist path of Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump in the US.
In stock markets, Japan’s Nikkei gained more than 1.5 per cent overnight, helping it to its highest level in around 1½ years while futures contracts for Wall Street’s S&P 500 rose to a fresh record high.
Stocks in Europe were indicated opening higher too, but many analysts cautioned a Macron victory had been deemed the most likely outcome in the lead-up to Sunday’s vote, so relief rallies were likely to be moderate.
“Emmanuel Macron’s victory over Marine Le Pen had been widely anticipated, as the polls predicted a comfortable lead for Macron in the aftermath of the first round,” said Anna Stupnytska, a global economist at Fidelity International.
Nonetheless, she added that the result is “certainly positive for markets, removing a major source of uncertainty that had dominated investors’ minds over the past few months”.
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