Euro and Ezone Stocks Fall Despite Big Win for Macron
May 8, 2017
The centrist candidate for president of France, Macron, beat Le Pen by a rough margin of two to one.
Stock markets in Asia closed higher, but European markets are down 1.0% in France, 0.9% in Spain, 0.5% in Italy, and 0.3% in Germany.
The dollar, moreover, rose 0.5% against the euro, 0.7% relative to the Swiss franc and 0.2% versus sterling, while dipping 0.1% against the yen.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields slipped three basis points in Germany and a basis point in the U.K. but edged up a basis point in Japan.
Gold rebounded 0.5% to $1,233.20 per troy ounce. WTI crude oil is little changed even though oil ministers in Russia and Saudi Arabia are reducing production.
China’s trade surplus widened to $39.05 billion in April, a three-month high. On-year growth of 8.0% in exports and 11.9% in imports surpassed expectations but were slower than 12-month trends in March.
China’s current account surplus equaled $19.0 billion last quarter compared to $11.8 billion in the final quarter of 2016 and $39.3 billion in the first quarter of last year.
Chinese international reserves climbed $20.4 billion to $3.03 trillion in April.
The Sentix gauge of investor sentiment toward the euro area improved for a fifth straight month, rising to 27.4 in May from 23.9 in April, 20.7 in March and 10.0 at the end of 2016.
German industrial orders advanced 1.0% in March on top of a 3.5% increase in February, but the first quarter as a whole saw such drop 1.0% on average after jumping 4.3% in the final quarter of 2016.
Australian housing permits in March were 13.4% less than in February and 19.9% smaller than in March 2016.
Measures of Australian business conditions and business confidence improved in April and quite sharply in the case of confidence.
The British Halifax house price index recorded the same on-year 3.8% rise in February-April and in January-March but significantly less than the 6.5% increase between the final quarters of 2015 and 2016.
Copyright 2017, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: German industrial orders, Macron
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